Peter Ustinov Interview (February 11, 1984)

pictures of myself um I think the things that interest me most really apart from writing which is of course a very mysterious occupation because to be sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper and to fill it and then to make that a habit until three or 400 pages are filled and to be sitting talking about it 18 months later in Miami Beach or Miami seems to me absolutely extraordinary I I never get about that it seems but apart from that I think probably working for for Unicef gives me the greatest personal pleasure yes because I think it's something that that simply has to be done well I a lot of people in your position I would think well I know take themselves awfully seriously who get General agulation like I would guess you do I mean I never hear anybody knocking Peter Houston off they're always raving about what a genius you are what an intellect what a nice person what a talented man all all the kinds of things that would turn one's head and cause one to take themselves very seriously which could be fatal absolutely fatal I'm never very concerned with image I think image is one of the most awful inventions of our time and I really think that if the person that looks back at you from the mirror becomes more important than the person who's looking in then you might as well stop all together and give up because that's uh it's such a bore to think what your image is and I don't give a damn what my image is quite well it's very good probably because you don't care yes exactly but you've been around Hollywood you know what I'm talking about the kinds of Egos and personalities I'm describing really Monumental and really terrible bores yeah I think you get that not only in Hollywood I mean there's a there's a more visible but you get it even more in uh in politics and in after all I think it was uh Huxley who said that in the nature of things act as had to be exhibitionists and I don't agreee with him at all I think of Lawrence Olivier who has a perfectly good nose and who often wears a false nose which looks exactly the same as the nose that's underneath but it's something to hide behind yeah um it's politicians who get up with themselves yeah naked as it were and make declarations actors hate doing that they have to be someone else yes that's right they portray best what they are not don't you think yes exactly if they're good actors yeah right and there aren't a lot of good actors around no no what is a good actor what does it take to be a good actor someone who doesn't go into politics I'd order to be provocative now what do you mean about politicians now you've left some well I mean they're the same I went to a kind of school uh which bred politicians and diplomats and I quickly understood what they were when I was told almost as soon as I arrived there that I was going to talk in a debate and second the motion of maintaining the death sentence sentence and I said to the master I'm very much opposed to the death sentence he said I don't know whether you heard me used enough you are supporting the death sentence it's at that moment I discovered what sort of school it was it was a school which uh um exploited one aspect of the truth at the expense of others which is What actors do and lawyers and politicians and all in wresters yeah uh who rehear just as carefully as we do um but but uh I think we're my father always wanted me to be a lawyer I told him I'd be an actor because I thought it was the same job but we were less dangerous to our fellow men now you're really serious it sounds like you might be kidding but you really mean what you're saying yeah absolutely I'm absolutely serious I always say said once it's always they always think I'm fous when I say that that the people who reach the top of the tree are those without the qualifications to detain them at the bottom a really great lawyer becomes uh becomes uh rich in this country well becomes rich but if he's not quite as great he becomes even more important you know in England though u i was I did an hour special called the Swift justice of Europe and in England I found such a different feeling about the law the bar the practice of law uh so different from this country you've been in both well you can't hire a lawyer direct you have to go through what is known as a solicitor which has a rather different meaning here but so that there is a barrier there is a safety valve of some sort you you very often don't see your lawyer until it's too late which again is very good for justice acting and what what was the first thing that made you really famous what role was it uh well I think probably quo vardis oh yes because it was the first American picture and also I think the Americans are particularly good or were I don't think it's going to be possible anymore to do ancient Rome because in point of fact they're they're very similar to the ancient Romans really yes I think so there's the same kind if you want to go and borrow some money from an American Bank they'll see you if what you want to borrow is big enough but and you go in and see the manager who is usually in a room with marble columns if the branch is important enough MH or with an American flag furled in the corner an eagle on the wall a picture of the past president of the bank and he himself if it's very hot weather could be leaning back with his feet on the desk and he says why don't we kick this thing around poolside over lunch and it's a mixture of this formality and extraordinary relaxation of massages well-being jogging all the things the Romans did until it