Interview with Miloš Forman

The performance A Walk Worthwhile has been mingling with your artistic life since the 1960s up to the present. What is so attractive about the play you keep coming back to it, is it mere nostalgia?
The way Jiří Suchý treats the Czech language in the "Walk" arises my infinite admiration. In addition, the "Walk" was coming into existence at the time of my beginnings and I feel very sentimental about that period.

In 1966, that time Semafor´s performance was filmed for the first time. Now the new staging in the National Theatre has been filmed. Both the times shooting was made under entirely different conditions, of course. In spite of that is it possible to compare them? What are essential differences and similarities?
The difference is more or less similar to the way of any theatre play from "off Broadway" to Broadway.

What method did you use when shooting it now?
To preserve spontaneity, we made the film using eight cameras during five normal performances.

You made a vast open competition for the actors in the performance in the National Theatre, there were several alternations. How did you decide who would "cast" in the film?
Only the best ones, free in the time set for filming, could cast in it.

You have said a couple of times the film is really being born in the cutting room. What was the work on editing A Walk Worthwhile like? You had a lot of material…
Due to the huge amount of filmed material the editor Tonička Janková and I spent in the cutting room more time than is usual.

You are accustomed to making films in big Hollywood productions. How did you find working here in the Czech Republic in a small team on, in fact, an independent film?
As far as professionalism of all the co-workers is concerned, there was no difference. And from my personal point of view it was much more pleasant.

The film was originally meant to be put on a DVD. Does the fact that you finally agreed to show it in cinemas imply you are content with the result?
I am, very much.