TCM Classic Film Festival 2015: Red Carpet Interviews

Anne V. Coates (Photo by Edward M. Pio Roda/Turner Classic Movies)

Your career spans so many decades, could you speak a little bit about how you got involved with working on Fifty Shades of Grey, which just opened?
Anne V. Coates: *laughs* Well, they just called me up one day and invited me! I’m kind of semi-retired now, but I thought that would be a bit of fun!

Did you enjoy it?
AV.C: Yeah, I did. We were up in Vancouver for three or four months. It’s great fun up there. It got a little rough at the end.

Was this one of the raunchiest movies you’ve ever edited?
AV.C: Well, I don’t know. Unfaithful was a little raunchier than this, but a little more tasteful, I think maybe. *Laughs*

We learned today that Sam Taylor-Johnson will not be returning as director for the trilogy. How do you feel about that?
AV.C: I know she really wanted to do it to begin with, but I think as it got very rough towards the end, she probably changed her mind. I know she certainly did at one time want to do it. She’s probably double disappointed, but she doesn’t want to face that rough time she had again.

Were most of the differences between her and E.L. James in the editing room?
AV.C: That’s where it was all taking place.

Was that the reason why she left?
AV.C: I think so. I don’t think she [Taylor-Johnson] wanted the interference. She [E.L. James] was interfering the whole time, right from the beginning. When we were shooting, she was on and off the set.

Was that the right or wrong thing for James to do?
AV.C: Wrong. We don’t have writers involved at that stage, except in exceptional circumstances. You hand it over to the director and the editor and the producers.

Are you back on board for the next one?
AV.C: No, no I won’t do another. One was enough.

Do you think some of the better material wound up on the cutting room floor?
AV.C: No, no- I used pretty much everything. They cut it down to get an R rating, but there wasn’t really any raunchier stuff than we put in.

Do you think Out of Sight is the sexiest film you’ve cut?
AV.C: In some ways, but I think Unfaithful is the sexiest, actually.