Director Michael Apted has died at the age of 79, and he leaves behind a tremendous body of work, including the acclaimed series of Up documentaries (he helmed nine of them, stretching from 1970’s 7 Plus Seven all the way up through 2019’s 63 Up), but he never seemed to get the level of appreciation from the Academy Awards that he should’ve. Over the years, he was responsible for such efforts as the Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter, John Belushi’s Continental Divide, the William Hurt / Lee Marvin murder mystery Gorky Park, Sting’s Bring on the Night, the James Bond flick The World is Not Enough, the WWII code-breaker flick Enigma…
Actually, I should probably stop listing all of these things that the esteemed Mr. Apted directed, mostly because I, uh, didn’t actually ask him about a single one of the projects listed above.
Okay, look, in my defense, my one encounter with Apted was in 2014, when I was attending the TCA tour and we took a visit to the set of Showtime’s Masters of Sex, and the grand total of our conversation time ended up coming in at about 12 minutes. And me being me, I asked him about the project that had brought us together, and then I promptly asked him about a couple of things that no normal person would’ve asked him about, and by the time he’d talked about those things, it was time for us to depart. I’m telling you, though: I still got a couple of great stories out of the guy, and if you need a reason to keep reading until the very end, just know that there’s a Keith Moon story that’s oh so very worth the wait.
Happy to have had the opportunity to meet you, Mr. Apted, if only fleetingly, and I’m particularly glad you were kind enough to indulge me by chatting about some of your earliest work. I loved it in the moment, and even though this is the first time the conversation has ever made it online, it’s clear to me both why I never forgot about it and why I knew it was worth taking the time to post it at long last.
And with that, please go forth and enjoy these few minutes with this lovely fellow. I think you’ll be just as entertained as I was.
How have you enjoyed the experience of working on Masters of Sex thus far?
Michael Apted: It's rather fun, telling a story in a period context. What's interesting about it is that it's a true story. Not every detail of it, but it's nice to put very modern thoughts into costume, so they're talking in as racy a fashion as people would talk today, but they're in costume during, and it's true. So that's kind of fun. And as with Mad Men, it adds a dimension to it all, rather than just being another contemporary story. Although it drives you balmy, with all that hair and all that stuff. [Laughs.] But I do think it adds a bit of color to it.
As a director, do you ever feel the need to do any research into the subject of a project?
Yeah, up to a point. I mean, I've done four episodes of the show for this season, which is quite a lot, so I've had time to research. Whereas when I came onto the show, I only did two for the first season, so I kind of got thrown into it. It's such an interesting story, though, and you kind of like to check out what's true and what isn't true. So, yes, I do a certain amount of research, but you rarely have the time when you have seven days to prep it, eight days to shoot it, and four days to cut it, and on you go. It's not exactly leisurely!
Given that you've worked repeatedly on both small screen and big screen projects, do you have a preference at this point? Or is the difference negligible, given the quality of TV nowadays?
Well, I like to say that the American film industry is alive and well and living in cable. [Laughs.] As we always used to say that the British film industry is alive and well and living in television! But I think the sort of films I want to do are very difficult to get going. They're hard to find an audience. Audiences seem to gravitate toward the big movies that suck the air out. So this is good work. And it's serious work. And you're well-treated, the material's good, and it's good actors, so it's fun to do. So I'm very grateful for it, to find a home here where I can be a bit more than just a visiting director and, in a small way, be part of the infrastructure.
Are there any other series that you're working on with any regularity?
I did a Ray Donovan last season, but not one this season, so... No, not really. I'm on the lookout!
That's two within the Showtime family, though. They must like you well enough.
Well, it's a good crowd. They're a good lot. [Laughs.]
You kind of touched on it a moment ago, but being as you're doing Masters of Sex, I presume you still enjoy the challenges of doing period pieces.
Yeah! I did a pilot with Marc Cherry (Hallelujah), but before that I'd done the first three hours of HBO's Rome, which was the biggest pilot ever. It really wasn't a pilot, because they had to build a set that was five acres. You had to have a map! But it was such a huge, expensive project that they didn't do a pilot, per se. They just did the first three hours, and then they went on and on from there.
