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This is my exclusive one on one luncheon sit down with Malcolm done in Hunt Valley, MD. Almost every interview he does they ask him the same questions about A Clockwork Orange or Caligula because they don't bother to do their homework and it gets very boring. I wanted to ask the questions no one else would ask - about his early TV career in the 1960s, mainly because these are the things I've never seen and haven't been able to find any info about them since many may no longer exist.
Q: Can you tell me about Happy, the Wednesday Play you did since I can't find it anywhere?
A: Oh yeah. No, you'll never find it, thank god actually. It was done by the BBC. It was between me shooting if... and before it opened, the fall of 1968. It was with Brenda Bruce who is a wonderful actress and Pauline Collins, another wonder actress who went on to do Shirley Valentine the movie. It wasn't very good as I remember. I had to do a Suffolk accent which is extremely difficult. I remember one line I said in it, 'You lying old peedler.' That's all I remember about it, I remember nothing else. I had to take it, I didn't want to. I had to because I was absolutely broke, so that was that.
Q: How about Knock on Any Door?
A: I don't know what that is.
Q: How about Pig Iron Johnny?
A: Now that was a very good piece. That was on ATV, I don't know if that is available. That was my first sort of big starring role on television, when I was literally playing 6 lines at Stratford on Avon. I got this incredible part with Eric Porter playing my father who was this big unionist and I was his son that rebelled. It was a fantastic part, then I got Dixon of Dock Green which Miriam Brickman saw and brought me in for Poor Cow and for if.... That's how I got if...
Q: What about Ward 10?
A: Emergency Ward 10...I don't remember that. It's like a soap.
Q: Was it a very small role?
A: I can't remember even doing it, so it would have to be, yeah. I think the first thing I ever did in front of a camera was sort of an industrial thing, some afternoon show, one of those.
Q: What do you remember about Sat'day While Sunday?
A: Timothy Dalton was fired after a while and I was rather annoyed because they fired him and gave me all his stuff. I was like oh my god. It was sort of a post-Beatles and took place in the north of England. It was like you got paid on Friday and what happened Saturday and Sunday, the weekend. We were really young guys and a girl a called Sarah-Jane Gwillim was in it, very attractive, a very sweet girl. I don't know how many they did, I think it was one season.
Q: I heard it was 14, I've never been able to track them down.
A: Yeah, that would be one season, hopefully they lost them all somewhere. It was sort of interesting I suppose because one of the best directors on television, a guy called Jimmy Goddard directed some of them and they were really good. He was a good director, that's all I remember about it, but I must say they were quite good. People watched it, it was on a Saturday evening I think, not many people watch TV on a Saturday do they?
Q: No, they usually go out. How about Crossroads?
A: (Laughs) Crossroads was one of those soaps I did. I did it for a favor because the producer, a man called called Peter Rogers, had cast me in Iron Johnny. He gave me a big break, then he called me and said, 'Look Malcolm do a week in Crossroads.' I went OK.
Q: So was that 5 episodes?
A: Yeah, something like that. I didn't enjoy it very much because it was like a soap, you know you literally did one show every day or something like being on an assembly line. I hated that.
Q: St. Ives?
A: St. Ives...yeah, wow...that's in Cornwall, did we go there? I can't remember, I don't remember anymore what that was...
Q: How about Z-Cars?
A: Oh, Zed Cars! That was a famous British hit. It was a forerunner to The Minder, a very, very cutting edge cop show on English TV. One of the original writers was a very good one called John Hopkins. It was a very nice part. It was a great showcase for a young actor to get on that one particularly. I was happy to do that, I think I only did one of them. It's not available is it?
Q: No, I can't find it anywhere.
A: Yeah, OK. You won't find it here. This is my pre-film days.
Q: Love Story.
A: It was a very nice part, again it was a play of the week. It was a nice one because I played a young guy who got his girlfriend pregnant and stole to I don't know why..
Q: To pay the bills?
