Mike Nichols: Desire Is Not Enough

Interview with Mike Nichols

Conducted by James Grissom

New York

1992

I am really not expecting anyone to come and observe me working in a garden or conducting a symphony or repairing an air conditioner or building anything whatsoever. I do not possess any of these skills, and many others. I know where I belong, and I offer my full respect to those who come to my aid and do what escapes me repeatedly.

I don't know if it is, in fact, elitism to expect, demand, or hope for people to do well what they do. Any attempt I might make to extract a tooth or write a legal brief would very deservedly earn me derision, but I'm pretty sure someone somewhere is ready to urge me to take up ballet as more than a remedial pastime.

We talked about self-esteem, and I don't think my nostalgia-infused amber lens is what leads me to state, solidly, that I don't remember so many assured people when I was beginning to work. I remember dreaming and studying and plowing and scratching and scheming to get to the place one wanted or felt they deserved, but I don't remember anyone who walked with the assurance that a place was reserved for them. It might be my lifetime of luck that prevented this meeting, but I don't know.

I understand that people all over the world want and deserve to paint and to dance and to sing and to act, but I find it insane that these efforts in small towns and basements and the best wishes of ambitious people should be placed on a similar level with the efforts of people who have devoted their lives to these things, altered their methods of creation, and stood next to other high-achieving people to earn a place on a stage or a museum wall. I will gladly show you efforts I've made at painting, but I don't expect you or anyone to rush to have it placed in a museum, but for all I know, there might be a museum devoted to every effort. 

Effort is not enough. Desire is not enough.

Tennessee [Williams] mentioned seriousness of purpose, and that now sounds so punitive, old-fashioned, but we have to honor beauty, not the desire to possess it. We have to honor the greatness of talent, not the hope that it might be delivered to us. I fail all the time, and when I succeed, if I do, it is because I am buffeted and taught by people greater and tougher and honest.

If we find equal value in all things, if we applaud effort and hope in the same degree we applaud momentous work, we lose everything.

There must be values; there must be lanes in which we work; there must be limits to which we must confess.

I deny nothing to anyone, but what we do has a name, a rank, and we have to accept it.

©  2019  James Grissom