Dave Fanning
You were known to work with Robert Altman and all. Just thinking about the directors now, you were known to work with Robert Altman and Susannah York and all the rest of them in Images. What was that like? Was it easy?
Gerry Johnston
It was tough because Robert Altman arrived on the set every morning and said like ‘Change the scenes, new scenes.’ And on the Friday he said to me, well the first assistant came rushing out to me. We had a table tennis tournament going on with Susannah York and that was our partner. So we were going off to play table tennis and next thing, the AD called me back and said ‘Robert Altman wants to talk to you’ so I went back in. And he said ‘I want, on Tuesday to blow out this particular actor’s stomach and I’m going to use a double barrelled shotgun.’ So I had to say ‘Right okay’, this is a Friday evening. So I went and checked in my workshop at the time and see if we had enough latex. We hadn’t got enough latex so I rang a colleague of mine. He said he’d see about it so I decided to go to the production office and order a gross of condoms because I needed the latex as a backup in case I didn’t get the tins of latex over.
Dave Fanning
You couldn’t exactly buy them over the counter in a chemist’s shop in those days.
Gerry Johnston
Well you couldn’t buy them because they were illegal, yeah, in the seventies. So, the production secretary at the time rang the production accountant in London on a Friday afternoon late and he had to go out and buy a gross of condoms for me and he got a request to get some underwear for Susannah York. So on his way back –
Dave Fanning
A suitcase of underwear and condoms.
Gerry Johnston
On his way back he was apprehended at the Customs in Dublin. The Customs asked to open the case and this guy opened the case and seen all the ladies’ underwear and he had to take it out in front of people passing through and then he had to produce the condoms and all that. And he was so embarrassed. So they threw him in the clink at the airport and they had to ring the production office and verify all this. It went on for hours and I got a, when he came back to the studios at the time he sent for me and he said to me ‘Don’t ever ask me to get condoms again.’
Dave Fanning
Did it work by the way?
Gerry Johnston
Yeah we got the shot. We got the shot on the Tuesday.
Dave Fanning
You know, speaking of getting the shot. An awful lot of it is you get one shot at getting the shot. Because all the stuff that you got, you mightn’t have it again or you mightn’t be able to use it. So you might be using 5,000 quids’ worth every second, you know for two or three minutes. Often is the director trying to say ‘Okay we’re all ready now’, hold on a minute we’re actually not, I don’t have it ready yet buster. So you might have to wait four hours or a day. Have you ever said that? Because you might have had to say that.
Gerry Johnston
Oh many a time, many a time if we’re pushed by directors saying, ‘Look we got to go, we got to go, got to go.’ And it was like, well I remember I did Neil Jordan’s first film Angel.
Dave Fanning
Angel yeah.
Gerry Johnston
And it was near where the British Ambassador was blown up and we were right across the road, you know as there was a bit of confusion with the police and the Special Branch and everything. No one knew –
Dave Fanning
They hadn’t got the message that you guys were making a movie.
Gerry Johnston
They hadn’t got the message so, you know Neil Jordan said to me ‘We got to go, we got to go, we just can’t wait around.’ And I said ‘Well we’re not going yet till I have fire cover’ and we were waiting for these Green Goddesses to come down and it was a Friday evening, six o’clock on a Friday evening –
Dave Fanning
Stuck in Dublin traffic.
Gerry Johnston
coming down from Sandyford in Dublin through traffic. So it was all the police trying to get them through and everything. So once I seen it coming in the gate, then I fired, I blew up this ballroom, at the time, simulated. And in the meantime, five minutes later there was all these guys jumping around with machine guns, Special Branch guys.
Dave Fanning
The real deal yeah?
Gerry Johnston
They thought it was the real thing after happening because apparently the Ambassador rang, said to his wife ‘I’m on my way home.’ And it was about, calculation was roughly where he was going to be when the British Ambassador was blown up before. So, it was a lot of, they were pushing guns up my nose because they kept saying ‘It’s him, it’s him.’ You know?
