Empire's Editors: The Things We've Learned The sum total of Empire's knowledge after 250 issues in the movie business...
Navel gazing? Perhaps. But as the magazine celebrates its 250th issue, we look back at what we've learned over the last 21 (or so) years, through the words of our very own editors...
Barry McIlheney
Edited Empire from Issue 1 (June 1989) to Issue 44 (February 1993)
Technology moves fast.
"At the Cannes Film Festival, I have had my own glimpse of this brave new world with the first sighting of American publicists and their personal mobile phones. They don't always work and they're the size of a small brick, but they don't half beat the prevailing system of a mailbox into which your handwritten messages from the office back home are deposited at the end of each day. Somehow or other, in what now seems like a prehistoric pre-internet, pre-mobile, pre-texting, pre-DVD bygone age, the magazine still comes out on time and, even better, seems to be selling more and more copies every month."
Sometimes, it's well glamorous.
"One year on from launch, the magazine is starting to slowly nudge its circulation towards the critical 100,000 mark and, incredibly, I am at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles. I have already seen more famous people in the last 30 minutes than I have seen in the previous 30 years and it is every bit as thrilling and exciting and headturning as you would imagine. The evening ends in the company of Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he clutching the precious statuette, me joining in a rousing chorus of Danny Boy. Most of the time - no, really - editing the UK's biggest-selling film magazine is not quite as glamorous as this. Instead, it's much like any other job, a mixture of petty politics, pay reviews, job interviews, endless meetings, and late nights in the office. Every so often, though - the Oscars, Cannes, the free screenings, the premieres, the encounters with your childhood heroes - it really is like no other job on Earth. At times like these, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite simply the greatest job in the world."
Phil Thomas
Edited Empire from Issue 45 (March 1993) to Issue 72 (June 1995)
True charisma is very rare.
"One of the great things - obviously - about working on Empire is you get to meet really famous people. But what's strange is that although my list of People I Can Boast About Meeting is fairly extensive, those I met who had absolute cast-iron charisma were incredibly rare.
"Many movie stars have an aura just because of who they are - Robert De Niro, Sean Connery and Mel Gibson spring to mind - but actually those people didn't strike me as particularly charismatic. In fact, they were A Little Bit Dull, Grumpy As Hell and Quite Rude What With Keeping Me Waiting For Six Hours, in that order. In my time at Empire I met the Breathtaking Sex Kitten (Elizabeth Hurley), the Insane Genius (Tim Burton), The Full-On Legend (Dennis Hopper), The Fuck-You Merchant (Oliver Stone), and the Terminally Confused (Woody Harrelson). But I only met three people with genuine charisma: Johnny Depp, Woody Allen and, of all people, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (The Abyss? Fools Of Fortune? No?).
"The secret of charisma, or a large part of it, occurred to me while interviewing Woody Allen. When truly charismatic people are talking to you, you feel - hell, somehow you know, even though it can't be true - that they are genuinely interested in you. They are world-class listeners: when their attention is on you, it is on you in a big way. When I interviewed Depp, I swear he thought I was fabulous, just as he made the last journalist who came to talk to him about Don Juan DeMarco feel... Depp is off the scale, charisma-wise. No-one comes close."
If you want to write, give the editor what they want.
"Lots of people want to write for Empire. To be a successful writer, you have to understand what an editor wants. It's simple. If an editor says, "Can you write me 750 words on John Wayne by Friday?", you actually write 750 words, and you get it there by Friday. You would be staggered by the number of people who are incapable of doing that."
Andrew Collins
Edited Empire from Issue 73 (July 1995) to Issue 75 (September 1995)
If an opportunity comes up, give it a try...
"I had never planned to be Features Editor of a grown-up rock glossy like Q when I photocopied my first fanzine in 1988 (named This Is This, presciently, after a quote from The Deer Hunter), but there is something about the hierarchy at a magazine that sucks upwards. Whether you want 'the next job up' or not, you are expected to apply for it, to send out the correct positive signals to management. So, aged 30, I had begun to reflexively covet the top rung of the editorial ladder. My boss showed no signs of going anywhere, so when the editor's job at Empire came up, I found myself automatically applying.
The job interview went well enough. I had grown up loving films and had a genuine secondary passion for the cinema (my first professionally published review at the NME had been of the yachting thriller Masquerade, starring Rob Lowe, Meg Tilly and Kim Cattrall). However, a pact was made during the interview: should I be offered the gig, I would cut my hair and start wearing long trousers. It all happened very fast after that. The offer was made. My wife cut my hair into a more manageable bob. I purchased two beige suits from Marks & Spencer, which struck me as very Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart, although a certain Publishing Director accused them of being made of hessian."
Cannes Can Be Awesome.
"I hated Cannes. Mainly because I was out of my depth, still learning the ropes and on my best rock behaviour; expected to be a diplomat for Empire and the company, despite a laminated pass slung round my neck that, due to late application, was one colour-coded level lower than 'member of the public'. But, hey, Patrick Bergin's 'people' offered to take me out to lunch and I declined, instead cabbing it up to the famous Hôtel Du Cap, where all the beautiful people hang out and which, at that time, only accepted cash. A rare moment of calm: while Mark interviewed Nicole Kidman, I sat out on the terrace sipping a cash-bought beer and watching the jellyfish in the clear water below, trying not to point when I saw Chris Penn."
