1989« «2014

FROM HOLLYWOOD ACTION A-LISTER TO PRISON INMATE:

JOHN McTIERNAN INVITED US TO HIS RANCH FOR A
NO-HOLDS-BARRED, WORLD-EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW —
HIS FIRST SINCE RELEASE
words NICK DE SEMLYEN portraits AUSTIN HARGRAVE

• John McTiernan,
photographed
exclusively for
Empire at his ranch in
Dayton, Wyoming,
on March 22, 2014.

D I R E C T O R / / J O H N M c T I E R N A N

158 EMPIRE JUNE 2014 JUNE 2014 EMPIRE 159

 1989« «2014

ne Sunday night last year, at muttered something sarcastic under his breath, to the effect of grenades in his office, the director was quizzed by a federal • Clockwise from left: throughout winter, it’s home to all manner of wildlife:
Yankton Federal Prison Camp in South Dakota, Hollywood it not being routine gangster behaviour to say grace together agent on his connections to Pellicano, whom he’d hired to McTiernan turns Bruce mountain lions, bald eagles, elk, a lone moose that stalks the
Willis into a movie star
director John McTiernan found himself in a spot of trouble. before a meal. Except, the words came out a little too loud. The look into the production issues of his disastrous 2002 sci-fi, in 1988’s Die Hard; hills and once almost knocked Die Hard With A Vengeance
The man behind the legendary likes of Die Hard, Predator guard marched right up to him, red-faced and eyeballing him Rollerball. Jetlagged and slightly drunk, McTiernan answered Consulting Sam Neill producer Andrew Vajna off his motorbike. There are also
and The Hunt For Red October — whose movies have grossed furiously. “He was deciding how wounded his ego was,” says the one question with a, “Yep,” when he should have said, “No.” and Sean Connery on the rattlesnakes, though McTiernan — who introduces himself
set of The Hunt For Red
more than $1.25 billion and launched three long-running director. “It was the closest I came to getting sent to solitary.” Two weeks later he was arrested for lying to an FBI agent. October (1990); More as “McT” — shrugs off the danger. “I stepped on one once.
blockbuster franchises — was wandering through Yankton’s Instead, the 63-year-old made it safely back to his cell, And so began an expensive, seven-year-long, ultimately high-octane hijinx, this By the time he could have figured out how to bite me through
arboretum, the penitentiary’s most scenic nook, which boasts a dorm-sized room he shared with seven other men. None of futile legal battle, which has been well documented online (not time with Arnie on my boot, I would have been able to go back to the house, get
a hundred years’ worth of carefully preserved trees. Clad in them knew each other’s real identity; instead, they functioned least by the fan-mounted Free John McTiernan campaign on 1993’s Last Action Hero; a shotgun and beat him to death.”
A change of pace with
khaki prison uniform, his prison number 43029-112 stitched on nicknames. There was South Side, an intimidating giant of Facebook — see sidebar overleaf). It’s hard not to conclude Pierce Brosnan and Rene Despite these words, and the startlingly high number of
on, he was musing on the unfortunate circumstances that had a man. Cowboy, from the Midwest. Rock Star, an amateur that he was made a high-profile scapegoat of the Pellicano Russo on the super-fun taxidermy stores in the area, McTiernan is an animal lover
resulted in him serving a year in a minimum-security musician. Kenny Rogers, who bore a startling resemblance case, which at one point looked like it might bring down The Thomas Crown Affair who’s only hunted once. A sizeable herd of ‘beefalo’ (cattle-
(1999); Dash Mihok and
government facility. Then the yelling began. to a certain Country star. And McTiernan himself ? a host of Hollywood names. Aside from that one phone call, Samuel L. Jackson get bison hybrids), headed up by bulls Manny and Big Red, are
“There were 15 or 20 Spanish guys who’d gotten together “They settled on Mac Daddy.” McTiernan has not been found guilty of criminal activity. back to Basic (2003). penned up on the ranch, while Grendel, a giddy Beauceron
and built a big dinner,” McTiernan recalls. “Cooking is one On Tuesday, February 25, he was released from Yankton and puppy, is never far from his owner. “I’ve always named my
of the great arts and it’s a masculine one. For the Spanish
guys it’s a hugely important thing. Anyway, suddenly this
pork-fed lieutenant comes charging out with a couple of
McTIERNAN’S ORDEAL BEGAN almost
a decade ago, with a late-night phone call. Embroiled in
returned to his Wyoming ranch, where he has lived for decades.
It’s here that Empire visits him, at the tail end of a month of
house arrest, for his first lengthy interview in some time.
dogs after monsters,” explains McTiernan, whose wit is desert-
dry. “My last one was Beria, after Stalin’s lawyer.”
Inside, the scene is equally arcadian. His wife, Gail, is a
men and announces he’s busting this up as gang activity.” the FBI’s sprawling investigation into LA private detective The tiny town of Dayton (population: 757) is, for those who sunny presence; having campaigned tirelessly for his release,
McTiernan, a man accustomed to speaking his mind to Anthony Pellicano, a figure straight from the pages of James don’t mind polar temperatures, paradise on Earth. Situated she bustles about, delighted to have him back. His bright-eyed
studio heads and Sean Connery alike, couldn’t resist. He Ellroy whose felonies included wiretapping and keeping hand below the front ridge of the Rockies and blanketed by snow 11-year-old, Jack, plays with Grendel. The house itself is >

