Friends and colleagues of the late Jaremy Thomas have been paying tribute to the beloved UK producer, who died aged 77 on Friday, September 11.
Thomas won the best picture Oscar for The Last Emperor in 1988 and also produced films including Sexy Beast, Naked Lunch and Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, which premieres at TIFF this week.
Thomas enjoyed long-lasting relationships with the likes of Bernardo Bertolucci, Nicolas Roeg, David Cronenberg, Jerzy Skolimowski, Matteo Garrone and Takeshi Miike.
He was also a former chairman of the British Film Institute, and founded Recorded Picture Company and HanWay Films.
Peter Watson, CEO, Recorded Picture Company and president, HanWay Films
Jeremy Thomas is one of the great auteur producers, a rebel who dared make outrageously controversial films on an epic scale that eludes independent cinema today.
I worked with Jeremy in the trenches of film production for 30 years – an extraordinary experience. He used to call me his Grand Vizier until he realised quite how much I enjoyed the title. The sultan’s command was always absolutely clear: fight for the vision of the director no matter what! Jeremy adored film directors, and they adored his subtle mind and uncompromising support.
For so many of his friends and colleagues, Jeremy was a lifer: kind, generous and completely dependable. There was a familial quality to his relationships. Professionally, whether above- or below-the-line, he was deeply loyal to his gang or gumi, as they are known in Japan where he produced a dozen films and is still a well-loved public figure.
Jeremy, the human being, was a wonder to me. He was fascinated by outsiders and underdogs. I loved how he noticed people wherever he went: the awkward boy in a luminous tracksuit on the bullet train; the tired waitress refreshing her lipstick; the fragile old man skipping on the street. He loved them all. Possessed of enormous emotional intelligence, his interest and curiosity in people, their foibles and oddities, gave him a window on the world that, for most of us, is only afforded by great cinema. This humanity marked the films he chose to make.
He knew how to extract the sweetest juices from the fibre of life, sharing his cup with a wonderful jumble of friends, filmmakers, artists, reprobates, and intimates – everyone enjoying a magnificent feast at the table of Jeremy Thomas.
Gabrielle Stewart, CEO, HanWay Films
I met Jeremy for the first time 10 years ago when he invited me into his office in London and told me that he felt HanWay needed a woman as its new managing director. He told me he operated by pure instinct and offered me the job there and then.
I moved to London from LA and was invited into a brand new world where a love of cinema, a respect for filmmakers and their vision, and a singular and personal drive to tell the stories that he loved was everything. RPC and HanWay felt like a family, a tribe. To Jeremy it wasn’t work. Film was life, oxygen, pure pleasure. He loved the world around it, enjoyed the people, looked forward to his annual road trip down to Cannes, and couldn’t wait to see all his friends who dropped by every year in his Cannes suites. The respect filmmakers and talent had for him was truly earned and part of what made him an incredible producer.
He may have been a legendary British producer but he was international, very much at home and active in Italian and Japanese cinema in particular, but lately Polish as well. He was culturally incredibly dynamic and open, with friends and collaborators everywhere.
Eve Gabereau, director of distribution, Vue Lumiere
I loved Jeremy. He was a movie star. He was so inviting and supportive of my work but also collaborative and fun on so many levels. We started working together on Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and also worked on Kon-Tiki, High Rise, Viggo [Mortensen] projects and Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda and Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus.
On the latter, we did a wonderful Q&A together to honour Sakamoto on both the anniversary of his death and World Piano Day. We were moved by the beauty of the coincidence and the catharsis of reflecting together with an audience. Beyond that, I hope he realised that he inspired me and countless people around the world – and we shared a deep love of Japan and connection to Canada.
Daniel Battsek, president of Film at Lincoln Center
Battsek distributed Thomas’s films Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Hit when he was managing director of Palace Pictures from 1985-91.
Jeremy was one of a kind and I am so very sad to hear of his untimely passing. He was part-maverick producer, part-godfather to so many people like me who were navigating careers in the British independent film industry. His taste was impeccable, as evidenced by an extraordinary body of work. He championed many of the world’s greatest filmmakers and backed them to the hilt regardless of any doubting voices.
He never stopped working and was always on the lookout for new talent to add to the roster of A-list directors who Jeremy introduced to audiences through the years. Most of all he was a wonderful friend who I could call for advice night and day and often did. I will really miss him.
Sam Pressman, head of Pressman Film
Pressman produced Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo with Thomas.
Jeremy stood for everything that we should aspire to as producers, he believed in the power of movies. As a human being he applied his generosity and commitment to building community through his films. I am so profoundly grateful to have gotten to share the last two years and to make a movie with him and I send my deepest love and condolences to Ludo and the family he built at RPC. Thank you, Jeremy.
Mike Downey, producer and chairman of the European Film Academy
Though UK-based, it was common knowledge in a fairly parochial local film industry that Jeremy Thomas was one of the most significant producers of world cinema in the world. It’s why, when I was fairly fresh to the board of the European Film Academy in 2006, and with heavy insistence from Nik Powell and myself, that we unanimously decided to give our 2006 European Film Award for outstanding European achievement in world cinema. The 20 productive years of subsequent creative overachievement proved that a lifetime achievement award would have been premature. Sadly, now, that will never be.
The list of the giants of cinema that he curated, encouraged, selflessly supported and believed in, often when others wouldn’t take the risk, was a tribute to his belief in film as an art above all else. And as a producer, Jeremy was a curator of the cinematic visions of the writer/directors he partnered with again and again – no mere budget fiddler he, and, paradoxically, gave his artists total freedom to follow their shared visions to the end. I shall miss him, not only as a friend, colleague and mentor – but because he was the producer I wanted to be when I grew up. Jeremy’s legacy to art is incalculable and he has left an indelible mark on cinema history.
Tilda Swinton, star of Young Adam and Only Lovers Left Alive
Jeremy was our pirate king: absolutely fearless, renegade and inspired, a free radical to the nth. He knew the way the land lay and he operated upon it like a guerilla, his objective never compromised, his steady eye on the ball, the other, constantly roving for obstacles to navigate. He was chokkful of joy and love of life, a die-hard believer in cinema as a field of enlightenment and expansion. And those that knew and loved him will draw on his indomitable spirit forever.
David Mackenzie, director of Young Adam
“Timing is everything with Jeremy,” said Alex Stone, co producer and my point person at RPC. When we met in his legendary Hanway Street offices to discuss Young Adam, he had read the book and he simply said, “I like it, let’s do it.” That was pretty much it. It was typical of Jeremy’s non-interventional guiding approach to producing. He would stay out the way and let you find it, occasionally gently steer, sometimes offer a lovely pearl of wisdom, but always a subtle and intuitive approach that seemed so effortless, but in fact it was very targeted and useful.
I was so lucky to have had a chance to work with him and am so proud of the film we made together. I’m so glad we got to hang out together again over a long afternoon fairly recently. He will be greatly missed.
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