I started out with Geoffrey because that's a deceptively difficult role. He's playing a man who's playing a man. And it couldn't look like acting. We needed a very solid core to this character. Then the studio said, "We don't think he's enough to carry the film. We need someone in the other role." I came up with Brosnan. I could see the dangers of that, and so could Pierce. He was trampling on his image in a way. Those were the only roles that the studio was interested in having an opinion about. There were just a couple of others to cast, including Brendan Gleeson, who was in "The General."

I wanted to ask you about "The Lord of the Rings." Were you planning to do a live-action version of the trilogy in the '70s?

Yes, I spent a year on it. United Artists owned the rights. And at the end of the day, when I was ready with it, UA had gone into a very bad period. They didn't have the money. It was expensive, you know. For a while, I got Disney interested in doing it. But it languished there as well. Then I told Tri-Star I wanted to do it. The rights then were with Saul Zaentz, who produced the animated version. I was authorized to offer him a million dollars for the rights. He wanted more, but Tri-Star wouldn't pay any more.

Is it true you were so distraught over it that you could never watch the animated version? And how do you feel about the Peter Jackson film due out this year?

Yes, that is true. I never watched the version animated by Ralph Bakshi. As for the Jackson epic, I think it was a brilliant idea to make three films. Fundamentally, what had happened for me is that I made "Excalibur." Everything I learned, the technical problems I had to resolve in planning for "The Lord of the Rings," I applied to "Excalibur." That was my recompense. I'm glad "The Lord of the Rings" is being made now, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm sure it'll be a big success.

Did you ever meet J.R.R. Tolkien?

I didn't meet him; I corresponded with him. He was reluctant to have a film made of it at all. It was only to secure the education of his grandchildren that he agreed to sell the film rights. He wrote to me and asked me how I was going to make it -- live action or animation. And I told him I was going to make it with actors. He wrote back, saying, "I'm so relieved, because I had this nightmare of it being an animated film." And of course, that's what happened. But he was dead by the time an animated film was made.

I know you corresponded with James Dickey regarding "Deliverance." Do you often do that -- correspond with your collaborators?

Not really. The problem with Dickey was that he was such a drunk. Whenever we met, he'd get very excited and terribly soused. You could never get a sensible word out of him. We had great times, but it wasn't helpful to the script. So we did a lot of it by correspondence. I'd send him a comment and he'd send it back. It was marvelous. But in person he was just a mess.

I remember I brought him out here to L.A. with me to work on the script, and he was holed up with this dancer. I couldn't get him out of his room for three days. We finally go back to Atlanta, and on the plane, he falls straightaway into an alcoholic sleep. About an hour later, he came awake, and he says to me, "If I wasn't a famous poet and a Baptist, I'd divorce my wife and marry the dancer." [Laughs.]

Will your next film be about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary?

Yes, I've just done a script on it, The Professor and the Madman." This Scot named James Murray was the editor. He was an autodidact with no formal education. But he spoke 20 languages fluently, and he was the only guy who could do it. Even though all these Oxford dons were horrified that they had to turn to someone who was academically unqualified. The other guy who helped him was an American surgeon who had gone crazy, killed someone and was locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane in England. He became the most important contributor to the book, and no one knew that he was a murderer and a madman. They had a great relationship, these two, and eventually James Murray got him released. Mel Gibson's company is making it, but we still don't know if he's going to play one of these characters.

Most of your films tend to deal with the world of men and what it means to be a man. Why is that an important theme for you?

Because I'm a man. We live these very comfortable kinds of lives where we're cut off from nature to a large extent. I think it's the cause of neurosis if you're not in touch with nature. There's a danger that you become disassociated, and I believe it causes a lot of our problems. So I'm always compelled to set myself challenges in relation to nature, to put myself in touch with nature by sleeping out in the forest, swimming in rivers or going out to make these movies and testing myself.

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