A: Yeah...when they found out why, he was doing it for her, that kind of stuff. It was a good part.
Q: Boy Meets Girl?
A: Hmmm...it rings a bell, but not much of one. (laughs)
Q: The Newcomers?
A: Oh Jesus, you know who stared in that? Judy Geeson, she went on to star in To Sir with Love, she was the blonde, the pretty one. She had a good career for 5 minutes. She was with my agent, which is why I know all about this. This agent I was with at the time had all the young people in London at that time. She went on to do a lot of films, she now owns and runs an antique shop on third avenue in LA, because I see her from time to time. Lulu sang the song, she's still singing and looks great.
Q: There was a rumor that you did Coronation Street.
A: No, I never did that.
Q: What do you think about your Saturday Night Live appearance?
A: I didn't enjoy it very much, unfortunately it was a crossover season when all the great ones had gone and I was left with the dregs. When I worked with Eddie Murphy (on I Spy) he came up and said 'We worked together!' and I went we have? 'On Saturday Night Live', but we didn't do anything together on it. I worked with this guy Charles...
Q: Rocket
A: Yes! Charlie Rocket.
Q: Sadly he killed himself 2 years ago.
A: No!...why?
Q: It was depression.
A: Nothing happened to him?
Q: He cut himself.
A: Oh god, really I didn't know that, I'm sorry about that. He was a nice guy, a very sweet guy, he didn't have...he was following John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, how are you going to follow that. These great talents, that was amazing...
Q: That was the only time you've ever done Alex again, when you did the milk commercial.
A: It is. That was because I was offered a milk commercial in Japan for half a million bucks, this was in the late 70s. I got call from my agent who goes 'You won't believe this. They want you to do this milk commercial in Japan and they are prepared to pay you half a million bucks.' I went 'Wow! When does the plane leave? What's the idea?' Well, they want you to be in the bowler...and I went no, I can't do it. I will not do that. I'm not going to do the character with the eyelash, I'm not doing that, so away they went with their half a million bucks. Stupid! In fact I wish they'd offer it to me now, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I was idealistic in those days. (Laughs) I just didn't think it would've been good for me to do.
Q: Then why did you do it on SNL?
A: I did it because it was a parody. So I told them about this and they used it as a parody apparently.
Q: So you didn't get the money?
A: No, of course you don't get paid for Saturday Night Live, I think it was $700 bucks or something.
Q: Your 'big joke' in the opening was you did it to get a green card.
A: Yeah, that's right. That was all true. The only thing it was memorable for as far as I was concerned was that I played John Lennon. Being the house husband, burning the cakes and all that. It came out on Saturday and on the next Monday night he was shot and I always felt bad. Then I think 10 years later I was driving somewhere in England listening to BBC4 and John Lennon's last interview was on and he said 'They did us on SNL, me and Yoko we really laughed.' And I went thank god, they loved it!
Q: That was the only funny part of the show. Your best line was 'Yoko is loco for me coco.' Goofy stuff.
A: Oh yeah, was that it? (Laughs)
Q: Denny Dillon who played Yoko just yelled and made bird noises.
A: Yeah, yeah, I don't remember anything about it. It was pretty stupid. I was very disappointed with it because it was appallingly written. I would NEVER do it again. Gary Oldman called me years later and said 'they want me to do SNL' and I went DON'T DO IT! You can't win on that one. You are at the mercy of these writers and if they don't come up with anything you're dead. I don't think he did it.
Q: He didn't. Speaking of Gary one time he was attached to Monster Butler. Is that ever going to happen?
A: I don't know.
Q: You have the rights to it now?
A: I have the rights, but I don't have a script. I don't know whether I'll ever do it.
Q: Didn't David Sherwin write something for it?
A: No. He's a good guy, but he didn't write a script, he wrote a treatment early on when Lindsay was alive.
Q: You did a bunch of Tom Synder shows and he just passed away.
