Kubrick's Right-Hand Leading Man

serve as Stanley Kubrick's right hand man. Vitally, the working class kid from outside Birmingham, England, trained as an actor and got his break in Kubrick's period masterpiece Barry Linden. Mr Ridman Barry. The last occasion on which we met, you want to was me injury and dishonor in such a manner and to such an extent as to which no gentleman can willingly suffer without demanding satisfaction. However much time intervenes, I have now come to claim that satisfaction.

But after that, Batali's name goes from the top of the credits to the bottom. Casting costumes and personal assistant to Mr Kubrick fatally turned his life over fully to realizing the creative vision of his visionary boss. But for actors of a certain age, his brilliant turn in Barry Linden will always hold a special place in our hearts. So that's where I started when I moderated a discussion with Leon Battali and Film Worker director Tony Sierra at

the Hampton's International Film Festival. Every actor in the world is obsessed with Barry Lyndon. We all would say lines likely on the Tally, the snarkiest snark in the history of cinema, Mr Ridman, by the indignation, the condemnation. You know when he says to you in the dual scene, have you had satisfaction? And your responsive what's the exact word you say? I have not received obviously. I actually know friends of mine who have used that with people

in bed. It's this great voluptuous performance in this movie Leon the Tally uh, and he got He's gone. And then as these films come out, you see his name in the cuestions like what the hell is he doing? And of course this film offers us an explanation to that of like where where did Leon the tally Uh detour into from his acting career. I would like to welcome please the director of film. Please stand up, Tony Sierra, thank you so much for coming, and please have a

warm welcome for Leon Vitality. Yeah, the dock that became film Worker started out as something different. Zierira set out to make the definitive account of Kubrick's thirteenth and final movie, Eyes Wide Shot. The project was called SK thirteen. I'm gonna sit here in the middle for Tony. I want to ask what the genesis of the film was in the idea of making Leon the protagonist. We finished filming and Leon was the last person that I went to

film with um. And really the premise of SKA thirteen, which we haven't started editing yet, was about really what was going on with Stanley towards the end, because Eyes Watch is a bit controversial a little bit, and I wanted to see, like as a lot of people, well, they said that he lost it towards the end. Some people said that it was Tom and Nicole destroyed the film, and some people said he really never finished editing, and and people really surprised by casting and it just there

were a lot of unanswered. Um So I figured in order to understand it, I needed to research Kubrick from all the way from the beginning to today and see why, why did he really want to make the film, because obviously he owned the book for thirty years. And so Leon was the last one because I knew he was close to Warner Brothers, and I knew he was working with the state, and I didn't want anybody to shut

me down. So I left Leon last. And then when I met him at his house, I was, well, first I had this image of him that I thought I was just gonna get there and there's gonna be this nice mansion and he's you know, and and he still We're still in the UK in l a off Venice Boulevard, and I just got there and it was just like this amazing, lovely lovely and it just came out and it's like carried all my equipment with me and we

just hit her off. And I was like, this is like film history lives in that little house by himself. And um So we decided to put the sk th team footage away and tell his story because I think he really needs to be acknowledged and honored because it's true,

so we um, you know. At first, it's like because every time I would talk to someone I did a lot of I mean six years on Ice and Stanley, and the name always came up in different conversations of like, if I was talking to someone about casting, they say Leon Vitali. If I'll talk to someone about training actors, it was Leon Vitali. If I go to the lab, it's Leon Vitali. I mean, what actor that starts or starts as an actor becomes the assistant And he color

corrected cha. So I was like, this is too good to be true. It can't I mean the level of of the jobs and the and the stuff that he did. So I had to actually go back to so many people who was again like is this really for real? And I really found that I was. I knew this much because he's really done a lot and he's humble about Now. Cooper begins shooting eyes wide shot when he died in nine. I think this is the autumn seven

we actually started shooting shooting, I think, yeah, yeah. And the shooting goes on for how long, well year and a half year and half yeah, yeah. And there were there were a couple of breaks in there, but not long. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't do not stop for a year half, you know, you can't. But but but the uh And then he dies in March of ninety nine. So he completed principal photography before he died. Oh yeah.

