Jean-Jacques Annaud, director<\/p>\n
I read an article about a curious book that had great reviews in Italy, a murder mystery about monks in the middle ages fighting for the fictional missing part of Aristotle\u2019s Poetics. I said: \u201cThis is for me.\u201d Since childhood, I had been fascinated with medieval and religious architecture, and Aristotle\u2019s Poetics is my favourite literary work.<\/p>\n
I learned that Umberto Eco, the author, was going to be in France for one night and agreed to meet me at his hotel and that I would drive him to Charles de Gaulle airport. The first thing I saw was his shadow on the hotel staircase, which looked like the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes \u2013 Umberto was a man of great humour, and he met me wearing a deerstalker, with a pipe in his mouth. In the car, I asked questions: what sort of shoes would the Franciscans have been wearing? Would the monks have had beards? What colour would the pigs have been? He said: \u201cI don\u2019t know, I didn\u2019t have to write any of that.\u201d I ended up hiring medievalist Jacques Le Goff<\/a> and seven of his colleagues to make sure we got all the details right \u2013 costumes, architecture, liturgy and so on.<\/p>\n double quotation markA big piece of timber fell on Feodor. \u2018I\u2019m 80 years old,\u2019 he said, \u2018I don\u2019t mind dying. Was the take good?\u2019<\/p>\n I wanted an unknown to play William of Baskerville, the friar who investigates the deaths, and travelled the world to watch plays featuring great actors in their 50s. Meanwhile, agent Mike Ovitz kept calling, saying: \u201cSean Connery would love to make this movie.\u201d Eventually, there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find Sean with the screenplay under his arm. He said, \u201cListen, boy \u2026\u201d and started reading. I had goose bumps. The way he said the dialogue was exactly what I\u2019d been hearing in my head while reading the book.<\/p>\n I flew to Vienna to look at paintings by Bruegel the Elder<\/a>. I wanted to be inspired by the real people of the period, people who had no dentists or doctors, but I did cast some good-looking monks, too. Christian Slater turned up to audition for the young novice, Adso, and said: \u201cI didn\u2019t learn the lines, I got drunk.\u201d The casting director, Mary Jo, was furious and tried to send him away, but he was the one I wanted. He was only 16, but looked 14. It turned out he was Mary Jo\u2019s son. I had three women selected to audition for the part of the nameless girl from the village, but Christian fell in love with the first, Valentina Vargas, as soon as he did a screen test with her, so I never saw the other two.<\/p>\n We built a vast set on a hilltop near Rome for the monastery and village. During the scene at the end where the library tower burns, Sean\u2019s cowl briefly caught fire, and a big piece of real timber fell on Feodor Chaliapin Jr, who played the blind monk, knocking him to the ground. \u201cI\u2019m 80 years old,\u201d he said, \u201cI don\u2019t mind dying. Was the take good?\u201d He went to hospital and we had to change the schedule because he then had a scar.<\/p>\n After four months in Rome, I went back to my production office in Munich and couldn\u2019t find it. I discovered the film\u2019s producer, Bernd Eichinger, in the cellar with his feet on a table. He said, \u201cJJ, I didn\u2019t want to disturb you during the shoot, but I sold the building to help pay for the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018For my dialogue, I just went: eenie, meenie, miny, moe\u2019 \u2026 Ron Perlman with Christian Slater in The Name of the Rose. Photograph: TCD\/Prod DB\/AlamyRon Perlman, played Salvatore<\/p>\n My very first film, Quest for Fire, was directed by Jean-Jacques. I played a caveman. Transforming myself into something completely foreign was an incredibly rewarding exercise and a phenomenal introduction to the world of cinema, so when I read that Jean-Jacques had attached himself to The Name of the Rose, I went through the book and found a character named Salvatore \u2013 an intellectually challenged hunchback who spoke in a jumble of seven languages \u2013 who would embody a similar challenge. I told Jean-Jacques that this part would be a dream come true.<\/p>\n Jean-Jacques gave me complete freedom to figure out my dialogue. The Name of the Rose had been published in 80 languages, so I got copies in the seven that Umberto Eco<\/a> has Salvatore referencing, and circled every time Salvatore spoke. Then I just went, \u201cEenie, meenie, miny, moe \u2013 OK, this word is Latin, this word is Spanish, this word is Italian \u2026\u201d and so on. That was the genesis of Salvatore\u2019s communicative skills.<\/p>\n