Tony Kaye is a renowned film director and former advertising director known for his unconventional and controversial work. In the interview, Kaye discusses his passion for filmmaking and advertising. He praises guerilla artist Banksy as the greatest advertising agency for his subversive work. Kaye believes that to make great advertising, one must "kill ego" and have the courage to take creative risks. He emphasizes the importance of trusting relationships between clients and creatives. Throughout his career, Kaye has pushed boundaries with his bold vision and uncompromising approach to storytelling.

1. 36 People | ad icons
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2. tony kaye | People 37
Tony
KayeHaving won every
award there is to
win in filmmaking
with his ferocious
energy and unique
vision, you would
be right to be wary
when first meeting
the notorious Tony
Kaye. The intrepid
Simon Wakelin
tentatively steps
into the fray
When you’re meeting the infamous Tony Kaye at his Los Angeles
home for an interview, you’re never quite sure what to expect. After all, Kaye
is renowned for his outrageous stunts in advertising and fearless crusades in
filmmaking. Take the McCann-Erickson/Bacardi debacle back in the 90s where
the ending of Kaye’s ad was re-shot by the agency. His response was to set up a
10-piece rap band on a flat-bed truck outside McCann’s HQ chanting anti-
Bacardi sentiments in an effort to “embarrass the enemy into capitulation”.
However, when Kaye traded London for the bright lights of Hollywood he
committed his most public faux pas on the Nazi skinhead drama American
History X. Production ran smoothly, but when New Line seized control of the
film he was unable to cut his version of the story. Kaye responded with a
personal – and public – war of attrition against one of the most powerful
studios in Hollywood. Kaye’s antics included the placement of more than 40
oblique ads in the trades to express his disgust with New Line, questioning
why he wasn’t allowed creative control of the film. He went as far as to hire a
priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk to sit in on a meeting between himself
and studio exec Michael De Luca. He even read books on military strategy.
Kaye became an immense pain in the ass for De Luca, successfully yanking
the premiere of the studio-cut film from the Toronto Film Festival, demanding
that his name be taken off the film and replaced with ‘Humpty Dumpty’
(or, more amusingly, replaced with the moniker of footballer ‘Ralph Coates’).
After the DGA refused his request, Kaye sued them for curtailing his First
Amendment rights. Granted, it’s not every day you hear of such eccentricities
– but you can’t fault Kaye for his passion. More to the point when American
History X was unveiled it seemed Kaye's gritty, hand-held immediacy was still
intact, a vision that earned him wide critical acclaim – and Edward Norton’s
first Oscar nomination.
Kaye moved on and continued directing commercials while completing his
powerful abortion documentary Lake Of Fire, a film that collected the Best
Documentary Award at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2007. Kaye was also
hired to direct the thriller Black Water Transit, a film perfectly suited to him. It
follows the agendas of criminals, cops and lawyers colliding over a shipment
of illegal firearms and a double homicide. But the producers became engaged
in a bitter lawsuit, leaving Kaye to wonder if his film will ever be released.
One bright spot this year is Detachment – Kaye’s latest feature that follows
Adrien Brody as Henry Barthes, a teacher with a murky past who drifts
between troubled inner-city schools. It is released this autumn.
Photographs:SIMONWAKELIN
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3. 38 People | ad icons
What do you consider the greatest ad
agency in the world right now?
I think that Banksy is by far the greatest
advertiser/agency/client wrapped into one soul
on the planet. No question. No question at all.
A billion miles ahead of anyone. That’s the agency
of the year for 2011, last year. And maybe next year.
I mean come on. Look at Banksy’s satirical
images on Israel’s West Bank barrier. A girl being
carried away by a bunch of balloons, a boy
painting a rope ladder, and corners of the wall
peeled away showing imagined lush landscapes
behind. His work says think from outside the box,
collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it.
Why do you think Banksy is so much
better than effective agencies with huge
global clients?
He is way ahead of the game because his ego is
more crushed and more condensed than most
corporate ad executives because he puts himself
on the line. Every single day. He does what he
believes in, does what he cares about. He is naked.
He learns and moves on.
Banksy has just as many failures as he does
successes, but he has the courage to go on, to
create because he takes his ego out of the
equation, in order to get his message out there.
That’s who we, us in the conglomerate of the
advertising machine, have to compete against.
