Wealth & Money Quote by Mike Figgis

Figgis is puncturing the myth that money makes movies easier. In his telling, wealth doesn’t just buy comfort; it buys insulation. A “very rich” actor can afford to be less porous to feedback, less hungry, less willing to risk looking foolish in pursuit of a performance. “Spoilt” is doing a lot of work here: it’s not merely bratty behavior, but a slow recalibration of reality where inconvenience becomes “disrespect” and collaboration starts to feel optional.

The sharper barb lands on the infrastructure around the star. Managers and agents “control things” because the economics of celebrity reward risk management over artistic messiness. A director wants unpredictability, vulnerability, time; an entourage wants leverage, brand protection, and contractual clarity. Figgis is pointing at a power shift on set: the actor stops being an artist among artists and becomes an asset in a portfolio, with representatives acting like compliance officers. When that happens, decisions aren’t made for the scene, they’re made for the spreadsheet.

Context matters: Figgis comes out of a tradition of director-led filmmaking, where tone and experimentation are fragile ecosystems. When a performer arrives as a self-contained corporation, the set can’t behave like a creative workshop; it becomes a negotiation table. His complaint isn’t anti-actor so much as anti-cushion: riches create intermediaries and reduce friction, and friction is often where the human truth of a film gets found.