There's this interview transcriptt I've been meaning to post this up for a few weeks now .
Contained in the link is the transcript of the La Paglia interview by Andrew Denton in which the following interaction took place:
ANDREW DENTON: You know, you think a 25 million dollar salary is wrong for Hollywood stars. Have you ever considered...
ANTHONY LA PAGLIA: The actual thing that I say is this: The advent of the 25 million dollar actor has kind of ruined movies, has actually ruined movies. Because what's happened is this, two things. It's affected the quality of scripts. It's also affected the quality of basically the character actor. Now, I don't begrudge anybody getting paid 25 million dollars. That's fine, if that's what you're worth, and that's what the studio wants to pay you, that's fantastic for you. However, what's happened is that the studios then say, "We spent all the money on that guy or that girl and we can only pay you scale."
In the old days, if you look at the movies from the '70s, for example, even the supporting characters had an arc. They started somewhere, they went somewhere, and they finished somewhere. Now you see a character come into a film, have his two little seconds and then they're gone. There's no explanation of where they went, what happened to them, nothing. I know what happened to them - There's no money for them to do anything. It went all on the other person.
ANDREW DENTON: If you were to be offered 25 million dollars to do a film?
ANTHONY LA PAGLIA: Listen, I'm a working-class boy from Adelaide. If someone offered me 25 million bucks, my teeth would fall out. I'd have to think, yes, of course, I want to do it. But I'm also connected enough still to the real world to think this thought - I want the best actors around me because they're going to make me look even better, and to get the best actors around me, you got to pay them more. Therefore, I'll take a chance on the film and I'll take less money, but give me a piece of the back end of the film. If it succeeds, I succeed. If it fails, it's my fault too.
If you're lucky to be born with the gift of acting, with the gift to be able to act and communicate, that's a gift. As you become more successful, it's incumbent upon you to exhibit largesse as a person. You have a lot of power. You make a lot of money for really doing bugger-all, to be honest with you. Acting's not rocket science. It's not. I've never found it difficult. I found some things difficult to do, but it's a joy for me to do it.
ANDREW DENTON: Have you ever discussed this with Russell Crowe?
ANTHONY LA PAGLIA: No. I haven't.
ANDREW DENTON: I would love to hear the conversation between you about this.
ANTHONY LA PAGLIA: You know, I've met Russell on a number of occasions in the past, and I don't know what his feelings would be about that.
ANDREW DENTON: Yes, you do.
ANTHONY LA PAGLIA: Well, I wouldn't venture to... I wouldn't venture to comment on them, you know. Different philosophies. Listen, you know the truth is that Russell is probably one of the finest actors that New Zealand's ever produced. I'm kidding. He's very much Australian. He's spent his most formative years here, and he is one of the finest actors, I think, in the world.
The last bit there was with much laughter between the two men, prior to Russell throwing a telephone.
Now, the bit I want to draw your attention to is the notion of the 25million dollar man on a roster. Any roster whether it be a cast for a big budget movie or a baseball team. Coincidentally we live in a time when A-Rod gets 25million a year and Tom Cruise gets 25million a year (and I flippantly said I'd rather have A-Rod's career than Tom's - BUT I MEANT EVERY BIT) but La Paglia's point highlights that the issue of how much to pay a star isn't isolated to one project or one season or even one field. In a time when stars exist an their crowd-pulling power ergo turns into revenue/tangible outcomes for an organisation, it becomes critical for any General Manager/Producer & Director to weigh up just who they are getting on the team to represent the investors.
Put it another way, you didn't see Superstar-monster-contracts on the 2001 Mariners or the 1998 Yankees, two of the most winningest teams of recent years. The original Star Wars had unknowns play the 3 main roles supported by British veterans, and look at the profit ratio of that film. Management of projects should be putting together projects that finesse disparate parts that makes the whole, great than the sum of the parts. Then again, there's the 'Ocean's 12'/2005 Yankees approach where one grabs hold of every available suprstar and bankrolls it without a concern to the bottomline; and even then the 208million payroll needs the kind of finessing whereby rookies Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang become vital contributors to a veteran team on the verge of collapse. In other words, the kind of role-players you get define the oragnisation or project as much as the star. It's only the casual observer who only recognises the superstar
Clearly the A-Rod contract didn't work for the Texas Rangers for the very reason that La Paglia mentions. Though, to be more precise it wasn't the A-Rod contract per se, but the non-performing, yet almost equally onerous Chan Ho Park contract that ate up such a large portion of their budget. And when a Star-vehicle film flops, well, it could be because they didn't spend enough on the writing or production design or whatever. Anyway, it's probably like management 101 and obvious as daylight to some but the same logic could probably be said for NASA crews, projects and administrators. maybe the Space Shuttle program is like a non-performing big-contract eating up too much of the payroll for very little return?
- Art Neuro
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