while there's an incredible film it's
one of my favorite films what type of
preparation did you do for the role
because the first time I watched a film
I really thought I was watching Oscar
Wilde it's very modest of you it's a
family it's a strange thing acting and
one doesn't to get too pretentious about
it but above all film acting is
technical so yes you read everything you
can about and I had already been
fascinated by one since I was a child
and I had read that every ought about
everybody I come across as well of
course it's his letter to Posey De
Profundis and many other things and a
biographers of his mother and his
friends all kinds of things but I
remember it was in the second week of
filming in the morning we did a scene in
which Wilders on a treadmill he's in
prison
um and he is at that point his
reputation is probably the lowest of any
human being in the civilized world he's
worth guarded with absolute contempt and
disgust and he believes that he will be
regarded with contempt and disgust for
for eternity and he is in a prison he is
put to hard labor for two years the
judge told and this is anything being
gay this was this was being gay exactly
not with underage children defending
anything like that and there's only the
same job for the week before had
sentenced to child murderers to death
and the same judge said of the wild
trial this is the worst case I have ever
heard
practically I will give you the full
sentence the law allows which in my
opinion is not nearly enough you want to
be put to hard labor for two years and
the solicitor said I'm afraid mr. while
people in your class are not expected to
survive a two-year hard labor have a
food which included the punishment wheel
which is simply a treadmill and it's not
easy as if they used it that you know
drying washing or powering anything it's
surely a punishment wheel horrific thing
and so I did that scene in the morning
and in the afternoon in the same studio
this is where the sound stages I did the
secret was has been let down in the
bucket into a silver mining
Colorado and when Wilde was sent by
Richard D'Oyly carte who ran the
Sullivan company sent to America because
Goodman Sullivan had written is this
piratical patience which took you know
make fun of Oscar Wilde and ready andum
and Turner and and I Demeter Nanami
Whistler and the esthetic set in London
well this time not written single-player
or book he was an editor but he was
famous for the way he dressed of the way
he spoke he'd already been interviewed
as an undergraduate at Oxford and asked
what his ambition was and he said he was
to live up to his collection of blue and
white to China you know it was a human
pose he was known to be a wit and he was
known to be extraordinary and so killed
insolvent thought this was this right
for sending up this kind people but door
de Kock realized there was no point
getting on patients in America because
it American on that heard of Oscar Wilde
Oscar outset of his strong a group of
aesthetic young people who said that
everything was all too utterly utter so
he paid after a whopping Fela Callisto
and I'm in and a half in today's money
to do a lecture tour of America so that
all Americans would get to know and the
depressed press conferences and he would
be aware his velvet trousers and his
silken do be at asthma be huge
Lily be as his most extraordinary and
you could choose the lecture subjects he
chose two subjects that he gave lectures
on one was benvenuto cellini the the
Unison silversmith and the other was
what he called the House Beautiful which
is probably the first time anybody has
ever given lectures on interior
decoration he had a famous white room in
his house in Chelsea and he was in a
real master of that sort of thing when
the lectures it's just given that title
seem silly but when it was in Leadville
having and
which is a suit the son that they'll
just be rid of you thank God but it was
a silver mine hardly not a lead mine and
King giving his lecture in the afternoon
and the next day he's in one of them
said he'd won did you want to come down
to the mine because he talked about
trimming and his extraordinary gold and
silver craftsmanship
he said I think I should be a player so
in this this scene I was learned on the
packaging into a my buddies while I talk
to these mines and I tell him about you
Nene and they they they were just with
one I talked about how tragic is this
beautiful beautiful natural looking or
taking from the rock instead of being
turned into something something lovely
was going to be turned into ugly dollars
and they say well where is this chilling
you guy and well said well alas he was
dead and when I said who shadow so that
was the second scene I did that day so
when I go home which while do I take him
do I take I'm the man broke him on a
wheel already take of a man but then the
whole life is opening up before he was
whose career is destined to be one of
huge Fame and success and glory
I always think one when I come to me
often enough it's not as if he wrote
much about who did a little in the
Picture of Dorian Gray and in a family
was very interested in American wrote a
lot about me but the the image I use is
that when I started become well known in
Britain I was even invited to give talks
to universities and colleges and things
and sometimes to the head of the society
to invite them back to their rooms have
some wine on coffee or whatever and in
the in the beginning one notice they
have a usual posters on the wall you
might say Karl Marx and Jimi Hendrix Che
Guevara that sort of thing because the
students believe that the world is going
to be set free by politics and rock and
roll and and then I noticed as they as
the 90s proceeded I mean that there will
be photographs they'll be posted far
more likely of Einstein and Oscar Wilde
and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
crass commercialization of musics that
killing of Lenin
and all these other things people know
anything students believe me more than
rock-and-rollers going to free the world
all that revolutionary politics will but
they think perhaps the life of the mind
will solve the problems of the world and
that's art and science together and the
one thing I would just wanted to add why
I really always think it welcoming them
New York because you know if you get a
good cab run down Fifth Avenue get or
late at night and all the lights agree
you pass 34th you see the apostate
building and then if you turn your head
round parcel shelf of the cab it very
quickly disappears because building is
nearer than it appears to be larger is
that sort of parallels but I mean 1900
when Wilde died in 1902 1903 he was it
was like a forgotten person but I think
the history now is are speeding down
towards Union Square and a few because
you get this fantastic effect do try it
on fifth a fusion not which is a nice
when you go to run and bring is just
look out and keep looking and you'll
suddenly see the Empire State Building
doing this like seven-five just rising
and rising and rising and rising as all
the buildings that were near is it in
such a pinky's I've revealed as true
pygmies and it is revealed in its true
size and I think over the last time
ideas since his death that's happened
with wild