Now, nothing to do but wait for Eastwood.
On the first of November Martin Shafer called to report that Eastwood definitely was reading it.
Then he called later that day and this is what he said: Eastwood had already read it. He thought it was absolutely okay.
But--
--big but--
--he had already played detectives like SETH before, and didn't want to play that character again--
--now Shafer dropped the shoe--
--Eastwood was interested in playing LUTHER. He thought LUTHER was a terrific character but--
--amazingly huge but--
--but Eastwood wanted LUTHER to live and bring down the PRESIDENT.
I was rocked.
During these days of waiting, my fantasies of writing a movie for Clint Eastwood grew out of control. I grew even more desperate to work with him--
--but I simply didn't know if I could write what he wanted.
I asked Shafer if he would commit in advance. I was terrified of changing everything so totally--always assuming I could figure out how--only to have him say no.
The answer was he would not. He would have to read it first. (I knew that, of course. I was just frightened and floundering.)
One other problem--it was now November, I was literally starting from scratch again and I knew this: I had to get it in before Christmas. His agent had indicated as much, because Eastwood had taken time off after The Bridges of Madison County and was ready to go to work again. After Christmas he would be gone to something else, leaving me dead in the water.
I told Shafer I would have to let him know.
These were the words I wrote in my journal that night:
HOW, GOD?
I spent the next days trying to come up with anything at all that might spark me, give me the confidence (always the greatest enemy) to plunge ahead.
A few days later I wrote this thought down: "LUTHER could use his street contacts--beggars who work the streets--to find out where CHRISTY SULLIVAN spent the day before she was murdered."
Baldacci is kind of vague on what CHRISTY, the billionaire's wife who gets murdered, did earlier that day of her tryst. I figured maybe if I could think of something exciting, it would be a way LUTHER could get incriminating evidence on PRESIDENT RICHMOND.
Snooze.
Andy Scheinman, one of the heads of Castle Rock, came to spend a couple of days with me. We got some stuff, but not a lot, and none of it splendid.
On the tenth of November I told Andy that one of three things would happen: (1) I would figure out how to do it and write it, or (2) I would realize I couldn't write it and bow out and they could bring in someone fast to replace me, or (3) we bring in someone now to help me figure out a way to make it work.
I was floundering terribly.
The Ghost and the Darkness was going and I had to get to South Africa, and part of the remains of my brain was trying to deal with changes for that.
I knew, generically, my problem: I simply was too familiar with ABSOLUTE POWER--I could not free my imagination.
And I was going nuts--every empty day meant Christmas was that much closer and I had to get it to Eastwood before then or lose him. Here is something most people don't understand: you never get the fucking actor you want.
I had a chance for Clint Eastwood in the Clint Eastwood part. And I wanted that.
November 15 and good news--maybe Frank Darabont would spitball with me. (Darabond had one of the great directing debuts with The Shawshank Redemption and wrote that remarkable script.)
Close--but he had other commitments.
November 25 and I haven't started.
And I am drowning.
That night the Knicks beat Houston. (I am--not even arguably--one of the four all-time great Knicks fans.) But even better than the victory was this: I took Tony Gilroy to the game.
Tony (Dolores Claiborne, Extreme Measures) is someone I have known for thirty years, since he was ten, which was when I met and interviewed his father, Frank, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (The Subject Was Roses) for a book I was writing about Broadway, The Season.
"So what's with Absolute Power?" he asked politely; Tony had read the first draft months and months before.
I know Tony well, so I unloaded. I told him I was panicked. I told him of the impossibility of my ever sleeping again. I told him it was doubtful I would live beyond the weekend. And all because this, you should pardon the expression, actor had come up with the idea of having Luther live and bring down the President.
"That's great," Tony said.
At the moment, death by thumbscrew would have been letting him off easy. "Why?"
"It's so obvious why--Luther's the best character. He's always been the best character--and when he dies, he takes the movie down with him."
Kind of casually I asked, "You think you could figure out how to do what Eastwood wants?"
He was intent on the game. "Haven't thought about it," he shrugged. Then this: "But it shouldn't be hard."
That night I called Shafer and Tony was hired for a week.
The next morning he came blasting in--"I know where Luther goes right after the robbery--he goes to see his daughter."
"Can't."
"Why do you say that?"
"They never talk. Baldacci is very clear on that in the novel. They don't talk before the murder because they are estranged, and they can't after because he's afraid the President will kill her--"
"Forget about the novel--I haven't read the novel--my main strength is that I haven't read the novel--the novel is killing you."
"They can't talk and that's that!"
"Think about it, for chrissakes."
Later that day, I not only thought about it, I wrote it. Here's the first LUTHER-KATE scene:
CUT TO
A YOUNG WOMAN PARKING HER CAR--a high rocky area above the Potomac. Below, a jogging path is visible, full of runners.
THE YOUNG WOMAN gets out, locks her car, starts down a narrow walk toward the joggers.
SHE'S IN HER MID-THIRTIES. Pretty. And there's something familiar about her.
