While Stanley Kubrick was reportedly loath to be interviewed, numerous stories tell of the director randomly calling up fellow filmmakers, often after he’d seen their films, and peppering them with questions and engaging in long discussions about their work. Terrence Malick is similarly press shy. While his new documentary “The Voyage Of Time” is gearing up to hit both the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, and though he’s likely attend both, he’ll surely decline provide any interviews. However, unlike Kubrick, Malick forgoes calling up filmmakers he wants to talk to, and instead just shows up on set.
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For its always fun to read Random Roles feature, The AV Club recently sat down with David Krumholtz, who has a small role in the Coen Brothers’ “Hail, Caesar!” earlier this year. And he has a pretty amusing anecdote about the time Malick just randomly showed up on set of the film.
“…one of the funny stories from that set is we were shooting my scene, and around lunchtime, Terrence Malick shows up on set. He was uninvited and no one knew who he was. But I knew, just looking at him. I was like, ‘Holy moly, that’s Terrence Malick!’ So I went and told the PA, ‘Hey, Terrence Malick is here, and I think he wants to see the Coen brothers. He wants to talk to Joel and Ethan.’ He just showed up unannounced, uninvited, and I guess they spent their lunch hour with him,” the actor said. “Afterward, I went up to Ethan and was like, ‘Whoa, Terrence Malick! That’s crazy that he just showed up to talk to you randomly.’ And Ethan said the most interesting thing, which was he wasn’t that impressed anymore by filmmakers. At first, I was like, ‘Oh, because he thinks he’s so great, it doesn’t really impress him.’ But really, it’s what [‘Hail, Caesar!’] is about.”
I’m not sure what the best part is: that Malick just sauntered onto the set unrecognized, or that the Coens thought it was no big deal. Either way, it would’ve been great to be a fly on the wall of that conversation. But it also makes me wonder if Malick, instead of hiding out at home, is just wandering around Hollywood backlots talking to people….