And he completed his final cart I mean, and he sent it to New York for Tom and Nicole and Terry Samuel, who was ahead of Warner Brothers in time, and just said, this is it. I mean, all that is left. He'd chosen the music, so all that was left there was to re record that and fit it in um and basically you know, just do the you know, the sort of fine modeling job on it and all the what can you say, There's so much to do in post production, especially when you get closer to finishing

a movie for release. Was this film particularly difficult from him? Well, you know, you know, he was getting tired because towards the end, of course, he didn't really spare himself. I mean, we wouldn't get back to the house until very often to three in the morning, you know, and there'd be a kind of a normal call in the you know, next morning would be you know, usual call times and what have you? Um, she stan Ye. Actually we were

so looking forward to doing AI next. I was thought of so exciting, thought of working the studio, you know, and just slamming the door and focusing on just there the shots and no distractions and and nothing. Um. And I think with Eyes might chut, you know, he because working indoors is a totally different environment, as you know, I mean, it's there are no distractions, You're focusing on exactly what needs to be done, and there's no doubt

about it. He preferred shooting indoors. Any difficulty about about Eyes by chill he had, I think was really more story and trying to sort of work it in a way that it would mean something to people now. But pre production took a year, and it often took that along with him. One of the interesting things about Kubrick for me, because he made films so rarely that when you saw him he had aged quite a bit in between films. Kubrick is round and kind of full bodied

and a thick mane of brown hair. Then you cut the five and six and seven years later at a different Kubrick and then a different coupric and he and it looks whether it. He looks hired, you know, he looks older. Yeah, he wasn't a health none, is what I'm saying, No doubt about that. Um, but I think just this, uh what can I say? This ongoing it's almost like a grind, but not in a negative way, but everything it's like a hab Yeah, yeah, you know exactly. Yeah.

What's interesting in the film that I love about the film is that this film reveals that there's things he couldn't do or wouldn't do, and that's what fell to you to do. You know, he he if there's ten things you need a director, and a director who's producing and so hands on it his own or her own films, that individual is so hands on it, there's ten things they're gonna do. He would do five or six of them on the deepest level. Then the other four of

them he relied on someone else to do. And that felt to you to take care of the little boy and to to to and to and to do it a myriad of jobs. Forget all the technical jobs. Forget about you as a as his curator of his of his film stock and so forth. In the documentary film Worker, my Guest, Leon Vitali describes what a taskmaster, Director Stanley Kubrick was if anything, you even went home, you said, it is your responsibility to make sure they understand exactly

what you want. And I could take two, three, four, five, six tries to get it right if I felt like I wasn't getting any response or people were kind of for one of the better phrases, digging me around, you know, saying they're gonna send something you never get sent, and you've got to chase him up, and chase him up. He'd say, Okay, Leon, tonight you get on the phone and you say to them, if they're talking like that

to you, they're talking like that to me. It really felt like there was a kind of a loyalty there. So sometimes did you did you when you came on the first job with him, after you did Barry Lyndon? You shot Barry Lyndon? Of what period? You shot that up for nine years? I'm kidding, Um, you shot that what years? Um? I was actually told i'd got the role and I went down to Salisbury where they were shooting in the January of god, what was it seventy

three something like that? Um, time time has no meaning when you've worked with him, you know, um seventy three and I was supposed to be there for um thirteen days or eight weeks, and in the end I was there until the end of July seventy three. So um. After that, of course, there was an incredibly long cutting period and what heavy um. And then he he rang me because I'd actually done another film job. I think

we saw it. They went back to acting. I went, I went to acting, and I thought I could use what little clout I had to calm my way into Did you say, yeah, so you would. We were in the editor for Frankistan Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does he make next? After after after a barrel, Linda? What does he make? I should know? The Shining Shining? And he sent me that book. He sent me a book. I told him what I was doing that I love that. So it was an actor you can make ten films.

