It was produced by Warren Beatty.
It was written by Warren Beatty and directed by Warren Beatty.
It’s as if he’s always listening to himself as he talks.
Each time someone drops by, he stops eating, folds his arms and listens.
At 79, Beatty is lean and graceful but makes no artful efforts to look young.
(“No, but look at these pockets.
It’s got great pockets,” he says.)
Unlike 95 percent of the famous people I’ve interviewed, he is deeply curious about other people.
And what is this weakness, exactly?
Beatty takes off the ’70s aviators, fixing me with those teal eyes.
Of course, we’ve never been able to help looking at Warren Beatty.
And now we are looking again.
“Because,” he says, “I’m slow at everything I do.”
And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about the movie anymore.
Wait, where was I?
The tabloid reporters Beatty thought had been sent to spy on him were, in fact, Hughes functionaries.
“Right away I thought,This is very unusual.
It amused me, the idea of a man being so public yet so private,” Beatty says.
Typically, he considers his own emotions from a remove.
“I was fascinated by my fascination with this person.”
“Hughes had this theatrical mysteriousness that Warren always found intriguing.”
Naturally I assumed Beatty identified with Hughes.
“I and the character of Frank come from a Protestant American background.
“So you’re saying you you?
felt hindered by your sexual puritanism when you came to Hollywood?”
