Fab Four on Film

INTERVIEWER: Do you think the bug has bitten now? Are you guys – do you have big eyes now to be actors? PAUL: No. GEORGE: Not really, no. We still, you know, even if our film – this, A Hard Day’s Night – is the biggest box office attraction ever, you know, it still won’t make us feel as though we’re actors. But I think we’d all enjoy making a new film. RINGO: Yeah, it’s good fun. I think the next one we make will be more fun, because we’ve sort of got the hang of things. Like on this one, when we first started, when we’re not supposed to look at the camera, you’d always sort of find yourself turning ‘round and smiling at it. [laughs] You’d just smile as soon as you saw the camera, you know. PAUL: And on this one, I don’t know whether this happens on lots of films, we used to keep breaking up giggling. RINGO: Yeah. PAUL: We had some great giggling fits, you know. We’d sort of say a line, and I kept doing it a particular way. There was one line I kept saying to Ringo, it’s about the grandfather in the film who goes off to— RINGO: Well, we can’t tell you, ‘cause we’ll ruin the film, you see! PAUL: We can’t tell you [inaudible] but it was just this one thing where the grandfather goes off to a club, and I was supposed to say to Ringo “It’s all your fault” and things. ‘Cause in the film actually, although it’s not true in real life, we sort of pick on Ringo a bit, you know, because it was obvious really, because he’s sort of smaller and it looks funny in the film. But I’m supposed to be picking on Ringo and saying “It’s all your fault” and things. And as I was saying it, I’m a bit – I kept flapping my arms up and down, I don’t know why, I must have thought I was a good actor! [laughter] And I was just sort of flapping around and saying, “It’s all your fault!” [sound of arms flapping; laughs] Flapping my arms around, and he couldn’t stand it, he was giggling away. So then I started laughing, and we just collapsed, and we took so many takes on that bit. RINGO: Yeah, twelve takes on that bit. PAUL: Yeah. And I think we cut that bit in the end or something. [laughs] RINGO: Yeah. PAUL: They cut some of it. RINGO: They cut half of it, yeah, but you know, a lot of laughs. All different things that happened were funny to us which, you know, they haven’t printed or put on the film, but it’s great when we go and see the film, then we can sort of say, “Remember that bit?” if they showed the one we did before, you know, where we all broke up.