Movie Maker - USA (2020 - Spring)

12 SPRING 2020 MOVIEMAKER.COM

PREPARING

MY DINNER WITH ANDRÉ

Exclusive excerpt from This is Not My Memoir

BY ANDRÉ GREGORY AND TODD LONDON

EXCLUSIVE BOOK EXCERPT

LEFT: COURTESY OF FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX; RIGHT: PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST

(Editor’s Note: My Dinner with André famously consists almost solely of a philosophical conversation over dinner between two longtime

friends and unknowns at the time: film and theater actor Wallace Shawn and actor and theater director André Gregory. Since its premiere

at the 1981 Telluride Film Festival, Shawn and Gregory have maintained that the versions of themselves in the film are strictly fictional,

although elements of their actual experiences and personal lives do make their way into their winding conversation. This exclusive

excerpt from Gregory’s forthcoming memoir, This Is Not My Memoir, recounts how famed French director Louis Malle joined on as

director, the endless hours of excruciating memorization Gregory endured, and the nigh impossible path to funding.)

ALLY CALLED ME and
said something like, “Listen,
I know what you’re going
through, and when I’m
your age I don’t want to
go through it myself. So in order for me to
prevent that, what do you think of the two
of us sitting together, you telling me your
stories, and out of that we might create
a talking heads TV show?” Not an earth-
shattering idea, but okay. Sure, why not?
And so we sat in a tiny classroom in
New York and talked. We recorded these
talks on tape. We began each day with
a story of mine. They weren’t all about
eating sand in the Sahara with a Buddhist
monk or being buried alive. Just stories.
About anything at all.
The stories would become conversation.
About anything at all.
We talked and talked. It was fun. It
was fun to be with Wally. It was a relief to
do something. And it was great not to be
alone. It went on this way for months. We
discussed almost everything.

WALLY TOOK THE COUNTLESS HOURS
of transcript and reduced it to a script. Even
so, Wally had written one of the longest
screenplays ever, with a role for André
that would become, I believe, the longest
speaking role in the history of film.

AS IF ANYONE IN THE WORLD would

want to direct a movie written by and

starring two unknowns, who sit at a table

for hours and do nothing but talk, we set

out to determine the perfect director for

My Dinner with André (a title so mundane

that I wanted to change it). Bergman

would be good, we thought, if only he had

a sense of humor. Richard Avedon might

be interesting, if only he were a director

and not a photographer. Eric Rohmer? Not

profound enough. We considered nearly

every movie director alive to shoot our

“masterpiece.” But even if someone would

agree to direct this lunatic project, who in

the world would want to see it, except for a

handful of friends and loved ones?

ONE DAY MY FRIEND Diana Michener

came over for tea. Diana, a fine

photographer, told me she was shooting

a series on death. I said something like:

“Wanna see death? I can show you death.”

I put on a suit Pierre Cardin had given me

when Alice opened at his Paris theater.

I always thought it made me look like

a vampire. “Oh my god,” she said. “You do

look like death. May I shoot you in that

suit?” “Sure. Why not?”

We shot the pictures in her studio.

We planned to go to dinner afterward,

and Wally, also a good friend of hers,

came by to pick us up. He carried our

“masterpiece” under his arm. An admirer

of Wally’s plays, Diana asked to read the

screenplay. “Sure. Why not?”

A COUPLE NIGHTS LATER I got a call

from a man with an odd French accent.

He claimed to be Louis Malle. He had just

finished our script and sounded as if he were

in tears. “If you don’t want me to direct it,”

he said, “I would love to produce it. The only

thing... I beg you... no flashbacks. It must

W