Cover Story

8 6 e s q u i r e february 2011

What I’ve Learnedfeaturing

RobeRt De NiRoWitH

samuel l. jacksoNHassan HatrasH

aNDy shallalsuLaiMan LaYeQ

coliN fiRthnasif KaYed

seth macfaRlaNegeOrge H.W. BusH (and BarBara)

ali al ahmeDand

rOBert duVaLL

t h e w i s d o m o f m o d e r n m a n

february 2011 e s q u i r e 8 7


ROBERTDe NiRoICON , 67, NEW YORK


hose who say don’t know. Those who know don’t say. That holds up over time.So does: if you don’t go, you’ll never know. I tell that to my kids.Ten years seems only a few years ago.If it’s the right chair, it doesn’t take too long to get comfortable in it.Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.We made a rubber wall for the jail scene in Raging Bull. It was hard rubber foam. Smashing your head into a real wall wouldn’t have been possible. You’ve got to do it till you’re happy. I’d like to look at all of my movies once just to do it — just to see what it makes me think, to see what the pattern was. But with all the movies I’ve been in, that would mean watching two or three a day for a month. I don’t know where I’d get the time. If Marty wanted me to do something, I would consider it very seriously even if I wasn’t interested.My definition of a good hotel is a place I’d stay at.

If I remember correctly, there were not many sequels at the time. The Godfather was one of the first [to have one]. So we didn’t think about sequels the way we do now. I remember seeing the entire street between Avenue A and Avenue B converted into the early Twentieth century. The storefronts, the insides of the stores. The size of it was incredible. You knew what you were doing was ambitious.I’ll always be indebted to Francis. When I did The Deer Hunter, I thought, Thailand is such an interesting place. I’ll be back soon. But I didn’t get back for something like eighteen years.Everybody can criticise. But at the end of the day, you know Obama’s intentions are in the right place. You should’ve done this. You should stand up for this more than that. The president’s got to deal with that every moment. Imagine what it would be like with all the different forces coming at you, having to compromise, to weigh the consequences of one decision as opposed to another. It’s tricky. Come to think of it, it’s kind of like being a director.I always tell actors when they go in for an audition: Don’t be afraid to do what your instincts tell you. You may not get the part, but people will take notice.If you don’t do it the right way now, it’ll never be what it should be — and it’s there forever.It’s always the same old story — the fine line between the money and quality. Do we have to spend this for this? Well, yeah, because if we don’t…If there’s a shortcut taken when you’re building a hotel, people are going to notice and feel cheated out of something. It’s kind of like a movie: cumulatively, all the shortcuts and cheats take away from the texture.Sometimes if you have financial restraints, it’s a benefit. It forces you to come up with a more creative way.I just go to the theatre. Nobody bothers me. I don’t even get recognised. I do it a certain way.Couldn’t get into the IMAX 3-D Avatar.As long as you’ve got kids, there’s gonna be a problem.I don’t know if I’ve been taught anything by my kids. But things are revealed to me. They unfold. Now you’re a grandfather. And your kids are giving you advice. It’s interesting when your kids give you advice. I had a conversation with my oldest son the other day. He was saying, “You should do this… and this… and this.” Not that I agreed with him on everything. But it was a good feeling.You get older, you get more cautious. Situations come up that you’ve been through and you can see where they’re gonna go.Good advice can save you a little aggravation.I just had my twins here. They’re fifteen. When I was a teenager, there were less restrictions than I put on my kids. But I know those restrictions are important. Yet they have to have room. It’s a delicate balance. You say, I survived it. How could they? And yet they do. With a little luck.I might laugh more now than when I was younger. I’m less judgmental.It takes a lot for me to give one of my father’s paintings as a gift.I’ve kept my father’s studio for the last seventeen years — since he passed away. I’ve kept it just about the way it was. At one point I was thinking of letting it go. Then I had a gathering of family and friends — you know, to see it for the final time. Videotape it. But I realised it’s different in person than it is on video. It’s another experience. So I’ve held on to it. Be brave, but not reckless.No matter what Marlon did he was always interesting. Shows you how primitive things used to be: we set up a tripod to videotape Marlon’s scenes in the screening room at Paramount so I could study his movements. I watched it on a reel-to-reel.Marlon and I never talked about our performances in The Godfather. What was he going to say? We knew each other. I spent time on his island with him. But you don’t talk about acting. You talk about anything but acting. I guess the admiration is unspoken.Yeah, you can make new friends. I recently met a couple of people that are a lot younger than me. It’s a nice thing.Some people understand what it is to create something special, and others are thinking what they can get out of it.I’m not going to read all the books I want to read. I might like to do things that are more retiring. Like sit in a place and just look at the view. Take a nice walk. Have a coffee. But not retire. As long as I’m enjoying what I’m doing, why retire?You go through a lot of different phases in life. I used to have dessert all the time as a kid. Now I don’t eat dessert much. Except when I’m in special restaurants and I tell myself, Well, I’m here, I have to have the dessert. Now is now. Then is then. And the future will be what the future will be. So enjoy the moment while you’re in it. Now is a great time.

