I think it's good to get into arguments with people and have them say, "That sucks" or "You're crazy" or "That's cheesy" or "What do you think of this?" If anything, it helps you understand what you believe. —Madonna
MADONNA: I saw him in a film that Liev Schreiber directed called Everything Is Illuminated [2005, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer]. Eugene was my favorite thing in the movie, and I became kind of obsessed with him. I wrote a part for him in my script for my new movie, in the part of a security guard who is a Russian immigrant living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan. Eugene inspired the part-in fact, the character's name is Evgeni.
VAN SANT: Is that script W.E.?
MADONNA: Yeah, the movie everyone thinks I'm making that's supposed to be a musical about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I don't know why that got in the newspapers. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are in the movie, but it's not going to be about them. It's really about this other woman's journey, and the duchess is kind of her spiritual guide.
VAN SANT: So it's set during which period?
MADONNA: It's set mostly in pre-World War II England-like, 1936 to 1937-and then in New York in 1998. It goes back and forth in time. I use the Sotheby's auction in 1998 of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's estate as a device to flash backward from.
VAN SANT: Oh, fantastic.
MADONNA: Fantastic and complicated. [laughs] I didn't realize it when we were writing the script, but once I started casting and planning and working with my production designer, I went, "Oh, fuck. I wrote a script about a bunch of rich people. That's going to be great for the budget." The duchess has, like, 80 costume changes. She was dressed by Balenciaga and Christian Dior and Vionnet and Schiaparelli. Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels made most of her jewelry. A lot of the actual stuff is in museum archives. They're not going to give it to me. But a lot of these couture houses have offered to make stuff for me.
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