A: I was just thinking of him this morning and how sad I was that he passed away because he died last week. I did like 3 or 4 of them and he loved to have me on. I thought he was the best interviewer in America.
Q: It was great because you'd be on a half an hour instead of 6 minutes.
A: Yeah, it wouldn't be like that stupid David Letterman thing. You could say what whatever you felt. He was a fantastic interviewer, the best I've come across in America. He was up there with the English guy Michael Parkinson, we all call him Parky. He's been doing it 35 years. He did a great interview with John and Yoko actually. He was a very nice guy, very tall, huge. I liked him a lot. I was sad he died.
Q: Do you remember something called Big Dogs? The only time I saw it was on your resume years ago.
A: Big Dogs...? I remember something like that, I can't remember anything about it. I think it was something I did in New Orleans which was paid for by an independent financer and it was so bad it was never shown.
Q: Was it a film?
A: Yes, I think it was a film.
Q: Feature length?
A: Yeah, it was so bad. There was another not very good movie that I made in Eureka which was a beautiful place, one of the worst films I've ever done...what was it called?
Q: Southern Cross?
A: No, Southern Cross...what the hell is that? Who is in that?
Q: Esai Morales.
A: (Makes a horrified face) Oh, my god! What a film that was. I only did a week and they paid me 200 grand, so what did I care? I had to fly to Chile to pick that check up.
Q: Michael Ironside was also in it. What cracked me up was you were supposed to be Spanish.
A: Michael Ironside was in that? That's right...yeah supposed to be aristocratic of course. I remember literally having the car engine running when they did the last shot. I jumped in the car, threw the costume off and said take me to the airport. They said, 'Don't you want to see Chile?' I went, 'No!' I didn't have one good meal in that country, it was hideous. Kelley and I were so thrilled because in Santiago we actually found a Friday's restaurant and thought we can't believe how lucky we were. We could actually have a salad without getting diarrhea or something. We thought there's got to be something wrong with this, let's get the hell out of here. It was a weird one that one.
Q: You've done two films in Italy that are pretty hard to find like Maggio Musical.
A: Ah, my Italian period. Maggio Musical is a very good film, a beautiful film, I like that a lot. It also paid for the roof of my house in Italy. What's the other one?
Q: Mortacci.
A: That is hideous! Hideous! It was not fun, all night shooting. The one great thing was I got to work with Vittorio Gassman who is one of the great actors on the planet. It was nice to work with him, he was rather sad and bemused by the whole experience. There wasn't really a script. I just started shouting out pieces of Shakespeare I learned in school and that was about it. The Italians didn't know what I was saying, it was so pathetic and ridiculous. The only good thing was I got to work with David Grieco who became one of my best friends even though I said to him 'You son of a bitch, it's one of the worst films I've ever done and you put me in it. What kind of a friend is that?' Then we did Evilenko together and next year I'm doing a couple of things with him.
Q: The film in South Africa?
A: Yeah, it's called Secrets of Love, it's a movie we are doing, then we are doing a German mini series on Albert Schweitzer. I'll play the old Albert Schweitzer.
Q: Again after Light in the Jungle.
A: Yeah, the first one wasn't even called The Light in the Jungle. What happened was I did this Schweitzer thing in South Africa and I get there and what I didn't know was the script had been plagiarized. So I of course merrily shot the movie. They were literally waiting for me to arrive. It was weird I was doing another film and they were doing shots of insects.
Q: B-roll stuff?
A: Yeah, so I eventually I get there and the director was possibly the worst I've ever worked with, a real South African nitwit, not good. But actually the film was pretty good, I must say when when I saw it together I was amazed. He kept saying (does accent), 'Now, I want choo to cry.' For what? Why? I'm playing Albert Schweitzer, what am I crying for? 'Because he's veddy, veddy sad.' I went don't be such an idiot, Christ all mighty, where did you learn all this from?! There's too much apartheid, you've been isolated too long here. There's a world outside and you better catch up. The first shot he wanted me to dig a hole, Schweitzer building this thing. He goes, 'Malcolm, I want you to bend down and pick up this frog, look at the frog and smile.' I said you've got to be kidding right? I pick up the frog and smile at the frog? I thought I was playing Albert Schweitzer, not a fucking lunatic! (Laughs) This is how we started the film. I went, I'm not smiling at a fucking frog!
