"I don't even attempt at privacy when they're around," he says. "They come through. And so they were there, and with friends. Each of them had friends. So there was a cabal."
He is so immediately friendly it is disarming. His dress is casual: black shirt, black jacket, black sneakers, faded blue jeans. His famous face is lined, of course, but in that appealing Robert Redford/Paul Newman kind of way.
"As you get older, the most valuable thing we have is time," says father of four Warren Beatty, who chooses projects -- cinematic or otherwise -- with great care.
(Jonathan Alcorn For The Washington Post)
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ABOUT THE HONORS
Every year since 1978
the Kennedy Center has saluted a handful of national icons for their "lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts." This year's honorees are to be celebrated tonight with a gala performance and dinner at the Kennedy Center Opera House. The show will be broadcast Dec. 21 at 9 p.m. on Channel 9.
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The interview is about the Kennedy Center Honors, so it's supposed to be about his movies. His art. His life's work. Only it isn't. Okay, it is. A little. But it's also about politics. And relationships. And kids. And vomiting, which Beatty compares to the process of making a movie. And the Washington Senators. And the food at the Inn at Little Washington (he adores the place). And the possibility of dying alone and being eaten by wolves.
And -- briefly -- about sex.
It is a runaway conversation, a seven-hour marathon that reveals Beatty to be smart, funny, complicated, engaging and, at frequent intervals, agonizingly precise about the things he chooses to say. He's also damn good at turning the tables, asking intimate questions of his own.
It starts, innocently enough, with the mention of politics. The election is recently over, and Beatty's a political guy -- hey, there was talk about him running for president in 2000, though he never addressed it -- so the question is obvious: Does he have the Democratic blues?
"Don't," he says, putting up his hand. "Ah, don't. 'Cause when you start me on that, you get more than you want."
(The Bush/Cheney sign, though, he will explain: It was a party joke.)
So you change topics, and ask what projects are looming in his future. Beatty has always been about big projects, ever since "Splendor in the Grass" made him an instant superstar in his early twenties. He has produced most of his own movies, each a career marker for different reasons: "Bonnie & Clyde" (1967), "Shampoo" (1975), "Heaven Can Wait" (1978), "Reds" (1981), "Ishtar" (1987), "Dick Tracy" (1990), "Bugsy" (1991) and "Bulworth" (1998).
His last film appearance, though, came in the tepidly reviewed "Town & Country" with pal Garry Shandling in 2001.
So what interests him now? He starts with an answer that is about the kids and his freedom to choose his own projects -- or choose not to have a project at all -- but it's not long before he hijacks the conversation. Suddenly, it's all about Bob Woodward's book and people you might know in common and Washington geography and hey, both our parents were teachers, and do you have kids?
This, you discover, is a part of talking to Beatty: He tiptoes into your private life, then keeps going, gliding past velvet ropes and well-marked borders, assuming VIP access to a stranger's life.
"Why would I tell you that?" you say in response to one of his questions. "It's personal. Very personal."
"How many of your friends know?" he responds, undeterred.
But this is meant to be about his life, his interests, his career. He has some projects rattling around in his head, he admits, but none is a high priority at the moment.