interviewed by CAL FUSSMAN

october 26, 2010

photographS by NIGEL PARRYT


I never asked for anything except a purple lightsaber. George said, “Well, lightsabers are either red or green.” I said, “Yeah, but I would like a purple one.”I was raised to be cautious. I went to work with my grandfather, who cleaned office buildings and furnaces, and there would be twenty-year-old guys callin’ him Ed, and he called ’em Mister. My grandfather was this old guy,

very dignified, but he never looked ’em in the eye. He’d look at me like, “Turn your head down! Don’t look the white men in the eye ’cause they’ll think you being uppity or arrogant.” Now the name of my production company is Uppity.I was the crackhead in Jungle Fever. I was two weeks out of rehab. I’d been smoking cocaine for a year and a half, two years, and I understood the nature of the disease. I had done the research. So when I started talking to Spike [Lee] about it, I said, “You don’t see him high that much. You always see him when he needs something. He’s on a mission to get some s***. That’s what I wanna do.” And that was my breakthrough. That got me into Hollywood. It was the perfect marriage of experience and opportunity.I don’t understand how people live without creating. You know? I don’t know how you do just one picture a year.When they killed Kennedy, black people were thinking, Oh, my God, white people are gonna come down and kill us all today! All the rights that Kennedy gave us are going away! So they sent us home from school and said, “Stay in the house.”I wasn’t one of those people that was gonna walk around and get spat on and get slapped and not fight back. We were doing some crazy things, like stealing

people’s credit cards and buying guns with ’em. And because of that, some FBI people showed up at my mom’s house in Tennessee and told her she needed

to get me out of the South or I was either gonna be locked up or killed. So she came to Atlanta and took me to the airport and put me on a plane for L. A. When I came to New York, it was bubbling. We watched each other, we encouraged each other, we went to auditions together, we rode trains together, and every Monday we had great parties. But it was also a time of, you know, drugs. All of a sudden, Morgan’s gone. Boom. Then Denzel’s gone. The opportunities were there, but I was just never prepared because I was a little bit off, you know? And then when I finally got it together — boom! It just happened.I always wanted to do a big pirate picture. I haven’t had a drug dream in ten or twelve years. All of a sudden, I had one, like, two weeks ago.

What I’ve Learned

interviewed by joHN H. RICHARDSoN

photograph by MARCo GRoB

I spent eleven years as reporter for the Saudi Gazette and Arab News, and I was a stringer for many international media firms during that time. Now I’m a freelance photojournalist, filmmaker and musician. The bottom line is, as with so many others like me, I’m a survivor. jeddah is addictive. It’s vibrant and it always surprises you with a new underground lifestyle. Saudi Arabia’s culture is unknown to most of the world, and it has been stereotyped by the media. There is more to it than meets the eye in terms of cultural and social diversity. It deserves more attention. Believe it or not, we have the fewest restrictions in the Arab world when it comes to journalism. The freedom of press has dramatically evolved throughout the last ten years and those boundaries were pushed and widened by the media itself. I never liked politics, it just doesn’t compute in my mind. I concentrate on stories that could help fix things in reality. Saudi Arabia is certainly heading towards more openness at all levels. Many youngsters have studied abroad thanks to government grants. They will surely come back with more open minds and new ideas that will lead to a better developed society. I can’t be stereotyped. I’ve had different experiences compared to most guys of my generation. I’ve lived abroad a lot since childhood and this path led to making me who I am today. Do I feel like an outsider? I’m generally an outsider to this whole world order.I can’t say that I haven’t considered leaving. But then again, if I and others like me leave, who would help create change? Besides I love my city. It carries all my good memories. I’d love to see the eradication of corruption. It’s a phenomenon that is fought by the government, but it is still increasing in a frightening rate. Religion is a vast word. I consider myself a believer by trying to be a good human as much as I can. It irritates me when people link Saudi Arabia to oil, religion and terrorism. None of these elements can be linked to one country or race; they are things that can happen anywhere. A country is measured by its culture, art and social behaviour. Those are the things that evolve throughout history and become the identifying label of a society. Music is the purest language that is understood by all living creatures. It can always touch your soul. Music is the language I feel comfortable talking and is the sound I feel happy to hear. My tombstone is going to say: Here lies a misunderstood man who misunderstood life.

interview: orlando crowcroft. photograph: haSSan hatraSh

hassan hatRashWRItER , phOtOg Raph ER , m u s IC IaN , 37, J Eddah


samuEl. l jacksoNaCtOR , 62 , N EW YORK

Even in the dream, you’re hiding s*** from people! People that you know pop up in the dream and you got this big-ass ball of cocaine in your hand and you stick it behind your back and go, “Yeah, I’m alright.” And then you wake up and you feel as bad as if you’d actually done it.I went to the movies a lot when I was a kid. That was my joy. Saturday mornings, my mom kicked me out of the house, I went to the movies at nine in the morning and watched cartoons and serials and the double-feature horror picture, and then I would meet her later for the adult stuff. So I love movies that way. So I’ll do a movie like Snakes on a Plane, and I’ll do a film that’s very serious. And I’ll do a comedy, because it’s there.I’ve never been to jail. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never been locked up. I’m a good son, a good father, a good husband — I’ve been married to the same woman for thirty years. I’m a good friend. I finished college, I have my education, I believe in education, I donate money anonymously. So when people criticise the kind of characters that I play onscreen, I go, “You know, that’s part of a story.”I wanna be a scratch golfer for at least one month in my golf career. That’s all I want.My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter’s life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of what informs us staying married for thirty years. ’Cause everybody has a chance to say, “F*** it,” and walk away, you know? But you also have a chance to say, “Okay, f*** it, I’m sorry.” Even if you’re not. I haven’t done a western yet.


