Scott says he never wallows in depression.”You have to keep bouncing around,” he smiles, “or else you’ll drown People always ask me what’s the plan? There is no plan. I’ve had a lot of practice and the job requires tremendous stamina; you have to be awake longer than anyone else Directing, half the time, is saying ‘NO. He cheerfully admits to having an innate confidence.”I have always got lost in my own fantasy,” he says “I never get intimidated. Now 67, his wavy hair is still thick, red flecked with grey; his beard is grey and there are bags under the eyes. His features have softened a little with age.He is often described as the greatest British director since Alfred Hitchcock; when I remind him he laughs. Dressed in a bottle-green pullover and baggy khakis, he looks more like a retired solicitor than a powerful Hollywood player.

Scott happens to own a Provence vineyard and for the next few months he will be working from home.”I’ve lived in Provence for 14 years and love it, so I’ve always wanted to do a film there,” he says. “This is a comedy, something I’ve been looking forward to because it is a really funny book.”We’re chatting on a sunny afternoon in Pasadena, California, where he has flown for a series of meetings. It’s based on the Peter Mayle bestseller A Year in Provence, about a British businessman who inherits a vineyard and goes to live in France. He saw his last film, Kingdom of Heaven(2005), as a western set in 12th-century Jerusalem and shot in Morocco.
But for Scott’s next project he is enjoying a more low-keyexperience, filming a comedy, A Good Year, starring his pal Crowe. He also enjoys taking an old movie theme and investing it with an entirely fresh perspective. His gritty Blade Runner (1982) set the style for a new era in science fiction. He turned the buddy movie on its head with Thelma and Louise(1992) casting Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon.

The Oscar-winning blockbuster Gladiator (2000), with Russell Crowe, sparked a box office revival of historical epics. For the corporations who back them, too, a rapper in a movie is a cross-marketing dream. As DefJam Island group president Lyor Cohen said on the occasion of the latest dumb doper comedy starring once-credible rapper Method Man: “DefJam has always believed that we are a lifestyle company… seeking additional ways to make money.”Many rappers say Amen to that, as they plot their futures as 21st-century all-round entertainers Once, they were would-be Malcolm Xs Now, they dream of being Bing Crosby..

Ridley Scott makes spectacular films involving colossal sets, complicated logistics and big budgets. I’m trying for my head to be six feet tall.”While Tupac, Benjamin and Ashley Walters all had stage training and ambitions before they were musicians, most rappers treat acting with the same seriousness as their personal fashion, porn video, and computer game lines: just one more trapping of multi-media success. Though the likes of LL Cool J, DMX and Snoop regularly fill out the casts of assorted horror, comedy and action films, their ambitions rarely seem nobler than P Diddy’s recently announced intention: “I’m trying to hit the big screen, baby. He found it wearing.” Tellingly, despite his acclaim in 8 Mile, Eminem has left wider cinematic challenges alone.Most other rappers’ screen CVs are, frankly, forgettable.

“It takes great courage to tear yourself open, to give the sort of performance I wanted. “A persona like Slim Shady is artificial, you hide behind it,” its director Curtis Hanson says. But at some point you’re going to be asked to be something else, and that’s when it’s going to be time to go to work.”The contrast between rapping and real acting was felt by Eminem on 8 Mile, even as he played a Detroit rapper based largely on himself. Jackson, who refused to co-star in 50’s new movie (while appearing with Cube in XXX) explained his objections to rap dabblers in his trade: “Anybody can go out there and be themselves. In Britain, too, Ashley Walters, previously known as Asher D in So Solid Crew, oozed sad conviction as the south-London estate teen destroyed by gun crime in Bullet Boy.The debit side of rappers’ contributions to cinema, though, is equally full Samuel L.