Polanski auditioned actors while under house arrest

Polanski auditioned actors while under house arrest
Polanski auditioned actors while under house arrest
Polanski auditioned actors while under house arrest

Speaking to UK Screen this morning, Roman Polanski said that he had developed the script of his new movie, Carnage, while under house arrest in Switzerland. He also invited and auditioned the cast in his prison.

It was better than seeing the chief of police, he quipped.

Last year, the Polish-French director was arrested in Switzerland, where he was to be honoured at the Zurich Film Festival.

The Swiss authorities claimed that they had no choice but to arrest the Oscar-winning director because of the international warrant issued against him for sexually molesting a 13-year-old model while in LA in 1977.

Polanski vehemently denied the charges, claiming that the sex was consensual and later suggested that he was a victim of blackmail. Fearing being sent to prison, Polanski fled the US in February 1978 and settled in Paris, where he made all his movies to date.

The Chinatown director said that his banishment from Hollywood hadnt affected his movie-making career.

I have everything I need to make a movie here in Europe, he exclaimed. Its not like the old days, when you had to go to Hollywood because it had the machine for making big movies. I wouldnt be able to make Rosemary Baby or Chinatown without using the Hollywood machine. But these days, Europe has practically the same tools for making movies.

He also revealed that he didnt like living in LA. LA is not a proper town. There is nothing there but film people. Its stifling.

Hearing that I left London for LA, he said that I must be mad to do that. But LA has good private parties, he jested.

He admitted later that he misses his friends in Hollywood.

 

 

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