At first, she wasn't interested. She'd just had a baby and was about to do a Woody Allen film. We met three or four times. We waited seven months. Finally, she came around.
Enthusiasm is infectious.
For a masquerade ball sequence in The Golden Bowl , Merchant was the first filmmaker to get permission to shoot inside Lancaster House, a gigantic dwelling near Buckingham Palace, where Britain's prime minister holds receptions. It's a kind of civilized way of living with other people in which the most violent emotions are not supposed to come out. Because of this, there's an awful lot going on beneath the surface that must be suggested rather than expressed. Then tremendous upheavals will suddenly occur with little provocation. Sharks leap up out of placid waters.