By Ali Moosavi.
I always wanted to be a director but John Huston said to me, look you’ve got the passion and the desire to make movies; why don’t you become a creative producer? This way you don’t have to always seek for jobs as director. The producer creates the job….”
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, there has been a very significant level of immigration of Iranians to Europe and North America. From these many prominent artists have emerged, particularly in the field of cinema. Some immigrated as a young child with their family, some as adults, while some were born abroad to parents who had immigrated. Those artists who are well-known tend to be mostly actors, such as Navid Negahban, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Nazanin Boniadi or directors such as Ramin Bahrani, Ali Abbasi and Alireza Khatami.
At the 72nd San Sebastian International Film Festival last September I came across an Iranian born producer, Barry Navidi. He is the producer of Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness, the directorial debut of Johnny Depp and covers three days in the life of the Italian artist Modigilani (Riccardo Scamarcio) in Paris. He hangs around with fellow bohemian artists, has an encounter with a famous art collector (Al Pacino). Antonia Desplat provides the love interest in the film.
I arranged to talk to Barry Navidi, to find out more about his journey to becoming a top-level producer.
Where did your passion for movies start?
As a kid growing up in Iran before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, my dad was a movie fan and periodically he would show us movies and take us to theaters. He always championed my passion for cinema even as a kid and he used to say, listen this is a camera, go ahead and take some photographs. My dad loved photography and filming as a kid himself growing up. So that’s how it really began. Ironically I used to watch The Godfather as a kid and I ended up working with both Brando and Pacino; talk about luck and fate. My dad then sent me to boarding school in the UK and then I went to the London Film school where I studied filmmaking. There I met Danny Huston whose father was the legendary director John Huston and he became my mentor and I produced Mister Corbett’s Ghost (1987) with Paul Scofield which Danny Huston directed. Sometimes it’s being at the right place at the right time and meeting the right people. Of course you have to have the passion and the desire, but you also need a bit of luck. I really believe in that and I was very lucky. Danny and I became very close since the film school days in1984-85 and we’ve been collaborating together ever since.
What specific field did you study at the film school?
I studied everything really. I wanted to be a director but my passion was photography and camera so I studied cinematography quite extensively and that led me to editing and directing. Nobody teaches you how to produce. Producing is really filmmaking; that’s if you’re a creative producer. I call myself a creative producer. I always wanted to be a director but John Huston said to me, look you’ve got the passion and the desire to make movies; why don’t you become a creative producer? This way you don’t have to always seek for jobs as director. The producer creates the job and therefore you can be more hands on and come up with your own vision and your material and what you want to make and start gathering the writers, directors and your team. So he really molded me and of course being around John Huston you meet everybody who’s anyone in Hollywood’s hall of fame, from Paul Newman to Orson Welles. So you kind of sit back and listen and learn so much from these great pioneers of cinema. I just paid attention and listened and this had a great influence on me. I became close with Marlon Brando and produced a movie with him, Divine Rapture (1995) which sadly collapsed halfway through production.
What is the job of a producer? You could use Modi as an example; from its beginning to now.
The job of producer is really is to first find the right material. That’s how you’re going to attract the talent. My biggest asset or forte is getting the talent together and then I work on the financing. Al Pacino and I become very close friends and have been producing partner for over 20 years. He recommended me to produce the play Modi (by Dennis MacIntyre). I read the play and fell in love with it. Pacino said that the play was written specifically for him to star on Broadway and he couldn’t because at the time, forty years ago, he was doing Scarface and other movies. But the play was so well written that I said let’s just go to the next phase. So I hired a couple of writers, Jerzy and Mary Kromolowski and they produced a screenplay two or three years later. With writing scripts you cannot rush this process. I always tell young producers you have to have patience and you can’t just jump in and put your name on a movie and go out there and try and make a picture. Making a movie is really a major long-term relationship. I always compare it to going into a marriage rather than a one night stand. Al Pacino initially wanted to direct it but he was so busy acting; this is twelve years ago. Al and I were talking and I said how about going to Johnny Depp and he said I love Johnny; I knew Johnny for years through Brando. I sent it to Johnny and he fell in love with the script and the story and the characters. He’s a painter himself and a musician. He’s a brilliant, sensitive artist. That all was molded beautifully and then pandemic happened and we had to wait. Then, a couple of years ago Johnny said I’m ready to go, let’s do it and I said I’m ready too, let’s go out there and see if we can make this picture. So, here we are, 10 to 12 years later. I have to say Johnny has put his fingerprints on it beautifully and did a great job.
Was he at any point interested in playing the main character or he always just wanted to direct it?
When Al and I were talking 12 years ago, we were thinking of who would be best to play Modi. At that time Johnny was about 48 years old and he always looked younger than his age and we actually had Johnny on the list to star in it; but Johnny was so busy doing another Pirates of the Caribbean and other movies and wasn’t going to be available for some time. I paused for a while and said let’s wait and see who’s best to play this character. Casting is everything. Another piece of advice that John Huston gave me was that you can have the greatest script in the world but if you don’t cast it right, it could turn out to be a mediocre picture but if you have a mediocre script but you cast it well, you most likely have a winner. Of course the director is an important key factor too. I tell the young film producers there are so many different steps that you have to take to have a good shot at making a decent movie. You are dealing with human beings and you never know what’s going to happen at the end of the day.
