Phone Message Transcript: May 27, 1997
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Okay, this machine is broken and it's going to cut me off at any minute. We're replacing it tomorrow and we'll also have an 800 line tomorrow, and we'll have it hooked up to a machine. So sometime tomorrow we'll have it fixed so that you don't have to pay to listen to me talk. You can, I can pay the bill, which I would prefer.

Very quickly, since I never know when the machine is going to wimp out, let me recommend ROMEO AND JULIET, the new film by the director, whose name I can't pronounce, but he directed STRICTLY BALLROOM. It was an incredibly innovative movie. It was fabulous and Leonard DiCaprio, the young man who played Romeo, met the emotional demands of the role superbly. I thought he was marvelous. I think the poetry of Shakespeare was a bit of a mouthful for him, but that's understandable, but he was, what he put into the role makes the film worthwhile. Also, on a lighter note, I recommend the best disaster film I've ever seen, DAYLIGHT, with Sylvester Stallone. I know you have to be a Stallone fan to understand this, but Sly is getting better and better and better. And this is really just, tops THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, which was the top of the heap for me until tonight, and I'm interested in this genre. If you look back at THE TOWERING INFERNO, which I think was over twenty years ago, and then you look at a film like DAYLIGHT, you can see something about us as a people, a culture, that we've changed in a lot of ways, morally. We have different attitudes. We're less cynical. There's a great deal more, oh, I don't know, a frank acknowledgement of heroism and you don't see the cynicism in DAYLIGHT, and yet it's a very tight, very exciting, flawless disaster picture. It's very, very good. I highly recommend it. I just, I wish Sly Stallone played in, you know, Shakespeare. I wish he could make the leap like Mel Gibson, from LETHAL WEAPON all the way to HAMLET and BRAVEHEART and things like that, because he's such a fascinating screen presence. But somehow or other that doesn't happen and I think it's probably because the American people or the foreign audiences don't allow it and accept it. And anyway, I'll settle for him in DAYLIGHT. And I'll settle for him with Antonio Banderas in that other movie, which I suddenly can't remember the name of, but that was very good. They were shooting at each other the whole time.

Okay, basic news. We'll have the new machines tomorrow. You can leave a message even if I am cut off. If I stop speaking abruptly, as if someone strangled me, you can still leave a one minute message and I will hear you. I can't answer the calls that come in on this line. It's simply impossible because of the volume. And there is a listing in New Orleans for Anne Rice's Very Own Tours, so you can find that that way from information. There's also a listing for the Lestat Fan Club, I think they have it under Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat Fan Club, but they have a separate life all their own and they have their own line.

Keep giving me your opinions on films and books and recommendations on music and thank you for telling me about Cantata 147. And Andy in Montreal, thank you so much for telling me about GORILLAS IN THE MIST. I saw it, actually. I've seen that film by Michael Apted. I didn't know he was the one who did it, but it was great of you to call. And Gary in Knoxville, I love hearing from you.

I can't, I don't have more to say. I've finished PANDORA, as I told you last time, the first of the short vampire novels. But VIOLIN will precede it. It's an October release, and VIOLIN is a very dark book, and it's very full of my heart and soul. And I don't know what it's fate will be in the marketplace because it's extremely different from what I've done before, but in a way it's also united with other works. It's about a ghost called Stefan who plays the violin and he sets out to drive a woman, and he finds that he's not going to succeed. She's not going to permit it to happen. And a lot of my love of music went into VIOLIN.

Okay, God bless you. If you're writing, write. If you're dancing, dance. If you're singing, sing. Remember we need you. If you don't do it, who will? It's out of today's struggles that we get the classics of tomorrow and the geniuses that endure for all time. So keep the faith no matter who's telling you what. Believe in yourself and believe that I love you, and thank you so much for listening. And leave me a one minute message, please."