That’s not a pleasant thing when they’re so close to your face.” “Burton was terrified of the rats, absolutely terrified,” Hurt said as he lit up one of many Gitane cigarettes. We discussed Richard Burton, who played the torturer in “1984.” It was Burton’s job to strap a cage filled with live rats around Hurt’s head. He snapped photos over my shoulder as Hurt’s expressions changed while we talked for more than a half an hour. Phil, who was big and broad-shouldered, sat in the driver’s seat directly behind me. Hurt, who was a slim and compact man, slipped into the dinky booth that doubled as a dining table and I squeezed my six-foot frame into the seat across from him. Most people think the film business is glamorous but it’s actually kind of tedious.ĭuring the lunch break, we were invited into Hurt’s private trailer, which was a modest-sized RV parked near the set. Phil and I sat around all morning while Hurt and his co-stars shot the same scene over and over in a rented beach house. Lower Alabama, where the Southern accents are as thick as the humidity during late August. I arrived on the island with Tallahassee Democrat photographer, Phil Coale, a true pro who hailed from L.A., a.k.a. It may not have been his best film but it turned to be the most memorable interview of my career in the newspaper biz.

He was starring in a project for the BBC called “Little Sweetheart” (1989). In the late ‘80s, when I was a very young writer, I jumped at the chance to interview Hurt when he visited St. Hurt starred as the lead character Winston Smith, who was singled out by Big Brother in director Michael Radford’s exquisitely grim and sinisterly stylish film version of “1984.” The movie was released, of course, in 1984. The actor’s face recently popped up everywhere on morning-TV chat shows after George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” suddenly became a bestseller at the start of the Trump reign.

Movie 1984 john hurt richard burton