CUT TO
LUTHER, standing by the edge of the jogging path, studying the runners. Now he registers something: and smiles.
CUT TO
THE WOMAN IN HER MID-THIRTIES as she comes jogging along. She runs well.
CUT TO
LUTHER. An imperceptible straightening of his clothes.
CUT TO
THE JOGGER. Now we realize who she is: the little girl in the photo on LUTHER's dining room table. His daughter, all grown up. Now her face registers something: his presence. And the instant she realizes this, her eyes go down to the path, she increases her speed, and runs right past him.
CUT TO
LUTHER.
LUTHER
Kate.
(she runs on)
Kate.
(she slows, hesitates, stops.)
CUT TO
KATE, hands on hips, breathing deeply, moving to the edge of the path as he approaches. The river flows behind them. Runners pass by.
Beat.
LUTHER
Probably too late for me to take it up.
(she says nothing--he gestures toward the path)
The jogging.
KATE
Ahh.
Beat.
LUTHER
Dumb way to start this, I guess.
KATE
For a man of your charm.
LUTHER
Wanted to talk.
KATE
About?
LUTHER
Believe it or not, the weather.
(she waits)
Nights are starting to get cold.
KATE
That happens this time of year.
CUT TO
LUTHER. He speaks quickly now, his voice low.
LUTHER
I was thinking of maybe relocating. Someplace with a kinder climate.
(nothing shows on h
er face)
I just wanted to check it out with you first...
(still nothing)
...you're the only family I've got.
(and on that)
CUT TO
KATE. She speaks quickly now, her voice low.
KATE
Luther, you don't have me.
The last words he wanted to hear--
--but you can't tell from looking at him.
KATE (CONT'D)
You were never there. Remember? You're talking to the only kid during show-and-tell who got to talk about visiting day.
LUTHER
I'm talking permanent, you understand.
KATE
We don't see each other anyway--we haven't seen each other since Mom died and that's a year--
(a step toward him)
--look, you chose your life. You had that right. You were never around for me. Well, fine. But I have no plans to be around for you.
And now she stops, turns away toward the path--
--LUTHER can say nothing, watches her--
--then she spins back--
KATE
(louder now)
--wait a minute--have you done something?--
LUTHER
--no--
KATE
--is that why you're here now?--are you active again?
LUTHER
--no--
KATE moves in close now--
KATE
--I think you're lying--
(big)
Christ, Father, what have you done?--
(and on her words--)
CUT TO
CHRISTY SULLIVAN'S BODY in the bedroom of the mansion--
I don't think I can ever explain how freeing that scene was for me.
These two characters, whom I had been thinking about for six months and who had never been allowed to talk to each other, were suddenly ripping at each other. And there's all that emotional father-daughter stuff working under, because you know LUTHER knows if he doesn't run, the PRESIDENT will kill him--but he's willing to risk all that just to hear his only child ask him to stay.
I am aware we are not talking about a scene that will change the course of film history. But I was grateful to be able to write it. I think what I was dealing with was this: I started as a novelist, was a novelist for a decade before I ever saw a screenplay, and in part of my head at least, even though I haven't tried one in a dozen years now, I'm still a novelist. And I guess I never thought I would do that to another novelist, change everything. God knows it's been done to me--the novel No Way to Treat a Lady, for example, was based on this notion: What if there were two Boston Stranglers, and what if one of them got jealous of the other?
Guess what? In the movie, there's only one strangler. And I hated that they had done that.
Now here I was doing it.
And thank the Good Lord.
Tony came over for the next few days, always bringing ideas with him. LUTHER should have a safe house. If LUTHER is one of the great thieves of the world--and he is--there can't be too many like him, and law enforcement agencies must keep track of him--which meant SETH and LUTHER could meet without SETH doing a great deal of time-wasting detective work.
Most of all, Tony solved the ending--because the only person in the story who has the right to take revenge against PRESIDENT RICHMOND is the wronged husband, WALTER SULLIVAN. SULLIVAN is the reason RICHMOND made it to the White House, after all. In earlier versions, as in the novel, SULLIVAN is murdered by the Secret Service.
Guess what--not this time. He lives and he kills the PRESIDENT. SULLIVAN and LUTHER, two previously dead characters, bring down the most powerful man on earth. And JACK GRAHAM, the hero of the first draft?
Gone. Totally out of the picture.
On the fifteenth of December I was exhausted. But I was done. I sent the third draft of Absolute Power to California.
On the twenty-eighth of December, Eastwood said "yes" to playing LUTHER.
And right after that, I smashed my thumb.
I was closing the refrigerator door and forgot to pull my thumb away in time and I creamed myself and a blood blister formed beneath the nail and it took six months for the blister to work its way up, to finally disappear.
Every time I looked at it, I was glad--because it reminded me of two things: first, of my most difficult time as a screenwriter. Because I know if I don't take Tony to the Houston game, or if he can't come, maybe the movie of Absolute Power never happens. Certainly, I would no longer have been involved.
And second, and most important of all: the fragility of writing careers.
