Oliver Stone: ‘I realised the cocaine wasn’t helping my writing’

It is mid-morning in Los Angeles. Oliver Stone is rooting through drawers and messing with his smartphone. Apparently he has to take a photograph of his passport before we get properly started. “Yes, I have to go to France all of a sudden and I am using my French passport,” he booms. “I have to because Americans are not going to be welcome anywhere pretty soon.” He has a point. The rampaging rates of Covid-19 – and publicity about resistance to face masks – really has turned the world against American tourism. Then again, Stone has never been a stranger to paranoia. Films such as JFK, Nixon and Snowden assume the existence of vast state conspiracies. It was an issue with my ex-wives. They...