anas “andy” shallal aCtIvI st / sOC Ial ENtREpREN Eu R / g REEN bu s I N Es s maN , 5 5 , Was h I NgtON dC

You need to adapt to your environment. My formative years were filled with upheaval. My diplomatically trained father held the post of Arab League Ambassador, and in 1966 our entire family decamped to the U.S. from Baghdad. Saddam Hussein’s rise to power then ruled out a return home, and we were forced to put down permanent roots in America, even though everything was strange and new.I’m a rebel and a rule breaker. My wife Marjan is Iranian and we met during the Iraq-Iran War. Some people made comments but I didn’t care. I wanted to show people there was a different way to the enmity of the time. A business that is not grounded in social justice and community is a business not worth having. I can’t imagine

doing it just for the money. I think you should dream big and act small. Very successful entrepreneurs rarely start an enterprise to make money. Yet most of them do. Sometimes in life you need to take risks. My father’s diplomatic career was suddenly over when he was forty-two. So what did he do? He bought a pizza parlour and made a good life for himself and his family here. He taught me that to get ahead you’ve often got to be brave and take a leap of faith. Having regrets in life is pointless. I’m happy at my life’s journey, but even if I wasn’t, it’s meaningless trying to change things that can’t be changed. You just have to learn from you mistakes and move onwards. I tell my kids to take the worst part of themselves and work on it — that’s the best way to improve one’s character and forge ahead. Ignorance and mistrust can be dangerous. My early years in Iraq and the U.S. taught me how crucial it is to keep breaking down social barriers. I learned that giving people of all backgrounds a place to come together, engage in dialogue and develop relationships and mutual understanding is very important.I hate the sight of blood. In 1987, I bailed on a career in medicine to open a restaurant with my older brother, Tony. From there it was a natural progression to the opening of the first Busboys and Poets in 2005. Busboys and Poets is a real labour of love. It’s a culmination of all my passions under one roof — a restaurant, bookstore and performance space with a progressive political agenda.Many Americans have a false sense of democracy. Don’t get me wrong — I love America and espouse its values, but when those values get trampled on I get upset. For better or worse, big business drives the U.S. and the little guy or the environment often loses out. I’ve learned that giving people the forum to speak out about injustice, be it in my restaurant over soup, or in an organised debate, or even via a blog, is the best way to preserve those American values.Restaurant owners can be social engineers. Working in my father’s pizza joint taught me the gratification that comes from filling a need in the local community. As my career as a restaurateur developed, I realised I could play an important role in bringing people together. Good food leads to good conversation. We have a peace deficit in the U.S. We cannot continue to resolve problems by bombing and waging invasions and wars. Iraq and Afghanistan have proved that. Running a green business is a real challenge. Getting hold of green products can be a nightmare. For instance it was nearly impossible to get green cleaning products. We had to educate suppliers on what “green” means.Politicians thrive on divisiveness. If everyone got one with each other, we wouldn’t need them. Five things I can’t live without: my Apple laptop, strong coffee, a sketch pad, the gym, and my favourite green pen. I only write in green ink. It’s a habit I developed about a year ago. I read that Langston Hughes only used green to write his poetry. It gets me in the right state of mind. These are items by the way, not people.Art is crucial to my life. When I first came to the U.S. as a young boy I was very shy. I had a bad stutter and found interaction with people difficult. My art teacher was the first person to recognise any talent in me. Under the shelter of her wing I learned to rely on painting and drawing as a way to express my feelings.Managing Arab-Israeli dialogue can be enlightening. In 2000 I co-founded the Peace Café — a Washington-based Arab-Israeli discussion group — as a forum for debate. I grew up in a family where you couldn’t say the word “Jew” or “Israel” without being scolded, so just being in a room with Jewish people was really transformative. It was cathartic.It starts at the grassroots level. Those who attended Peace Café discussions, including myself, came to realise that there wasn’t any great difference between Jews and Arabs, or blacks and whites for that matter. Of course there are always serious underlying issues that need to be addressed, but we’re so much more alike than different.

interview and photograph: daniel allen

What I’ve Learned


After you’re nominated for an oscar, it’s not as if you wake up the day and suddenly there are fifty wonderful scripts on your doorstep. I may have only received three scripts over a given period beforehand and if those three were not particularly good then it doesn’t help you if there are suddenly fifty that are not particularly good. It’s very hard to write a good script.

You’re never in a world of perfect choice.

