Eric Fellner is one of the most successful movie producers in the world. His company, Working Title, has racked up 100 Films, including monster hits like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones’ diary. Though he usually prefers to let his work do the talking, Fellner was happy to discuss cars and in particularhis abiding love of Ferrari in this exclusive interview with The Official Ferrari Magazine
It’s a little surprising that Eric Fellner isn’t better known. After all, his name has appeared in a producing capacity on 100 films, most of them successful, some of them international blockbusters. Three of these were given consecutive Oscar nominations for Academy Awards for Best Picture: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Dead Man Walking, and the incomparable Fargo. At times it’s as though he and his partner Tim Bevan, and their company Working Title, are actually responsible for the entire output of the British film industry. For a major movie mogul he’s rather guarded. It took a moment to reassure him that we could talk about Ferraris that had driven us demented, as well as the ones that generated that passion that can so rarely be found in other marques. We share a certain amount of common ground here. I had a desperately quixotic relationship with a 275 GTB quad cam that I bought without a test drive. It all too often found me in strange hotel kitchens with a handful (make that two handfuls) of spark plugs that needed drying and cleaning before a start was possible, and the lack of brakes at slow speed as the servo decided to take the morning off led to some of my most alarming Ferrari moments ever. To keep the record straight I should mention that with all the really great cars I’ve ever bought, I never bothered with the road test first… Eric insists that he has no spanner twirling skills, but what comes across is a real enthusiasm for the engineering elements throughout the car, as well as its aesthetic qualities. There is a real appreciation of the manual gear-change on earlier cars with the classic exposed gate, as well as disapproval for those Fiat parts that could creep in, such as the odd headlight stalk when the accountants managed to muscle their way into the design department. But like everyone I’ve interviewed, the love for Ferrari still borders on the fanatical.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Eric, Tim and Working Title are responsible for a really remarkable film that I think will mean a great deal to a great many people: a documentary about Ayrton Senna. Films about motorsport are a bit of a breaker’s yard of enthusiastic disasters. The best-known, John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix, has great split-screen racing sequences, but some rather average performances by racing drivers who should have known better Le Mans ranks as one of my top 10 favourite films ever, but it also has a place in the 10 worst. And let’s not even bring on an icy chill by remembering Driven, or Days of Thunder. Actually, the only rather good film to my mind is Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby – and that’s a rather broad comedy… I digress. The film that Working Title has made, and that Jason Barlow and myself were very privileged to see an early screening of, is the story of Senna. And it’s all real. There are no voice overs or recreations, and Hugh Grant’s not in it. It’s all as it happened, and it’s absolutely sensational. Moreover, I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s seen the film and hasn’t found it extraordinarily moving.
There may not have been many car chases in Eric and Tim’s work to date, but they just might have made the very best motorsport movie ever.
Nick Mason: Let’s start, as we invariably do in these interviews, at the start. Can you remember the first time Ferrari appeared on your radar?
Eric Fellner: That would have been the BB. The 512 BB. I was 14, and I simply couldn’t believe I’d seen a car like that. I thought, I want that car. And I set myself a target of 25, and decided that I needed to be successful enough to be able to afford a Berlinetta Boxer by then. On the day before my 25th birthday I bought a 246 Dino… not a BB, admittedly, but I got myself on the ladder. I’d produced a lot of music videos – Duran Duran, Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Fleetwood Mac – and done my first film, and I thought, I’m going to do it. It was my passion. So there I was, a bit of a reprobate, with my first Ferrari…
NM: Interesting choice.
EF: Yes. This was back in 1984, and I bought it from a chap called Bernard Fosker. He was terrific. I was very nervous about the process. Buying any used car is difficult enough, never mind when it happens to be a Ferrari. He’d fully restored it. I remember the day I picked it up; it was the greatest day of my life up to that point. I’d already been seduced by Ferrari. A friend of mine called Mike Barrow, who managed Duran Duran at the time, owned a 308 GTS. He was at the Cannes Film Festival and wanted someone to drive it down there. I said, ‘I’ll take it!’ I was 23 at the time or something. So that was my first Ferrari experience. And after that I wanted one, I didn’t want a new one, I wanted a classic one, and I got the Dino. Then I bought a 246 GTS, and this was the time when cars suddenly become very big business. So I bought another Dino… I had lock-ups all over London with cars in them. I sold the GTS and bought a Daytona, which was what I really wanted. By then I’d decided I was more of a frontengined V12 man… right-hand drive, perspex screen, seats with inserts. I wasn’t prepared for how heavy the steering and brakes were and it’s quite a tough drive until you’re really going. But, God, I loved it.