Mark Salisbury
Edited Empire from Issue 76 (October 1995) to Issue 88 (October 1996)
A true professional keeps going regardless.
"One time I flew to Los Angeles on a Tuesday to interview Steven Spielberg the next morning in his office on the Universal lot for an hour, then flew home the next day. Impossibly glamorous, I grant you. And thrilling, perusing his bulging awards shelf that was then missing only the Oscar he would soon win for Schindler's List, the subject of our interview. But also bloody knackering, flying economy. Not that your friends want to hear you moan about it. Back in my hotel room, I felt the ground shake. I turned on the TV to hear that LA had just been struck by a tremor. A few days later in London, standing in the lunchtime queue at M&S in Oxford Street waiting to pay for my sandwich, my eye caught a TV monitor showing Sky News, which was reporting the City Of Angels had just been struck by a massive earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter Scale.
"The following week I was on the phone to Spielberg for a follow-up interview when he screamed, "Earthquake!" down the receiver at me. I could hear his office shaking from an aftershock as he told me (and I'm paraphrasing, it was a while ago), "I'm taking the phone and walking under a doorframe..." Pause. More rattling. "Okay," he said. "Next question..." That's professionalism for you. Although that question about Raiders didn't seem so important anymore..."
The grass is always greener...
"I became Editor in 1995 with Issue 76. Being the Editor of Empire is, officially, the best job in the world. Fact. Although I'm sure it's even better now when you see the fabulous access the magazine can demand. In the mid-'90s it was American magazines such as Premiere and Entertainment Weekly that got whatever they wanted ("A week on set? Dinner with the stars?" No problem). Whereas I found myself having to explain to
a PR why a 15-minute round-table interview with Brad Pitt wasn't quite enough for a cover story. That lack of access had always forced Empire to be creative and funny and irreverent, and my annoyance was somewhat tempered when I met writers and editors from Premiere and Entertainment Weekly who told me how much they loved Empire because we were so much more creative and funny and irreverent, and how they wished they could be like us. The grass is greener, even in film journalism..."
Ian Nathan
Edited Empire from Issue 89 (November 1996) to Issue 126 (December 1999)
If you've got an impressive job title, flaunt it.
"As Editor, blessed with the power to pick any gig you wanted, the stone-cold reality was that you barely had time for anything but making magazines. Yet, I was determined to allow myself one treat: to go on a Bond set. The film was Tomorrow Never
Dies and I had visions of sitting beneath a mango tree in the Caribbean, or at least a snowy Alpine peak. I ended up in a disused food factory outside St Albans doubling as a studio.
"Pierce Brosnan greeted me cordially, but was distracted with the work in hand. Soon enough, he was dragged away to continue saving the world. In the long hours of waiting - on sets you do two things: wait and eat food usually served in a British boarding school - the publicist made idle chit-chat. "So what do you do at Empire?" he asked. "Why, I'm the Editor," I replied, trying to sound as casual as possible. "You're the Editor?" he screeched. "Why didn't you say so?" And he was up and away, leaving me halfway up a spotted dick. In a matter of minutes he was back, panting: "Come and see Pierce."
"I was ushered into a private room. Classical music played and 007 was lounging on a sofa grinning at me: "Editor, eh?" Yep. "Of Empire?" Yep. "Good show." A grand interview ensued, and for the rest of the afternoon he stalked me. When trying to interview Michelle Yeoh (shorter than she looks), Brosnan cut across my eyeline: "Editor, you know." Later, as Barbara Broccoli strolled past, not in the slightest bit interested, "Editor, you know," is hollered from the far side of the set.
Barry McIlheney's wise missive has forever rung in my ears - "They will never be your friend" - and that is true. And the quicker you realise it, the better journalist and Editor you will be. But we are still human beings, and beyond the veil I have experienced terrific people."
Movies may change; mothers won't.
"Mine were changing times: movie concepts were becoming more important than stars (I'm the Editor who dared to put sinking ships and Blair Witch on the cover, while devoting an entire issue to The Phantom Menace). Also - this may sound demented in these days of tech-on-the-go - we did our business on telephones and copy arrived on paper. Indeed, I was the first man in the company with a see-through iMac, although the less said about my Features Editor trying to throw it out the window the better (for the record: I changed one of his headlines) - magazines can be an emotional business.
"The Awards arrived with their own brand of madness - there are tales I could tell, but prudence prevents. I do have a fond memory of Brosnan bringing his mum, the most wonderful Irish lady, determined to meet everyone, telling far-fetched stories and, at one magical point, actually pulling out a hankie, licking it, and wiping her son's cheek. "You're never too old," she said, soothing his protestations. Oliver Stone arrived as only Oliver Stone could, in a flurry of self-generated bombast, while just behind him through the door was Minnie Driver and her equally beautiful sister, Kate. Stone, with a meaty grin, proceeded to get a sister beneath each arm for a photo, then news came that their mother was also with them.
"A mother?" he said greedily. "Well, bring her in.""
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