Director Richard Benjamin with Peter O'Toole on set of My Favorite Year
AVC: What was it like directing Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year?
Richard Benjamin: [Laughs.] In the beginning, I said to myself that by making this movie, I would discover who I really was. That’s what directing is: It’s your will. You have some idea of what you want this to be, and you gotta get everybody lined up in that way. And on the first day of shooting in Central Park, I was rehearsing, and I only had a few minutes, because it was meant to be right at sunrise, and that light would only last a little while. So [O’Toole] and Mark Linn-Baker rehearsed, and I thought, “Oh, there’s not enough energy here; it’s a little slow.” Mark was fine, but it was Peter. And I thought, “Okay, I have to go direct him now.” You know? I’m thinking, “Here it is! It’s the first shot in your first movie and it’s O’Toole, and I have to go tell him things.”
So I’m starting to walk toward him, and what I see in front of me is Lawrence Of Arabia and Lord Jim and Lion In Winter. I’m going to tell him that this has got to come up. So I’m hemming and hawing and, “Peter, it’s really good, it’s all good, but—” He said, “You want it faster and funnier, is that it?” And I said, “That’s it. You’ve got it!” Then I saw how this works: Just say it. Just go and say it. And from that time on, we were fine. But he was quite something. I don’t ever think we did more than three takes with him, ever. He knew everything backward and forward; it made everybody come up to him. The only thing you had to know is, do not call him out of his dressing room until you’re absolutely ready. That’s all he ever asked me. He said, “Don’t call me unless you’re really ready.” There was one time with the DP, the cinematographer, said, “Okay, we’re set.” I said, “Are you sure?” “Yep.” So I said, “Okay, go get Peter.” So they go to get him, and there’s, “Uh-oh, wait a minute. A light just blew out, and I’ve gotta go up.” I said, “No, no! He’s coming!”—[O’Toole had] said, “I don’t want to see any ladder.”—“Oh no, a ladder, a big ladder is coming out. No!”
He came out of his dressing room onto the set, he saw that ladder moving to that light, and he just made a U-turn. He was gone! He’d been on enough sets. I heard a story that he was making this Masada—in wherever that is, somewhere in the Middle East—and they called him to come to the set. And he came out, driven out from his hotel, and got out there, and then all kinds of stuff had happened, and they said, “Well, it looks like we’re going to be a while. Sorry!” And he said, “That’s all right, I’ll just go home.” So he got in the car and left. By the afternoon, they said, “Okay, we’re ready.” And they went to look for him. Well, he went home, all right—he went to Ireland. [Laughs.]
(Interview Richard Benjamin on Peter O’Toole, celebrity treasure hunts, and Woody Allen by AV club)