“So you see, the thing is, Billy and I may be very different people – one of us is a creative genius, while the other one… well, isn’t – but I can tell you now there isn’t another person on the planet who knows him as well as I do. And he may not be showing it the same way Iz [I.A.L. Diamond] is showing it, but he’s known, deep down, for quite some time now, that the writing is on the wall for him. He’s not the King of Hollywood any more, he hasn’t been for quite a while, and that kind of glory is not going to come back again. You know, one morning a couple of years back he’d finished having breakfast out on the balcony, and he was sitting there with a cup of coffee, and he’s been reading one of the trades, and it was a piece about Spielberg, about Jaws, about how much money this goddamn film had just made for the studio. The paper was on the table next to him and he was just sitting there thinking, looking out over the city. And I asked him what he was thinking – which is a big mistake, normally, with Billy, but this time he didn’t snap at me or anything, he just gave me a little smile and said, “What I was I thinking? Nothing much. I was just thinking that I was Steven Spielberg… Once.” […] “So what you’re saying,” I began, as the meaning of her words started to sink in, “is that Mr Wilder and Mr Holden’s character in the film are the same”. “Well, anyone can see that,” said Barbara. “Even the character’s name sounds like Billy Wilder. And he wears the same hat as Billy in practically every scene.” I felt very stupid for not having realized this before. “But if that’s all there was to it,” Audrey said, “they would just be making a comedy and Iz would be much happier about the whole thing. Billy sees this picture as a tragedy. It’s a tragedy about someone who used to be on top of the world but now it’s all over for them. The picture isn’t about Barry Detweiler. He’s the sideshow. It’s about Fedora. She’s the tragic heroine. And that’s who Billy identifies with. That’s why he wants to make this picture.”

Jonathan Coe, Mr Wilder and Me, Viking Books, 2020