The Official Ferrari Magazine: You were a very young Daytona owner…
EF: Oh, I was living the life then. I had a few 400s after that. I bought one off either Charlie Watts or Bill Wyman. Did one of them have a 400?
NM: That sounds more like Bill, because Charlie hardly drives…
EF: Somebody to do with the Stones, anyway. Then I had a 412. I loved that car. A real gentleman’s car, in grigio whatever-it-was-called. The noise it made, the manual gearbox, those big armchairs… Call me oldfashioned, but I like a gearstick. I like to keep busy. For me changing gear is about doing the right thing as quickly as possible. But it’s also process, and I like the process even if it takes longer. It’s tragic that Ferrari is moving away from that. The feel of that beautifully milled aluminium ball in your hand on a freezing cold morning, avoiding second gear until the oil is warm… Don’t you miss a gearstick, Nick?
NM: I do. But I have to say, driving the 458 Italia was the first time I’ve really thought, yes, paddles are good… It’s just so fast.
EF: I look forward to finding out. Anyway, then I bought a new 348, only had that six months or a year. I skipped the F355, had a 456 for a while, and went straight to the 550 Maranello. I test-drove the first demonstrator and said to the guy, ‘I’ve got to have it.’ And he said, ‘the waiting list is two years’. And I said, ‘no, you don’t understand, I’ve got to have it’. And somehow I managed to get the dealer’s demo car a few months later. [wistfully] I absolutely loved that car.
NM: You’re obviously a big GT fan… There’s so much more space in the front-engined Ferraris. I like being able to sling things into a car.
EF: It’s the GT feel, the touring feel, if you’re going to do a big trip it’s so much nicer. I also think that
they look more graceful. [pause] After the 550 I had a dark green 575M, kept that for a long time. I
had a 275 GTB/4 too, a car I could have drained all the fluids out of and hung on a wall as a work of art. It’s almost a sculpture, that car. The 599 duly followed, an absolutely stunning car. I sold that in 2007, and here you find me three years later and I’m back, about to take delivery of two new Ferraris, which I’m hugely excited about. Specifically the 599 GTO, which seems to me to offer the best of all worlds. It’s a frontengined V12, a stunning piece of kit technically, and something that I can use on a track if I want to, but it’s also tractable enough to be used on a relatively day-to-day basis.
TOFM: Is it the engineering or the aesthetics that really do it for you? Or is there no separation?
EF: Well I work very hard, so sadly I never take the time out to do the things I really enjoy. And driving is something I’d really like to take a lot of time to do. Actually, I did recently take a week off to drive a Hindustan Ambassador through India, which was terrific though there was no skill involved. Apart from staying alive, perhaps. I’ve been incredibly lucky to know a few people like you, Nick, and Charles March, with nice cars and the facilities to use them, but I’ve never had the time to properly indulge myself in the driving side of it. So the aesthetics are probably what I’ve enjoyed more just because it’s easier to do. If I have a nice car and there’s an opportunity to go to Cornwall everything gets a bit nicer, even with the insanity of 70mph [112km/h] speed limits. I remember one midnight drive in my 599 from Rock in Cornwall to my house in Notting Hill and it was… unbelievable. You really can cover a lot of ground in a car like that.
NM: You are evidently a proper car enthusiast…
EF: I am. Any interesting new production car, I like to try it. My friends always joke that I can never hang on to a car for longer than a few months, but I’ve been trying to change my ways. I have an Audi RS6, it’s chipped to six hundred-and-something horsepower… It’s completely mad. Too much power, really. I got really childish and had the wheels anodised black. A proper car guy? An idiot is what I am, but it amuses me… What else… oh yes, I have 1978 drop-head Land Rover. And a 1959 Triumph Bonneville, which my partner gave me for my 50th birthday, and a bunch of trail bikes. I read all the car magazines. [pause] Yes, I am a sad, tragic car fan. I try to fight it because I like to live my life as low-key as possible.
NM: Eric Fellner? Low-key? But I only see you at glittering parties!
