Fiachra Gibbons
Hours after picking up the last of five Oscars for his first film, American Beauty – and being declared a “bright shining star” by none other than Steven Spielberg – Sam Mendes was keeping his legendary cool.
Even as Hollywood’s most powerful players queued to schmooze him at the post-Oscar parties, Mendes’s mind was turning to the play he will direct at his relatively tiny 250-seat Donmar Warehouse in London in September.
“I don’t think they quite know what to make of me,” the 34-year-old wunderkind said yesterday. “Hollywood wants all of you. They find it hard to grasp that I’m going back to the theatre before I think about anything else. I am really attracted by it but I can’t wait to get home.
“On the other hand, I’m hoping that makes me even more interesting and mysterious.”
Mendes, who described himself as “just a bloke from English theatre” as he got his Oscar for best director, admitted he was terrified of falling at the final hurdle after his film had won just about every other big award.
“When you are favourite, you feel the pressure. About a week ago the tension was quite bad, with everyone questioning me about how I felt and asking for bizarre personal details, childhood experiences and what collar size I was. I had to get away and clear my head. It’s been fine since.”
His preparation for the ceremony itself was so laid back it was almost horizontal. “I had a few friends round and I didn’t actually get out of my dressing gown till three.
“Then I put on my lucky Prada suit I wore to the Golden Globes. I didn’t exactly lock myself away in the bathroom, but I stopped myself looking at newspapers or the television.”
Even so the ceremony, which dragged on for more than four hours, was an ordeal: “It felt like a week.”
Only when Kevin Spacey won best actor did Mendes start to relax. “This was an actors’ film. They drove it. I wanted so much for Kevin and Annette [Bening] to win.”
When Mendes’s name was finally read out as best director, his mother, Valerie, who was sitting next to him, jumped for joy. “She nearly exploded. If I’d lit a match I think she’d have combusted with pride.”
Back in London, the entire Donmar Warehouse staff and the cast of its current production, Helpless, who had been partying all night at the One Aldywch hotel, “went berserk”. From the stage in Los Angeles, Mendes thanked them and toasted the rest of his friends who had gathered in his flat in Primrose Hill, north London, to watch the show on TV.
“Its just a great relief,” he said. “Being a director is like being an alcoholic: no one understands what it’s like until you’ve been one. That’s why it meant so much to meet people like Spike Jonze [director of Being John Malkovich] and Kimberly Peirce [Boys Don’t Cry]. Being at the Oscars is like having your own personal AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] meeting.
“I still can’t believe that a film which features masturbation, an older man and a younger woman, repressed sexuality in the suburbs and a plastic bag has won so many Oscars. But I’m not complaining.”
Spielberg, who asked Mendes to direct American Beauty for his DreamWorks studio after seeing his stage versions of Oliver! and Cabaret, said: “I am so proud of Sam and it was great to be able to present him with the Oscar. When I saw his work in the theatre I knew we had to have him.
“He has a great eye for telling a story visually, something you often don’t expect from theatre directors.”