Langella’s technological complaint

last updated 8 January 2015

Frank Langella is worried about the state of romance, said Catherine Shoard in The Guardian (U.K.). Part of the problem, says the 75-year-old actor, is that young people rely on technology when wooing each other. “I think walking up to a pretty girl at a party and saying, ‘How are you? I’d like to take you for a cup of coffee,’ is much more exciting than, ‘Hey, I saw you last night at the whatever. Text me,’” he says. “Tech is giving people the opportunity to protect themselves from saying, ‘Thank you very much but I don’t like your looks and don’t want to go out with you.’” Langella also thinks that technology is interfering with true intimacy. “I work with a lot of younger actors, and so many of my young friends fall crazy for each other, go to bed, and then within a couple of days they’re lying in bed and each is texting. God, when I was a young man, when you got into bed you were there for years. You lusted for each other, loved each other, were interested in each other. In the morning you made breakfast for each other, all the natural courtship things.” But today, he says, young people view sex the same way they would an interesting new app. “Let’s get the business done, then do something else.”