EF: I only go to the ones I know you’re going to be at, Nick. And I’ll support my friends’ work. Anyway, I find myself loving these cars. It’s a big conflict in my life. I’ve resolved that conflict by going cold turkey these past few years, but as you can see I’m an addict and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve had a number of Porsches and a few Astons, but I always come back to Ferrari. It doesn’t matter what car I try, the bar is always set by Ferrari and set rather high. One of the most wonderful experiences of my life was going to the factory to pick up my 599. The Ferrari experience as a customer is the best. You can really feel the passion in the room, and you come away feeling truly special. Yes, it was a lot of money, but it was worth it. You know that you’ve bought into the best.
NM: Speaking as a doctor, is there anything else that ou have a ‘problem’ with? Eric [Clapton] collects
watches, and Chris [Evans] has all sorts of things as well as his Ferraris… In many ways you should
feel good about this. You’ve only got one thing to worry about.
EF: Well, when finances allow, art is the thing that I go more heavily into than cars, and I keep everything I buy. I’m not a true car collector because I move them on. If I had a GTO I would keep it…
TOFM: The new GTO will be a collector’s car…
EF: Oh that GTO… Hmm. That’s why I’m nervous, because it’s white. Don’t you love the Ferrari
configurator? I’ve gone for black wheels, white body, black roof. It looks stunning. The problem is the
yellow. I like a yellow rev counter and yellow brake calipers. I’ve always had those, but will they work on a white car? Will the 599 GTO really be a classic?
NM: Yes. Because it’s a useable car. Ferrari very rarely makes mistakes. Ferrari is the company that can make 1,300 supercars and yet they still go up in value… the F40.
EF: They made that many? I remember the first time I ever met you was at Goodwood, and you’d just taken delivery of your F40. I thought, I’ve read about this guy, he’s got lots of cars, he knows what he’s doing. And it was stunning. It was in the days of Concorde, which I used to travel on, and it reminded me of Concorde. [pause] I remember the way the doors shut. And the cut-out for the window. The cord to shut the door. I thought, and this is the pinnacle of motoring? And then off we went, and it was… extraordinary. The sheer thrust.
TOFM: Is there a film to be made about Enzo Ferrari?
EF: Oh definitely. Michael Mann’s working on one. People have been working on Ferrari films for a long time. They’re very hard to do. David Cronenberg wants to do one. And a great film producer called Jeremy Thomas, who’s a friend of Luca di Montezemolo’s actually, is working on one…
NM: Yes, and sadly the past is littered with motor racing films that are less than inspiring.
EF: A lot of people have been developing them. Actually, it’s how I ended up doing Senna as a documentary. Since Grand Prix there hasn’t really been anything… actually, it’s funny watching that again… Grand Prix drivers should never be allowed to act!
NM: There was some great stuff with the split screen and the heartbeat, but some decidedly odd footage…
TOFM: A John Frankenheimer film, wasn’t it? I think it’s fair to say he got the hang of shooting cars…
EF: Yes, he did Ronin, The French Connection…
TOFM: You must relish car chase sequences when you’re working on film projects.
EF: Well sadly we haven’t had many in our films. We’re developing a film with Edgar Wright which is about a getaway driver, so hopefully that will have an enormous amount of driving and stunts in it. I’d love to have more. We couldn’t really put one in Atonement or Bridget Jones… I don’t make those big action movies, but I’d like to do a film like that, lots of stunts and big sequences. That’s how the Senna film came about. I wanted to make a big motor racing film, because there hasn’t been a good one since Grand Prix. I actually had a meeting with Bernie, to discuss the rights and so on. I’d previously been to see Lord Hesketh, to make a mad, wonderful story about a team with no sponsorship suddenly doing so well, which would have included James Hunt, of course. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get it quite right. Suffice to say we’ve developed a lot of projects but could never get them to the starting line, because they just always end up being very expensive. And the moment you cut the budget you lose the visceral excitement of the piece. And with F1, America’s gone, so half your audience isn’t there. I was getting frustrated because I wanted to make a car movie and then the Senna documentary came up.
NM: Could it have been a bio-pic?
EF: No. Well, not with us. A lot of people have talked about it. For me it was interesting to do it this way, to tell the real story without trying to re-create things you can’t really re-create. Again, it comes down to cost.
