I read an article about a curious book that had great reviews in Italy, a murder mystery about monks in the middle ages fighting for the fictional missing part of Aristotle’s Poetics. I said: “This is for me.” Since childhood, I had been fascinated with medieval and religious architecture, and Aristotle’s Poetics is my favourite literary work. I learned that Umberto Eco, the author, was going to be in France for one night and agreed to meet me at his hotel and that I would drive him to Charles de Gaulle airport.
The first thing I saw was his shadow on the hotel staircase, which looked like the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes – Umberto was a man of great humour, and he met me wearing a deerstalker, with a pipe in his mouth. In the car, I asked questions: what sort of shoes would the Franciscans have been wearing? Would the monks have had beards?
What colour would the pigs have been? He said: “I don’t know, I didn’t have to write any of that.” I ended up hiring medievalist Jacques Le Goff and seven of his colleagues to make sure we got all the details right – costumes, architecture, liturgy and so on. I wanted an unknown to play William of Baskerville, the friar who investigates the deaths, and travelled the world to watch plays featuring great actors in their 50s.
Meanwhile, agent Mike Ovitz kept calling, saying: “Sean Connery would love to make this movie.” Eventually, there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find Sean with the screenplay under his arm. He said, “Listen, boy …” and started reading. The way he said the dialogue was exactly what I’d been hearing in my head while reading the book.
I flew to Vienna to look at paintings by Bruegel the Elder. I wanted to be inspired by the real people of the period, people who had no dentists or doctors, but I did cast some good-looking monks, too. Christian Slater turned up to audition for the young novice, Adso, and said: “I didn’t learn the lines, I got drunk.” The casting director, Mary Jo, was furious and tried to send him away, but he was the one I wanted.
He was only 16, but looked 14. It turned out he was Mary Jo’s son. I had three women selected to audition for the part of the nameless girl from the village, but Christian fell in love with the first, Valentina Vargas, as soon as he did a screen test with her, so I never saw the other two.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
