“Women need more support”

But yesterday, sitting opposite one of my favourite actors of all time, I was privileged to see a Hollywood great who clearly loves his son and adores, admires his wife.

In fact, he feels more comfortable talking about and complimenting Daphna, than he does talking about himself.
With projects in India and the United States coming up, Keitel is helping his wife scout for locations in Majorca and he is really enjoying working with her and looking forward to the prospect of acting opposite her next year when they start shooting in New York and Majorca.

When I ask him if we need more female directors like his wife in the industry today he smiles and quite simply replies that “every man should have a wife like mine. I'm the lucky one.” Not quite a line you'd get from Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant or Mean Streets. “We certainly need more women directors, but women need to be supporting themselves more, men don't need that kind of help in this business anymore. But, as we've seen over the past few years, more and more women are directing and they're very good. “But they still need all the help they can get, especially to get known,” he says. “I apologise for talking about the great enthusiasm I have for my wife, but it's true and any how, I'd probably end up being divorced if I lacked it,” he joked . “You know what they say, women, you can't live with them, can't live without them...” he added with his Greenwich Village smile.
And he has a pretty similar approach to his roles.
Ask Keitel how he feels about being a “luxury secondary actor” and that is about as close as you will come to facing Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs. “If that's how some people see it, so be it. I don't catagorise and quite often, it's the box office which calculates leading or secondary roles. It's a calculus. “For me what is more important is the role, the script, the character. If I like the part and think that I can do something special with it, bring something to the movie, then I'll take it, lead actor or not. It's not something I'm bothered about. “And, sometimes you take what you think has been a great part and most of your scenes end up on the cutting room floor, some times you just never know how it's going to play out,” Keitel said.

Keitel missed out on securing a part in Apocalypse Now.
After some preliminary filming Francis Ford Copolla apparently replaced him for Martin Sheen, but he certainly has no regrets.
Hollywood
In fact, he said that had he starred in the movie, he would not have been sitting with us in Majorca, scrapping with his young son on the sofa and sitting next to his wife.

He believes he got the better deal. “Hollywood is hugely powerful and influential. Film can influence the world and I guess right now, just like all of us and every other business, it's having its ups and downs and ins and outs, but it's up to the public, even you guys as journalists, to influence what Hollywood makes so the pubic gets to watch the films it wants to see and enjoy,” Keitel says.

Keitel has filmed in Majorca before, he spent five days on the island shooting Presence of Mind based on the story The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.

It was filmed on location at the La Raixa estate but that is pretty much all Keitel got to see of the island, so he is glad to have returned and is looking forward to filming on the island next year.