was too late do you see a real parallel then to the Future which mentally I do because I think the Americans are an extraordinary uh people uh who have discovered a national identity terribly quickly when you look out of a window in Europe and you see somebody walking you know he's an American before you know that he's of Swedish or Italian origin uh there's just something about the uh about the stance which is uh more the British and French are much more uptight they they take up less room on the sidewalk uh the Russians also are rather languorous because they they have a big country well we both have long distances to walk exactly exactly do you find Europe um a dying culture as a rule no not at all no but I think it's a mixture of several different count uh cultures that's what makes it interesting no I don't think so but uh but you don't look down your nose at Americans so many men of well so many men of culture and education like you really secretly do not regard Americans as their equals oh I think first of all it is extraordinary how nice Americans are considering how powerful they are that must be a first in history maybe the Romans were like that I don't know uh the British and French were very unpleasant when they were import important uh but on a human level the Americans are extraordinary nice and very uh open to all sorts of ideas and things like that uh sometimes I'm fearful because they're very very powerful yeah well you can pass for an American I mean your face is too famous now but your American dialect is is Right On Target well I've certainly often sat in the caucus room and certainly intend to run against Etc yeah I think you do Americans better than most Americans do the English Act usually gets fractured rather poorly well because they tend to caricature it the the English do the same with the Americans the play you've written about beeen what what did you want to say about that did you want to make a statement about beeen about music about yourself what no I think it's a it it casts several aspersions about creativity in different forms and uh about human relations in general uh more ambitious than that I would not be but that seems to be quite ambitious enough uh I'm not a pist I can't tell you in other terms what the play is about and that I wanted to do this or that I don't want to do any of that I just think it was an interesting uh concept to balance somebody like Beethoven who is always interested in the present and therefore the future uh and without very great feelings about what he' did done earlier and a great critic and musicologist who knows all all about Boven because he studied it from documents which B's never had the time or the inclination to do and to ju depose these two men with very different attitudes towards life in general but you do appreciate that you are in a land now I can only speak for my native country America that I'm sure 98% of the people don't have the foggiest idea of who Beethoven was or maybe is I mean we found enormous amounts of people who don't know who the president is let alone Beethoven yes I think they're liable to have heard betoven without knowing it at least as often as they've heard the president without knowing it uh but I found on the whole that it depends where you go or the size of the theater makes enormous difference uh in places on our on our tour uh uh the reception has been absolutely inspiring Denver Wilmington Los Angeles well you've become an American treasur I mean we look forward to your visits on the tonight's show with Johnny Carson and you always have great stories and all those stories you tell true oh always of course they have sometimes marinated in my mind and uh therefore uh they don't take quite as long as the actual events happened there are some transformations of that sort no but I always wonder when I watch someone like you and there are a few but there are a few people like you who come alive on a show and tell these wonderful stories and I know everyone's thinking nothing like that ever happened happens to me or anyone I know is that because you're famous no I think it's cuz uh I I once alleged in a play that a journalist is somebody who invents a story and then attracts the truth towards it yes and it is almost almost true that one can uh attract certain things which happen because very often people are present when these things happen to me when people come up and say the most absurd or peculiar things and they then say why does that never Happ happened to me I don't think I think it's just because I'm really hoping that this sort of thing will happen you mean you're open to it when you're out in public I remember during the war appearing in a in a Victorian Cabaret in which all Illusions were towards Victorian or Edwardian things the latest and the bombs were falling and I suddenly thought of a marvelous line in case a bomb fell and I was dying for a bomb to fall I was going slower with my ACT hoping that before I quite finished and sooner suddenly I heard and the whole thing plaster fell from the roof people got up I was playing an old clergyman and I said don't worry it's the right brother's gone wrong wasn't as good as all that on on retrospect but at the time it set off the most enormous Applause really but of course I didn't reckon with the medium with a media who attributed the remark to a very pretty girl who was playing in the same program you didn't even get credit for no oh terrible but she did and she's since left the profession so I think at least that but but you like people didn't I read here in the paper you went shopping