Terrence Malick makes beautiful, possibly masturbatory films intellectuals love to tell each other that they love, and is so reclusive that he’s photographed less than sasquatch. Which is why it’s funny to think of him running around spouting Zoolander quotes like your frat bros. But apparently he does that.
Malick is said to be such a fan of Zoolander, the 2001 send-up of the fashion world, that colleagues say he watches it regularly and likes to quote it. Ben Stiller, the star of the film, once dressed up in character and recorded him a special birthday video message.
I’ve heard he also wore his “Vote for Pedro” shirt to the set of Tree of Life and “iced” Sean Penn on the first day of shooting. “Weak chug, pussy, they teach you that in Haiti? ” Aw, reclusive filmmakers are just like us! Well, except for that birthday message part. What are you, Marilyn Monroe? That’s just creepy. Anyway, this all comes from a recent profile of Malick in The Independent, and the rest of it was interesting, if less surprising:
Another tale suggests a darkness and artistic obsession ran in the family. His youngest brother, Larry, went to Spain to study with the guitarist Andres Segovia, but the young Malick was so frustrated by his lack of progress that he broke his own hands, and later committed suicide.
Tip for aspiring guitarists, aspire to Van Halen, not Van Gogh.
He refused to let producers keep copies of his own handwriting, and after going missing, he once called a producer to say he was walking from Texas to Oklahoma “looking at birds”.
Statham did it.
Michele Morette, his late ex-wife of 13 years, revealed that while they were together she wasn’t allowed into his office, and that he would rather buy her a copy of a book than lend her his own. He also liked to leave his books and cassettes face-down, so people couldn’t see what he was reading or listening to. [TheIndependent]
Eh, he was probably just reading Dan Brown. Those books are like Croc sandals, comfortable, but not something you want to be seen in.