Q: Can't smile without a reason.
A: Yeah, exactly. So the guy couldn't believe it. I said that was so stupid. I was battling with this guy every day and going 'No!' Kelley has this video where she's shooting the director who's sitting down like this (he puts his head in his hands) and off screen all you hear is me going No! No! No! No! No! NO!! (Laughs) It was hilarious, it was like pulling teeth. Actually the film turned out pretty well, a friend of mine saw it when they showed it at Cannes.
Q: The same version that was put out on video?
A: No. It was out on video, but it's different because they had to cut out chunks of it because it was plagiarized. They had stolen someone else's script, that's how they do things in South Africa. It was a really bizarre...so I'm revisiting that character. I was 46 when I played Albert Schweitzer who was supposed to be in his 70s. There were some beautiful things. I'll never forget there was a great set they built for Lambarene, this village where he cured the sick and all that. They actually built it, it wasn't a one dimensional set, this was real housing, wood, the whole village was built, it was pretty amazing. When we left I heard I a whole tribe of Zulus moved in and took over.
Q: What can you tell me about Maggio Musicale because you can't get it here.
A: You can get it in Italy. I could ask Ugo for it. I'll get a copy, I'll call David, he'll send me a copy. They were going to show when I was in Italy this time.
Q: They did show it in February for a festival. Is it like a time travel piece?
A: Oh yeah! It's a very nice film. It starts out at the opera. The Maggio Musicale is the Magical May, the Music of May in Florence. It's the operas and everything of Puccini. You are seeing this family dressed in the 1940s period. You see them in the box and there's this young kid mouthing to the singer, so he's obviously into the music so much. There's other kids and his mom and dad. They get up and leave at the interval and leave him there. He gets up and there are two doors at the back of the box and he doesn't go out the exit, he goes out the other door and that door brings him to the present day and there's a press conference going on with the director of the opera who in fact is me. It's modern day and the kid is me when I was a child who is meeting himself as an older man. I go who are you, what do you want? He's giving this talk to all these rather sophisticated types. The kid is standing there because he gets a feeling of knowing what is going on, but he doesn't really know. Then he kind of does know. It's the most amazing thing that goes on. He's separated from his wife and this and it's a fantastic story. They had really wonderful opera singers, Shirley Verrett who is one of the best opera singers came and did a piece. Then I take him around Florence showing him these masterpieces in these churches that people don't even know exist because Ugo Gregoretti is from Florence and knows everything. We got into this place to see The Last Supper painted on a wall by Ghirlandaio which is one of the masterpieces of that period. We were shooting right there and I'm telling the boy about it. He was a young boy of about 15 and around 3 year years ago I was over there for Evilenko or something. I was in Florence and I went into this wonderful drug store where they make this incredible perfume, I was buying some for my wife. The girl was serving me just went 'Oh my god, I'm the fiancé!' The young boy was her fiancé and they were getting married and she called him right there and he came over, he was a young man by that time in his 30s. So it was nice to see him again.
Q: The other Italian film you did is one of my favorites called The Caller.
A: Did you see it? Yeah, that's kind of wild one.
Q: "Point to you" was the big line.
A: Yeah (he does the finger point and snap like in the film.) It's cool.
Q: Was that a quick shoot? Since it was only 2 people.
A: No, it was 7 weeks I think. It was tough to pull off. Speaking of, did you see my one man show? You can borrow the DVD if you want. We are hoping it will open theatrically. Bob Bernie has it. It depends whether HBO will show it or not. If they won't it'll be a festival movie. It'll open in New York, LA and San Francisco. It went to Cannes, it got amazing reviews.