What he's thinking of his next film? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, And he said he'll come with me make my next film. He started. The Shining went like nineteen no, nineteen seventy seven. I was sent out here to America to look for Danny and then he called me. Towards the end of that process, I mean it took seven months during she not to find him, but to make sure there wasn't anyone better than him, because I found him very early

in the process, funny enough. And so just towards the end of that process, he said, well, while you're there, go and take some interior photographs of hotels. And I started doing that and that got you know, that wasn't I thought it would just be going and take a snap of a room, you know, but it wasn't. I mean, we were talking about exposures and you've got to do this, you got to do that night. But the only thing

I've never had was an instematic, you know. But it was wonderful because he sort of stepped me through it step by step, and he said, by the time life series photography photography books, and so I did that and so kind of reading those and learning and then he was telling me and so towards the very end, just before we came home, he rang me and uh, and he said, what are you planning on doing after you finished here? And I said I don't know. He said, okay,

then you're coming to London and that was it. I mean, suddenly i I've got a job again. So there's some people who are missing from the film in my mind, or we don't appear in the film either Tom or in the cold to talk about the eyes Watch experience, or members of Kubrick's family, We did you approaching them to do the film. Um, I'll be honest and UM say that it's really hard. If you watched, I mean

you just saw the film. Um. Ryan O'Neil is there because Leon was his co star le Ermie obviously always pretty much everything he has for Leon and and he's always working. Um. We go into the status issue and a lot of people are not interested in filming with you to talk about an assistant, and so obviously Ryan would do it because they were co actors. UM. A lot of people UM in Hollywood either it's either not going to get the truth or they didn't know what

was going on on the set. And big stars are like they're wrapped up in their own world. They're really not aware of what's happening because they show up obviously there's a lot of work to do. UM, so very little they would really know what's going on with UM

the assistant who's running around and UM doing a billion things. Yeah. Yeah, and families is the same thing, because, um, I don't think they were going to sit with me again and say, well, you know why, Yes, Stanley was really difficult and he tortured ly on and I mean again, and you have to be objective. It's I did approach some I wasn't you know, some wan't say who. But some felt that, like you know, they'll be undermining Stanley if they appear

they knew the truth. But they just not going to sit in front of the camera and say, yes, this man done all this stuff. So in the end, he finished his eyes wide shot, he cuts eyewat eyes watching. It's his final cut, and he dies soon after that. And the controversy is about about what not the final It was it about protecting the final cut, or was about that I was going to be printed the film?

The technology of that were you stepped in and helped to ensure what well, Fritzical we this um We were in the midst of running tests with stocks, different stocks of films for printing and what have you. Uh So we resolved that impost. We talked about it, and we'd favored we already sort of favoring one UM one kind of film in particular, and we started sort of working

with and experimenting it. So I knew that was the line we were going to be taking there and things like all the rest of it, with the foot's and the folio and the list and that, you know, all those things. I followed the same pattern as we did on full metal Jackets as close as we could, you know, different films and what have you. But it was just to follow a pattern, you know. I hate people to think that. I just think, you know, wow, came up with all these ideas, and you know, it was a

standy sort of had a way of working. And I was able to stick with it because it was so clear, you know, and it sounds crazy, but the criteria was to you wipe out whatever ideas you might have had about it. Was just shocked, could it be more this, or more beautiful, or or contrast e and get it right? You just stick with what I knew he wanted whereabouts. He wanted it to be here again. Tony Zaira's documentary film Workers that people think called somebody's in a system

for someone. You're doing layouts, you're you know, you're working with lass, you're working with restoration, you're casting people, you're working with the actors, and sometimes I was that the title you were happy with, or was that you didn't make any difference. You know something, when I traveled abroad and I used to have to fill in these visas, they used to say occupation. I always used to write film worker. I mean, I'm a film worker. I'm a

