WAH-WAHsational: An Interview with writer-director and actor Richard E. Grant
By Daniel E. Dercksen (Cape Town, June 19, 2006)

If there's one person who is certainly proud of losing his virginity as writer and director to the vigorous filmmaking and distribution processes, it's actor Richard E. Grant, whose delightful autobiographical Wah-Wah is finally seeing the light of cinema, complimented by the publication of his insightful book 'The Wah-Wah Diaries: The Making of Film'.
When meeting him on a stunning Cape Town morning at the top of the Arabella Sheraton Towers, he is evidently on top of the world, his piercing eyes shining with childish wonder. 
He seems relaxed and ecstatic talking about Wah-Wah, not having to negotiate film permits in Swaziland during their arrival weeks before shooting began, and grateful that he does not have to "deal with a French producer from hell."
Taking into consideration that Wah-Wah has taken six years to reach cinemas, one would expect to find a rather tired, ragged and older version of the bright-eyed actor who made an impact on the world twenty years ago when he made his debut in Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I, and has since starred in 13 International films, the latest being Story of an African Farm.
He has not aged at all and one secretly wonders how he has managed to remain his youthful self and remain motivated, despite the overwhelming odds. 
"The great American modern dance choreographer Martha Graham said before she died that to be any kind of artist is to live in a state of divine discontent," bemuses Grant, who has a quick fire response and barrage of quotes and antidotes to back his belief.  "There's a constant striving to find someway to express yourself, or your view of the world, and that never stops, so I think it's in your DNA and you have no control over it. If that's your vocation, that's what you've got to follow through."
It is understandable why he so easily seduced the finance team at Blackjack Productions in Soho Square to back him as a first time writer-director. His pitch was not "a million miles away" from the one he gave in Robert Altman's The Player. At the end of the pitch they immediately asked for a draft of the script and "the pitch became a proposal."
If there's one aspect of Grant that stands out amongst all other his other achievements and ideals, it is his intense belief in professionalism. For him,  "professionalism is reassuring and inspiring" where "everything is possible, and nothing too much trouble".
"The most professional and dedicated people you work with always make the job easier, says Grant. "They have the gift of anticipation, which I don't think you can teach anybody. It means that you can absolutely rely 5 000 percent on people to do what they said they're going to do. What really undoes you is when people claim to be professional, or say they are going to do something, and don't deliver."
When producer Hilary Heath withdrew, Grant met French producer Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar when he played Sir Hudson Lowe in the French  'Monsieur N', about Napoleon's last year on St. Helena.  When she and her producing partner Pierre Kubel read the script and wanted to take over the film, Grant was convinced that it was the right decision.
It turned out to be the beginning of a six-year hell that raised hell, and turned into a war zone, with missiles launched from different continents: Grant battling to keep the production alive in Swaziland, and MC (as he refers to her) fighting for authority.
If he had to do it all over again, what would be he change?
"I would fire the French producer on day one," he says without blinking an eyelid.
"If it was just a personality clash between her and I would have accepted its fair dues, but she most alienated, with the exception of the French sound and camera departments, absolutely everybody on this film, especially in postproduction. I think it's a miracle the film got made in spite of what she did. The reason the film is being so delayed in its release two years after it was made, is because of her ostrich head in the sand attitude about paying for the original song rights in the film, that quin toppled in budget as a result sheer professional negligence.
I cannot resist the temptation of mentioning a scene from Story of An African Farm, where Grant got chased by on Ostrich, imagining his character wishing that it was MC and not him
"That's too mild to what should happen to her. My book is a warning to anyone to work with her," he laughs.
At least he had an opportunity to have a one-on-one meeting with his adversary. "She turned up a week after we had already starting shooting, having no producer on set. She didn't hear anything that I had to say. All she heard was that she was not being appreciated or praised for what she had done.  Unforgivable."
I mention to Grant that people seem to forget that filmmakers are human, to which he responds with childish laughter, and refer to an episode in his book where, just before leaving for Swaziland and the project turning into a nightmare, he was concerned at home with finding one lost duckling down a hole in your garden and 'held out little hope it would survive the night.'  Despite all of that, he remained focused.  This is not the 'cold and calculated' image some directors project.