D I R E C T O R / / J O H N M c T I E R N A N

160 EMPIRE JUNE 2014 empireonline.com subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub JUNE 2014 EMPIRE 161
 1989« «2014

THE
Mc T I E R N FA N S
THE FOLKS BEHIND THE FREE
McTIERNAN CAMPAIGN ON WHY
THEIR LOYALTY DIES HARD...

pierremaiche.canalblog.com
“IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE AN ACTOR
• Clockwise from left: On paper, it was a peculiar match: the cerebral young Who are you? There are 11 support very quickly. Then
Creating his first action director and the skull-collecting star-beast. The shoot in of us — journalists, people Samuel L. Jackson and
icon with Arnie on 1987’s
Predator; With Chris Puerto Vallarta was beset by crises, including an uncooperative working in movies and others Robert Davi came forward.

DO A STUNT, DO IT YOURSELF FIRST!”

Klein and Rebecca Mexican crew and a monkey (standing in for the Predator) that — united by a common Alec Baldwin was undoubtedly
Romijn on the set of wouldn’t swing on cue. Then there was volatile actor Sonny passion for John’s films. He our most active supporter,
misfire Rollerball (2002);
All smiles with buddy Landham, whom the insurance company famously issued re-invented American genre and Jeremy Irons sent us
Bruce on 1995’s Die Hard with a minder to keep him out of trouble. “And still he did films of the ’80s and ’90s, a very angry message.
With A Vengeance — something crazy! We had to ship the poor bastard home,” with his highly sophisticated We were surprised by the
charmingly cluttered, with stacks of books, scientific journals A laconic man who has always done his own haying on the a third mega-hit for McTiernan chuckles. “He rappelled out of the top floor of framings, realistic characters deafening silence coming
the franchise.
and a mutts-playing-poker painting on the wall. It feels a long ranch, McTiernan’s distaste for LA is evident not just in Die the hotel, drunk out of his mind at three in the morning, and the musical fluidity of from many other big names,
way from Hollywood, though there is a new-fangled exercise Hard (the coke-and-Coke-loving Harry Ellis exudes studio- buck-naked with his underpants on his head. He went down his editing. For film lovers, as they wouldn’t be the
bike in front of the log fire. exec smarm), but in his arty debut feature, 1986’s Nomads. five floors and swung into somebody’s room. He wasn’t trying there is a before and after stars they are today without
“I lost 40 lb as a guest of the government,” McTiernan Starring a babyfaced Pierce Brosnan, who sports a wonky to hurt anybody; he was just a loose cannon, and he mostly John McTiernan. John McTiernan.
explains. “But it’s coming back fast.” French accent throughout, it’s the tale of an anthropologist pointed it at himself.”
being tormented by otherworldly street punks. The only movie But despite all the on-location to-do, the director came What are your thoughts on How have you supported

