They dont want to give it to you.
Youve made so many little modifications to the character that its not the same character anymore.
The screenplay was drawn from Hamptons 1984 theatre play based on the novel.
Christopher HamptonEamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images
It attracted enormously positive reviews and then we were on this helter-skelter which culminated in the film.
There were a lot of extremely lucky things that happened along the way.
One of these was my decision not to sell the rights to any of the big studios.
Dangerous Liaisons, Glenn Close, John Malkovich
Uniquely among my work, all the big studios had bid for it.
Unbeknownst to me it [Lorimar] was sliding towards bankruptcy, he recounted.
Hamptons push to develop theproductionwith a smaller independent company did not go down well with the RSC.
With everything else that was going, there was that too.
So that made me very determined to fight this.
I had been taking meetings with all sorts of fancy directors like Polanski, Alan Pakula and Louis Malle.
Stephen was the last man standing.
The pair went to New York to meet Lorimar head Bernie Brillstein to discuss the production.
He said, Were in a race.
He said to Stephen, When can you start work?.
Its amazing now when I look back at it.
First of all, he was alarmed.
Then I said who I was.
They came in and financed the whole thing, said Hampton.
Its such a serendipitous business were in.
