Q: You mentioned the difference between knowing and remembering your lines. How touch was it for Ryan O'Neal to do that role in "Barry Lyndon," because it's easily his best work.
Leon Vitali: I think one of the things that Stanley always thought about, I think, is the thing about this notion of acting. Because what he wanted to do more than anything was for Ryan to be a protagonist, but he wanted him to be rather than to act it. So keeping him still and stable without over-elaborating was the principal challenge, really. It's a very different thing from, say, if you look at Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange where Stanley encouraged him to come out with something big and almost outrageous.
Q: Malcolm McDowell once said he credited Lindsay Anderson, with whom he'd just done "if...," with helping him find the character of Alex. Is there truth to that?
Jan Harlan: I remember how excited Stanley was at having found Malcolm. We liked "if..." and thought there was a real talent there. Malcolm delivered fabulously well in "Clockwork Orange" and Stanley was extremely happy with him. The relationship fell apart for all sorts of reasons, I think. There was a big misunderstanding which I do not want to talk about here because I consider it private. I cleared it up with Malcolm in the meantime. But, yeah, Malcolm was pissed off. There's no other word for it. Well, there is. He was "angry."
LV: He was disappointed.
JH: And disappointed. And he also said nasty things on television, and Stanley took it and just dropped the relationship. They were both stubborn. I'm not saying Stanley was a saint and infallible. I think it would've been nice for Stanley - because he was the stronger of the two - to repair the situation. But he didn't. And Malcolm was also a defiant, stubborn person so nothing happened. So when I saw him a year ago, lots of things were aired and discussed. He's a terrific actor and he's a very, very nice guy, full of energy, bursting with energy all the time. And I think you can see that in the interview, how energetic he is.
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