Dave Fanning
Do you ever think yourself it was the dumbest place ever to have to do that? I mean like when you think about what happened with the British Ambassador. I don’t know when it was, was it ’76 was it?
Gerry Johnston
That was, about, I think it was ’74 some time, ’74, ’73.
Dave Fanning
Whatever, okay, it was Ewart-Biggs. And like, why would you have to blow up a thing for Angel for Neil Jordan right there? Could you not have found somewhere else?
Gerry Johnston
Well, I mean they picked the location but I did say to them at the time, you know, ‘A couple of hundred metres away is where the ambassador was blown up.’ But then you know, ‘Ah it’s fine, fine, it’s the location.’ Though I’d say, ‘well did you pick the location?’ I do my job; I notified the security and that. The security is supposed to notify other certain security, production is supposed to do the same but as far as I was concerned I did my bit.
Dave Fanning
Do you care about a reputation that a director might bring? Like other people might be in awe or might be scared. Because you’ve worked with some of the most fickle kind of characters I’ve ever come across in terms of reading about directors in the past. Like for instance, you worked with Sergio Leone. Now I don’t know how fickle or crazy he is but I do know he doesn’t always speak English very well, that’s one thing for starters. He’d done his dynamite or his Fist Full Of… movies, the Clint Eastwood etc. So he was like, well known. Did that mean anything to you when you met him?
Gerry Johnston
I didn’t know who he was, you know. Again, sort of again -
Dave Fanning
You’re better off.
Gerry Johnston
This guy is, we’re shooting this in a pub and he said, ‘You shoot the person’ and I said ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m here for; that’s my job.’ So he made me strip off, then to fire this, to fire the bullet in on my skin to show him. And he said ‘That’s fine. I want more blood. I want loads of spaghetti’ he said. So we got the shot and that. But then I realised, I heard who he was. I said, ‘Wow, great; I’ve worked with him as well.’
Dave Fanning
And what about the guys you were working with on the movie? There was Rod Steiger in that one?
Gerry Johnston
There was Rod Steiger, there was James Coburn and I think, I’m not sure whether Clint Eastwood –
Dave Fanning
How was James Coburn? Was he cool?
a. Shooting Barry Lyndon
Gerry Johnston
He’s fine, grand just ‘What am I doing?’ you know? A lot of these actors, a lot of these actors, experienced, seasoned actors and actresses; it’s great. It’s sometimes you have the problems with some of the actresses or actors coming up the way sort of like, you want to be the belle of the ball, you know. One thing, it happened when we were doing Barry Lyndon with Stanley Kubrick. Brian O’Neill, this coming through big actor at the time and that and he always, a lot of the Irish actors were great. And Kubrick really loved the Irish actors at the time; they delivered the lines, acted well. But Brian was always like;
‘How did I do Stanley? How did I do?’
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘What do you mean fine? You know, you tell everyone else they look great, but you don’t tell me I ever look great.’
So there was always that little thing, that you meet these particular guys.
Dave Fanning
And would Kubrick do every shot 400 times? Every scene?
Gerry Johnston
Yes. He’d all the time. And, if we had to, if he wasn’t happy with a set, it was like, ‘Change it. I don’t like it.’ That’s what he did; he’d just walk into –
Dave Fanning
You’ve got a throwaway line in the book which is brilliant about Kubrick when he was taking his soup, dribbling down his beard, yeah?
b. Anecdote
Gerry Johnston
Yeah. Yeah well I was after finishing a film called Zardoz with Sean Connery and a guy called Bernie Williams was the producer. And he said to me, ‘Look, I want you to do a movie.’ So when I said to Boorman at the time, he said to me, ‘Now hold on. I’m not finished the film yet, I want to do another week or two.’ So, he held me on. So they got an English guy and then he got a crew together and they came over. And when I finished on the film, I went and I start showing Kubrick effects. So I was asked to take over the movie and the rest of the guys just went back to England at the time. And at the time I went out to set the scene one day because if you went on the set and you weren’t involved, you were fired. So you have to have a reason to be on the set, you know. You couldn’t visit on it. So there was one day, a particular day we were, I sort of decided because we were going to do a big tracking scene in the movie. And I said to him, ‘Stanley, I have so many things, going to do so many explosions fires and everything like that.’ And he was like that drinking his soup with a beard and the soup was going down his beard and he was rubbing it in his beard. And he just said ‘Treble it.’ And that’s all he said to me and then after that I got on great with him. It was like he was a bit of an eccentric, you know, Stanley.
