Graydon Carter: Vanity Fair's main man talks to Hollywood's brightest star about magazines, moguls, movies and much more

NK: And is he happy with the film?

GC: He wasn't happy at first. I remember the first time we went to Bob's, when we had started working on the film. I saw that swimming pool and it just made me think of William Holden in the opening scene of Sunset Boulevard [1950] and I thought, This is going to end badly. [Kidman laughs] Later, when I picked up Bob in a convertible and we were driving to Paramount to show him the movie for the first time, I felt like Erich von Stroheim in Sunset Boulevard.

NK: Did Bob have control over the film?

GC: No. So we're going through the studio gates and the gate attendant said, "Hello, Mr. Evans." And Bob said, "Hi, Ernie," or whatever the guy's name was, and it felt like another scene from Sunset Boulevard, when Gloria Swanson shows up at the studio. [both laugh] We screened the movie, and I'm watching Bob, and he's crying throughout the whole thing. He loved it, but he also hated it.

NK: What did he hate about it?

GC: He hated that it existed, I think. It's very tough on him in parts, and he's very candid about that when you actually see it.

NK: But it makes him an icon.

GC: Definitely. And the studio people who have seen it just wish life could be like that again--when you could make movies that changed the culture or reflected the culture.

NK: That's what I felt when I was watching it. What has happened to those times?

GC: Money might have changed things. The stakes are so high now. Everybody makes too much money. Actresses, you know. [laughs]

NK: I wouldn't put myself in that category. [laughs] Well, today the risks are higher and films aren't allowed to find their way.

GC: They open in 2,000 theatres now. in those days, you could open movies in New York and L.A. and sort of build them. Bob was the last of a breed of great, colorful, charismatic, but also very intelligent filmmakers. They initiated movies rather than sifting and waiting for things to come in. This film represents a simpler, more naive time.

NK: I also think the colorful characters are penalized nowadays.

GC: That's absolutely true. If you have a cocktail at lunch in Los Angeles, you're considered out of control. If you smoke, you're considered out of control.

NK: Discipline, discipline, discipline. That is the way in which you get things done. But creatively, that's very detrimental.

GC: Yeah. I mean, you don't see a beard, a mustache, a sideburn. You don't see anything like one would in the old days.

NK: Well, there's Russell Crowe.

GC: Well, except for Russell. [both laugh] Exactly. And they think he's an eccentric!

NK: Whereas back in the '60s and '70s, he would have--

GC: --absolutely fit right in. He could have run a studio looking like that.

NK: Would you like to run a studio?

GC: No. I love running my magazine just the way it is.

NK: You'd probably be very good at running a studio.

GC: I'd try to be like Bob Evans.

NK: That's where I was segueing. [laughs]

GC: I'd get aviator shades and buy a nice house and I'd be just like Robert Evans. But without the girls and the cocaine. [Kidman laughs]