Working with Eastwood
First Meeting
Not entirely true. I had interviewed him nearly a decade earlier, for a book I was writing, Hype and Glory, about my experiences judging the Cannes Film Festival and the Miss America Contest. Eastwood's flick that year, Bird, was the outstanding directing achievement of the fortnight and I tried to win that honor for him, was outvoted. (Bird, in case you don't know, is one of the genuinely underrated films of the '80s and as good a movie about music as any. Ever.)
He was, as he is, gracious, gave me the time I needed. He was, as he approached sixty, very much a legend--
--and then here's what happened to him--
--he got hot!
In the Line of Fire, Unforgiven, A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County. Starred in all four, directed three, got a directing Oscar for one, all of them enormous successes, in America, yes, even more in the rest of the world.
Never a career like it. (Others have been up there longer, but not without gigantic career dips and slides.) Having said that, it still doesn't score to outsiders as it should. Maybe this will put it in perspective. He has been ranked the biggest box-office star five different times. Here are the performers who ranked second to him each year.
1993 Tom Cruise
1985 Eddie Murphy
1984 Bill Murray
1973 Ryan O'Neal
1972 George C. Scott
What I'm trying to tell you is this: we are not dealing with the guy who plays the butler.
He had decided in early January he would also direct Absolute Power. I fought mightily against this, lost the battle. (That was a joke, for any of you just in from distant lands.)
February was when we had our first script meeting. A couple of Castle Rock people and I drove over to Malpaso's offices on the Warner Brothers lot, Malpaso being Eastwood's production company. A lot of hits have come from there, and Hollywood people tend to be just a little ego-ridden about the positioning and size of their offices--sort of the West Coast equivalent of penis enlargement.
We walked into Malpaso. Tasteful. Fine. But by no means a spot where Jack Warner or Harry Cohn would have been happy. We were greeted by a young couple, Tom and Melissa Rooker. I assumed the rest of the Malpaso staff was elsewhere. Turned out I was wrong. They were the rest of the Malpaso staff. "He's in there," one of them said and pointed to a small office. And in there he was.
Better-looking somehow with age. In great shape--he watches what he eats, works out constantly. Hello hello hello, and we're ready to hack away at the script.
And I am, frankly, terrified. Because directors--even though we all know from the media's portrayals of them that they are men and women of wisdom and artistic vision, masters of the subtle use of symbolism--are more often than not a bunch of insecure lying assholes.
Over the decades I have been with so many who sniveled and crawled to get the job to do the movie I'd written and who once they got the job ditched everything and went to work on their own version.
Tattoo this behind your eyeballs: directors have no vision. Directors are like the rest of us--storytellers trying to get through the day, and somehow stay close to the fire.
One of the reasons the media gushes about them is this--they don't know shit about the movie business. They are filling columns or minutes for circulation or ratings. And since they want to feel important, the peo
ple they interview have to be fabulously important. The hottest young star, the most brilliant director. That kind of madness.
Let me tell you why I think there is this idiotic bilge that goes on about film directors--we think they are Merlin. And why? Because they turn paper into celluloid. Surely only a magician could do that.
In case you've forgotten, dear reader, I am still in the presence of my director and still terrified. Waiting for him to rip my script apart.
Silence.
"I guess I killed you," he says. "But it's good work."
I mutter something to the effect that I'm glad he felt it came out all right, then wait for the other shoe to drop. No screenwriter is unfamiliar with bullshit.
"The President's wife," Eastwood says then. "Could she be on a fact-finding mission while we're telling our story, so we don't have to wonder about her? That a problem?"
I shake my head. Not even close to being a problem. I wait.
"Could Kate be put in some jeopardy?" he asks then. "Might help. I thought they might try to get to Luther through his daughter."
I nodded. Kate, now and forever, would be in jeopardy.
Then there is this pause. And what I don't realize is this: the meeting is over.
Someone mentions casting thoughts and he grimaces. He hates casting. In fact he hates it so much he doesn't do it anymore. He just calls up people whose work he admires and asks if he could send them a script and would they read some part or other because he would like them in this picture he's directing. "If I saw actors, I sympathize with them so much I'd hire everybody. If an agent has someone new, I ask them to send me a tape. It seems to work out okay."
Now the grimace is gone and there is suddenly--for no reason--this great smile on his face. The reason I don't know the reason is my back is to the door and from behind me, this baby has pushed the door open, and come in. It is the Rookers' son, Jack, all of one, whom they bring to the office because Eastwood likes the kid wandering around. Jack holds out his arms, Eastwood lifts him, carries him along out to the car, where we say goodbye.
Every screenwriter should have one of those meetings before they die.
Shooting in Baltimore
I don't like being on the set for any number of reasons:
(1) it's just amazingly boring if you have nothing to do, and I have nothing to do because
(2) my work is done, not to mention
(3) I make the actors nervous, a serious problem but not as serious as
(4) I fuck up shots.
I am not trying to ingratiate myself with you here. This is not "colorful" behavior on my part. It's embarrassing, considering how long I've been at this and how many sets I've visited.