Q: In the Passage I love how you start out with a German accent, then go right back to English.
A: Do I? (Laughs) Oh my god, I called it The Back Passage.
Q: He's a British Nazi officer!
A: Yeah, yeah! (Laughs) They thing is I never did a German accent because we decided, everyone including James Mason except he kept saying, 'Why is my daughter speaking with a Southern California accent?' (Laughs) Hilarious, it's a joke. The way I decided to play that part James Mason goes, 'I think you are going a bit over the top old boy.'
Q: That was the best part - chop, chop chop!
A: Of course! If they are going to pay me so much money...They pulled the plug by then and I went, 'I've got to torture this guy, let's do it in the damn kitchen of the studio.' Chop, chop, chop chop arrggggh! I made it all up. The director loved that part because the film was so boring.
Q: It didn't really play anywhere.
A: It was just ridiculous, no. It was a ridiculous movie. My brother-in-law saw it and said, 'That's the worst performance I've ever seen from an actor I think.'
Q: You?
A: Yeah, yeah! (Laughs) I said I will take it as a compliment. It's great, I mean if you waited for the great scripts to come you would never work. It was kinda cool. I think The Passage was the only film shot out of England that year. I mean there was nothing. It was beautiful country, it was fun.
Q: What ever happened to Mario and the Magician?
A: We are still trying.
Q: Are you switching roles with Jonathan Rhys Meyers?
A: Yeah, he's in it, but I was always going to play the magician. It's just going to be a younger magician.
Q: Why didn't that ever get off the ground in the 80s?
A: It almost did, but the director was a very old man, he was in his 70s, but that's not old, but they thought he was.
Q: I was really surprised you agreed to do the Caligula DVD commentary.
A: It doesn't belong to Guccione anymore, that's one reason why I did it. I did it because Helen Mirren did it. I met these guys in Cannes and they seemed really nice. They said the film doesn't belong to Penthouse - Guccione anymore. Helen did it in London.
Q: Wouldn't you have like to have done it together?
A: It never works when you do those things together. It's like how I did the if... DVD with David Robinson, he's a critic of the Times of London.
Q: Was the it the uncut version?
A: It was the R rated version, the one shown at Cannes, about 2 hours long?
Q: It's supposed to have all the different versions.
A: I know, it was a cash cow for Guccione.
Q: I heard he made 100 million on the rentals and sales. Back then it was 90 bucks for a VHS.
A: I know, isn't that amazing?
Q: What are your feelings about Britannia Hospital?
A: Great film, I love it.
Q: There was so many plots going on, is there an easy way to explain it?
A: You could say it's absolutely what's going on in America with health care, like if someone with insurance was turned down and went for experimental treatments. That's what was going on in England at the time. The National Health Service is a total disaster, it's a complete con.
Q: Are you really singed up to do two more Halloween film?
A: I believe I'm supposed to be, but it's all rather loose.
Q: You've never done that before.
A: No, I haven't but Loomis is a wonderful character. I'm sure the way Donald Pleasance played him was very sinister, but I've not gone that way at all. As I said to Rob 'How good of a doctor can this be? He's only got one patient and the guy gets out after 17 years and kills half the town. Do you think that's a success story here? I don't think so.' I said I'll play him as a bit of a buffoon. He has this tremendous ego and as they say in England 'All mouth and no trousers.'
Q: I was surprised to hear you were doing a show like this.
A: Yeah, look at what my life has become! I dread going back to the line, but the people are all so nice. For some reason a bunch of people kept mentioning about South Park and being the only actor on camera and I'm like not that again. I want to be quick so I can watch Tiger Woods, it's the PGA third round.
Q: I can't believe so many people brought up Tank Girl items for you to sign. Don't they know how awful it is?
A: No, people really seem to love it, I don't know why. The cast, crew and sets were great, but they never had a script, they just couldn't work the story out.
