Director Sydney Pollack isn't pointing fingers. But when he agreed to direct the "The Interpreter" -- a politically charged thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn -- he said he was led to believe that the project already had permission to shoot inside one of New York City's famed sights, the United Nations.
"I wouldn't have agreed to do it if I didn't believe that," Pollack said. "I think everybody just took it for granted we had the U.N. We went to look at the building, and I thought I was scouting the U.N. Then I was told we had to make a formal request. 'What do you mean, formal request?' "
After numerous official rebuffs, permission was granted only after the Academy Award-winning director of "Out of Africa," which also won the Oscar for best picture, took it upon himself to appeal to the U.N. secretary-general.
"It took about a month to find someone who could get me a meeting with Kofi Annan," Pollack said. "You don't just look him up in the Yellow Pages."
Once a meeting was arranged, though, "I felt on the spot because I didn't want to lie to him, 'Boy, have I got a deal for you,' " Pollack said. "I wanted to be as honest as I could and say, 'Look, this is an expensive Hollywood movie, a thriller with movie stars, and I'm going to stretch the truth a little. I don't think there's anything that will be embarrassing to you, and I think it's better for you as well as me that it be as authentic as possible.' "
Obviously, Pollack's years in Hollywood have made him a persuasive pitchman.
"The Interpreter," which opens Friday in Los Angeles, is the first feature film ever shot within the United Nations building. Despite all the problems of logistics and continuity that arose from shooting at the U.N., Pollack said, he couldn't imagine the film without it. As shot by acclaimed cinematographer Darius Khondji, the building itself nearly becomes a character in the film. Shooting took place over 17 weekends, under the scrutiny of U.N. officials and on condition that permission -- including permission to use any footage shot -- could be rescinded at any time.
Walking through the corridors of Pollack's offices in Beverly Hills, one passes posters for films that have come to define their times, from the late-'60s confusion of "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and the paranoid '70s of "Three Days of the Condor" to the off-kilter '80s in "Tootsie" and the go-go '90s in "The Firm." Pollack himself has won two Academy Awards (one as producer of "Out of Africa," one as director of that film), and his films have garnered dozens of other nominations in a slew of categories. He has been near the top of the Hollywood food chain for decades.
