‘Fight Club’: Meat Loaf Reveals How He Helped David Fincher Pick Key Takes During the Directing Process
Meat Loaf has come a long way since his acting debut in the 1975 classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He’s appeared in countless films and television shows including “The 51st State,” “Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny,” “Monk,” “Glee,” and “House, M.D,” among others. He’s also a Grammy Award winner and has sold more than 80 million records worldwide – but don’t call him a musician (more on that later).
Speaking with The A.V. Club, Meat Loaf revealed that “Fight Club” was one of his favorite movies that he’s been a part of because David Fincher let him take part in the directing process.
The actor portrayed Robert “Bob” Paulson, a former body builder who due to his excessive use of steroids got testicular cancer, and at times helped the director pick key takes.
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“I really like ‘Fight Club’ because of the director, David Fincher,” he told the site. “I hardly spent any time in my trailer for almost 10 months. I sat next to David the entire time. Well, not next to him—I would have driven him crazy—but close, like behind him, so I could see what was going on and what he was seeing. It got to the point, about four or five months into filming, that we’d break for lunch, and Fincher would call me into his trailer and say, ‘I want you to help me pick which one I should use.’ Of course, in my head I’m going, ‘What?’”
“The first time he did that, I said, ‘I can’t do that,’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, you can. You’ve been sitting next to me, so help me pick out the best one,’” he recalled. “His average take was 44, so we’d sit there and watch 40 takes, and he’d go, ‘Which one did you like the best,’ and I’d say something like, ‘Well, it’s either 24 or 26,’ and he’d say, ‘I agree with you, 26.’”
He also counted “Focus,” written by Arthur Miller and directed by Neal Slavin, as another one of his favorite movies he’s been in because of the complicated characters.
As for his life as a singer and songwriter, he explained that when he’s creating music he first has to “work on his character.”
“I don’t consider myself a musician,” he stated, explaining that producer Rob Cavallo came up with the perfect line for him. “He said, ‘Meat Loaf is an actor who acts like he can sing’…”
When asked if he has always put acting before music he replied, “Yeah. Well, the only album that I can think of where it didn’t was the first one on Motown in 1970, ‘Stoney & Meatloaf.’ After that, every album, every song, is a different character.”
Read his entire interview by clicking here.
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