For a long time now, actor Malcolm McDowell has been
the personification of evil. He got his start playing a misunderstood youth in A
Clockwork Orange in England, and now he makes a very good living in
Hollywood playing well-spoken but slimy malefactors.
McDowell's latest unwholesome evildoer is an alien
known as Soran in Paramount Pictures' 'Star Trek:
Generations', the transitional
Trek film that brings together James Kirk (Shatner) and Jean-Luc Picard
(Stewart), the two famous captains of the Enterprise.
"This is one of the better parts I've had in studio
movies," says McDowell, who appeared in 'Milk Money' and the notorious
'Caligula.' "The character I play, this scientist Soran, has a more
psychological dimension than most. He's been to the Nexus, a sort of nirvana.
He's tasted it, and it's like a drug - he's got to get back there, even if by
doing so he'll wipe out a planet. He comes up against Capt. Picard so you know
his fate. But part of his soul is in the Nexus, and he could come back in
Shatner's body, you never know."
McDowell has just finished his next film, 'Tank
Girl'
(in which he plays yet another villain). And he's just returned from a vacation
in Italy with his wife, Kelley, and his two children, ages 13 and 11, from his
former marriage to actress Mary Steenburgen.
"America is my home," McDowell says.
"I've lived here so long, since 1978, that I'm more American than a lot of
American actors I work with. I'm lucky I can do this 'class' thing. If you speak
with a British accent, you must have a bit of class, or so the Americans think.
I know the truth. England's actually a violent country - violence of the mind
more than physical violence. And it's a bit like a Third World country now. I
haven't been there in a while. But I would like my kids to know about their
English heritage."
The '70s were depressing in England, and when he went
to San Francisco to star in 'Time after Time' opposite Steenburgen, he was happy
to live in her country, not his, when they fell in love and married.
"I've had a strange career," he says.
"In the beginning I did this burst of great stuff with directors like
Lindsay Anderson and Stanley Kubrick. I started out in the right place at the
right time, but times and places change. Then you have to find out who the hell
you are. I came to America because I married my leading lady and had children.
There was no option, really - her career was here."
In 'Tank Girl,' based on an English comic character,
"I'm just a baddie. Tank Girl is good and I'm bad, and that's it."
© The Manila Bulletin 4/28/95
Archived 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net