NM: We ought to talk a bit about your job…
EF: My day job? We can do that in about three seconds. I make films. I’ve been making films since 1985. My partner [Tim Bevan] and I have made 100 films and we’ve grossed just over $5bn at the box office. We make about three or four films a year. We have three currently shooting. We’ve just started a television company. We do theatre as well, we do Billy Elliot: The Musical, which is playing in Australia, Korea, and is still running in London and on Broadway with two other touring productions in the US. We’re about to do Bridget Jones: The Musical… So that’s what I do.And we’ve done all right…
NM: Indeed. But why is that? Given the generally parlous state of the British film industry…
EF: One, an enormous helping of luck. That really is a major factor in the film industry. Two, because we’ve always viewed it as worldwide business rather than just a British business. And three, because we have a fantastic team of people who work 24/7 and regard it as a serious profession and not a lifestyle job. There is a fourth, rather important reason. Having a relationship with a great distributor and financier that allows you to spend more time on trying to make the films really good and less time cobbling the money together like we had to do in our early days. In 1993 or 1994, we did a deal with Polygram and then Universal, and once you have a package of great star, great director, great script, then the finance takes care of itself, and you can distribute the film on a worldwide basis. And that’s the most critical thing: getting films out there. Getting them on the shelves of stores. It’s boring stuff, but if you can’t do it you can’t generate any revenue. Especially in today’s world where there’s so much choice.
TOFM: What’s the plan for the Senna film?
EF: We’ll release it theatrically first in Japan and Brazil in November. Then on limited release in Europe in May, June or July next year. We really want people to get the full big-screen experience. You’ve seen the film, you’ve seen the footage of Senna at Monaco. It’s like being in the car with him! It’s so exciting and so dynamic, we had to get it shown on the big screen. I showed the film to a few girls and there are bits that really freaked them out. The footage of Martin Donnelly’s crash in Spain in 1990… when I first saw that I said, ‘no way, we can’t have this in the film,’ because I didn’t realise he’d survived. But he did, and of course that’s precisely why the footage is in the film. Because motor racing even 20 years ago was a truly dangerous sport. These guys were gladiators. [pause] There’s a great line in the film where [ex- FIA president Jean-Marie] Balestre says during an argument in a driver’s briefing, “the best decision is my decision”. I use that line all the time now.
TOFM: Does it work Hollywood?
EF: [laughs] It doesn’t work anywhere! But it’s fun to say it…
TOFM: Are you still as passionate about the business of making films?
EF: [smiling] There is nothing more exciting than making a film that you really wanted to make, then
putting it in front of 500 people and feeling that emotional response. Seeing that engagement, seeing them going out talking out about it. There’s nothing else quite like it.
TOFM: It’s a different business these days, isn’t it…
EF: We do a lot of focus group tests. We test the film, the one sheet, the trailer… the key is learning how to use the research properly. It’s actually more useful for the marketing, I wouldn’t change the creative because of it. You find out who likes the material, and then you work out how best to sell it to them. Your eyeballs are being fought for in so many different mediums, you’ve got to grab people as fast and as hard as you can. It really doesn’t matter how good your film is, if your 30-second TV spot is no good, then you’ve lost the battle. Social networking has made the message move so fast, if [your film] isn’t any good people will know about it immediately. When I first started out it was all about making great films. There was playability and marketability, and you could get away with either. Now you have to do both. You can get away with a marketable film which isn’t that good, but you can’t get away with a playable film that isn’t marketable. Which is rather sad.
NM: What’s your prognosis for the film industry?
EF: We spend millions of dollars developing new material. It’s our job to make it as good as possible.
As an industry, well I’m nervous that we are not putting out enough good films… it always happens in a recession, you go straight to the lowest common denominator. Superheroes, broad comedy, things that are very easy to package. Maybe that’s what people want in a recession, they want to know that if they’re going to spend £10 they’re going to be entertained. And that’s our job. My worry is that a lot of people are trying to do the entertaining in a not very good way. I’m worried that we’re not growing our industry for the future, which is what we have to do, otherwise we’ll lose out to video games, iPads, social networking, television, and so on. I have young kids, I see how early they adopt digital media. One thing I’m relieved about as a film-maker is that going to the movies, while not as virulent a passion as it used to be, is still strong. It’s still a great way to get out of the house, or get away from your parents. It’s a social experience. There is still something truly special about the cathedral of film.
Published on The Official Ferrari Magazine issue 11, December 2010
PUBLISHED IN PEOPLE BY NICK MASON ON 11.12.2011
Credit: Ferrari S.p.A. (www.ferrari.com)
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