Exacting, in control

Lest there be any question about whether, at 79, Warren Beatty is still a force of nature, the interview for this article lasted more than six hours. Beatty could have kept going, but I, in exhaustion, begged off. “As you have learned,” Beatty said, as we emerged on a golden midsummer evening from his Beverly Hills mansion, where we had spent most of the day, “I bleed people dry.”

We had first met a few weeks earlier, in mid-July. Beatty’s new film, Rules Don’t Apply, was screened for a group of journalists at 20th Century Fox in New York City. This storied writer-director-actor and Casanova turned househusband showed up unannounced and had attendees gather around him in the lounge, like courtiers.

The golden age
At his peak, Beatty was the epitome of Hollywood new and old; a larger-than-life matinee idol, lover boy and filmmaker whose work kick-started cinema’s new Golden Age in the 1970s, making him evermore a big deal. Now, six decades into his career, it was clear that Beatty still wanted to — and did — hold sway.

Rules Don’t Apply is Beatty’s first film in 15 years and the first one he has written, directed and starred in since Bulworth (1998), a withering take on money in politics that feels more relevant than ever today. The new film has been kicking around Beatty’s noggin for decades, and it is sort of about Howard Hughes although Beatty, who plays Hughes, does not want it described that way.

“Stop calling it a Howard Hughes movie!” he commanded, a few weeks later, during our marathon interview at the house he shares with his wife, Annette Bening, and whichever of their four mostly grown children happen to be home. “Call it a movie about Hollywood in 1958,” he continued. “Old Hollywood. Warren Beatty’s Hollywood. Warren Beatty’s old Hollywood. Or old Warren Beatty’s Hollywood.”

The movie is about an aspiring actress, Marla (Lily Collins), and an ambitious chauffeur, Frank (Alden Ehrenreich), who are employed by an increasingly delusional Hughes and forbidden, by his decree, to act on their budding love. Hughes has long intrigued Beatty, who, like the reclusive millionaire, knows both the freedom afforded by piles of money and the access to power brokers that fame allows. And, like Marla and Frank, Beatty arrived in Hollywood in the late ‘50s from a small town, Protestant background. “You could say maybe I’m more interested in myself than Howard Hughes,” Beatty said.

We were sitting in deep, dark leather chairs in his study, surrounded by books by the likes of Sartre and Hegel. The cavernous house stood silent, and Bening was away filming in London. The only ones home were a couple of staff members and the second eldest, Ben, who was on summer break from college, along with the family’s St Bernard, Scout.

Part of what drove Beatty’s interest in Howard Hughes was how the millionaire shrouded himself in mystery, which amused Beatty greatly. “Nobody was trying to get him, but he wanted them to try and get him,” Beatty said. “He wanted them to be more curious.” Of course, Beatty, himself, carefully curates what information he lets become public. During our interview, he was exacting about what was on the record and off, and he keeps a few stories in rotation.

Then there were the pauses, some so long that I wondered if he had forgotten the question. He would start a word, then stop, then start again, then sigh. The silence yawned. Planes passed overhead. This seems to be his way: Interviewers have been noting these peculiarities for decades. As it turned out, the length of the interview — unheard-of by today’s standards — was no aberration. The man likes to take his time.

Off the record
Early reactions to the new film have been glowing, he said, at least those made to Beatty’s face, although he conceded that he can’t tell if people were being polite and truthful. He certainly seems up for marketing the film and arrived in New York for yet another screening.

Afterward, he whisked me off for a light supper at the Carlyle. We settled into a banquette, I began recording, asked whether he paid attention to reviews and waited. He cleared his throat. Silverware scraped plates. A distant piano tinkled. “Yeah,” he finally said. He muttered something about Rotten Tomatoes, asked me to stop recording and, after I did, he began talking again.