"I don't think you have to be cold and calculated. It's a very emotional job. I think that, if anything, the thing that meant the most to me is what John Lennon said before he was murdered: "Life is what happens in between making your plans". The chaotic nature and unpredictability of life is what keeps you going and keeps you grounded at the same time. So while the film is crashing, ducklings being eaten by a fox in my garden had some kind of meaning and resonance."
Despite the pitfalls, it is surprising that Grant never lost faith.  "If I knew that it was going to take six years, and go though the amount of hoops and rollercoasters that it's taken to get the film made, I would probably have given up," says Grant
"That's the nature of being a human being, you travel forward in the hope that you're going to manage to get it made, and you can't anticipate the setbacks that you are going to encounter along the way. I knew from the get-go that I had a fulltime day job as an actor. That writing and directing my own film was a project I was passionate about doing, but trying to convince other people, as an untried, untested first-time writer-director, to put their money and their faith in this film was a long shot, so I felt that even if it doesn't happen, at least I would have tried.  That's the most important thing."
Hope is definitely something Grant firmly holds on to. "I think it's in your DNA. I have always, despite the stuff I've experienced in my childhood in particular, have been optimistic by nature, always hoped and expected my glass was three quarters full."
Wah-Wah is important in Grant's life, driven by equally motivated circumstances.
"The first film I ever made, Withnail and I (about twenty years ago), was a project that was entirely autobiographical to Bruce Robinson. I remember so clearly how detailed he was about everything, and passionate, because it was his story and he knew it from the inside out. I thought that because of where I've grown up, and that time in history, lasted such a brief moment. To revisit it and examine it from the compassion and hindsight of being middle aged, it was a good story to tell. I think that that whole way of life, people living in a sort of historical quicksand, past their sell by date, as this British ex-pat community in the last government Empire was both funny and sad by turn and I thought that contrasting that disintegration of the Empire alongside a private dysfunctional family drama would be a source of comedy and tragedy, which is what I really tried to achieve."
His main inspiration to write Wah-Wah was Bruce Robinson who wrote and directed How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Withnail and I.
"He had such an individual voice that really inspired me do the same about my adolescence in Swaziland," says Grant.
Grant is also greatly inspired by Robert Altman, with whom he worked as an actor on The Player, Prêt-A-Porter, and Gosford Park, and admires the director's "willingness to be open to actors improvising ideas and suggestions, and his way of working, which is very democratic in that everyone is invited to the rushes everyday and there's no differentiation between writer, producer and director, keeping the cast and the crew separate. Everybody is invited to watch the stuff so you feel that you are part of some kind of film community and everybody is involved in the work. It is important to create a good atmosphere to work in and a great ensemble acting staff. Everybody is monitoring what everybody else is doing. That is really helpful. It means that the hierarchy of big movie star down to small part player is dispensed with because everybody is on the same page and the same playing field, and that is essential."
Those who inspired Grant should equally be inspired by Wah-Wah. The film is honest, sincere and not pretentious.
Was this Grant's initial intention, to touch the lives of filmgoers in an honest and sincere way?
"I never consciously thought that," he remarks. "I think that if you write from the heart is has a good chance of going to people's hearts without getting waylaid by trying to get pretentious or getting academic or high and mighty, or intellectualising things. If you write very emotionally it has a good chance of connecting with other people."
Grant has travelled the road of actor, writer, director and 'producer'. He does not hesitate to agree that "to write and direct" is what he aims to do and focus his attention on.
"That's the most creatively fulfilling challenging all encompassing two-thousand questions a minute job you can ever wish to have. What Orson Welles said I can't top, and that's 'writing and directing a movie is like being given the biggest train set in the world to play with.'
He is currently writing an original screenplay for a film called 'Zeitgeist', about the making of a disaster movie, basically "'The Poseidon Adventure' set in outer space", and is based on his experience of making Hudson Hawk."
For what seemed like an impossible dream, was made possible by sheer hard-headed endurance, tons of patience and almost superhuman strength.
"Never give up! Never!" is Grant's final comment, which he displays with vigorous enthusiasm.
"Everybody will tell you no. No, that you can't make a movie, you can't write a script, and that you'll never succeed. You have to accept that no is invisibly tattooed on people's foreheads, and have to keep going, and keep faith with yourself. I'm living proof that you can pull it off if you try hard enough. "

COPYRIGHT © 2006 Daniel E. Dercksen
Published with permission in the South African trade magazine SCREEN AFRICA, July 2006

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR WRITERS AND FILMMAKERS: A Q and A with Richard E. Grant by Daniel Dercksen

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