What are your thoughts on advertising reaching
the audience today with so many new media
platforms vying for attention?
I don’t think it’s just new media. TV is still beamed
into millions of people’s homes all over the world.
Hard copy magazines and newspapers will always
be there. People will always want to hold, look and
feel something in their hands and that won’t
change, for all experts suggest. Then there are
walls, benches and streets that we exist within
before you even consider new media.
Global advertising companies like Procter &
Gamble are successful, brilliant and damn clever,
but they need to hire people to make business
decisions. They need to find what face its brands
will wear in the world, what voice they will adopt
and it’s extremely difficult for them to choose.
and told I could bring in another writer to do
my own version of the story. Then they gave
me $8m to shoot it in New Orleans – but the
bond company freaked out. I still have this
reputation floating around after American History
X, but it was a storm in a teacup and we soon
began production.
You are known as a director but you are also
a cinematographer. What’s the difference
between directing and being a cameraman?
I believe I made a mistake. I should have been an
actor. Brando told me I should have been in front
of the camera. But being a cinematographer allows
me to be an actor on set. The camera becomes a
character. You don’t see it, you don’t hear it – but
you feel its presence and everyone does. It’s there
in the movie. It’s there on a dolly, it’s there on a
track, or resting on my shoulder. The camera is
observing everything. It’s one of the characters
in the mise-en-scène.
Have you collaborated with other
cinematographers?
I don’t because it’s a singular vision. It’s all about
the spontaneity of where I choose to put the
camera myself. I am the one placing the camera
in the scene, the one choosing the lens, the one
positioning the lights – or not having any lights
at all, which is usually the case.
It just wouldn’t happen in quite the same way
having a cinematographer with me. There would
always be a dialogue happening, a hybrid that
would end up being different. I’m not saying
collaboration wouldn’t be better, just that to date it
has enabled me to do the work extremely fast. For
example, Detachment was shot in 22 days with
great depth and coverage. I would defy any other
director to do what I did on that film.
When you look back on the debacle of American
History X and New Line what are your thoughts?
Look, that was an idiotic and stupid Tony Kaye
back then. I had fear. I was a fucking coward. For
the record, I’d love to work with Edward Norton
again. As painful as it was at the time I learned a
lot from the whole experience. Looking back now
I know that I needed him to do what he did.
That’s when you come on to a project as a
director and get caught up in all this banal,
unintelligent dialogue and you think, Jesus, just
beam me away from all of this bullshit because
I don’t want to be polluted by it!
Advertising has to be created without fear
because a glorious failure can lead to a wonderful
victory. All these realms of research to find the
answers effectively kills the poetry of advertising.
What ad campaigns have you been impressed
with of late? What poetry makes the cut?
You know I noticed Droga 5's Decode Jay-Z with
Bing won the Outdoor Grand Prix this year. That
made me laugh. It’s Jay-Z’s words. His
autobiography. It should win! It’s already brilliant
because it’s the verse and text of a genius. It’s got
nothing to do with advertising per se, but it is very
readable and entertaining, so all of a sudden the
work is winning awards at Cannes. Advertising has
been reduced to this.
Many would say Decode Jay-Z with Bing
is great advertising…
Okay. Look, it’s clever, it’s entertaining – but why
are we, who make a living by advertising, not
producing work as good as Jay-Z? How about
Banksy, Hirst, Kanye?
Advertising has a responsibility. If we advertise
anything – a spot on TV, on the radio, even a poster
on the wall – we have a responsibility to do it with
intelligence. My point is it’s got to be as good as a
verse from Jay-Z, not just Jay-Z’s verse.
It has to be like a piece of graffiti by Banksy,
like a sculpture by Damien Hirst, like a Bob Dylan
song, like a performance by Arcade Fire.
It has to exist in that space. To me the best
agencies and the best clients are wrapped up in
souls like Banksy, like Jay-Z, who communicate
in a proactive way.
It’s been a difficult road since American History
X. How was the experience on Black Water
Transit, taking the reins from Samuel Bayer
when he dropped out of the project?
Movies come about in all kinds of weird and
wonderful ways. On paper it was a $45m movie.
I was offered the film when Bayer dropped out
Arriving at Kaye’s house I was greeted by hundreds of pieces of
conceptual art and I recalled the time he hired a homeless man and ‘installed’
him as a work of art at the Tate Gallery in London. I entered his home and
spotted Kaye making espresso. He ushered me in with a warm, self-effacing
attitude. I was immediately struck by his introspective nature and, as our
conversation flowed, it seemed I had Kaye on a good day.