Dave Fanning
Was he now? But they all are. I mean like I noticed the way you mentioned John Boorman for the first time in the last 10 minutes you said ‘Boorman’. Let’s be perfectly honest, I hope he’s not here because I know he lives down in Annamoe. Anyway, you didn’t like him at first did you?
Gerry Johnston
No, we had a run in the first time. It was a problem we had. We were doing a shot where this bread like French sticks –
Dave Fanning
What was this? Was this Zardoz?
Gerry Johnston
That was Zardoz, yeah. That was the first film. And you know, I was at camera, I always stay at the camera you know, so I can see what’s going on myself. And I always like to be standing there.
Dave Fanning
So you can see if it works as the audience might see it?
Gerry Johnston
I can see if it works and where the audience are going to be looking at it and that. So I like to stay at the camera. And one particular scene we were doing was all the steam coming these tubes, hundreds of tubes and that. And whatever happened, it broke down. So Boorman said, ‘What’s the problem?’ and I said ‘I don’t know. I’ll go and see.’ So I went around the back and there was a remark passed about the effects, you know? So what happened was, the generator spiked. There was a surge of power blew the fuses in the machines and we didn’t know that. Because behind the scenes and all the guys, my crew and electricians were trying to find out what went wrong. But there was a remark passed about me at the time.
Dave Fanning
And you didn’t like that.
Gerry Johnston
And I didn’t like that. I don’t care who the, whether it’s the biggest director or whatever it is, I don’t care. I’ll just challenge them. So I challenged him at the time and I just said ‘I want an apology’ and he just went on. I just said to the first assistant director, ‘If he hasn’t given me an apology by four o’clock, I’m going, pulling my crew, my equipment off the film.’ So, he didn’t apologise but he said ‘Look, okay this is movie making’ and that and we kind of got on well and then after that we just got on like a house on fire.
Dave Fanning
Yeah, and you worked together again.
Gerry Johnston
We worked together on many movies.
Dave Fanning
There was one scene where you were there with Boorman. And to get back to Stanley Kubrick, before Barry Lyndon or anything, before he had done it. And he’s on the phone and you pick up the phone and say it’s something like ‘Old Kubrick’ or something.
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, I was passing by and I picked up the phone, like on the stage. And this guy said;
‘Can I speak to John Boorman?’ and I said, ‘Can I ask who’s speaking?’ and he said ‘Stanley Kubrick.’ And again, I didn’t know who he was at the time. So I said, ‘Right, okay. Can I ask what it’s connected with?’ ‘Just say it’s Stanley here.’
So I went to Boorman who was doing a shot with Sean Connery and he just said, ‘Look, tell him I’m busy, you know, I’m busy. I’ll call him back.’ So I just went back to the phone and said, ‘Look, he’s very busy. He’ll call you back.’ So, I just happened to be going out the door again, what a coincidence. And someone said; ‘There’s a guy called Kubrick on the phone.’ So I said ‘Okay I’ll take it.’ So anyway, took up the phone. So I went back to John and said it to John and he said ‘Oh tell him I’m busy, I’ll ring him back.’ And the penny dropped on me then. This is the guy coming into Ireland about doing a big movie called Barry Lyndon so I was a bit more polite this time. I said ‘I’m very sorry sir, -
Dave Fanning
Were you now?
Gerry Johnston
- he’s not here.’ And I ended up working with him.
Dave Fanning
Yeah, exactly. But, okay like, but think about the way you went from that from Zardoz to Barry Lyndon which is 23rd Century to 18th Century. Is that just the nature of the gig like? Everything is just, it doesn’t matter what it is. Do you care about what the movie is?