Sex symbol of Middle England? I was quite delighted. I was thirty-five when that happened and was starting to think that I was passing out of the romantic zone completely, so it was quite invigorating to be a sex-anything past a certain age. It helped keep me employed too. A good story is a good story whether we are using a conceit of the 1930s or 1800s or pretending we’re all French. The “period” I never really notice, frankly. Other people talk about it more than I do. It feels stranger to shoot things in a contemporary setting because you’re thinking, “this is my era and these are shoes I’d never wear.” The idea that I’m troubled by the Darcy thing is completely untrue. It has become something that certain elements of the press seem to like. It seems inevitable somehow. That thing about me being a reluctant heartthrob... Hey, listen, I’m not remotely reluctant! There’s something marvellously

subversive about Mamma Mia. A lot of stories out there end in extolling the bourgeoisie virtues of marriage and this is very anti-marriage. This is not only about people being sexually alive in their fifties but it celebrates not getting married and being free and breaking some of those social mores. ABBA has not been my listening fare at any point in my life, but it has that capacity to loosen people up. I lived in Nigeria until I was four. I can think my way through the house, the atmosphere, the light, the vegetation, the people I knew. It’s still there in my mind and it’s still quite potent.

What I’ve Learned

cOlinfiRth

aCtOR , 50, aRmaN I hOtEl du baIour party did not name itself a communist party. You cannot find this name in the literature of our party. Now, when they address our party as a communist party, it surprises me.We believed in the reality of the classes and class struggle, but in an Afghan manner.I had my own ideas. I was not a dead fish swimming wherever the water went. Today I am in the same situation.Always I am an optimist. At the time I was in prison and under the shadow of death I was not hopeless.If you were in my position who would you choose to follow: America or the Soviet Union? The country that doesn’t give you one dollar or the one that opens its pockets and tells you to take what you want?As far as us killing mullahs or sending them to jail is concerned, I think that’s propaganda. I accept we ignored them, we did not have a dialogue with them, and this was one of our big mistakes.Here in Afghanistan you will not find a village where there are three houses without one mosque.There is a difference between me and the last generation. I believe that religion is necessary for the people because the people need to follow a religion. But it should not be used for political aims.Always the ruling circle wants to impose itself on people without paying attention to the local community. That was even a serious problem in our government.The fight in Afghanistan is not the fight of Afghans.Why has Britain come here and fought four times when it keeps losing its soldiers? Greed and arrogance.If humans can find a way to go to the stars and capture them instead of the land, then they will not eat and drink the blood of each other.Wisdom and passion. Humans live between a balance of these two. When the passion gets stronger, fighting, corruption and differences are the result. When the wisdom gets stronger, then they will go towards peace and reconstruction. God created humans like this.The philosophers of Western countries must answer this question: do they have the power to control the greed of their ruling circle?I remember the words of Bertrand Russell. I have a lot of respect for him.There are some revolutions that are not rooted in the needs of society. They are imported by a class, or according to a specific planned idea, and most of them do not have a national base. These revolutions do not have good results. For example, our revolution and the Iranian revolution.I knew of Ronald Reagan from the cinema. It’s not up to me, but I think he was not worthy of being a president. Maybe George Bush benefitted the U.S., but our people do not like him. He loved fighting.Afghans have a habit. Any country that brings its forces here, they hate it. This is their psychology.our idea is that America should look at the rest of the world with a sympathetic eye.What was the biggest mistake the Russians made in Afghanistan? Coming here.

interview and photograph: chriS SandS

sulaimanlayeq gOvERN m ENt m I N I stER du RI Ng th E 1 979 tO 1 989 sOvI Et OCCu patION Of afg haN I staN , 80, Kabu l

interview by MATT PoMRoY

photograph by ISADoRA BojovIC


cOlinfiRth

aCtOR , 50, aRmaN I hOtEl du baI

I grew up surrounded by people from different parts of the world. My background in some ways has more to do with India than England because my parents were born and raised there. My brother and I were the only two in my family that were born in England. None of my children were born in England. It’s just an accident of how my family has worked out that I tend to see life well beyond the borders of the United Kingdom. People might assume I’m a Tory, but through the generations as far as you go there is not one Conservative. They’re academics, church clergymen, doctors, a lot of philanthropists and people who travel the world. Xenophobia and the anti-immigration stance are all based on a false fear that is easily whipped up because it’s a very powerful political and electoral tool. If you can create a bogus enemy and blame the social or economic ills on them, then you can do it at very little cost when it comes to the outsiders.

It’s utterly shocking that we’ve spent a lot of time locking up children and innocent families, traumatising them. Asylum seekers don’t have any rights, they can’t vote, they don’t have a voice in society and it’s very, very easy to persecute people in that position. You can create a completely hidden community. A broad upbringing helped me as an actor. It’s based in relating to the imagination and I’ve been exposed to cultures. I did publically support the Liberal Democrats but I’m now without any political affiliation. I’d have liked to see the Lib Dems consolidate the direction they were going in but they’re in a coalition government with a party I don’t like and whose ideology does not square with mine. And that’s true for a lot of people. A day is a long time in my business, just as it is in politics.