That's what I do. So assistant to me is nothing other than I am assisting somebody to fulfill what it is they want to get up on a screen. I was Donald coj. But but seeing what you do to kind of barnacle yourself to that ship to work with someone like that, I'm for one, look at this film and I was just in tears when I watched this film the first time in my computer because it was, like God, it was worthy. You said the goal was to got it right. Do you think you guys got

it right with the movies that you made. The answer is yes, yes, you got it right. That's Leon de Tally and the man who made a movie about him, Tony Zeira. The documentary is called film Worker. Another director with a reputation for respecting the men and women behind the scenes is Chris Columbus, maker of many of America's favorite family films, from Adventures in Babysitting to Harry Potter

and The Sorcerer's Stone. That respect has deep roots. My future was basically working at either my father's aluminum factory or my mother's automotive factory in the Only Escape. Really, we're movies back then, and I would watch whatever film came into town over and over, and I remember something clicked when I saw Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

Here the rest of my conversation with Chris Columbus that Here's the Thing dot org coming up, more of my conversation with Stanley Kubrick's assistant Leon the Tally on the lack of women in many of his films. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing. In his new movie Film Worker, Tony Ziera has documented the whole messy pro says of making a Kubrick film. A man as obsessed as Stanley with controlling the shot might not

have been pleased. Even though Zeira's documentary Film Worker is an inspiring story. There's one thing I and others have noticed about Kubrick's uber One thing I want to ask both of your opinion of which is, of course, there are almost no women in Kubrick's films and uh women without when you look at Lolita, obviously one is a young uh sexual object tormenting him and the other is his kind of silly her silly mother. There has to

be dealt with a certain way. And from Paths of Glory on, you know, you've got some flight attendants as they're taking the space shuttle up to the in two thousand one. You don't have a lot of women in future role. Then you get to Nicole obviously and the big featured roman eyes watching. Well, what do you think

that was about with him? Actually, you know, researching and talking to Leon he said the greatest thing to me, which is he said that Lulita would she was that she is the one that actually she was the hero at then she's the one that walked away and got

her all figured out. And you could elaborate on that afterwards. Um. But even the past the glory, the last scene with Christiana Kubrick's wife, I think when the women came in they were there for a very strong um message and they kind of turned things around you could see obviously in I but I think Leon Ready had he could really talk about that a lot better than me. What do you think that? Do you have any movies on the drawing board that were from a woman's point of view? Ever?

Or no? Uh no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say he. I don't think he ever thought about making a movie about you know, a man or a woman, or a man's world or a woman's world or whatever. I mean, it was always a story. First they called him, and then very often, sadly, you know, the protagonists in most literature up until recently have been it shall be male basically, you know. Um, But this is what I've always I've

always said. You know, if you do look at Lolita and you do think about what that poorgo went through and even you know she wasn't in great harmony with her mother either, Um, but she came through it all. She got through it all. She was pretty tough at the end of it, if you look at it and you think about it. And she walked out for all of a better word, a winner. He died in prison, you know. Um. You know Seller's characters who one was shot and the other she escaped from too um in shining,

who survives? I mean Shelley. She survived with a little boy, and um and and so I and I think the when you think about Barry Lindon, you know who survived and kept you know, even though he wanted, he tried his best to destroyed, she has, she kept her standing and her you know her what can you call it? A position in life of status and whatever? You so, you know, I really do. I don't think you thought about it in a sort of feminine, chauvinistic sort of terms.

And when you come to eyes right shut is definitely it's definitely Nicole's rule. Who is the stronger one? I mean from the very off, you know, when he's getting ready to go to the party, and the first thing she does is, you know, she tells him where his keys are and blah blah blah. And as they're leaving, she looks up and down like just like that, and he sort of told me everything just that one gesture.