You studied the at London Film School but it seems at some point you decided to cross over to US because that’s where the film industry is. Did you consider working in British TV or British film industry or you always wanted to go and work in in the States?
Well, I consider myself a British or Anglo-Iranian-American producer, whatever you want to call it. I’m based in London and travel back and forth to LA . A lot of my projects are set in Europe, in fact Modi was shot entirely in Budapest and I have another five movies in production and pre-production stages in Europe. Even though I work with some of the biggest stars in the world and great directors, I don’t consider myself a Hollywood producer, I just have my fingers in Hollywood. I’ve never tried to become part of the Hollywood establishment because I don’t necessarily make Hollywood type movies.
The kind of movies that you like to make and you’re making, are not what I would call commercial movies. So it must be a lot more difficult to sell and market them. How do you deal with that?
It is much more complicated. I honestly don’t even know how to read a horror film script. I wish I knew and how to produce those or action type movies.
Unfortunately, they are dominating the cinemas now and I think they’re killing cinema.
Yes, they are killing cinema. Look, I don’t want to prove to people that I’m an artist and I’m going to make an art movie. That’s a taboo for me. I think a movie becomes a work of art. When they made The Godfather, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on behind the scenes that I’m sure you heard about. But once it was put together, it became work of art and even made a lot of money. For me it’s about human struggle, whether it’s a comedy, dramedy, tragedy, and my mentors told me that if you can find a story line, it doesn’t matter what genre it is, that you can emotionally connect with, then you have a 50% shot at getting the audience connecting with you. I don’t honestly say, look I’m going to make a picture that’s going to be so arty and all that. We’re not painters, we’re filmmakers so we have to put a group of craftsman together and hopefully make something really presentable to the audience. When it does work, it’s going to be there forever because the film medium is still the most powerful art form. I always give The King’s Speech as an example. I read its script years ago and I knew the producers. On paper when you read that script you say to yourself well that’s not really commercial, it could be made by the BBC. Look what happened, it was brilliantly made and cast and it made 400 million plus dollars and won four Academy Awards. So I always look for movies that work as a story and then they hopefully find their audience.
I think William Goldman famously said that nobody knows anything. You can never tell if the movie is going to be a massive hit or it’s going to bomb.
That’s right. Only Marvel type pictures you can bank on because they have a history of marketing and merchandising but I don’t think anybody knows exactly. Who would have thought Oppenheimer would make a billion and a half? It’s a great film but nobody expected a drama to make that sort of money. In today’s market where there’s theatrical cinema release and streamers and so on, it is a lot more complicated and much tougher for independent filmmakers. I always believe that if you have a passion for what you want to make and at least try to put it together the best you can, you have a chance. That’s what I always try to do.
Modi was given to you by Al Pacino, but normally how do you go looking for material to make your next movie?
I always look into writers that I know or top agencies often send me scripts. If it bites and I like the story, I try to develop it further. I could be at dinner with friends and they could come up with an idea and often you come up with stories when you read papers and so on. But I don’t go out there and say I’ve got to pick up this book and adapt it to a movie, because it takes a long time and I’m independent, it’s not as like I’ve got 5000 people who are working for me. I have two or three friends and two or three people who actually work on the sides with me and they come up with ideas and stories. I have a number of projects that I’ve been developing for the last ten years. When people give me screenplays, and some of them are really good, I don’t jump into them unless I really fall in love with it. I always say to other fellow producers that I’ve got kids of my own and I can’t adopt anymore as I have to give 100% to each one. I tell those producers that I’m willing to help and to advise them, but I’m not one of those guys who say I’m willing to do this if you give me executive producer credit. I don’t do that kind of stuff. I think somebody has a movie and it’s their project, their passion, their baby. I respect that and I try to help if I can but I don’t really jump in bed with them right away because they have a great screenplay. I don’t do that I unless I’m really in love with it and will then say ok, let’s collaborate together.
Do you also work with streaming companies like Netflix?
I know people working there but not really unless I specifically package a project and go to them. One or two of my projects have the potential and I may go to Netflix or Amazon or Apple. I have a relationship with them but I haven’t yet gone to any of the streamers to make a picture but I am looking to approach them in the near future.
Have you found the material for next movie yet?
Yes I have a few projects that I have been developing. I’ve got three comedies, believe it or not, two in Ireland and one in Italy. There’s other another project I’m working on called Skylark which is based on a slice of life of Albert Einstein which interestingly is a mystery-thriller about when he briefly fell in love with a Russian spy. In fact my next six projects are on paper a lot more commercial than Modi. We just finished filming Lear Rex with Pacino in LA just and now we’re in post-production. This was our pet project, Al’s baby for years and we’ve finally managed to put that together. So having Modi and Lear back-to-back was quite a challenge but I managed to put it together.
Ali Moosavi has worked in documentary television and has written for Film Magazine (Iran), Cine-Eye (London), and Film International (Sweden). He contributed to the second volume of The Directory of World Cinema: Iran (Intellect, 2015).