someone dying is enough to make any shoot tougher than usual.
JM: Yeah, I can see how that’d be true. I heard somewhere that you didn’t like making Cloudburst, that it’s a movie you wish you’d never been associated with. But I love it, and the reviews were really good, weren’t they?
RI: I don’t know who told you that I didn’t like making Cloudburst. I liked everything about it. Who’s spreading these rumors? Where did you hear that?
JM: I read it online somewhere. I don’t remember where.
RI: Whoever wrote that is full of shit.
JM: Now that you’ve achieved a level of success that most people can only fantasize about, what’s next?
RI: I don’t know if I’m really that successful. It doesn’t—
JM (laughing): Of course you are. Unless you’re doing an independent project, you usually make a minimum of nine or ten million a picture. You don’t think that’s success?
RI: Financially, sure. But there are other things that matter more. I’d like to take a year or two off and travel for leisure, rather than only for work. I’ve traveled all over the world already, but I don’t usually have much time to relax and sightsee when I’m overseas. I’d also like to write more screenplays. I really loved writing Bourbon at Dusk, and even though the whole process was pretty arduous—I nearly gave up on it about five times—it was immensely rewarding. More than acting is. Maybe even more than directing.
JM: If you don’t mind me asking, I’m wondering if you’ve always been a ladies’ man, even before you became famous.
RI (hesitates): That’s your question?
JM: I think a lot of guys want to know how you do it, but they don’t have the guts to ask.
RI: How I do what?
JM: How you handle all of the sexual attention.
RI: Those are different questions.
JM (pausing): You’re right. I guess what I really want to know is, how hard is it being faithful if you have so many women throwing themselves at you all hours of the day?
RI: I’m certainly not a ladies’ man, and I don’t know if I have that many women throwing themselves at me. Certainly not at all hours of the day.
JM: Come on. Of course you do.
RI: Some days I do have to, you know, tactfully decline the offer of a date or two, but in general, it’s not like women are lining up around the block to give me blow jobs.
JM: I’m sure you’ve had your share.
RI: You sound like my ex-wives.
JM: They both said that?
RI: Yes. On many, many occasions. If I had a dollar for every time . . . you know the saying.
JM: Your second ex-wife, Melinda Byers—
RI: I remember her name. Thanks.
JM: Your second ex-wife has a book coming out next month, a tell-all about the four and a half years she was married to you. What do you think about this? Didn’t you have her sign some kind of prenup so she wouldn’t be able to reveal any of the secrets of your marriage?
RI: Secrets of my marriage? What qualify as secrets of my marriage? Do you mean like how often we had sex? Or how much she stole from me to give to her ex-husband, who used the money to buy heroin? Isn’t that all common knowledge by now?
JM: I guess it’s a given that you wouldn’t be too thrilled about Ms. Byers becoming an author.
RI: She’s not an author. She’s an opportunist.
JM: And a scumbag.
RI: Those are your words, not mine. Make sure that’s clear.
JM: I’m sorry that you have to put up with these kind of things.
RI: The price of fame. Needless to say, most people can’t afford it.
JM: I heard she’s calling her book This Isn’t Gold.
RI: Not a bad title, I guess.
JM: Does she mean it as in “all that glitters”?
RI: I suppose she does. I haven’t read it.
JM: Will you?
RI: Not unless I’m kidnapped and threatened with beheading if I don’t.
JM: What about your first wife? Are you two on good terms? Is she going to write a tell-all memoir too?
RI: Whatever Lucy’s faults might be, she doesn’t kiss and tell.
JM: What are her faults?
RI: I don’t really want to talk about her. Water under the bridge.
JM: Of course it is. But it would still be interesting to hear what you think of her.
RI: I almost never talk about my exes, but I will say that she’s a decent person, very smart, and I know that my work schedule was pretty hard on her while we were