The Listener
In his 11th film as director, Robert Benton keeps his ear to the ground of human emotions
Talk a little about Robert Altman. He produced your second film, The Late Show. How did you meet?
He was repped by [agent] Sam Cohn and I was too. I was asked to go to a screening of Nashville before anyone had seen it. Pauline [Kael] was there that night. And the movie just took my breath away. I’d never seen anything like it. Later, when the script for The Late Show was finished, Sam took it to Altman and he said he’d produce it. I was scared shitless of him, but I loved him, even though he fired me three times on that picture. What would happen is that you’d be working pre-production in this big office, and at the end of the day, you’d sit and talk to him. He was a born teacher. He could tell you things without pontificating. He taught me to unclench, to stop being a writer who directed and be a director. He was the person who said to me, “Shut up, and listen to the actors. After the first week, they know more about the character than you.” He was a truly great artist. This will sound like a contradiction — Altman was very vain, but he had no sense of self-importance. He never acted himself. Almost everybody over a certain age, including me, acts themselves. He just was who he was.
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