It's not surprising that the Chronicle would devote this much ink to the political wisdom of a movie star. (Beatty's wisdom, incidentally, is pro forma liberalism of the moment, full of complaint about "radical Republican initiatives.") The paper, after all, in August ran a lengthy series penned by Sean Penn about his impressions of Iran.
What is surprising is the fact that Beatty was willing to sit down with a reporter for two hours. This is a man once famed for his reticence, who was quoted at the time of his Ishtar fiasco as saying, "I'd rather ride down the street on a camel nude -- in a snowstorm -- backwards -- than give what is sometimes called an in-depth interview."
Fifteen years ago, Bill Zehme published an interview with Beatty in Rolling Stone that became famous because Zehme hit upon the clever idea of including in his text the actual length of the pauses Beatty left on his tape -- 26 seconds, 47 seconds -- before failing to respond to his questions. "To interview Warren Beatty is to want to kill him," Zehme wrote. He later described Beatty as "the ultimate Impossible Interview."
Incidentally, I'll have a piece in Governing's November issue about celebrities spouting off about politics, as well as politicians playing parts in movies and TV.
