David Bianculli

He wrote screenplays for the movies Shakespeare in Love, The Human Factor, The Russia House, Billy Bathgate, and Empire of the Sun.

He was knighted in 2007.

Terry Gross spoke with Tom Stoppard in 1991 when the movie adaptation was released of his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

They're Hamlet's old friends who unknowingly become part of a plot to have Hamlet killed, but Hamlet has them executed instead.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never understand the larger story they are part of.

This predicament, so typical of minor characters, is the subject of Stoppard's absurdist comedy.

The play first opened at London's National Theatre in 1967 and soon after had success on Broadway.

Terry asked Stoppard why he wrote a story about minor characters in Hamlet.

Oh, I enjoyed it.

Thank you very much.

Tom Stoppard speaking with Terry Gross in 1991.

The celebrated playwright died last week at age 88.

Coming up, John Powers reviews the new Brazilian film, The Secret Agent.

This is Fresh Air.

The new Brazilian film, The Secret Agent, is set during that country's dictatorship, which ran from 1964 to 1985.

It stars Wagner Mora as an honorable scientist who becomes a target of powerful forces.

The movie, which was directed by Cleber Mendonça Filho, won two big prizes at Cannes and is Brazil's submission for this year's Academy Awards.

Our critic-at-large, John Powers, says it's even better than I'm Still Here, the Brazilian movie that won an Oscar earlier this year.

John Powers reviewed the new movie The Secret Agent, now playing in New York and L.A.