IF THE LAST ten years have been an emotional

rollercoaster, his career has been equally mercurial, soaring
with a McTiernan writing credit, it’s a telling watch. “It was
a simulacrum for how I felt when I got to this crazy place in
the desert,” he admits. “It was like a foreign country. So that
back to America with a sneakily subversive, technically
sophisticated action film. Silver hastily signed him up for
Die Hard. This time he’d be given more creative control:
his prison sentence? Had he
committed an irredeemable
crime, we wouldn’t be
him? We put on two big
events in France, as well as
many other screenings of his
to extraordinary heights before diving to spirit-crushing lows. story came out of my anxieties. But hey, what stories don’t?” “They let me run further.” supporting him. But being movies in pristine prints. At
Like John McClane, the fictional flatfoot he made iconic, it He’d grown up mesmerised by the oeuvres of Fellini and On his following projects, McTiernan was to prove the only one [in the Pellicano all of them we talked about
all began with a flight from New York (his birthplace) to Los Truffaut, once looping Day For Night for three straight days, himself a canny storyteller as well as a master craftsman. case] to pay, just for having the case. Many people also
Angeles (where he’d enrolled at the American Film Institute). ignoring the subtitled dialogue but studying the camerawork. Besides compressing Die Hard’s timeframe from three nights tried to protect the artistic sent John letters and gifts
Instead of Hans Gruber, McTiernan was to face a different Nomads, made on a budget that might not cover a whole to one, imagining it as a re-telling of A Midsummer Night’s integrity of Rollerball, is a lot. while he was in jail. We’re
sort of besuited foe: his bank manager. shoestring, already showed evidence of his astonishing way Dream with fewer fairies and more Twinkies, he remembers No-one is above the law, but glad that the nightmare is
“It’s supposed to take two years to get through AFI,” he with a lens. One footchase sequence in particular is bruisingly transforming the villains. “The original screenplay was a grim justice must be even-handed. starting to fade away for McT.
says, “but I was there for four because I had to keep taking time kinetic — “I was pretty brutal with the poor cameraman,” he terrorist movie. On my second week working on it, I said, Now that he’s free, we hope
off to work. I’d shoot five rotten, cheapo local commercials in allows. The movie played in Cannes and got the attention of ‘Guys, there’s just no part of terrorism that’s fun. Robbers Which celebrities have studios will come forward
a week, then go and cut them by myself. They weren’t high-class, Joel Silver, who was prepping an Arnold Schwarzenegger are fun bad guys. Let’s make this a date movie.’ And they had joined your cause? Mark and entrust projects to this
trust me. But it would support me and my wife for months.” jungle-warfare picture called Predator. the courage to do it.” > Millar and Brad Bird showed peerless director.

D I R E C T O R / / J O H N M c T I E R N A N

162 EMPIRE JUNE 2014 empireonline.com subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub JUNE 2014 EMPIRE 163
 1989« «2014

The shoot demanded backbone from him too. He (wisely) far outweigh their crimes.
lost his nerve on the roof of the Fox Plaza on the night of the But that’s not the only work Mac Daddy got done. He’s
big helicopter stunt, calling off the chopper after one take for been absent from our screens for the past 11 years, but now
fear it might crash onto the actors below. But McTiernan he’s ready to return to moviemaking, with a vengeance.
stepped up during the filming of Hans Gruber’s death-drop There are myriad unrealised McTiernan projects, from
(a shot he self-plagiarised from Nomads, though he denies a remake of Captain Blood starring Alec Baldwin to a Batman
that the fire-hose stunt was inspired by Sonny Landham), instalment, which he was offered in the mid-’90s. More
plummeting 75 feet onto an airbag to prove to a nervous recently, he developed Shrapnel for John Travolta and Nicolas
Alan Rickman that it was safe. Cage; as his legal battle intensified, it was taken over by Mark
“I may be getting to an age now where I’m going to be Steven Johnson and turned into the woeful Killing Season.
excused from that sort of thing,” he says, “but when you’re Pre-prison, he poured his soul into a project called Crash
36 and you’re going to ask an actor to do a stunt, you better Bandits: “A delightful story about two guys who make money
fucking go do it yourself first!” by finding old crashed World War II planes in various end-of-
the-way places. But it’s dead now.”

ON A SHELF above the TV sits the new Blu-ray box set

of the Die Hard quintilogy. It’s still in cellophane. Discussing
Instead, while under lock and key, his mind returned to his
happiest professional experience. He took a pen and paper and
began writing a sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair. Set in
the director’s work with him, it quickly emerges why: while Europe, Thomas Crown And The Missing Lioness once again
he’s a Netflix user who follows House Of Cards and the BBC features a highbrow MacGuffin. “Nebuchadnezzar had two lion
Sherlock, he’s not one for basking in his own glory. “I find all statues commissioned in 1100 BC: a male and a female,” he says.
of my movies embarrassing,” he shrugs. “I’m not saying they’re “Alexander The Great took them when he conquered Persia.
bad, but I sit there groaning. Cuts I’m not happy with; parts Marc Anthony had them taken to Rome. Constantine moved
where I fucked up. I find them emotionally difficult.” them to Constantinople. And at some point the lioness went
It might not help that his career has been more embattled missing. The movie is about what happens when it turns up at an
than most. The in-fighting that resulted in Last Action Hero auction. By the way, it’s all bullshit; none of that ever happened.
is legendary, but even his hits were frequently tugs-of-war. It’s really a lot of fun and I hope I get the chance to make it.”
When, after Die Hard, he was invited onto The Hunt For McTiernan has survived things that would have crushed
Red October, the screenplay began with Jack Ryan (Alec a lesser man. But a day spent in his company makes one thing
Baldwin) rowing down the Potomac at dawn, a cigar chomped clear: he still has fire in his belly. Get him started on a subject
between his teeth. McTiernan had other ideas. “It’s Treasure dear to his heart — like the Nez Perce tribe of Indians, who
Island. The story of a boy who has to go off and find the were mistreated horribly by the US government, or Iain M.
scariest man of the sea on Earth, who turns out to be a sweet Banks’ Culture novels — and he’ll burst into an impassioned,
old bastard. Once I had that, I had the movie.” But after the exactingly detailed 20-minute oration. Though he says in
film was shot, and McTiernan dispatched to Las Vegas to theory he’d be up for doing another Die Hard film, or an
meet exhibitors, he recalls getting a call from his editor: Expendables movie, he hasn’t got time for another dud:
a Paramount wonk was demanding it be completely recut. DEA-versus-drug-lords actioner Red Squad, which is being
“A director always has a giant target on his back that reported as his comeback movie, has stalled because he
ambitious junior executives shoot at,” he says. “One in ten views the current draft as “offensive”.
of them are sociopaths. This guy had a theory that he was