Q: It's great to finally get a DVD of if...., but people are upset that it's not the uncut version.
A: Whoever said that you can tell them from me they are full of shit. The DVD was the one shown at Cannes. They made it an X because of the violence, but they blamed it on the nudity. It's all crap, maybe they trimmed 8 seconds of nudity from the showers, which changes nothing. Either way, this is the original version. Plus I got to do a commentary with Robinson who was a movie critic in England.
Q: You have done quite a few DVD commentaries lately.
A: I'm proud of the Royal Flash one and that it's finally out there. I'm so very proud of the OLM! DVD release. I've worked 5 years to get it out and it's been a real pain in the ass. It was my mission, but it's finally going to happen and I saw the whole thing, it's perfect. I did one for Caligula but I'm not happy with it.
Q: It was great to see you as Ari's boss on Entourage. Any chance you are coming back?
A: I don't think so. I thought I was rather sweet in that, but I loved torturing Jeremy Piven.
Q: You told me when you did Royal Flash you grew the facial hair because you hate to wear fake hair. So how is it you came to wear a wig in Halloween?
A: They wanted me took long younger and Rob gave me the worst wig ever. I had to keep flinging the hair off my face. I hated it, I don't recommend having long hair.
Q: Is everything OK with the kids? I heard you had to cancel an appearance in Italy because the little one was sick?
A: It was a 24 hour flu, but it was very scary because he is so young, so he had to fly back. The kids are doing great, they are now 3 ˝ and almost 8 months - The Christmas Baby, Beckett was on the phone last night saying he missed me, but I wonder if Kelley put him up to it.
Q: So you will go back to Rome for the Kubrick Exhibition in October?
A: Yes, I'm locked in for that.
Q: Are you signed up for Heroes Season 2 since your character can heal and there should be flashbacks?
A: No, but they told me no one ever is dead so I'm waiting for a call, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Q: What else have you been up to?
A: Kelly went with her mom and dad in the car the two kids while I was away,
there's no time to do anything, time goes so fast, we've had a great summer,
just been home with the kids.
Q: Is there anything you can tell me quick about your upcoming films?
A: The List looks good, which just came out. The one I'm really looking forward to is Doomsday. I have not seen War & Peace because it is 7 hours, which is way too long to sit through, but I hear it's great. I really like Masters of Sci-Fi and am just thinking about what to do next.
Malcolm: So what did you think?
Alex: My favorite line is bald porcupine.
He just shakes his head and smiles.
Q: I hope it was the DVD and maybe it could be fixed - you wore a black jacket and the background was black, so your top half disappeared at times.
I don't care. I did see it at Cannes on a huge screen and it looked good, so it might just be from watching it on DVD or the computer. It was lucky the whole thing was recorded in the first place. A new production company had just set up 4 or 5 cameras and was able to get it in one night. I didn't know how it would turn out and I'm just glad it was all saved. I'm so thrilled at how it turned out.
Q: How does it feel at the end of the show?
It was tiring, but I do get to sit down at the end. It's not something I would like to do every night, that's for sure. People really seem to like it and the get emotional about the John Ford part. There's a good reaction about it.
Q: I like how you can't really hear the audience, it's almost like you are doing it for the home audience.
I know! We used up all the cameras on me, it wasn't planned, but there was no camera on the audience.
Q: I think what really makes it special is when you talk about someone like Christine Noonan, then her picture comes up, or showing the John Ford letter. It makes it a more than just watching someone talk.
That's all Mike Kaplan, he did an excellent job.
Q: The section about the World Trade Center was absolutely fascinating.
Yeah, wasn't that amazing? Especially since he said that so early one in 1982.
Q: Is there going to be trouble getting permission to use the movie clips?
Mike's working on it. Warner Bros should be no problem and I just did the commentary for if… so that helps Paramount's sales getting people interested in the film, so that helps. That's why I did it. I'm glad you liked it, thanks so much for coming.
© 2007-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net