JFK
Oliver Stone's JFK
The Cast: In Their Own Words
Ed Asner (Guy Banister)
"I will be forever grateful to Oliver for what he achieved with Salvador. It accomplished an awful lot. And I found him a gentleman to work with. He's open to an actor's ideas. I did discover that when I approached him about changing a line seemed to make a difference. If I did it more than five minutes before it was shot, he'd say okay, but then he'd start thinking about it and it was, 'I don't know. Leave it like it was.' But if you did it with less than five minutes, he'd just go with his first instinct, which was usually to let you do what you want. Of course, none of these ideas I had were inventing the atom bomb or anything all that important."(1)
"You knew while he was shooting that the techniques were amazing. The different angles, the cuts, the speed. There was nothing left to chance, nothing left to doubt."(2)
"[To prepare for the role of former FBI agent Guy Banister, I read a couple of books and the notes supplied by the production company.] The interesting thing to me was that the FBI was all over this thing. Everywhere you looked there was some connection back to the FBI -- and they were the ones who eventually investigated everything."(3)
"[Despite its controversial nature, I got very little flak for doing the film.] I got a lot of praise. Lot of support. Surprised the hell out of me. I don't know how many people said, 'By God, I didn't know you could do that.' Play a heavy. I think that Oliver deserved the Best Director's Award far and away for JFK. Of course, they'll never give it to him. Where he is, everything gets harder and harder, I guess. The longer you're up there, the more they require of you. But Oliver is an unbelievable giant who has really made an impact on this business."(4)
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You may wish to see:
Who's Who in the Jim Garrison Case
Jim Garrison's New Orleans Photo Gallery
Articles and resources on the JFK assassination
1. James Riordan, Stone (New York: Hyperion, 1995), p. 379.
2. James Riordan, Stone (New York: Hyperion, 1995), p. 381.
3. James Riordan, Stone (New York: Hyperion, 1995), p. 381.
4. James Riordan, Stone (New York: Hyperion, 1995), p. 381-82.