So began a thought-provoking interview with arguably one of the greatest
directors ever to grace the advertising and film world. Kaye spoke about
his love for advertising, his new book deal with Phaidon, filmmaking in
Hollywood and how ego will destroy us all – unless we keep it in check.
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4. tony kaye | People 39
What do you see for yourself in the future?
I’m 60 years old. I’ve won everything that can be
won more than once and now I’d like to be a part of
the industry in a useful way. What I’m interested in
is working with brands and manufacturers to make
their product better, the packaging better and then
selling it. That’s what I’m really interested in.
I fucking love advertising. I took to the industry
like a duck to water. Not that I wanted to be there,
not that I trained for it, but I loved it. It’s been a
lifetime in the profession. I’ve been a graphic
designer, a commercial artist, a copywriter, an art
director, a commercials director, a photographer,
a cinematographer, a book designer. The list goes
on. I have done almost every job on the creative
side in the profession of advertising.
How do you make advertising better?
It’s about two words. KILL EGO. If you can do
that, if you can kill that you open up a whole
new discussion. Part of the problem in making
commercials is that when you walk into a meeting
you are with people who work for big corporations
and agencies and there’s a monster in the room
and it’s called ego.
I’m not saying that I’m Moses, I’m saying that
unless you can break that down and humble
yourself, unless everyone in the room can do that,
and talk about the real grassroots of what the
problem is, about how are we going to advertise
this product and make it better, how can we look at
the product itself and get rid of all the fucking bad
ingredients in the product that damage, harm and
kill people, and how can we make the packaging,
so that it looks cool and doesn’t damage people’s
lives by breeding bad taste. It needs to be all about
making advertising in a proactive way.
Is regionalism still alive?
No, it’s universal now. We’ve all become, in a way,
suburbs of the States. We’re dealing with youth
here. Youth governs us. The US, as far as I am
concerned, has the greatest business mind in the
world. America’s business acumen is second to
none. Now there are great artists everywhere in the
world and I don’t believe for one moment that
America produces the greatest artists, but the one
thing that American advertising has is global
control. America can take anything that it chooses
and make it the biggest thing all over the world.
It becomes mythic, especially advertising that is
translatable in a very simplistic sense to the global
community. I think to procure success, ideas need
to be wrapped within a franchise. Think Harry
Potter, James Bond or Jason Bourne to keep
a brand’s identity intact.
I think anything you do has to be a campaign;
and there has to be some singular thought, some
unique message that is always apparent.
Ego is obviously a problem. What else is
required to make the magic happen?
Trust. The most successful relationships I have
experienced in advertising have come from brave
clients that trust me.
I remember years ago I had to give a lecture at
a big advertising seminar. I was working on a Nike
spot with Myung-Joong Kim. I asked him if he had
any ideas for the lecture I was gonna give. He
looked at me for a second then said: “Yeah, just say
the word ‘trust’.”
Just go out there and say one word? Go up on
the stage, say one word, and walk off? I said, you
know, that’s a fantastic idea. I’m gonna do that.
They flew me first class thousands of miles,
put me up in San Francisco in an incredible hotel
suite overlooking the city for the big day. I went
to the seminar with a big crowd of people waiting
for some genius to come out and give them a
Steve Jobs keynote speech. I come out, I look
at everyone, I say the word “trust” into the
microphone and walk off the stage. But that’s
what it is. That’s what any lecture would have
come down to. Trust.
What drives and inspires you after so
much time in advertising and film? What
gives you passion?
Being connected with God – and I don’t mean an
old guy in the sky with a big white beard, but in
the sense of God being the global energy. When
you create a poem, shape a chair, make a painting,
shoot a commercial, write content for the internet,
sing a song – all of these you create with all of
mankind, and all this collective energy, that global
energy has a power.
“To me the best
agencies and the
best clients are
wrapped up in
souls like Banksy,
like Jay-Z, who
communicate in
a proactive way.”
“Being a
cinematographer
allows me to be
an actor on set.
The camera
becomes a
character. You
don’t see it, you
don’t hear it –
but you feel its
presence.”
“The most
successful
relationships I
have experienced
in advertising
have come from
brave clients
that trust me.”S
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