Thank you Stanley Kubrick. The much loved director of some of my favorite movies (The Shining, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket, Dr Strangelove, 2001 Space Odyssey) and one seriously bad clunker, told a close friend before he died that his last movie "Eyes Wide Shut" (said clunker) was, and I quote, a "piece of shit" thanks to Tom and Nicole. Rest in peace, Stanley.
According to actor R Lee Ermey in an interview with Radar, Kubrick said that he felt the two stars, the then-married Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, had interfered excessively with the making of the movie and that Kubrick, who died in 1999, expressed disappointment with the film immediately after it was finished.
"Stanley called me about two weeks before he died," Ermey said."We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut. He told me it was a piece of shit and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch.
"He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him - exactly the words he used.
"He was kind of a shy little timid guy. He wasn't real forceful. That's why he didn't appreciate working with big, high-powered actors. They would have their way with him, he would lose control, and his movie would turn to shit."
Kubrick died in Hertfordshire, England of natural causes in March 1999. Ermey plays the sadistic sheriff in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and worked for Kubrick as Gny. Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal Jacket.
