No, United Artists was a very extraordinary organization, because once they had agreed on the director, they believed in letting him have his way. They trusted me, and that doesn't often happen.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
United Artists wanted to do records with me. I had no idea, what a rare thing that was... to make an album. And they put a guy with me working on songs, and I got busy with films. I just kind of let it slide. Isn't that amazing?
Seeing how those companies operate, it didn't amount to a massive vote of confidence in their artists. There was talk of me going to Columbia after that, but nothing happened. I got disillusioned, and I pulled back.
Still, the film nearly didn't happen a number of times. There were great arguments with United Artists about how to reduce the cost because they were nothing if not conscious of the price of the film.
I've worked with a lot of directors, some of them you wouldn't really attach the word 'artist' to their name.
You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.
Any artist manages his own business along with his manager. Every band should.
If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.
Yes, they allowed us to play around a lot because, like we said, the director's such a good comedy director.
Yes, I was hired by Universal because they needed a comedy director. They had seen Scandal and liked it. I saw an opportunity even in those comedies to begin my project of American films.
Yes, but the great thing about all the people - and I don't think there is any exception - who I've worked with is they've all been very, very talented musicians.