While promoting the upcoming gangster film The Undertaker, Paul McGann gives us an exclusive story about working with David Fincher on the troubled Alien 3…
The core of the Alien 3 story is that, after a long development – which had seen various concepts for the film explored and abandoned – rookie filmmaker David Fincher was brought in to replace director Vincent Ward (who would go on to make Map Of The Human Heart and What Dreams May Come and was eventually credited as being responsible for the central concept of the sequel).
Fincher, then a young hot-shot who’d made his name in music videos and ads, was subjected to something of a baptism of fire on the project. With Alien 3 credited to no fewer than nine writers, its legacy is riddled with tales of studio interference and on-set arguments. Fincher was eventually frozen out of the reshoots and final cut, in circumstances that significantly informed the young filmmaker’s later career choices.
After reportedly considering leaving the film industry altogether, Fincher’s next movie, Se7en, was made for significantly less money, but allowed him complete directorial control. It turned out okay, though.
For his part, actor Paul McGann – despite being third-credited at the film’s opening – had his part as Golic largely removed from the final, studio-controlled, cut. A situation markedly exposed by the later release of a so-called Assembly Cut of the film, which appeared on later disc releases, including the Alien Anthology Blu-ray set. For his part, Fincher has said little-to-nothing about what happened during the making of the film over the years (and has provided no commentary or comment on the various versions that have been released since). But despite his falling foul of the whole process, McGann is more effusive and positive about it than you may expect.
As we talked about working on personal projects – as The Undertaker is to its director, Michael Wright and, McGann noted, Withnail & I was to Bruce Robinson – McGann cited Alien 3 as being the polar opposite of that sense of attachment to a film and script.
“Obviously, [Alien 3] is an exceptional case,” he told me. “A big studio picture with a now world-famous director. I mean, it’s still a fantastic place to work – it’s great and you have a hoot… you’re getting well paid! But… it’s a studio picture, and so – on a personal level – it’s a different way of working. You’re trying to deliver something because you’re all good pros, but personally, it matters little or not at all to anybody in the room […] I’m probably overstating the point now, but even to David Fincher, it only matters because he’s a great pro…
“We [the cast] all tended to be in all the time. We were in a big room… And it’s like the grown-ups are arguing, and you’re like the children in the relationship. That was what it was like. And it was kind of a little bit embarrassing when it happened and things would kick off, but then it went on for weeks and weeks and weeks, and that was the atmosphere – that was the background of the story of that particular project.”
McGann was keen, however, to differentiate between his experience as a hired actor and the pressure placed on the young David Fincher.
“We were just the actors – it was really Fincher’s story, y’know? They took that film off him… That’s the story – of the production anyway… And now he’s David Fincher. That’s the tale years later.
“He was younger than anyone in the room. That what’s remarkable about that, it’s little to do with us… If it hadn’t been us, it would have just been a different bunch of people. But for him, that was extraordinary. I’ve never been a director, but surely there’s nothing worse than a bunch of people taking the film off you? Taking the cut from you? Months later, after the shoot, which was in London, we convened again in California to do the sound, bits of post [production], and he looked like he’d aged five years. The pressure rose, and it was palpable. I mean, that must have been horrible.”
When I ask McGann how it felt for him to be collateral damage in that process, his response is muted.
“I don’t know about that,” he says, in a down-to-earth way. “We were just hired. The story for us is that we were hired twice. The trouble went on so long they had to rehire us because we had to shoot it twice… Whatever.”
“Let me tell you…” he chuckles. “We did okay.”
“The stories have a life of their own, you know? And in a sense I’m just adding to that. I’m sure the way I’m describing it, even now, is probably slightly arch. I’m sure if you speak with him [Fincher], he would describe it differently.
“Because it’s a big thing. It’s an Alien. It’s a big franchise and it’s a Hollywood studio, we’re used to speaking in over-rich terms about these things. Fincher would probably describe it differently. Years later we’re still talking about it.”
The Undertaker will have a limited UK Cinema run from 3rd November. David Fincher is currently in cinemas (and later Netflix) with The Killer. Look out for more from Paul McGann and the film’s director Michael Wright here and in the next issue of Film Stories magazine.
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