The Time My Editor Forced Me To Ask Mike Leigh If He'd Ever Make A Superhero Movie

"I want you to ask Mike Leigh if he'd ever make a superhero movie." These are 14 terrifying words. These are the words from my editor at Movieline, Stu VanAirsdale, right before I interview the director most known for not suffering fools of any kind. At first I thought this was a joke and wrote back a quick, "Haha." Stu responds, "Mike, I'm serious. I want you to ask Mike Leigh if he'd ever make a superhero movie."

I respond, "Wait ... why?"

Stu said, "I want to know what he says."

I said, "I can tell you what he's going to say!"

Stu makes it clear, "Mike, you need to ask Mike Leigh if he'd ever make a superhero movie."

I have never been more anxious about asking anyone anything. Listening to the recording of that interview with Leigh now, I have the same vibe Joey Tribbiani does when he doesn't want to step into the empty elevator shaft on Days of Our Lives, putting it off as long as I humanly can.

So here's how that went...

(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this story, plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, approaching Philip Seymour Hoffman to ask him about Along Came Polly, and the time Larry King called me a "freak" and asked if I was "a nerd.")