You know that she she's she's looking at him, she's checking him out, and she's the one who thinks about things and blah blah blah. You know it's I never thought about his films as being chauvinistic at all. Was giving a good performance in a Kubrick film A difficult thing to do, uh, in terms of the pressure and the intensity of it, because some of them ever coming without naming names, ever coming to find you and say,

what the funk am I going to do? Well? I'll start off and say, very briefly, know, there's a scene there where I talk about how he used to rehearse us. I mean, you need to kick everybody off. The said, just keep the actors and just go over it. While he was trying to find his first angle, and from that first angle everything else would flow from that. But to find that first angle was so difficult for him.

It really well, the first shot was so difficult, and because he was finding so difficult, we were running it and running it and running it and running it and running it. And gradually what happens is you drop all pretense about acting. You're getting there in a really normal, natural kind of way, and and the way people don't always stand there and think through every word before they say it in life and order, these people not at all.

So the acting process starts to go away in new road and you just start to be, You start to become. And then of course we shot a lot of takes and so you know, you would get pushed into that direction, which was working with Stanley thought you were ready to shoot um. And I know that a lot of actors don't like the thought of doing that. I mean they want to come in and do it straight off there. Jack was someone who could do that, but always they

had long discussions. They go off for walks around the set and talk and talk about, you know, what they were doing. And I think you know, when you look at the shining and then you look at which is of east Wick, which he made quite soon after that, you kind of see that. I think Jack was sort of he'd kind of east that feeling of being able to not act mad but eccentric, but to be mad

and eccentric. I mean it was an enacting job, not really, And I think that's one of the reasons why you understands his actors ever got any kind of Oscar recognition or or even nominations, because they weren't exactly acting, they were actually being You done it a million times and you didn't remember your dialogue. You knew your dialogue because

it was right inside your soul. You got what you say, that idea of that repetition thing is so real because that you see actors who have that insecurity and that fear and they know that time is like a hand at your throat and you're sitting there shooting and you

want to get it right. Do you think that when you talk to him that I don't want to go too far on this limb, but do you think when you talk to him and spend time with him and you around him, could you see little moments throughout the arc of the post Barylndon career that you think he

missed acting? Does he ever have doubts about giving up acting? Yeah, we did talk a lot of the well, I mean, obviously, well he got his gift and eyes ye child when he got the phone call that he is Red Cloak and and a lot of people didn't know he was actually that was leon Um, but as he said, he just the phone call came in and it's like you're doing it. And I also talked to other people that he was supposed to dub his voice because it's just

impossible to get this amazing voice behind the mask. And Stanley called and said, nope, I'm keeping that voice's original voice. It's not dubbed. It's just as le undone it because Stanley just loved how he delivered it. So yeah, actually, Leon we did talk about that and he said that actually the one time he missed acting where the few times was, um, the scene on the stairs you could

take it from there. No, yeah, the scene but it was shining and yeah, give it a bat when And that's a real It's another example of where you know, Stanley had taken him through the process so much, so much that when Jack started it looked as if he was over playing it a little. But the more he did it, the more he felt he could relax, and he became more terrifying for it. You know. It's quite incredible.

And just a little point here, a little thing here, which um, well, I was living with a girlfriend and and I was doing a lot of television work, and she would keep on saying, what time are you going for practice? And I thought, now, Darlin, it's rehearsal. It's called rehearsal. Yeah, but she never stopped calling it practice. What time are you going to be back from practice? And I suddenly kind of thought, well, wait a minute,

Especially in television, it becomes a little bit there. If you're not careful, you know, you you learn the lines and you set it up and it has to do with time as well time and everything else. But people do arrive sometimes this is how they're going to do it, and that's you know what's going to happen. And nothing can happen that will change it will make it surprising or and it can happen with stay on stage. He

could happen anywhere. But it is that thing that you know, a process is different to some people don't need it. I mean, some people don't need I was raised standard SASKI one of a better word, you know, um. But some people don't need it. And you don't always need it for you know, a sitcom at last thirty minutes, but you know it's there and it's SIT's it's SIT's deep. And so that you know, ability to be able to shift and and immerse yourself in that way is just wonderful.