Rome was interesting, but it was a horrible business decision to actually go to Rome to do it, because you had to import everybody. I think what they must've thought was that there were going to be locations there, but ancient Rome is about fifteen levels underground, with all these civilizations on top of it! [Laughs] But otherwise I can't think why they went there to do it. But by the time I was engaged, they'd already established themselves, the art department was there and were doing the designing and all that sort of stuff. But I never did figure out why they wanted to go there, because it cost them a fortune! Every actor, even if they only had two lines, had to be flown in, because there weren't enough actors there who spoke English. They should've just done it in London!
Given how much music has played a part in your films, how much of a part does it play when you're doing television?
Not as much. There are a bit more limitations on music in television. They seem to want a lot of it, so it's hard to be that distinctive. Although if you're talking about, say, the thing David Lynch did, Twin Peaks, that had fabulous music. So it does come through on occasion. I think music's important, whatever you're working on. It's just a bit alarming because...I don't really get it. [Laughs.] I mean, I have a certain taste, but I know what I want and I know what I like and I have no idea how to go about getting it! So whenever I work with composers, I have to speak in crushing platitudes. I can't tell them what I want except in those general terms. I suppose someone told me early in my career, "Don't try and do other people's job for them, tell them what you want and it's their job to turn your platitude into a real thing," and I took it to heart!
So I read that you got your start working on Coronation Street, but I admit that I read it on Wikipedia. Is that actually true?
Yeah, well, I worked for Granada Television in the middle '60s, and I started out in documentaries, but I always wanted to do dramas. But it was a very small company, and you were able to do different things. This friend of mine, Mike Newell, who's doing Great Expectations, he was on Coronation Street, and then he went on holiday. And it was a three-week turnaround, so I went to them and said, "Can I do Newell's Coronation Street?" And they said, "Why not?" [Laughs.] We used to do two episodes every three weeks, so I did that, and it went well, so that's what got me going on my dual path: documentaries and drama.
I know Stardust was one of your first feature films, but was it your very first?
No, my first one was called The Triple Echo, with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed. It was... [Hesitates.] It was quite a difficult film.
I was just going to ask how Oliver Reed was to work with.
You couldn't find two actors who worked more differently. [Laughs.] And I was in my late twenties, never done a movie before, only television, and I only got the job because I would be quick. It was at the height of Glenda's career, and I had her for six weeks, so they didn't want one of the grand English directors like [John] Schlesinger or Karel Reisz, because they would've taken months to do it. They wanted someone young and in television who'd do it in six weeks. But it was terrifying, because she was very... Let's see, she'd won one Academy Award, for Woman in Love, and she was about to do A Touch of Class. But she just loved to rehearse, and she was organized, so she'd have it all worked out with me, and then she'd do it in a couple of takes and it'd be fine. But Oliver would come on the set, and he wouldn't have the faintest idea what we were doing that day...and I didn't know what to do!
If it wasn't for Glenda, I might still be there even now. She could see there was something to be said for the way he worked, that he brought a kind of freshness to it. Whereas she had worked it all out and did it and that was that, when he came in, he'd turn and say, "What scene are we doing, dear boy? And what are the words?" And then suddenly he came to life. The trouble was that she was kind of finished by take three, he hadn't even started until take twelve! [Laughs.] But she was great, and she kind of figured out what was going on...but it was a very alarming first experience!
But it taught me something, and it was a very important lesson: sometimes you can think things to death and prepare them too much, so there's nothing left. Now, I think Oliver was somewhat extreme in the other direction. [Laughs.] I don't recommend that - someone coming in and not knowing what they're doing - but there was an elegance about it, very much a life experience. Although I was totally bereft. I had no idea how I was going to get through the thing!
And then to move on to Stardust, which co-starred Keith Moon... You weren't exactly working with the soberest crowd.
Uh, no. In fact, I told someone the other day that I went from working with Oliver Reed to Keith Moon, and they said, "Oh, Christ!" [Laughs.] The major issue with Keith Moon was that we were night filming, and we were coming back to the hotel in Manchester, and you had to go underground to park your car, then to get into the hotel, you had come out into the street and go into the lobby.
Well, I arrived down there, and there was Keith Moon, stark naked in the middle of the car park! And he was completely out of it, so I had to take him out onto one of the main streets - just as all these people are going to work! - and escort him into the hotel...and that is my vivid memory of Mr. Moon. It's amazing what directors have to do, isn't it?