W: So...you went from Pumping Iron and the sequel...

GB: Pumping Iron 2.

W: And then In the Blood...and then nothing filmwise until Endurance. I was looking in the Internet Movie Database...

GB: I'm a photographer, I publish...I've taken a hundred thousand photos, I've published five books. I was just on the phone with John Kerry's office, I've worked in politics. I'm fairly widespread. But I did make four movies simultaneously in the Antarctic on Shackleton. And in the sort-of mid-90's, I had two scripts that were optioned by Miramax and MGM. And you know what it's like in Hollywood, you get near misses. I truly had some big near misses.

W: So with Endurance and with Pumping Iron coming back...people love success stories, or re-success stories, or what have you, are people looking at the scripts again, or...?

GB: Shackleton...hasn't hurt my reputation.

W: I would think not.

GB: The interesting thing is, is that I did four very different films in the Antarctic under extraordinary circumstances, and it's started a worldwide phenomenon, not unlike Pumping Iron, so I can only benefit from it.

W: Now this story has been around--

GB: For eighty years.

W: For eighty years...and I myself had only heard the outline of the story and didn't really know the details of it until I had seen Endurance. I know that there's been books, there's been a feature that's been in the works for a while--I think that Mel Gibson was mentioned to play Shackleton at one point. Why did this take so long for this to come to the fore?

GB: Essentially, what happened was is that...even though I have an Irish background and went to some British schools, I didn't know who Shackleton was. And I picked up a book on Shackleton--the Lansing book on Shackleton--in 1996 in a bookstore by mistake. I thought it was another book. It was right next to the cash register, and I just put it in a pile of books I was buying, 'cause I thought it was something else. And I started reading it out of curiosity, and [Endurance writer/producer] Caroline Alexander walked into the room, and I said "This is an extraordinary story." She said, "Let me see." And she took the book and read it in one sitting. She owed Knopf, her publisher, a book under contract and she decided to do a book on Shackleton's ship's cat, Mrs. Chippy, who's in the film. And in doing the research for that book, she went to London, went into the Royal Geographic Society, and asked to see their collection of Frank Hurley photos. They responded, "Who is Frank Hurley?" She said, "The famous Shackleton photographer." And they said, "Look in the card catalog." His name wasn't listed in the card catalog. She had to go in the back of the museum and she found the photos--the original glass plates--stored in the most slipshod kind of way.

W: Wow.

GB: She said, when she looked at the photos, "These are masterpieces." She came back, and went to the Museum of Natural History in New York and suggested an exhibit. They said, "Who's Shackleton? Who's Hurley? Why should we do this? One word answer: no." Caroline and I ran into a philanthropist in New York who said, "I will pay for the exhibit." Museum immediately said: "Of course we'll do this exhibit." And while she was preparing the exhibit, she was writing a catalog for the exhibit, her editor at Knopf heard about this, read the catalog and said, "Let's do this as a book." So she did simultaneously, the show--which was a major success in New York, got fabulous attention--and the book, Knopf decided to publish The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. So Caroline really started the trend for the first time in eighty years, and my films have popularized the trend. And between us, I genuinely think we're responsible for the renewal of interest in Shackleton. The A&E film was based on her book, so that came later. All of the books were out of publication with the exception of Lansing's Endurance at the time--they've all been brought back into print. And now, there are thirty-one books in print on Shackleton, George Plimpton's doing a new biography of Shackleton. And I've got four films out, and there's the A&E film, there's the Biography film, etc. etc. So we've started an industry, very much the way we did Pumping Iron, or at least, I did.

W: So all of this can essentially be traced back to a mistaken impulse buy at a bookstore.

GB: Yeah. In fact, it's one worse than that, or one step further away. I had read Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book, The Worst Journey in the World, which is a famous adventure story, set in the Antarctic, from [Robert] Scott's earlier expedition. And I thought it was...it opened up the idea that the Antarctic was interesting, which had never occurred to me before. I mentioned this to a friend of mine who's a filmmaker, film director, producer named Julian Krainin, and he had said, "You know, George, there's one better book on the Antarctic than that," and he mentioned the name of it but I forgot 'cause three years went by. Then I was in the bookstore, and I saw a picture of a ship caught in the ice and it said "Antarctic" on the cover. So I just bought it.

W: Figuring how many stories about the Antarctic could there be?

GB: Exactly. So after I read the book, I went to Julian Krainin again and I said, "Julian, thank you. You gave me a great idea for this film project." And Julian said, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, the book on Shackleton." And he said, ".......Who's Shackleton?" So it was a double mistake.

W: So I have to ask: Did you ever find the book that you were originally looking for?

GB: He couldn't remember what he'd mentioned.

W: So you've never seen it.

GB: So I don't know what he was talking about. But I do know that it came from his offhand comment--it was a long conversation, late at night, a long time ago, and I just heard "Good book on the Antarctic."