Congratulations on a great film.
Fun, isnt it?
Ad content continues below
What I liked is that it has such a humane, uplifting tone.
There arent any villains in it as such.
Well, Mars is a killer but thats it.
Yeah, its a cold, uncaring universe.
Its a beautiful, beautiful monster.
But dont try it!
Fearing death, trying to cheat death, and not always succeeding.
I thinkThe Counseloris particularly stressful, but thats the point.
Its one of my favorite movies.
Im not like that.
I can do it, and Cormac McCarthy is a little like that.
But its the best screenplay Ive ever had, in a way.
Other than this one but this ones different.
Cormac is the real dark side of the moon.
Its about loss, tragic loss.
You pay for everything.
But I loved it.
Fassbender got it in three seconds.
He said, Christ, this is the best screenplay Ive ever read.
I can do dark things, but Im pretty cheerful.
Thats why I was able to doThelma [And Louise] I think the writer expected something different.
But by doing that, you reach more people.
If you do dark and serious, you lose 50 percent.
I felt it was a film that needed to be seen.
We got a Time Magazine cover, which I thought was very interesting.
So when I was doing it, I was a little bit naive.
I likeMatchstick Men.Thats funny.
I likeA Good Year.
Therefore, that control of fear is the ultimate sign of courage, really.
Thats the right stuff, isnt it?
If youre fearless, youre either a bit of an idiot.
If youre fearful, but you control it, then youre truly courageous.
Did you see something of yourself in Mark Watney, in his ferocious work ethic?
Youre clearly a hard worker yourself.
Yeah, I dont really stop.
Whatever I do, Im on.
But its life isnt it?
Were not here for that long.
I dont feel vulnerable in any way.
Im lucky in that Im in good health and the brains still going.
A lot of it is how you look after yourself, but a lot of it is also luck.
So working, in a funny kind of way, is a health factor.
I think its healthier.
My dad retired five years younger than me.
Retirees are retiring at 50.
What the hell are you going to do?
Its unthinkable for me to retire.
God, hes faster than I am!
Woody Allen love it.
I still sense a huge amount of creative glee in your films.
The plagues inExodus, for example.
I got the sense that your imagination was running wild there.
I like the competition.
You create a competition with yourself.
I look around and think, Ive got to raise the bar.
Thats what we do.
If we can all raise the bar in everything we do, isnt that better?
Its an internal ego, not an external ego.
I wondered what its like for you working with people whove grown up loving your movies.
I venture to make it as normal as possible!
I think Im blessed by the fact that I can draw.
Ive got an inner eye, definitely.
I was the most visual of all directors.
Thats why I was so flat-out successful, frankly.
Thats why I never did a film until I was 40.
I didnt start filming until I was 40.
Do you think well see a book of your Ridleygrams one day?
Funnily enough, I give a whole bunch of stuff to the USC.
Thats 400 boxes of stuff.
And they keep it in their archives, and its there foreever, you know?
But I keep all my storyboards.
The storyboards for one film will be this thick [indicates a six-inch pile on the coffee table].
I always keep continuity scripts because they are the final document.
Ive got the continuity script fromAlienwhich is covered in blood!
From the chestburster sequence.
From the chestburster sequence.
The burster hit the continuity editor, she dropped the book.
There was blood everywhere.
We managed to unstick the pages and we kept it.
Also, every page has got polaroids stuck in it of the moment.
So I keep certain artefacts, just out of memory now.
But theyre worth something.
I should say so.
Are you glad to be working in the genre again?
I did what I thought was a normal, Napoleonic film.
Then I did sci-fi, sci-fi.
The second one,Blade Runner,was a disaster.
People didnt get it.
I was way ahead, is what I think it was.
I knew it was really good.
I just thought, What the hell?
They just dont get it.
That was when I learned to move on and not read press.
You cant read press itll destroy you.
So then I didLegend.Legendwasnt good either!
And again, I was ahead.
[Laughs] I said, I thought that was normal!
So I went off and did a very nice little film calledSomeone To Watch Over Me.
Yes, with Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers.
Then I did various small movies.
The one about the sea…White Squall.I really loved that.
But I started to expand what I really knew, so I started to trust my visuals.
I knew it had to be an odyssey.
Because technically its the last journey of these women.
So its an odyssey, to be pretentious about it.
But thats why its kind of epic in a funny kind of way, you know?
Its my job to make things epic if I can, because people like that.
They like to be taken out of their seats and follow you into the script.
I heard yesterday thatPrometheus 2is actually calledAlien: Paradise Lost.Thats the final title, is it?
Because where we go to isParadise Lost,really.
So its Miltonian…
Yeah.
Did you ever read it?
Yes, I did.
Wow.The handsome guy gets all the fun and all the girls, doesnt he?
And hes the evil son of a bitch!
Hes the good-looking one who gets all the girls and goes to all the nightclubs.
The good one is kind of dull and depressing!
[Laughs] So in a funny sort of way, it touches on that.
There was a reason for that, right?
And youre directing that yourself?
Im starting at the beginning of March.
Are you going to direct all the sequels yourself, do you think?
[Mischievously] This time?
Last time I should have done it.
You did want to doAliens, didnt you.
Well, I didnt know that it was happening.
I was fine with it.
I just thought, Welcome to Hollywood and got on with it.
I was the last to know!
Funny, isnt it?
Its the way things go in the industry I guess.
You said withBlade Runner,it wasnt accepted at the time, but its built and built.
It grew out of rock and roll bands, definitely.
It grew out of MTV.
Isnt it musicians and those kinds of guys who get things more quickly than other people?
I always remember seeing videos for various groups and going Oh!
Because I used to watch MTV.
The band would be in it, but it wasnt just performance.
Of course performance is wonderful, but I think people in bands are often quite good actors.
And I suddenly thought, Oh, that looks likeBlade Runner, but it wasnt.
It started to happen I realised it was a huge influence on other filmmakers.
I went, Ehh?
They asked Warner Bros for a print, and Warners had lost the print.
They didnt know where it was.
Theyd lost the negative.
Then someone opened a draw and found a copy.
There were also bits of temp track from Vangelis.
It was without voiceover, and with no silly ending driving into the mountains.
The whole thing woke up.
That was 1992, wasnt it?
I spent the last two years writing what will be a sequel, and its done.
Im not doing it.
Denis Villeneuves doing it, which I think is a good choice.
Harrison [Ford] is in, and the other person Im not certain yet, but…
I shouldnt say who.
But theres somebody else whos very good, very interesting.
I think Ryan Gosling is probably going to do it, with Harrison.
So Ryan Goslings the central character, and…
Yeah, yeah.
I cant really say more than that, because itll give away the story.
But Harrisons definitely in it.
In an important way.
I love Denis Villeneuves films, but I just wondered what specific quality makes him right for this.
I thought that was the best so far.
I like some of the stuff hes done:Prisonerswas really interesting.
The film before that…
I cant remember what the hell it was.
I thought that was interesting.
Its a hard one.
He just said, Im not going to do that.
Im never going to follow through on that.
Itll be a tough act to follow, wont it?
Yeah, its a tough call.
But Im being as helpful as possible.
With that, our time is sadly up.
Ridley Scott, thank you very much.
The Martianis out in cinemas on October 2nd.
