“This is not a reflection of this show by the way.” The three men laughed. He paused, and looked at Shaw and Donnell. For the most part, if the actor ever knows they are not in something incredible they find some way to know they are in the right place.” How meta to be three actors-one of whom is playing their father in one of the most iconic movies of all time-playing three actors interrogating the process of acting. We’re the only job that does this continual diagnostic check on ourselves.” We all come off stage and have a little assessment after the show. ‘Am I doing a good job?’-not just on sets, but genuinely, nightly, here. A lot of actors feel that way-full of dread and anxiety. You think, ‘If everyone else thinks it’s good, then maybe I’m OK in it.’ I completely resonate with a lot of Dreyfuss’ anxieties as an actor and as a human. As an actor, you can only enjoy something if everyone else is enjoying it. I may think it’s good, but that’s not enough. Is it actually any good?’ I resonate with that Dreyfuss-ism. “You may think the thing is good, but as a human you know, ‘I’m in this thing. “I think any actor who has been in enough workshops or something starting out, especially in theater, knows what it’s like,” Brightman told The Daily Beast. They do not know what a huge success Jaws will become. The men bitch not only about their present circumstances-What is this film? Will it be a success? Will it tank? What about our careers?-but also acting and fame more generally. “It’s become the stuff of movie legend, I suppose,” said Shaw. Jaws fans will relish the many Easter eggs written into the script-very famous lines from the film, references, design elements (the swinging light on the boat!), music, and all the true-to-life tidbits that Shaw and co-writer Joseph Nixon have excavated from Jaws co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb’s book, The Jaws Log, as well as a number of documentaries, interviews with Spielberg, Dreyfuss, and Scheider, and Robert Shaw’s drinking diaries. “There were so many interesting threads to it, it had to be the spine of the play,” said Ian Shaw. “Also, in 1974 when Jaws was filmed, there is no way the men were not watching on the news all the senseless bloodshed in Vietnam.” As well as the cinematic power of it, the speech was also heavily edited, then rewritten by Robert Shaw, who was-in one take-too drunk to perform it. “First of all, I adore that speech,” said Shaw. The through-theme of the play is Shaw’s struggle and eventual mastery of Quint’s USS Indianapolis speech, where, late at night under the swaying light of the Orca, Quint recalls some of the ship’s crewmen being eaten alive by sharks when the boat sank in 1945-having “just delivered the bomb, the Hiroshima Bomb” -after being torpedoed by the Japanese. (Prediction: The Speedo scene will be much, umm, discussed.) Responsible, Donnell dressed only in a tiny black Speedo basking in the sunshine during yet another filming delay. Scheider is the peacemaker, until a delicious solo scene where we see another side of Mr. A sizable chunk of the boat has been mischievously hollowed or bitten out of the craft on Duncan Henderson’s set so we can see the men as they will “Bruce” to a speedy recovery, so they can complete filming.ĭreyfuss and Shaw’s relationship is particularly tempestuous, with Shaw’s all-consuming alcoholism and disdain for his younger costar combusting towards displays of vicious invective and physical aggression. in 2019, then the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then London’s West End, then Toronto-we watch Robert Shaw, Dreyfuss, and Scheider as they try to kill time, and not each other, on the hull of the Orca. In the play-which was first performed in Brighton in the U.K. “That’s quite an important distinction, isn’t it?” Maybe that says something about my brain that I separate those things-make-believe and reality.” He paused, smiled, and added drily. “When I was a child, Robert was very funny and affectionate. “Robert was very, very different to Quint,” Shaw insisted. On stage, the forces and characters of the bellicose Quint and bellowing Shaw do not seem hugely different. When my dad was at home I didn’t see them as the same people.” I’m like, ‘No.’ I get scared, as much as Quint caused his own death I believe him to be Quint. So when we watch the film, some of my siblings say they’re not so scared when Quint gets eaten because they know it’s Robert. “I don’t know what it is, but I always distinguished very clearly between Robert and Quint. ![]() “This is a true story,” Shaw said, then paused. I had no idea who this old man was,” said Shaw. “And I knocked on Jimmy Stewart’s door and Jimmy Stewart opened the door to me. “Whose is this ball?” Donnell said, doing a very good Stewart impersonation. Donnell and Brightman stared at Shaw agog.
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