Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [167]
The more Redford dove into the script, the more he shut off his own self-analytical urges. “I knew I was headed for therapy, but I decided to postpone it till after the film. I didn’t want to corrupt my read of the Jarretts, the analysis that I would put into the mouth of the psychiatrist Berger, by importing new analytical voices. I had a view of this family, of where it fell down through lack of talking, plain and simple, and I wanted to portray that on-screen, I suppose, as a kind of observational comment about the state of marriage in America at the end of the twentieth century.”
Gary Hendler was brokering what would be one of his last deals for his client. While Diller himself was flexible, Michael Eisner, Diller’s second in command, was insisting that Redford also star in the movie. “They got me over the coals,” says Redford, “because they knew how badly I wanted to direct. But I refused point-blank to even consider acting in this film. I knew exactly what I wanted on-screen and I told Gary to hold out.”
Hendler did. Eisner, according to his autobiography, was emphatic that if this gift of trust was to be given to Redford, an untried director, he would have to work for guild minimum wage. Hendler wanted a deal commensurate with what Redford was receiving as an actor. “I did not want to accept a high fee,” says Redford. “My line was, ‘Yes, I’d earned the best fees as an actor because I proved my worth. I had not proved anything as a director.’ So I insisted on Gary backing off. I said, ‘Whatever the standard first director’s fee is, that’s what I want.’ ” Hendler had been asking for $750,000. Now he accepted $30,000. When the movie scored, Diller chose to pay an unsolicited bonus of $750,000. Eisner lamented this payment, judging it “hardly worth it, since Redford never made another movie for us.”
The casting of Ordinary People was a constant preoccupation throughout Brubaker. Redford entered the process with a clear picture in his mind: he wanted Gene Hackman for Calvin Jarrett, Mary Tyler Moore for Beth and Richard Dreyfuss for the psychiatrist. Little of this went as planned. Dreyfuss, when Redford called, confessed he was going through a nervous breakdown and was therefore incapacitated. Eisner, whose nature was to be intrusive, wanted Lee Remick for Beth, and Judd Hirsch, whom Shauna thought of as the ideal replacement for Dreyfuss, was tied up on the television series Taxi, with only eight days off in the foreseeable future. Redford dug in his heels, attempting to persuade Hackman and continuing to push for Moore. Slowly a new picture came into view. As a potential replacement to play the psychiatrist, Redford interviewed Donald Sutherland. “But suddenly Donald told me straight: ‘I want to play the father.’ I was more than surprised, but I was also very touched by his directness. He wasn’t iffy. He just laid it out and in that instant convinced me.” Sutherland became Calvin, which prompted Redford to go back to Hirsch. “I just felt it was too important not to lose authenticity in the casting, so I called up Judd, avoiding the agents, since they always mess things up, and made a proposal. My idea was if I could reschedule the work in such a way that all the psychiatrist scenes were done together over several days, like a minimovie within a movie, I could finish with Judd in a very short period of time and get him back to Taxi. Judd didn’t hesitate. He loved the part and he said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’ ”
The biggest casting problem was Conrad. “We literally went around the country, trying places like the Louisville Rep, trying Los Angeles, San Francisco, the high schools.” Finally Redford’s publicist, Lois Smith, sent him a hazy videotape copy of a movie called Friendly Fire in which Tim Hutton, the nineteen-year-old son of the actor James Hutton, who had died of cancer four months previously, appeared briefly. “From the high school roundup, I’d already cast Elizabeth McGovern to play the kid’s girlfriend,