Evans As A Character in Film and Theater
Actors have admitted imitating Evans's distinctive mannerisms.
Orson Welles' unfinished final film, The Other Side of the Wind (1970-6), a scathing satire on 1970s Hollywood, has a young studio boss "Max David" played by Geoffrey Land, who Welles admitted was a spoof of Evans. While the film as a whole has never been released, certain scenes have, and numerous well-known internet video sites carry a scene of Land's performance, in which he is sceptically watching in unfinished arthouse film.
In the 1997 movie Wag the Dog, a Washington, D.C. spin doctor distracts the electorate from a U.S. presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman's character was based directly upon Robert Evans. Hoffman emulated Evans' work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle, and his large square-framed eyeglasses. The real Evans is said to have declared, "I'm magnificent in this film!"
Bob Ryan, a recurring character in the HBO series Entourage is based on Evans. The character, portrayed by Martin Landau, was a successful movie producer in the 1970s who now chafes at no longer being considered a major Hollywood player. While Evans reportedly declined an offer to play the part himself, he did agree to allow his home to be used in the show as Bob Ryan's home.
Evans similarly served as the inspiration for a Mr. Show sketch, in which Bob Odenkirk portrays God recording his memoirs, dressed as and speaking like Evans. Odenkirk also attributes Evans as his primary influence on his portrayal of lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad.
Smuggler Films has acquired the stage rights to Evans' memoirs, The Kid Stays in the Picture and its sequel, The Fat Lady Sang, which will be published in conjunction with the debut of the play. Award-winning director Sir Richard Eyre is set to direct with Jon Robin Baitz, in place to pen the stage play.
Evans plays himself in the movie An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn (1998). His "character", like those of other real-life personages in the film, such as Whoopi Goldberg and Jackie Chan, comprises parodical exaggerations of his personality traits.
Michael Douglas' character in the 2009 film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Wayne Mead, is an obvious parody of Evans, capitalizing on his well known hair, glasses, style of dress and reputation as a ladies' man who frequently entertained celebrity performers.
Evans also appears in the Bruce Campbell novel Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way, with Bruce impersonating him to infiltrate the Paramount Studios lot.
Read more about this topic: Robert Evans (producer)
Famous quotes containing the words evans, character, film and/or theater:
“... you have to have been desperately unhappy before you can play comedy, so that nothing can frighten you any more. And you can’t do tragedy before you know absolute happiness, because having known that, you are safe.”
—Dame Edith Evans (1888–1976)
“But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality. Our audience must experience not only the ways to free Prometheus, but be schooled in the very desire to free him. Theater must teach all the pleasures and joys of discovery, all the feelings of triumph associated with liberation.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)