It's it's a wonderful thing to be able to do. UM. So you know, that's that's really it's so hard to explain, but you know what I mean, we're talking about acting really not the most thing in the world, but yeah, yeah, and for a few years and we would do the second, we'd say, our job is to get right up to the edge as close as we can to really bad acting as far as we can. I must take a couple of questions while we have a little bit with

the sjucer right here. Did you ever think about directing yourself? Um? Yeah, I guess I did. And I found stories that I thought I'd really like to have time, you know, to really get into this and research it and and write it and you know so, um, but it's a time thing. And sometimes I know for me, you see, I know, my focus has to be one on what I'm doing, and uh it's I hate the thought of him to

work at anything piecemeal. Um. But as time has gone on, I suddenly realized that there's a lot of times has gone by and a project like that. So I don't know. I mean, of course I thought about it a lot, and I think about it now. Did Cooper ever believe

that that living in England hurt his career? That if if he had lived in New York or in the States and could really go to dinners and go to meetings and pressure these people so he wouldn't be having the shitty full metal jacket display at the video store, and he could have things more his way. That it's a squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Did you ever feel that way? Uh No, And we talked about We did talk about that a lot. I mean, he he just said, Leon, I'm not one for going back, you know.

And he liked England because simply because he could push all that away from him. You know, he kept or he kept all the visits to a minimum and he wasn't going to be having to turn up at a meeting or a meeting turn up at his place. He could more as dictate his timetable. Okay, over here right when this gentleman right here? Oh yeah, there's this lady. Here we go. Sorry. He talked in the film about the set designers. Something was breakdown, and I was just

wondering how part you got with the setting side. When you're talking about about intensing means that happened that he set designers of yourself. I can't say I was actually deeply involved in in that side of it. I was there with Standy, but the detail is so important, and with Standy or you always felt if there wasn't a

detail there, it's because he didn't want it there. Because that's how you get this continuity thing to you know, Stanley one, there's a shot of Jack in in a room time writing and there's a chair and in a shot there isn't a chair, and that's got to mean something, and it's no, because he changed his angles and he thought the chair funked up his job he started, you know.

I mean it was as simple as that basic. But you know, I think for people like Anton First, who was set you know, production designer on full metal jacket, and and you know, I think all of them very exacting because actually had to take material and shape it into something. Shot at something like the bombed down ghetto of London full medal, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It

was like some distress. It was the gas station. And the beautiful thing about it was that a lot of the buildings were designed by the same French architects who did a lot of work in into China, and so we just went around and they grew in defunct, and they were going to put build a freeway through it, and so he just said, do what you like, So we went rund and blew it up. It's like one last question right here. I never thought of that put the glasses. Let's let's do a quick question here we go.

Did you know his show fur and what did you think of his documentary? Oh? Yeah, I knew, Yeah, I knew media of course, but I haven't seen the documentary. What does he say that driving to work in the morning, he gave Stanley all the ideas in the car. I needed to put a forty on their Stanley and gotta come right. Actually, the troops, like actually everybody I shot with, they all think they were the only ones that did everything for Stanley, and they all feel or felt that

they're the ones that were tortured. But literally, honestly, like from here to England to Sweden, this man was really came across constantly. H he was the guy that really pretty much did everything. And sometimes it makes other people that were there furious, but he really deserves it because it is the truth. Well, let me just say that on behalf let's hear around the post, I mean half of the film festival that has been our anniversary year.

I saw this film a link that they generously sent to me to watch this film a while back, and I fell in love with this film. I've been a great admire of yours. I love you in that movie. I've worship you in that movie, and I want to say once again thank you both to Tony, thank you, and and to and to Leon for coming well. Thank you,

thank you, thank you. MM. Whether or not Kubrick's approach to directing actors was more method than madness is something Leon and I could argue about Tony Zeerira's documentary film Worker. It's about Samley Kubrick and Leon Vitally and everyone who sacrifices sleep and sanity to make great art, whether their names get remembered or not. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to hear. Is the thing