colin firth waS gueSt of honour at the annual chivaS legendS dinner


If you want to do something, just do it. If you want to write, if you want to draw, if you want to animate — you just have to do a lot of it in your spare time. That’s how you find your voice, that’s how your find your style. You’ve got to put your nose to the grindstone to really get good at it. I was nine when I started cartooning professionally for a local

newspaper and all those years helped a lot. Collaboration’s the key to success. When we’re putting an episode of Family Guy together, the team throws a hundred different ideas at the wall. The finished show is a combination of the best of the best ideas. You can go too far. There were times, particularly back in the early days, when going too far was a constant concern on Family Guy. A joke once came up about Kirk Douglas and his current condition and that was dropped very quickly. I mean, the guy was f***ing Spartacus. As for today, I think we’re well aware of what we can and can’t get away with. It’s a line we walk with some confidence. George Lucas is a lovely guy. When we talked about doing the Star Wars episodes, Fox thought there was a good chance he would nix the idea. But he couldn’t have been more helpful. It’s quite something to send-up a guy’s film and for the guy to offer you all the help you could ever need. Know your limits. Lovely guy as George Lucas might be, there were a few things we did that he wasn’t so happy about. In the first Star Wars parody, Blue Harvest, we wanted to change the Jawas into the Jewas. That had to go. You’re never too old to love Family Guy. When we created the show I imagined it’d appeal to the fifteen-thirty demographic. But every once in a while I get an eighty-five-year-old that comes up to me and says they are a fan of the show. That’s surprising — pleasantly surprising. It’s pretty well known that I dodged a bullet [on September 11, 2001, MacFarlane was meant to be on the American Airlines plane that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center but missed the flight after a night’s drinking]. What do I make of that? That hangovers are good for you? I really don’t know. “Fan” is short for fanatic. Family Guy and American Dad have some wonderful fans. And then there are those people you bump into who’re dressed exactly like Meg. God bless them, but, in my book, that’s a step too far. Everyone has the right to s*** on one another. South Park has been s***ting on Family Guy for years. They gave up two-and-a-half hours of their show to s***ting on our show. Have we ever contemplated revenge? Oh man, I’m just thrilled that they have that much time to devote to us. Respect your elders. I wouldn’t be doing what I am today if it wasn’t for The Simpsons. That show changed everything. Because of their success, Fox had become the place for primetime animation. Matt Groening’s a good friend of mine. Does it bother me when his show takes a whack at ours? No, we’re both grown-ups. Adam West is a genius. To a lot of people, he’s still just Batman. But I’d seen him in a pilot called Lookwell! that was written by Conan O’Brien and it became my dream to work with him. What he brings to Family Guy is unique.

What I’ve Learned

I lived in North Carolina for twenty-five years. I started a restaurant business and had a dozen and a half outlets within ten years. Not coming from an elite family, it was easier to start from scratch over there. There was nothing here. Back then, black hair and dark skin meant you were foreign. We were named according to whoever was in the news. We were Iranians, Libyans… But they were hospitable people and once you got to know them you could get by okay. They were kind people. There is more good in America than there is bad: the freedom of speech, freedom to express, freedom to worship however you want, the concept of being who you want to be... America was built on the principles of hard work, freedom and equality. But after Bush’s re-election, his “them and us” mentality began to rub off negatively. I thought it was only fair that my family could live without this attention. It became disheartening. The Middle East was not conducive to my life compared with the States. But then Dubai exploded and became the happy medium between West and East. I wanted my kids to learn the kind of tolerance you see here.Islam teaches you to look at life as half full, not half empty. on September 12, 2001 I was in the newspapers talking about how this act had nothing to do with Islam. I asked for patience and a chance to learn about each other. We brought the faiths together. In the beginning pastors would say, Is this going to work? But slowly slowly it did work. Jews, Christian and Muslims. We weren’t there to convince each other. We were there to learn about each other.The SMCCU was the perfect vehicle for me. A non-profit organisation where you have the freedom to ask anything. I became a full-time volunteer when I returned. I came from nothing to being a self-made millionaire. But I came to realise that you drive only one car, you live in only one house. I go from crack of dawn through to night. Speaking, talking, exchanging. No money has ever given me the same gratification.We don’t have the free will to choose whether we are male or female, born rich or poor, what colour we are, the choice of when, where and how we die. So what do we choose? Deciding between wrong and right. This is what Islam teaches.Without a woman that is educated and inspiring where are we? Prophet Mohammed, PBUH, married a trader who was older than he was for whom he had worked. Does that tell you something? Think about the cold war and all those stereotypes. All that time and energy and money wasted on those weapons.It’s a short life. You only leave the good you did. I would loved to have lived in Al-Andalus..This was a golden age for humanity. It was an era of peace and inventions. Jews Christians and Muslims prayed in the same place on their different days. They knew they all came from the same God.I still cook meatloaf, Carolina style. interview: Jeremy lawrence. photograph: leSter ali

nasif kayeD g EN ERal maNag ER , s h EI Kh mOham m Ed C ENtRE fOR Cu ltu Ral u N dER staN dI Ng , 47, du baI