in a grocery store and went unnoticed did I is that did I read that about you no one knew who I didn't go unnoticed I have bronchitis and I had it very much worse when I first arrived here you've cured me oh good up to a point but the old ladies heard me cough not only old ones quite relatively young ones too and they all offered me I I had about 15 different cures by the time I left the the doors of the supermarket have any of them turned out to work they they probably cancel out each other that's the TR but I did the old ladies the honor of trying them all which is probably a mistake right too but I mean you like to be out with people you enjoy the interplay of the common folk and yes I do I'm very I'm very private person when I'm at home and uh I don't entertain very I don't like parties of more than six people eight maximum I hate cocktail parties and I hate the noise of a cocktail party when the door opens and I hear that murmur I'm already terrified I I can't imagine you uh well did you spend much time in Hollywood the the the home of the cocktail party you might say I spent so much time that I remember going to a party about 25 years ago when the door was opened by a a rented retainer whom I'd begun to know better than many of the people because you saw him everywhere and he he said Mr yof I'm going to take the liberty of hanging your coat in accessible position I I somehow don't feel you're going to stay very long tonight well that was Mar and you did not I didn't I when I appeared again he said I thought so sir do you watch much television in this country yes what do you think of it I think the standard is not terribly high but I don't see how it could be any higher in view of the fact the amount of time that filled with things I mean if you suffer from insomnia as I did when I was hacking away and you turn on the television at 3:00 in the morning and you see somebody trying to sell a car with the help of a chimpanzee uh that is television like everything else but I don't think the standard is terribly high on the whole I don't think it's very high uh anywhere but there are a lot of very good things but there also it has an effect on the theater where we they've all become much more sitcomm minded as they everything has to be tidy and packaged and that I regret very much I think that's very bad for us all yeah I saw the review of a movie the other night that said it was an unsuccessful movie because the protagonist the star was an unsympathetic character I thought that was a shallow observation and perhaps the writer intended it to be an observation about well I mean then none of Shakespeare's plays should have succeeded exactly yeah right I mean everything was not wrapped up at the end and he won absolutely I mean uh no no I think that's uh I think that's very sad that everything should be so tidy well you and I agreed that we had a favorite quote uh nothing's more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory are the the great dramatists Shakespeare of course but the great plays that we associate with England and let's talk about England for a moment and the great actors Richardson Etc sir Lawrence are those just a function of poor memory I mean are there new actors today giving us the kinds of performances and statements that 20 years from now will look back and say those with the great days of the stage and dramatic statement uh I think it's always changing uh if you look at an old movie you see the style of acting there has gone out already um I don't think there are new rules I think the the English are a very faithful audience and once the Olivier and Richardson and gilg good have passed a certain sound barrier they never go back uh I think they're slightly more sentimental than the uh than the Americans about their leading performers here it's only when somebody reaches the outer space like George Burns that it becomes a kind of longevity record in which every time you see him you're astonished and he makes jokes about it and he's really I mean now beyond anything he's he's in orbit he's extra trust absolutely he's in not only in the Hall of Fame he's in Valhalla somewhere and doing frightfully well I'm glad to say it I always wonder do you watch your movies when you're here in this country and they come up on TV Co vas and whatever I usually doing something else when uh when they're on but if I suddenly see them I'm always terrified because I was frightened of going on the stage when I was younger because I didn't understand how actors learned their lines I still don't understand it really no and when I see myself bursting into a room with a tremendous tiod which I can no longer remember I say to you for God's sake stop you don't know what's going to happen next and I can't be it did your parents I presume they are deceased yes did they live to see you be a very successful man yes they were pleased obviously then yes they were they were pleased my father who tried to write novels when I was young and we had a tiny apartment and we were forced to tiptoe around the place uh in the available space while he occupied the living courter and wrote the first page of a novel which he then showed to anybody that came to the door the Milkman and uh after 2 or 3 days there were erasers and all sorts of other and this it never got Beyond this one page then he put it away and 10 or 12 months later he said I want absolute quiet because I'm starting a novel he wrote six or seven of the shortest novels on record

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Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023