‘You Could Say I Have a Bipolar Diagnosis’

“Emotion is a strength, not a weakness,” Faye Dunaway declares. The Oscar-winning star of Bonnie and Clyde and Network is sitting in a hotel in Cannes. Across the room is Liam Dunaway O’Neill, her son with British photographer Terry O’Neill, and alongside her is Laurent Bouzereau, the French-American filmmaker behind a revealing new documentary about the star: Faye.

Dunaway credits On the Waterfront director Elia Kazan—responsible for her 1969 film The Arrangement—with teaching her to harness her rawest feelings in her work. This technique was both her greatest asset and her biggest weakness. Bouzereau’s documentary may be fawning, but it candidly addresses the moments when Dunaway’s emotions got out of hand and caused her trouble.

In the film, former collaborators openly call her “difficult.” We learn that Jack Nicholson nicknamed her “the dreaded Dunaway” on the set of Chinatown (1974), one of her most famous films. The documentary also delves into her famous feud with Chinatown’s director Roman Polanski, whom she refers to as “Roman the terror.” There’s also the notorious clip from Johnny Carson’s chat show where Bette Davis described Dunaway as one of the “worst people” she had ever worked with. Additionally, it addresses the catastrophic effect playing Joan Crawford in 1981’s Mommie Dearest had on her career—a role that initially made her an object of ridicule.

Reflecting on those well-chronicled incidents, the now 83-year-old star cites her mental health as the root cause. “I actually have, we might as well say, a bipolar diagnosis,” reveals Dunaway. She talks in the documentary about consulting doctors who prescribed her medication to stabilize her violent mood swings.

The film suggests that without her temperament, the Florida-born actor would never have been such a powerhouse on screen. When watching her performances, whether as the woman sexually abused by her own father in Chinatown or as the obsessively driven TV exec in Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), it’s evident that she holds nothing back.

“The mania we tap into, and the sadness, of course… I don’t know how all that works exactly, but I understand that I need all of that for my craft,” she says. “It has been a difficulty as a person sometimes. It’s something I’ve had to deal with and understand. It is part of who I am, and now I can handle it much better.”

We wanted to tell a story that wasn’t a fluff piece, that wasn’t just all the good stuff. It had to encompass everything.

Was the documentary cathartic? “Cathartic is a good word,” she replies. “It was. To look at it all and see what it added up to. It was difficult sometimes because it’s very private to me. I was a bit wary about seeing it all out there, but that’s the process—the whole point of the film, the sharing of who I am. I dug deep!”

Another aspect of Dunaway’s story is the intense pressure she faced during the making of her best-known films. She was always expected to look immaculate, and with little time to eat or rest between set-ups, it was hardly surprising her nerves were on edge.

The documentary addresses Dunaway’s resultant drinking: she loved gin martinis, which gradually developed into full-blown alcoholism. She has been in Alcoholics Anonymous for 15 years now. The disease runs in her family—her father, who was in the military, also had severe drinking problems. One consequence of growing up as a soldier’s daughter was that she moved homes every two years, which she believes made her distrustful of long-term relationships.

“I learnt not to be too close to people because you’re going to lose them anyway,” she says in the documentary. This remark is made more poignant by her reflections on the romances that didn’t last. She refers to the Italian movie star Marcello Mastroianni as “in many ways the love of my life”; she had a fling with the married actor after working with him on the 1968 French-Italian romance, A Place for Lovers. Like many of Dunaway’s relationships, it didn’t endure.

In the documentary, James Gray, who directed Dunaway in the crime drama The Yards (2000), asserts that she’s been a victim of double standards and male chauvinism throughout her career. “Whatever reputation she had is also a comment on how women are treated and judged on a very different scale than men,” he says.

When asked about the sexism she’s encountered over the years, Dunaway refuses to be drawn into specifics. “There are ups and downs,” is all she will say. “A career is a canvas. There are wonderful things. Then there are things that are less wonderful.”

Dunaway has endured her share of humiliations. Twenty years ago, it looked as if she would have an alternative career as a director. Her 2001 short film The Yellow Bird, adapted from a Tennessee Williams story, premiered to favorable reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. “I liked that little story so much,” she remembers. “It was part of my past, [and] very connected with my southern background.” It revolved around a preacher’s daughter who “breaks out of her cage.”

However, when she tried to write, direct, and star in a film version of Master Class, a Terrence McNally play about opera singer Maria Callas (which Dunaway had appeared in on stage), the project fell apart in disastrous fashion. The money ran out, and the project had to be abandoned midway through. In the documentary, she recalls being “in pieces for quite some time, locked up in my room and going to analysis,” as if the failure was all her fault.

Interviewing the star with her director and son beside her isn’t an easy task. They are solicitous and sometimes field questions intended for her. Bouzereau notes that he has been on sets with “difficult” male actors making demands, but it’s never talked about. “If it’s a woman, it’s talked about. There definitely is sexism, big time.”

Bouzereau adds that male stars can withstand box office bombs in a way women typically aren’t, referencing the 1987 disaster Ishtar. “That was worse than Mommie Dearest, but it didn’t destroy Dustin Hoffman or Warren Beatty,” he says. “But everybody wants to talk about Mommie Dearest.” Dunaway chuckles at the observation with obvious approval.

Bouzereau tells me he didn’t want Faye to be “honey-coated.” It had to have “that feeling of real life.” O’Neill adds, “We wanted to tell a story that wasn’t a fluff piece, that wasn’t just all the good stuff. It had to encompass everything. My mom agreed because unless we talk about everything, it’s not the true story.”

He describes her as “a very strong woman… all of her characters in one in real life.” It’s an apt remark. Speaking to her, it’s clear Dunaway approached the documentary in exactly the same way she tackles her acting assignments: she went all-in.

“I am very private,” she says. “Yet I shared everything.”

‘Faye’ is available on Sky Documentaries and Now from 18 August