How does that sort of reaction – and the reaction when you won your Oscar – really affect the options for an actor?
Well, after I did Chicago the movie, I had every week on my desk another offer to do a musical as a film. And musicals are great to do as a film. But when they are good, they are good, and when they are bad they are horrid. What about Xanadu? But I was lucky to be part of something really magic on celluloid. Everyone thought those days were gone after the black-and-white era, and some of the musicals that have come since should have been left in the black-and-white era. But now, after my stint on Broadway, every revival of a musical is coming my way, so now if I went back to Broadway I think I would have to do straight drama.
So what sort of productions are you now actively working on or chasing?
I am open to all mediums of the business. I bought a book a few years ago, from an Australian author [Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks] called People of the Book, which I’m producing as a mini-series, and I’m starring in that, so that will be a first for me. And the movie industry is in a very strange time at the moment. Unless you’re making X-Men 71 or whatever number they’re up to, or Spiderman 51, it’s really hard to find backing.
But what opportunities does that leave you to explore?
I like those little pieces, what I call grown-up movies. Low-budget films, where people talk. But it’s very hard to get them made, and I think that economically the movie industry has been hit like everything else. I think it’s a strange time, so that’s why I’m using this time to get my golf good and I’m also starting to write a one- woman show with music and dance, so that’s something I need to put my head around.
