TOM FORD ::  A SINGLE MAN

Photograph: Brad Balfour

Tom Ford spoke candidly and in depth about his first foray into directing with the critically acclaimed film, A Single Man.

Black Knave: You have acted yourself before, is that correct?

Tom Ford: “Yes. I was at NYU. I was seventeen when I was taking an acting class. My acting professor had sent me to see an agent, J. Michael Bloom, who was a TV commercial agent, who gave me my first commercial. I started working a lot. I eventually dropped out of school because I was going to Studio 54 a lot and not doing much homework and writing papers on napkins. I moved to LA and lived in LA and worked as an actor and all I ever did was sell product, but I hated it. I was too insecure at that period of my life and I never should be on the other side of the camera. I’m too bossy, I think. I wanted fame, I wanted to be there saying, ‘Move there, do that.’ So I don’t know if that answers your question. I have no desire to be on the other side of the camera.”

BK: The move from designer to director, how did you find that challenge?

TF: “Fashion and film are two totally different forms of expression for me. I love what I do as a fashion designer, but I’ve always thought of what I do as a commercial art, not my art. Some fashion designers are artists and they create things because they have to create them. I enjoy creating something that has to fit in a box and be worn and sold. That’s one type of expression. I felt I had to make this movie and I’ve always thought I would be a good storyteller and that I have a lot more to say than what I could put in a fashion ad or on a runway. So it was very important for me to do this and I hope I’m lucky enough to be able to keep doing this every two or three years for the rest of my life, so it’s something I’m really serious about.”

BK: So what is life like on a Tom Ford film set?

TF: “I hope it feels fun. Because we didn’t have a high budget and shot it in 21 days, I feel everyone did this because they wanted to do it and they were happy and in love with the project. I think that’s also part of my job. There’s no room on a Tom Ford film set, I hope there’s many more, for divas in any way, shape, or form, whether you are on a crew, whether you are an actor, everyone needs to work together, so I think we created an environment or I created an environment, all of us together, where people were all pulling for the same thing and helping each other.”

BK: Were you pleasantly surprised at the amazing response the film has received?

TF: “You’re going to think this sounds crazy, that I sound egotistical, but none of it surprised me. I imagined every second as I dreamed, I loved every single moment, and I felt very comfortable and prepared throughout the whole process. Editing surprised me the most just because I didn’t understand really what you can do in an editing room and that surprised me, but it was fun and I had a wonderful editor, Joan Sobel, she was terrific.”

BK: Fashion is a very visual, often frivolous industry - how did you strike the right balance between entertainment and substance in the film?

TF: “I hope I found the right balance. I’ll take that as I found the right balance, I hope. I think all these things are intuitive. I don’t know. I’ve always acted in most things in my life, by intuition. Julianne’s character, for example, she’s the light in George’s life and she’s the light in our film. Whenever he imagines her, even at the beginning of the movie, when he’s talking to her on the phone, everything is flat, but she’s in color because that’s the way she is in his mind. And I was also conscious that we needed in the middle of this story her in that scene in that likeness, because that’s the way that life is.

The suicide in that story came from my family and that suicide really took place in my family. It’s not in the book and I remember it very vividly, these very dark, comic moments because what the hell are you going to do when these things happen to you in life? Even in your deepest, darkest depression, there is sometimes humor and it’s an intuitive balance, I think.”

BK: Can you tell us about that suicide?

TF: “Well, I don’t want to be specific about it, because many of the people are still alive and kids. But it was exactly that suicide. Someone planned and laid out, cufflinks I had given him, suit I had given him, laid everything out, zipped himself into a sleeping bag, because he didn’t want to make a mess…”

BK: So this point in George’s story spoke to you?

TF: “I read this book when I was 20 years old and at that time, what spoke to me was the character of George. It was so beautifully written and he seemed so real. I was living in L.A. I was a young actor and I felt like I was going to run into him and I did, because I met Christopher Icherwood not too long after that. A friend of mine was living with David Hockney and I spent a lot of time there. I also did some mescaline and shaved off my right eyebrow in the same house, so that came from my life, that little bit. But, anyway, I then read everything Christopher had written.

Fast forward to the future, I was looking for something to make as my first film. First, I had to figure out what I wanted to say. I knew what I was as a fashion designer, but why would anyone want to see a Tom Ford movie. What is that? What does it mean? So it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say. Because I’m a fashion designer, people sent me very superficial, slick, beautiful but not a lot of substance things and nothing was speaking to me.  I realized one day, driving to the office, I was thinking about this character, George. I thought about this book often for 25 years. I should just pick it up and read it again. It spoke to me in a totally different way. Being in midlife, reading a story about a man who can’t see his future, I had just left a career, I had left Gucci, I had left fashion, something I had put so much energy in. All of a sudden, I didn’t have an identity, a voice in contemporary culture, I was struggling, and that was what resonated with me.

I’ve always been a spiritual person and I had neglected that side of my life for a certain period of time, as certainly in the fashion business, one can tend to do, living in the future, but all of us as a culture, and I’ve been part of it so it’s certainly hard for me to criticize that, but as a culture, materialism is fine, as long as we keep it in perspective. The book was so spiritual. The first line of the book is, ‘Waking up begins with saying ‘am’ and ‘now’.’ and that’s the first line of the film. It’s about living in the present, appreciating the small things in your life, and really trying to take them in, and connections with people. We have so many ‘I’s’ in the film. This is a guy who has been going through the last eight months of his life not even looking at people. All of a sudden, on this last day, he’s looking at people and he’s connecting and people are responding to him, too, in a very different way and it’s about connection. So, for me, it’s about a lot of things that are eternal and timeless. That’s why it spoke to me.”

TOM FORD was speaking to Brad Balfour