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Beatty is not contemplating any changes in his ways. If he has any personal complaints, they are only about the drudgery of producing. "I enjoyed it the first time, on Bonnie and Clyde," he says, "because I wanted to see if I could play with the big boys. But, you know, they don't look that big after you've been playing with them." The prospect of running for public office also has lost some appeal for him, though he doesn't rule it out altogether. "The relationship between theater and politics fascinates me," he says. "They both communicate ideas and both involve persuasion and compromise." More than ever, though, Beatty loves acting; he looks forward to playing many more roles after John Reed and Howard Hughes. This is good news, for Beatty has evolved into an exceptional movie star. Once a moody, latter-day James Dean, he is now the wittiest of leading men. He brings eroticism to the screen, but not at the expense of sensitivity and self-effacing charm. At his best—especially in McCabe and Heaven Can Wait—his acting belies his looks; he makes the audience feel protective of him.
Actually Beatty thrives on taking care of himself. He likes to be alone and sometimes dreams of the day when even his work will be solitary. "My idea of freedom and independence," he says, "is to live on top of a hill with clean air—no smog —and some good food vaguely in the area. The window is ajar, and there's a breeze that smells of geraniums or honeysuckle. And there's a room with a typewriter, where you go in for a few hours a day and tell your version of things. And you get a call from someone in a distant, dirty city who tells you that you can have more money and more time to write because people are so eager to read what you have to say. That's the fantasy of quitting. The other day I was thinking about quitting, and it was really attractive to me—for 15 or 20 minutes."
He pauses and goes on: "But then you go out to a movie theater and get this thrill when something good goes on the screen. And you want to raise your hand and say, 'Wait a minute, wait a minute, I want to make one of those!' "
Frank Rich