Never second guess your

fans. If you’d have told me at the outset Stewie and Roger would be the most popular characters I wouldn’t have given you the time of day. But there you have it — an effete baby and an even more effete alien are the shows’ breakout stars. Don’t panic. When Fox cancelled Family Guy the first time, I think people thought I might go to the wall. But I wasn’t ruffled because I was still under contract to Fox. They still had to keep paying me. I just didn’t have to go to work any more! Circumstance is everything. Would American Dad have existed if Bill Clinton was in office? Of course not. American Dad only came into being because we started moving backwards in America. Stan Smith is the prototypical post-9/11 paranoid American whose every reaction is an angry, knee-jerk reaction. Don’t be ashamed of your past. I’ve been to Star Trek conventions, back when I was in high school. I wouldn’t say I was proud to have attended them, but doing odd things is part of growing up. It’s like Michael Caine says, “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done rather than the things I haven’t.” Singing at The Proms was the thrill of a lifetime. I was invited to take part in an evening’s celebration of MGM musicals. To be in the Royal Albert Hall performing “Singin’ In The Rain” in front of an 92-piece orchestra – that’s an experience I’d have gladly paid to make happen. No grown man should know how to speak Klingon.

sETh macfaRlaNe W R ItE R - pRO d u C E R - aCtO R - s I N g E R , 37, lO N d O N

interview by RICHARD LUCK

photograph by GETTY IMAGES


GeorGe h. W. Bush: Dad led by example. Mother would lecture us. She’d say, Give the other guy credit. Nobody likes a braggadocio, George. Don’t talk about yourself all the time. Dad would just go out and do stuff. He would come home from Wall Street on the train. The other men would all go home and have a dry martini. He’d go down and serve as the moderator of the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting. And we remembered that.

oh yeah, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall… they make them in San Antonio.What struck me about her? Her beauty. Her sheer beauty. And her dress! She had on a green-and-red dress. Spectacularly beautiful woman. And I asked somebody, Who is that beautiful girl? That is Barbara Pierce, why? I said, Well, I’d like to meet her. And he brought her over. We said hi. Then they started playing a waltz. I said, Barbara, I don’t know how to waltz. And she said, Well, let’s sit down. So we sat down, and the rest is history. Been sitting down for sixty-five years.Never did learn to waltz.

BarBara Bush: I think you ought to treat your spouse like you treat your friends. You clean your house for your friends, you make sure they’re taken care of, and a spouse comes second. I think you oughta treat him like a friend. It’s been pretty easy. You might not know this, but Bar’s not that difficult to live with. If you each go seventy-five percent of the way, it’s a perfect match.

I waited till my eighteenth birthday to sign up. My dad wanted me to wait two more years. But he was all for it. He was proud of you. I think that was the only time you ever saw your father cry. He took me down to the station to say goodbye. And off I went. Knew nobody in the Navy. It was different then. ’Most everybody wanted to serve. Your brother was physically not eligible because of his eyes, and it killed him.

I was walking out of the high school chapel at Andover. And somebody came running across campus and said there’s been an attack. The next day, December 8, they convened a special chapel service. The headmaster, a tough guy, said, “Alright, when you hear that ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ played, I want to see you guys standing at attention! I don’t want you slouching in here like you’ve done here all the time.” Never forgotten it.

I went back to Chichi-jima in 2001. They said, This is where your plane went down. It was very emotional for me. You go to this little town and there are all these Japanese kids with flags —“Welcome, welcome.” I don’t remember a lot of the details. Also, I think of my mother — “Nobody likes a braggadocio, George.” I’d rather sit and look at the surf out there. So beautiful. I was offered a job on Wall Street by my uncle. But I wanted to get out. Make-it-on-my-own kinda thing. You told me that you sat on the subway and realised you wanted to work with something you could touch, not Wall Street. Well, I don’t remember that. But I could well have said that back then.

gEORgE.h.W.bush

fORm ER pREs I dENt, 86 , aN d fI Rst ladY, 8 5 , KEN N Ebu N KpORt, maI N E

WiTh

BaRBaRa bush

interviewed by A. j. jACoBS

September 20, 2010

photographS by CHRIS BUCK

What I’ve Learned

1 0 0 e s q u i r e february 2011

I’m going to do one more parachute jump. My ninetieth birthday, June 12, 2014. I liked it better when they let me do it solo. Now I go strapped onto some guy. My third-to-last jump, they said, I don’t think you should jump today. I said, What are ya, worried about an old guy? They said, Well, how about a tandem jump? So I did a tandem jump. I’ve been doing it ever since. But the solo is much more fun. The USS George H. W. Bush is a great thing in my life. It’s amazing. A great honour. The difference between this and the old carriers when I was a pilot is unbelievable. Five thousand people on it — it’s like a city.Gorbachev was always very pleasant. I was the first one to have any contact with him, because I went over as vice-president when he took office. And so I told Reagan that we’ve got a different guy here, a different leader. He’s easy to work with, good sense of humour. Could be tough, he could get angry, but I liked working with him. I give him great credit for how the world is today. I got this letter today, asking Barbara and me to come to his eightieth birthday. I went to see Lyndon johnson, and I was telling him I wanted to run for Senate. And he said, “The difference between the Senate and the House is the difference between chicken salad and chicken s***.” Johnson was amazing. I don’t write letters anymore. Got a few to write now, to thank doctors at the Mayo Clinic. But other than that, I just don’t do it.