I don't care as long as it's work.
Dave Fanning
It’s just a gig that you have to do.
Gerry Johnston
It’s just a gig like.
Dave Fanning
The gig that you have to do. What? The gig that they say they want you to do or the gig that you think you have to do? Like your man has now said what he wants but I know what he really wants. Is that the way you look at it?
Gerry Johnston
Well the
Dave Fanning
You’re in charge.
a. Reading script
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, I’m in charge. I mean basically I get the script, break it down, read it, see what it’s all about. Whether it’s 18th –
Dave Fanning
Oh really? You’d look at the script, would you?
b. Decide effects
Gerry Johnston
Oh yeah, I’d read the script, break it down, see what the effects is going to be. Then I sort of, then I talk to the Production Designer, the Art Director. And then I talk, I always like talking to the director because what the director sees and perceives is maybe totally different than what the art department.
Dave Fanning
Do they usually know what they want or do they just trust you, the Art Department and everything else, props, the works?
Gerry Johnston
Well you know, I mean good production designers have a wellestablished, person has maybe done a lot of this before. Same as myself so we kind of have a good idea of kind of what it’s all about. But, yes, sometimes directors don’t know what they’re talking about.
Dave Fanning
I say it that way because I met a bunch of directors. Sometimes, I think half the time I don’t know what they’re talking about. But you have worked with the biggest directors that you could possibly work with. Every one of them right across the board. So I’m just wondering are these guys good for the whole vision of a movie?
a. Master of his craft
Gerry Johnston
Well I think the guy I’ve seen this with, who’s a master of his craft is Spielberg. He knows so much about effects.
Dave Fanning
Does he?
Gerry Johnston
He does, yeah. And he gets into it and he talks to you about it and how will that be and you’ll say yeah. ‘Well I don’t see blood in this. I want to see dust coming off the hits.’ Which you know, very seldom a director will ever ask you that.
b. Saving Private Ryan: First 30 minutes
Dave Fanning
Were you involved big time in Curacao Beach for Saving Private Ryan?
Gerry Johnston
Curacao; I was only involved in the first half hour. You know?
Dave Fanning
Sure that’s the most talked about half hour in movies in the last 10 years.
Gerry Johnston
Well it was and it was at the time, it was great because there was four supervisors and they’d different areas to work at and that. And it was, in actual fact the adrenaline was running through you as you were, when it was the first shot up was a master shot of all the amphibious craft coming in.
Dave Fanning
And do you feel you’re on more attention?
Gerry Johnston
Oh yeah.
Dave Fanning
‘Stephen Spielberg is right in front of me and I’m in charge of all that.’
Gerry Johnston
Well it strikes you like, it’s like, you know the minute you touch those buttons they’re firing. You’ve got to look all around you, wait for your cues; you’ve got to take the cues yourself.
Dave Fanning
Are we talking rain, are we talking sea, are we talking shots, are we talking fire, are we talking about everything you were doing there?
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, everything. We were creating explosions there in the water; we were creating bullet hits in the water. Which again we used. The bullet hits, all you’ll see in the movie. The bullet hits were shot in a tank where we were firing bullets and air through and all of that to get the effect. And which was, which looked very realistic when they were underwater.
c. Great effects and greater emotion
Dave Fanning
That’s what I’m saying. Like the power of the way the shots seemed to hit on the screen and the awfulness after five minutes. I remember going to the movie and was told the first half hour was like this. And then another 20 minutes I was like, ‘I won’t be able to take it.’ It was really heavy stuff. The noises you got when the bullet goes through the water and all that kind of thing. Is that you?
Gerry Johnston
Yeah, that’s us. I mean we rigged the whole beach, we rigged the whole beach with a lot of compressed air and then we’d have electric little manifolds. And we’d have all sort of little valves, electric valves that would let off sort of a gush of air under huge pressure. So you could see this ‘pe-ew’ through and you’d see just a gush of air, looks like a bullet’s after going through the water and that. And a lot of the detailed stuff for the bullets was done in a little tank back in the UK. But most of the time, the explosions on the beaches, fires, blown up people. And there was one particular part when it was one of the big scenes where it was the main shot, master shot where they all arrive on the beach and it was so realistic. And it was even some of the guys that were in the Second World War, veterans were crying behind. And we felt it as well and when it was all cut there was a hush and you could hear sobbing and that. And I felt like the adrenaline was running through me at the time.
