Warren Beatty, grand old Hollywood lech and bedder of many foxy actresses, now hogtied family man

Questions for Warren Beatty: In the Picture – by DEBORAH SOLOMON (from the NY Times)

Q: Twenty-five years after its release, “Reds,” your film about a generation of American radicals caught up in the romance of the Russian Revolution, is enjoying a new life. On Wednesday, it will be shown at the New York Film Festival, and later this month, it will be released on DVD for the first time. Why is it that you declined to do a single interview when the film originally came out?

I felt that a picture should stand on its own. I felt I might get in its way.

In that case, why are you speaking about it now?

Because I believe that the picture has found its mark, and at this point I don’t run a risk of distracting from the movie.

You never seemed that cautious about speaking about “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Shampoo,” “Bugsy” or any of your other two dozen-odd films.

I’ve always felt that talking publicly about movies when they come out is a little like walking into a kitchen when a soufflé has risen to its peak and stamping your foot.

Do you think anything is lost by viewing a film like “Reds” at home?

There are pros and cons, but I like the idea that for a three-and-a-half-hour movie, the viewer can put it on pause and go to the bathroom or the kitchen or say; “I’ve had enough of this. I’ll finish it tomorrow.” They are in complete control of it. They are the projectionist.

A film like “Reds,” which came out in 1981, is not likely to be made today. It’s an exceedingly lengthy liberal film that was born at the height of the conservative revolution. Do you know if President Reagan ever saw it?

Reagan, whom I considered to be a friend, invited me to bring the picture to the White House and to show it. We were friendly from when I came to Hollywood in my 20’s. He wanted to see the movie.

What did he say afterward?

He was very complimentary about the fact that I had produced it, written it, acted in it and directed it at the same time. But what he said about the film, after it was over, he said, “I was kind of hoping for a happy ending.”

You yourself, as a left-leaning activist, have been mentioned as a possible political candidate for decades.

Rather than run for public office, I would prefer to eat my own knee.

Many Democrats were hoping you would challenge Schwarzenegger in the coming California governor’s race.

I am afraid I am not generous enough to do that with my life. We have four small Eastern European countries who live in our house, and it causes me so much — I’m hopelessly interested in my children.

Why do you refer to your three daughters and one son as Eastern European countries? Are they bureaucratic? Secretive?

No, but I feel that sometimes an exchange of ambassadors would be helpful.

For so long you were the poster boy for American bachelorhood. Now that you’ve settled into a marriage, do you find monogamy difficult?

No. I would imagine that marriage without it is difficult.

Well put. What are you working on these days? That same film about Howard Hughes you started a decade ago?

I didn’t hear you.

You don’t want to talk about it?

I’ve never talked about movies that I am planning or thinking about, because I find if I talk about them I don’t do them.

When you see your wife, Annette Bening , go off to work in the morning, do you wish you were also going off to act?

No, I don’t. We do two different things. She is, I believe, one of the finest living actresses. It has somehow evolved — or devolved — that I wind up producing, directing, writing and acting, and then I go years between these spurts. Almost every film I have made since my first one has felt like a comeback, because I go out to real life and then I come back.

How old are you now?

142.

Do you have any thoughts on aging?

I’m very much against it.