When I was president, trying to rally the country behind what became Desert Storm, Jimmy Carter wrote to all the members of the United Nations Security Council and urged them not to support me in the resolution that would have given all countries, really, the right to use “whatever means necessary,” and aggression. That means use force. And he lobbied against it. He went to foreign leaders. I mean it’s just unconscionable. They asked him about it last night on the TV.He was proud of it.

one of our meals in China was upper lip of wild dog. Why the upper? They have to leave the dog with something. After they told us that, we weren’t hungry.

Taylor Swift is very nice. Twenty years old, unspoiled lady. Tiddlywinks is a very important game. We haven’t played lately, Barb. The secret — it’s the wrist action. It’s a delicate flip with the… it’s hard to explain.

Most restaurants we go to, they remember — you’re the one that doesn’t like broccoli. You gotta be famous for something. Well, the worst thing about the time that I was president I think was losing the election. Yeah, I really wanted to win, and I read smart reporters saying all these harsh things, like “He’s not really trying” and “He feels he’s got it.” And that’s not really true at all in my view. So that was a hurtful thing.I loved going to Camp David. That was a marvellous getaway. You get on a helicopter, you’re up there in twenty-eight minutes from the White House lawn. You get off the chopper and there’s no press, no nothing, you just go in and see the top-run movies. You could talk to foreign leaders without intrusion.

I didn’t give him any advice at all. But I was a very proud dad. Too late, if he hadn’t learned by then. He had a good example.

I never said, Now that you’re president, here’s what you’ve gotta do — no advice like that. He had his own people around him, good people. I had my chance.

What is my most treasured possession?

Your boat. I was going to say my boat, but I’m trying to think if there’s something else. Your father gave you something. Wings maybe? You gave them to George W. Bush. I think the boat is my favourite possession. But we’re not “things” people.

If I could accomplish one thing in 2011? Probably I’d say be alive and not be drooling. How about getting George P. home [from service overseas]?He’s asking me, darling. Maybe have a great-grandchild. We have none.

jimmy [Carter] was terrible to George, so I didn’t ever appreciate that. You don’t criticise a successor and other presidents.

february 2011 e s q u i r e 1 0 1

What I’ve Learned

I wouldn’t, and he did. He got very personal about George, and I never appreciated that.Dana Carvey is wonderful. He never was hurtful. I mean, he was funny, you know… “Wouldn’t be prudent.” Very nice.

The great thing about Air Force one is when you go to some foreign country, it’s kind of the symbol of the United States. People are pointing it out and… magnificent aircraft. Magnificent.Compare it to the Russian one we were on. Well, that was old and awkward.

Dark and dreary.

But we don’t wanna criticise because we were lucky to be on it.

The Queen’s bedroom was good. That’s where we stayed when George was president. There was kind of a wicker thing over the toilet in the Queen’s Bedroom. There I was, sitting where Barbra Streisand had sat. I couldn’t believe it! Cut that, George. Why? What’s wrong with that?

I loved “Hail to the Chief.” Loved it. Not like Jimmy Carter. He thought it was too much folderol.

What was it that Phyllis Diller said? “All my friends are dying in alphabetical order.” She looks at the obituary, “Oop, yep, there he goes.” So there are not that many of those left. A lot of the good ones are gone.

What did I think my kids would do?

We thought that they would be dictators.

No, we didn’t know.

We just prayed they’d grow up. They were all wonderful and we were very

blessed. They are.

I got pretty good at horseshoes. I got to be family champion here for a while. I think the phrase “kinder and gentler” resonated. I don’t remember how I came up with it. Probably some speechwriter wrote it. But I felt that way. Still do.

It’s much worse to read criticism about

your son than yourself. He read every word. Read it. Listened to it.

I love the phrase “insurmountable

opportunities.”

I was arrested for the first time when I was fourteen years old. My family and I were travelling through Doha Airport when we were detained and sent back to Saudi Arabia. We were thrown in jail for a month.I remember it very vividly. Imagine you are a kid in eighth grade and somebody asks you: “What did you do wrong?” And I said: “That is my question to you? Why am I here? What did I do!” But I was a kid and I had that fighting spirit inside me, and I think that continues today.After that I became an activist. I recruited people into the opposition, I was a member of the opposition. I was a reporter for human rights, basically, writing down information and mailing it to a PO Box in London. They tried to arrest me several times but each time I was lucky. I was ahead of these people, and I left before they arrested me, so I was lucky.When I left Saudi Arabia I chose a school in the U.S. that had a cultural outreach programme. We would go to neighbouring schools and speak to the students about our culture. I did a lot of them. There was a kid who was extremely afraid of me. He was only twelve years old, but after I had finished talking he came and he said, “I’m sorry I thought you were going to kill us.” I spoke to this kid and I embraced him and said, “No, we are not all bad. There are people who are good and there are people who are bad everywhere.”People were surprised that I chose to study journalism. Most Saudis go to the U.S. to study engineering, physics or medicine. After the oklahoma bombing in 1995, CNN and other American media suggested that a Muslim was responsible. When it emerged that in fact it was an American Christian, I wrote about it for a newspaper. I said terrorism has no religion. You could be a Christian, you could be a Muslim, you could be whatever. People kill people.I think that is something that has always lived with me. I always stood up for what I believed in, and sometimes I paid a heavy price for it. But, hey, I survived.My mother had a huge influence on me. Her father was the ruler of his region in Saudi Arabia and she had nine children. I even look like her. She always has opinions about things and yet she is a woman who does not read or write.I don’t have children. I have always been married to my work.I set up the Gulf Institute to promote understanding of the region overseas. I am a fellow at the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom. That’s part of the U.S. Congress, so it’s pretty special.The best agent for change is people. When I convince eighty percent of our people that it is their right to have an elected government, then no one can stop that. We don’t only want English fighter jets. We want English law and justice. We want education and freedom. This would the benefit of the West, because extremism grows in our environment.The West often looks at the Gulf as an oil barrel and whatever happens around that barrel does not really concern them.When push comes to shove Muslims in the U.S. are seen as dangerous people, no matter how long they have lived here. As a Muslim there is a huge red sign around your neck. You are seen as a potential terrorist.I’m glad I did what I did. I could have worked in finance and made a lot of money, but this is much more fulfilling. But I think I could’ve done better. I think I could have sometimes said nothing instead of saying certain things that got me in trouble.I am a journalist, that’s my first function. But my priority is my country and my region.I worked on several prisoners’ cases from Riyadh. I worked with one of the brothers and when they were released the brother named his son after me. I never met the guy, but he knew I’d worked for him. That’s an honour that you cannot buy.The thing I enjoy is to speak my mind. Even in criticism of the U.S. government, people ask me why do you say that? I say what, do you want me to lie?

