European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 20, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I same Coin As Hamlet. Instead of forming a philosophy of death and our journey toward it he resists it. He says let s Stop them dying and see if we can do it better he replaces Hamlet s intellectual Pursuit with physical action. And still in t  he stares glumly Down at the Tablecloth looking nothing like the nervy Young Man in a hurry Vin cent Canby described in the new York times a few years Back. He has done everything in his career so fast it would seem he s on schedule for a midlife Cri Sis. Bom in Belfast to a Carpenter and a housewife he was raised in a London suburb where his first conflict was nationality. Next came career but once he had established himself in the theater he immediately wanted film. While he acted Shakespeare he was equally compelled by the contemporary. And now that he has cornered the International Wunder kind Market he seems seduced by the Prospect of becoming the thinking Man s Kevin Costner. People think i must be wired though i Don t feel that Way he says. There s been no master plan just an underlying sense of let s live now you can drop off the Twig be run Over by  he shrugs cliches Irish sentiments. Now i have no plans to do anything. I m sort of spent with this project. There have been so Many big things consuming me while making it. An obsession with death. The usual pathetic search for the meaning of life. It s Friend ship and love that make life Worth living and even those things Are tremendously  he pauses. I think i m tired he says. I be said a lot in my work and now i want to enjoy the massive sense of Relief that this film is Over. I said to Emma it s like a Cloud hanging Over you that does t go away until it s delivered " Emma is his wife the actress Emma Thompson. Though the two have collaborated professionally her top performances in the remains of the Day and in howards end for which she won an Oscar were projects in which he was not involved. The two refuse to be interviewed together to Dis courage the perception of them As a package Deal though Branagh says thank Christ we re in the same business so i have a Friend. Pm is a great soul. And she can talk me out of my despair pretty  so where is she now when we need her i do feel vulnerable he says. I be put All that Effort into this movie. I know there Are the people lining up to say in t that awful being at the Epi Center of that is not very pleasant. You just want to say everyone like me please please " one movie producer says that Branagh is perceived As an artist in Hollywood. He is very Well respected out Here even if people think he a Well a Little fancy he says. Told this Branagh nods. I seem to Benefit from a spurious credibility from my association with shake Speare he says. One executive did t want to give me the Frankenstein Job. His parting shot was please Don t make a merchant Ivory movie he looks outraged and disgusted and helpless. I expect the criticism he continues but i wanted the movie to be More than a blow pm up action  he was supported he says by its executive producer Francis Ford Coppola he gave very constructive criticism. I still can t believe he s involved. He such an exotic figure  last question. So much has been made of his being born in Belfast and moving to England with his family to avoid the violence which he says caused him a lifelong identity crisis. Does it still affect him i feel More Irish than English he says. I feel Freer than British More visceral with a love of Lan Guage. Shot through with fire in some Way. That s Why i resist being appropriated As the current Reposi tory of Shakespeare on the planet that would mean i m part of the English cultural elite and i am utterly ill fitted to be. My parents still live in England and still consider themselves Irish. They go Back to Bel fast a lot. But it is a question of where you belong. I Don t think i know that yet. I live in London but i Don t enjoy it. I Haven t found Home  what an exit line. As he goes he is the Only one of his entourage to Stop and thank the new York publicist who has worked with him All week. Aha not Only an artist with existential despair but an artist with manners  about those Muscles. It does t look As though Hollywood is going to be Home either. Triste Robert de Niro terrifies Helena Bonham Carter on her wedding night in maty Shelley s Frankenstein. As interviews go de Niro in t by Douglas Rowe associated press he Junke Teers have come from across the nation. On this Day these entertainment writers return to the 32nd floor of new York s four seasons hotel from the Sanc Tum Sanctorum one floor below where Robert de Niro has granted them interviews mostly in six minute blocks. I barely got in three questions at least two Are overheard to say. But it sounds More like an observation than a complaint. So maybe the publicist for the the two time acad Emy award winning actor s latest movie was right in telling the associated press a half hour will seem like two  for me or for him  de Niro s reputation for being a Tough interview again precedes him. It should to though. When he walks into the suite where a reporter has been kept waiting de Niro shyly says Hias he firmly shakes hands. But he s anything but unresponsive or monosyllabic. He answers at length about the literary and philosophical implications of Mary Shelley s Frankenstein in which he plays the creature. Then he self effacing by says i Hope i m making sense because i m just sort of rattling  More than once he says director and co Star Ken Neth Branagh could answer such questions better than he could. Yet he tackles such posers As does the creature have a soul i Don t know what a soul is. It s an abstract word. Conscience he has de Niro says. He has heart if you want to Call that soul. He has  pause. I Don t know that s like a metaphysical question that i can t answer. And i did t make a Choice for myself in playing the part that he thought he had a soul or he did t have a Sou or  in researching the role de Niro says he watched the old movies most of which were highly stylized though he did t find much to draw on or avoid. Beyond All of the cerebral aspects de Niro says he saw his role As Victor Frankenstein s creature As a physical exercise. I was so concerned about the look How he was designed where that came from. That was a big con Cern for All of us that he would be so appalling so grotesque so frightening. At the same time try ing to avoid what s been done  he studied stroke victims who seemed to be the closest thing to the creature in terms of someone having to relearn something that they took for granted simple words simple phrases and one part of their brain being very frustrated and expressing that frustrating by knowing that they can say this or do this and the other part of the brain not being Able Eddo  .".". The creature s ugly features make him repulsive to the world which mercilessly spurns him no matter that he s highly articulate and can quote from Mil ton s Paradise lost i guess it s the whole thing with ugliness and Gro Tesque Ness being synonymous with evil which it s not a lot of times As we All know. In the realistic sense you meet Beautiful people who Are not Good looking he  Niro laughs when it s proposed that Frankenstein s creation would have had a much easier go of it if he were a hunk Ratier than a Hulk. And when he s reminded that the 1818 novel was written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley while she was still a teen Ager he say god knows what was going on in her head. I Don t know what drugs she was  november 20, 1994 sunday Page 23