Australian filmmaker Peter Weir captured the hearts of his masterclass audience at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday by telling a myriad of untold tales about some of his biggest films including The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society, and The Year of Living Dangerously.
The six-time Oscar nominee spoke at Venezia Tennis Club to a crowd of fans who were hanging onto every word, particularly when Weir divulged an intimate issue he had with a 25-year-old Mel Gibson and 32-year-old Sigourney Weaver on the 1982 romantic drama.
“I was very interested to do a love story for the first time, and it was the first time that Mel Gibson had done one,” Weir revealed. “And the first time Sigourney had done a love story. So we came to the scene where they had to kiss, and neither of them had ever kissed, it was like two virgins on screen.”
Weir confessed that when they rehearsed the scene, “it was a very bad kiss.” “I took Mel aside and I said, ‘Mel, what’s wrong? You’re pressing too hard.’ He said ‘No, it’s not me, Sigourney is coming too hard at me.’” The director was forced to take matters into his own hands, pulling together some of the best film kisses, including from Hitchcock.
Mel Gibson in ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’.
MGM/Courtesy of Everett Collection
“[But] Mel, I think, was right. Sigourney was the one pressing too hard. So I said, went to Sigourney, I said – forgive me, Sigourney, if you ever see this – And I said, ‘Sigourney, the only way that I can know what’s wrong, really would be for me to kiss you,’ but the DGA, the director’s guild, would not permit that, nor the actor’s equity. ‘But I wonder if you could kiss my hand so I could feel the pressure of it.’ Well, we just ended up laughing. And laughing was the way we got the scene done. We all relaxed in regard to The Year of Living Dangerously.”
Weir touched on the “trust” he built with Jim Carrey and Robin Williams on their respective films The Truman Show (1998) and Dead Poets Society (1989). “When I first met Jim, first meeting, he was very nervous at his house,” Weir begins. “…I said, ‘I think maybe [your character] could do some little things in the mirror. And he said, ‘Yes, let’s go to the bathroom. Come on.’ So we just met, we run down to his bathroom, and he takes the soap and he’s making a funny little comedy in the mirror. And that was 10 minutes after we met.”
“With Robin, I said, with him: ‘Let’s see how low you can go. You’re very full and big to your comedy. But I think maybe just raise one eyebrow and there’ll be a little laughter in the room. Just look at small things. Let’s see how small we could go. But do not lose your charm.’ So there was trust.”
Weir is the recipient of this year’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 81st Venice Film Festival.
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