The 53-year-old lead singer of the perennially biggest rock band in the world is quick-witted and preternaturally eloquent, but he also is one of the most interviewed humans on the planet, and he has a stash of well-rehearsed riffs that, understandably, tend to play on repeat. Once his throat is soothed by the tea and he’s fully awake, however, I’m pleased to discover that the man loves to talk movies and has fresh things to say about them, ranging from Scorsese and Hitchcock to Wenders and Tarantino.
Unlike your average cinephile, of course, Bono is, along with his band U2, an Academy Award nominee for best original song-“Ordinary Love,” a bittersweet anthem that plays as the coda to “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” It’s the group’s second nomination, after “The Hands That Built America” from “Gangs of New York” in 2003, and they’ll be at the Oscars on March 2 to perform the song.
The gift of a nomination arrives as U2’s latest reinvention is just ramping up, with a new album and tour looming. This time around, the challenges facing a band that won’t settle for anything less than owning the future might be more dire than at any time since the early 1990s, when Achtung Baby and the avant-techno Zoo TV tour saved U2 from irrelevance and cemented its world domination as a cultural force. Not unlike a hungry startup, U2 is pursuing business alliances as well as brainstorming music packaging and distribution innovation like its life depends on it.