Dave Fanning
And I felt that when they were puking all the time they were puking for real.
Gerry Johnston
Oh yeah, they were real. I mean that’s what happened as well. Because when the soldiers were taking out in the boats, they’d no water, they weren’t given any food and they were dehydrated. But that’s what Spielberg wanted to see. You know, to see this thing. I mean these guys maybe the army were never out in a boat before. Terrified. But it was a great shot at that particular scene where we did that shot where there was silence and then Spielberg asked for bullhorn and he got on with it. And he just said, ‘You guys can fight for my country any day.’ He said ‘I’m absolutely proud of you guys.’ And that was the Irish army you know and the FCA. Because all those guys were after coming off Braveheart so that’s a huge experience. I mean these guys were telling Mel Gibson how to direct.
Dave Fanning
If guys go over to Ireland and look for stuff like that, like – ‘I want the Irish army here, I want armoured vehicles here, I want this, that and the other’; can they get them for any big movies? Is the point? I mean if you go to Morocco, they hand you over all these things in a minute. ‘How many horses do you want?’ etc.?
Gerry Johnston
No, I find here, sort of, you know as over the years, going back over the years it was much easier years ago. When I started in the business you just, it was like one guy, he would talk to each department, government department and he had tremendous clout.
Dave Fanning
Somebody in the Irish government you mean?
Gerry Johnston
Yes, the Irish government. But nowadays you know it’s you have to go to that department and that door and the government is not really interested, they are, they say there are, in film. But I always say; and it’s the same as on a lot of the films we shot: Braveheart, Into the West, Ryan’s Daughter, it brings in tourism. You know? And that’s a huge thing for this country.
Dave Fanning
But I mean Dingle, there’s huge tourism to Dingle for Ryan’s Daughter, huge tourism for Far and Away with Tom cruise.
Gerry Johnston
That’s right and apparently now is they’re going to build a village back there again for tourism in Dingle. But again we need the government because if you go to other countries, you go to Morocco, you go in, they give you a package: you want 20,000 horses, you want 5,000 horses, you want arms, you want the army, you want the navy, you want helicopters. You just get it, that’s it, it’s like the American system. You know, you go to America and you give the script to the department and they’ll have people who’ll sort of organise it for you. Here it seems to be sort of like you know; you’re beating your head against the wall all the time. The same if I want to do, if I want to apply for to import any pyrotechnics, I’ve got to ask them six or eight weeks beforehand. I mean that shouldn’t take that long. You know, if people who has a track record, it’s bringing in money, not to be holding up productions. You know a lot of movies would come in here in the morning but there’s a terrible lot of bureaucracy goes on.
Dave Fanning
You mention in the book, just to get back to kind of stars for a second. Oh yeah by the way, on Saving Private Ryan, what’s his name? Tom Hanks. There you are having your meal and this guy sits down beside you. It’s Tom Hanks and he’s 41 that day.
Gerry Johnston
He was 41, yeah.
Dave Fanning
And then you had a big party in a tent.
Gerry Johnston
He had a big party. Well we used to, we used to break at different times and sort of some of the crew would stay on during lunch and get things ready for after the lunch and that. So I took it that I’d take the first break and I was on the first break and that. So I’m sitting on my own and another one or two guys beside me and the rest of us nobody beside and facing. And a guy, this guy came up and he said to me after the first day, he said ‘Do you mind if I sit down here?’ Stephen Spielberg said it to me and then we got talking. Then he said ‘I have a little surprise party here today’ and I said ‘Oh really?’ and next thing a big cake came along and Tom Hanks just happened to come in at the same time and it was a surprise party for him. And I was happy to be there and it was a great privilege.
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