interview by orlando crowcroft

ali al ahmeD sau dI aRab IaN JOu RNalI st, aCadEm IC , pOlItICal aCtIvI st aN d dI s s I dENt, 44 , Was h I NgtON dC

1 0 2 e s q u i r e february 2011

Seeing your name on the list for KP [kitchen patrol] or guard duty when you’re in the Army is like reading a bad review.When I knew nothing, I thought I could do anything.A friend is someone who many years ago offered you his last $300 when you broke your pelvis. A friend is Gene Hackman. If you don’t have heroes in the beginning, you don’t grow.Making the first Godfather was more laughs than making Godfather II. That’s because Jimmy Caan was in the first Godfather.Sometimes I’ll be flipping the channels and come across The Godfather or The Godfather II. I’ll say to myself, Let me watch five minutes. Coppola made them so beautifully that I end up watching the whole thing.Coppola always wanted my mother’s crab-cake recipe. He came to my house to talk about doing Godfather III, and I wrote

it down for him. But I decided not to do Godfather III. It boiled down to money. If you’re gonna pay Pacino twice what you pay me, fine. But five times? Come on, guys. The thing is, when Coppola left my house, he forgot to take my mother’s crab-cake recipe. He kept calling, but I think it was more for the recipe.A young actor once asked me, What do you do between jobs? I said, Hobbies, hobbies, and more hobbies. It keeps you off dope.Sometimes working fast is better than waiting, waiting, waiting to get it right.“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like victory.” People come up to me and say it like we’re the only two people in the world who know.The attention I get on the street is enough to be flattering, but not so much to be a nuisance.When you dance the tango fast, you have to think slow.I met my wife in Argentina. The flower shop was closed, so I went to the bakery. If the flower shop had been open, I never would’ve met her.I was a little concerned about being with a much younger woman at first. So I asked Wilford Brimley about it. Wilford is a very sharp guy. He used to be a bodyguard for Howard Hughes. He said, “Let me tell you something, my friend, the worst thing in the world for an old man is an old woman!”You never know how reality is going to coincide with your dreams. You’re optimistic, and you go from there.A horse is not like a dog. It don’t love ya.De Niro, how’s he doing these days? He’s got his own set of rules, that guy.When I was four years old, I observed a sheepherder eating at my uncle’s ranch in Idaho. I couldn’t even speak well, but I said to my mother, “That man eats like this.” And I started imitating him. All the cowboys and cowhands were laughing at my imitation. So I guess I’ve always enjoyed characters.I feel like our country is just a big giant kid with tremendous talent — like an athlete. A big giant kid that’s made mistakes, but there’s a lot of potential.Maybe I’m wrong. But I think if the United States went down, it would be kind of a dark world. Sometimes, when you look back on it, the $10-million-and-under movies are some of your favourites. You get to a certain point where your career kind of works for itself — although you can never take that for granted.Getting together with friends and holding court over a meal is one of the great things in life. Say hello to Brando and he’d know you wanted to say hello to him, so he’d ignore you. He had a way of playing a game with life. You never knew what to expect. Because other times, out of nowhere, he’d reach out to you in a way that was very special.When I finished Lonesome Dove, I said to myself, Now I can retire. I’ve done something. Let the English play Hamlet. I’ll play Augustus McCrae.What is it that Michael Caine says? “You don’t retire. The business retires you.” So until they wipe the drool away…virginia’s the last station before heaven.I have this great horse named Don Manuel — Manu, for short. When your photographer comes, Manu will probably try to get into the picture. He always does, that horse.

What I’ve Learned

ROBERTDuvallaCtOR , 80, fauqu I ER COu NtY, vI Rg I N Ia

interviewed by CAL FUSSMAN october 8, 2010

photograph by GILLIAN LAUB

february 2011 e s q u i r e 1 0 3

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