“I WROTE THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR 2

going to turn Red October into Top Gun. He was going to on behind the scenes there. But he does offer some justification
iPad edition
make it flashy and Top Gunny-like. Fortunately I was Get the Empire for 2003’s Basic, the slick but narratively problematic John
m ore exclusive pictures
working for Frank Mancuso and Ned Tanen, guys who for Travolta thriller that is his final film to date.
m our McTiernan

[IN PRISON]. HOPEFULLY I’LL MAKE IT.”

weren’t going to get conned by some nonsense from a fro “It was an absolute fucking nightmare. The week before
shoot.
young tyro.” shooting, I was told I was going to have to shoot the original
That time he won. But after Last Action Hero flopped, draft of the screenplay, which didn’t work. Furthermore, I was
McTiernan’s productions became increasingly tumultuous. sent a lawyer’s letter saying I couldn’t tell this to the studio and
Die Hard With A Vengeance might be his biggest box-office would be sued if I tried to communicate it to them. I was able
hit, but his preferred ending — in which Simon Gruber to squirrel away half-a-million dollars to do reshoots, but the I had told him I was going to do in our very first meeting. I’d As Empire heads out of town on the morning after the
(Jeremy Irons) and co. get blown up on a Gulfstream jet by story still makes no sense. No sense at all.” told him, ‘This isn’t about a robbery, and it’s not about the guy. interview, we meet him one last time to say goodbye. He and
their own bomb — was replaced by a weak coda in which The one bright spot in the past 15 years of his filmography It’s a love story, and it’s about the girl.’ I had to go explain that his family are on their way to church; it’s a crisp, blue-skied
Bruce Willis kills a helicopter. On Viking epic The 13th is The Thomas Crown Affair. Like Rollerball, it’s a remake to Pierce. And it says enormous things about how secure he is Sunday and a lone eagle is drifting over the Rockies. Although
Warrior, the director and writer-producer Michael Crichton of a Norman Jewison film. Unlike Rollerball, it’s an absolute that he said, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’” McTiernan is not a morning person, today he has a twinkle in
fell out so badly that at one point they were apparently delight, a caper movie with Pierce Brosnan at his most his eye. It turns out that overnight he’s dreamed up another gag
shooting different endings on the same lot simultaneously.
Crichton’s cut was the one released, and we’re unlikely to
ever see McTiernan’s. “There were enormous, destructive
charming (and minus wonky French accent) as a gentleman
thief being pursued by Rene Russo’s insurance vixen.
“I probably had more fun making that movie than any
DURING HIS STAY at “camp”, as McTiernan
refers to Yankton, the director interviewed more than 100
for Thomas Crown 2.
“You know those big cranes which pick up logs?” says the
action auteur, the man who threw Bruce Willis off a skyscraper,
politics around that movie,” he sighs. “But I’m not going to other,” says McTiernan, perking up. “Because I was working of his fellow inmates, including the colossal South Side, destroyed the New York subway system and unleashed Ol’
get involved in that conversation.” for good people, particularly Frank Mancuso, head of MGM who turned out to be a lovely chap. He’s halfway through Painless. “I’ve had an idea about what one could do to a car
A headshake is all he’ll offer on the uncharacteristically at the time, who wrote me a wonderful note after the premiere. turning these conversations into a book, outlining the flaws full of thugs...”
obnoxious Rollerball, leaving the mind boggling at what went He said he’d found it a delight that everything he saw was what of a legal system which gives many citizens sentences that nick@empiremagazine.com

D I R E C T O R / / J O H N M c T I E R N A N

164 EMPIRE JUNE 2014 empireonline.com subscribe at www.empireonline.com/sub JUNE 2014 EMPIRE 165