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© 2000 Warner Bros. | TM & © 2000 Carter Prods., LLC | Photo: John P. Johnson
Sylvestor Stallone talked with AC Team's Suzanne Kai during a round table discussion with members of the press corps in Beverly Hills. Stallone talks about his remake of "Get Carter" and his soon to be released racing movie, "Driven." Q: What made you want to make "Driven?" Stallone: You try to find one of those titles that could be double edged. And the fact is that they drive across, but they are actually all "driven" in their own lives, and that's what really the story is about, is the motivation of why do you drive. Driving is the end result of being obsessed with a goal. Some people drive for money, some people are trying to drive to keep back time, if you know what I mean, like "Oh god, I hope I'm not reaching the end of my ropes," so they drive harder to hold back the inevitable. It's like a boxer that goes one fight too many, he still thinks he can do it. And that's what his motivation is, it's holding back the clock. So everyone has a motivation for that particular venue. Every now and then, you become truly obsessed with an ideal or an idea. And I just think that this particular movie is something I feel, there's maybe twice I felt that strongly about something in my life and what is great is because it comes with such skepticism. People are just like, "Oh god, you know, a race car film." I say, "No, no, no, no, no." It's the exact same thing when I had "Rocky," it's like, "Oh, a boxing film." And all boxing films, 90% of boxing films were made to basically get around the morals code at the time, so guys can basically be in their underwear, jumping around in the ring sweaty.
So, I'm just coming from the premise that this is a story that could be a drama that anyone of you could live everyday, except that you happen to be a race car driver. So the odds are so high that if you have a fight, with a love one let's say, normally you'll finish it tonight, you'll get home and you work it out. There you don't know if you are coming back. So that's the difference. You're living under such a high pressure microcosm life. Like, an astronaut goes up once or twice in his whole life, and he faces that death. These guys do that everyday. They do what an astronaut does, literally. Q: Is that what made you want to go back to writing for "Driven?" Stallone: Yeah, because I couldn't quite translate the idiosyncrasies and the sub-layers, I guess, adequately. Because I tried, I would do anything to avoid writing it, because it's very complex. You know, when you write for "Rocky" and "Rambo," you're basically writing for one character, who surrounds himself with satellite characters. I'm just a player in this, so all the other characters and especially there are many female characters, and you have to each give them a voice, and as you are writing sometimes, the character doesn't develop a voice. It just doesn't talk to you, so everything that come out of their mouth is just superfluous drivel. It's like someone calling you up at home at 10 o'clock in the morning asking if you want to subscribe to like Field and Stream, you go, "Oh man, this voice, I don't want to hear this sound." It doesn't have an impact on you. Q: Did you have the same sort of baggage? You talked about the baggage attached to a racing movie or boxing movie. [How about your movie, "Get Carter?"] © 2000 Warner Bros. | TM & © 2000 Now, you're at that the real crossroad in your life where, you know, you are moving on to a point where you never really going to have a family because you getting too old. And now, something happens where you are forced into a whole different environment. My brother dies, I come from Vegas, I'm totally retro. Shark skin suits, dark glasses - he literally lives in the past, which is kind of a statement of where his mind is. And now he goes to the grunge city of Seattle, and he now inherited these people lives, his brother's wife, who despises him. They say, "Look, you're just a picture on the piano, you never been there." So he's never been there for anyone and now he has to be or does he want to be. So he goes, you know what, this is the last opportunity to do something human, that will perhaps give my life wake, because all he's done really is chase other bad guys. It's bad guy going after bad guy, and it's just been so redundant, and that lifestyle is probably going cost him his life and another a year or two, he just cannot keep it up. So now, it's like in the Joseph Campbell tradition, he isn't born a hero, but he is thrown into heroic circumstances.
