Scott suggests that theater-trained actors’ skill complements his own. “I think the best thing is, they keep me honest,” he says. “My gift is the visual. And I’ve learned to certainly get good with story—clearly, look at all the films I’ve done. They’ve all had good yarns. A film’s a yarn. That’s it. High-class, middle-class, or low-class, it’s a fucking yarn! And that’s our job. We’re storytellers. And so theater actors, in a way, they have a bedrock to lean on if things are thin.”
The irony, Scott acknowledges, is that he is no great fan of actually going to the theater. “I fall asleep,” he explains.
When we spoke, Scott and Mescal were scheduled to reunite on Scott’s next project, The Dog Stars, though the latest reports have Jacob Elordi in the lead role. Scott’s excitement in describing the film is compelling. First he says, “Well, if I tell you about it, you’ll say, ‘I’ve heard it all before’… end of the world, survivors, et cetera.” But he sees a way of telling the story “with a completely fresh view.” He compares it to one of his greatest latter-day triumphs, The Martian. “A guy gets stranded on Mars, and he actually survives, and they pick him up, and he goes back to Earth,” Scott says. “Isn’t that fucking boring, right? But I knew what to do. And I saw it in the early days. I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is a comedy.’ And they said, ‘What? A comedy?’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s a comedy. How on earth could anything where you survive by growing vegetables from your own shit not be funny?’ So, the same here.”
By which I don’t think he necessarily means that this will be a comedy too, just that, once more, Ridley Scott knows what to do. To this day, Scott insists on reading scripts himself rather than relying on readers’ reports. As he describes the experience of reading the Dog Stars script, his enthusiasm is tangible.
“I know whose hands I’m in within about three pages. Actually, I know within half a page. And then I think, Interesting, and I’m in. By page 10, I’m saying, ‘Please don’t drop the ball.’ Page 20, I start to sweat, saying, ‘Please, please don’t drop the ball.’ By page 50, I’m now absolutely getting really anxious because it’s so good. That’s how good it is.”
People may search for grand arcs in Ridley Scott’s career, but, characteristically, he is unwilling to join them.
“The order of things is random,” he says. “There is no order. The plan is: There is no plan. Because I get bored doing this. Others stay with their style of work. I tend to not want to repeat myself. But I haven’t done ice skating yet, and I haven’t done a musical yet, and I haven’t done a Western. They’re all imminent.” (He subsequently clarifies that no ice skating movie is, in fact, imminent.)
Meanwhile, a campaign is brewing. Scott has never won an Oscar—he was nominated for best director for Black Hawk Down, in addition to Thelma & Louise and Gladiator—and the usual moves are afoot to bring Scott anew to the attention of the Academy voters.
“Listen, I’m respectful of that kind of thing, but I never think about it, honestly,” he says.
“I missed it several times, and there was no disappointment. In fact, on the night, there’s great relief that you don’t have to give a speech.”
Inevitably, people around you are going to be thinking about it on your behalf. That’s okay?
“Yeah, of course. And thanks to them. But, no, I really genuinely never think about it.”
Because the real reward is what?
“Being able to carry on. As long as I can keep delivering, I think there won’t be a problem.”
That’s the one Ridley Scott plan that does exist: Carry on. As for the alternative…
“Don’t let it in,” he says. “Don’t let it in. I don’t even think about it. I don’t let it in. I’m in denial. I mean, shit, I’m still doing it,
you know.”
Chris Heath is a GQ correspondent.
A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of GQ with the title “Ridley Scott Is Not Looking Back”
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Alasdair Mclellan
Grooming by Jana Carboni