Cross that line, and I'm going be running forever and so on. So he has to deal with this and deal with this girl, because she has this very dark secret. And when he finds out about it, it just shatters him and that's what pushes him over the deep edge. He's going to get rid of all this little girl's demons, even if it costs him his life, and you'll see in the movie, I mean, it's one of those crusades at the very end, he's going to sacrifice. Normally he would say, "I don't care, you deal with your own problems. See you later." Now, he's going to lay himself out there, and basically be on the run for the rest of his life. But at least this girl will have a clean slate. Q: Can you talk about working with some of the cast members of "Get Carter?" Stallone: Alan Cumming, he's from Broadway, absolutely a genius actor. One of those people that you know, just walks into the room and you know you are in trouble, because he already knows how to play the game. He would be doing things like, I'm doing a scene where he has been a pretty bad guy, and I'm about to exterminate him, and he's crying. He's out in the woods, and I can't believe it, he has been the nemesis [of] the whole movie. He's drooling and tears are coming, and I'm thinking, "Guys, I think he's going to have a heart attack."
He plays this Bill Gate-sian tycoon, who is�unwittingly brought in to this by Mickey Rourke. I thought Mickey Rourke has�such great presence, no matter what he's done you just don't ignore him. So he got very physical, he got up to like 200 pounds in this film. He's like a real bruiser. And [in the movie] he is one of the reasons I [the character] left town 20 years earlier, because he and I were getting into a serious competition over territory. I don't need this, I'm gone. So he's always had this hatred for me, and as soon as I come back, it's like his worse nightmare came home, so he's going to make my life miserable. And he does?he has a young girl name Rhona Mitra, another beautiful actress from England who plays a prostitute who is under his control and he uses her to get at me. Then you have Michael Caine who is interesting, because he's playing one of the characters that he threw off the roof in his other movie. But we decided not to do the roof thing, because we are taking a whole different approach. But it's interesting having Jack Carter talking to Jack Carter of another generation. © 2000 Warner Bros. | TM & © 2000 Stallone: Well, he did say one thing, there's a line in there, he goes, "You come here threatening me, if I find out you made a mistake, I just might be looking for you, might'n I Jack?" And I go, "You know you are a big man, but you are way out of shape with me. It's a full time job, so sit the hell down." So he goes, "Do you have to say WAY out of shape. (Laughter) How about just, SORT OF out of shape? Not WAY. Come on! Way?" Q: Were the scripts of "Get Carter" similar between the two versions? Stallone: There's [dialogue] like, "Your eyes are like cat piss in the snow," and then things like "way out of shape," and "'Revenge doesn't solve anything.' 'Of course it does.'" So there's these little lines from the original. But the original Carter that he played, we talk about this, I said that he was very pure in a sense that he was a killer, he was a leg-breaker, and he was totally consumed by himself. He didn't have the ability or want to care about anyone. So eventually this nihilistic approach eventually costs him his life at the end. The girl who was supposedly his daughter, or his brother's daughter, but he didn't even touch on that, or the script didn't touch on that. It just dismissed it. And he went around just eliminating everyone who he thought was kind of a front to his ego, his reputation, who disrespected him.
So when he sees the girl, and he sees the wife, he now could become a protector. �Whereas the original Carter didn't care, that character never even got involved. But that was part of the book, I mean it was a very, very intricate part of the book that they didn't focus on. So we focused on one of my [pet] subjects, which is if we could revamp our lives, if we can retread our lives, if we can re-live them, rewind them, would we go the same route? Most likely, 99% of the people would not. They would at least make a slight variation, you know, a couple of turns here and there. Well, this fellow has that opportunity. Unwittingly he falls into a situation where he is finally presented with a chance to do something worthwhile�with his life, and that's where his physical strength and his [inclination] for violence and his understanding of the criminal mind actually is an asset, because it's what keeps him alive and helps him overcome his enemies, so the young girl can live a safe life. Because if my character disappears, she would too. She would be the victim. Q: Do you have any thoughts on being interviewed by a journalist who grew up on your movies? Stallone: Yes, I do. I think it's very refreshing. It's very flattering, and I can't fool you guys.
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