1997 - Parsec Magazine with Malcolm McDowell for 2103 Deadly Wake

On Deadly Water: McDowell Helms Toronto Sci-Fi Thriller by Peter Bloch-Hansen

    The man who killed Captain Kirk; the man, who, as Clockwork Orange's Alex, raped and murdered his way through a near future London, England; and who in if...., led an armed revolt in an English private school, is not the man you'd think. "It may sound a bit odd," says Malcolm McDowell, "but I think everything I do is a bit comedic."
    Known for his chilling portrayals of villains, McDowell sees even his darkest work as comedic.
    "If you think back to A Clockwork Orange, singing 'Singing in the Rain' while raping and beating someone is certainly very, very black, but actually, a comedic thing to do. There are a lot of things in Clockwork Orange that are satirical and very funny. I just did a film with Sean Penn, called Hugo Pool. Robert Downey Sr. directed it. I had this long monologue and I had this idea that I'd be walking around, but no; Bob Downey asked me if I would mind doing it taking a dump, by the side of the road. It was hilarious."
    The veteran actor takes comedy quite seriously however.
    "Everything has to come from the truth," he insists. "If it's going to be funny, it has to be truthful and real. Mugging is not a good thing to do. If the writing is funny, then it's a going to be funny, and if it's not then I don't care what you do, it's not going to be funny - unless your Jim Carrey. I always go for the funnier moments, and push the envelope as far as I can. For instance in the part in Star Trek, coming into the Klingon ship and right off the bat, punching one of the sisters in the face. That was sort of a fun thing to do, a good way to start the scene. It wasn't scripted, it just came out of rehearsal. It was hilarious on the set."
    One of McDowell's notable SF roles was not a villain, but rather the hero of 1979's Time after Time.
    "That's a comedic piece too," says the actor, "whimsical. It's one of the harder things to play, I think. It's so easy to go over the top. That's always the big mistake that's made while playing comedy, just doing too much."
    Against type one again, McDowell was in Toronto this spring to play another SF good guy, Captain Sean Murdoch in P.N.A.'s 2103 The Deadly Wake, directed by Michael Jackson. Murdoch commands a ship loaded with toxic waste, caught up unaware in an international corporate power struggle.
    "He's a flawed man, if not a really good man, I think," McDowell reveals. "He's a bit of an alcoholic, although he's trying to keep it under control. Because he is uncompromising, he is sympathetic. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and made a mistake in his career that's cost him dearly. That's why he takes on the job of captaining this ship. He knows there's something fishy about it, but he needs the break. That's what makes this character interesting. He is a very flawed character, but flaws attract us. Nobody is all strong and good. To be a complete human being you have to show the vulnerability, the two sides of the coin. I knew when I read this that I really wanted to do it. I liked the script a lot, and I liked the idea behind it. I thought it was kind of different from the other scripts I had been reading, and more interesting, really. But you know instantly whether you're really interested or not. It's intuition."
    Despite his numerous Science fiction roles, McDowell is not a fan.
    "I'm only vaguely interested in science fiction per se," he discloses. "I'm interested in the human condition, and if that's in the setting of science fiction then so be it. A lot of science fiction, if it isn't done really well is just bloody awful. I love Blade Runner, and 2001 is my favorite science fiction movie. I think that's a masterpiece. I turn down an awful lot, but if it's a good part, I'll do it, you know. I don't really care that much."
    Of his experience on Star Trek: Generations, McDowell has only good things to say.
    "I had a lot of fun doing it. Bill Shatner is a man of many talents, as I discovered sitting on a mountaintop with him for quite some time. Patrick Stewart and Bill were very pleasant, very civilized people and we had a lot of giggles. Which is all you can do in that kind of stuff. You can't take that kind of stuff too seriously. I nearly said it's not Shakespeare, but actually, it's probably the nearest thing to Shakespeare that the modern stuff does, because you wear tights and all that. You run around like Coriolanus or something. If it's a good costume, it will become part of the character. If you can move well in the costume, I think that's very important, because movies are about movement. In science fiction, it's vital to get the costumes right. To give you an instance, the first costume I wore in Star Trek - I shot for one day in it - was a powder blue number. I got a call at six in the morning the next day from the director, who hadn't slept all night. He was worried that because of this damned costume, I'd sort of disappear behind the blue screen, and also because for a heavy, blue is not really a great color. Within about two hours, they'd made me another costume in black, which was the right way to go. I loved that costume.
    "I loved the costume in Deadly Wake too. I has sort of a Gregorian feel about it with the coat and the sort of rough shirt. It is like a period costume really, in a modern context. And the style of acting in science fiction, it's a bit more Shakespearean, except for the meter of the language. In a way you to be fairly large with it, but always being real, finding a style that people believe. It's my responsibility to make sure they do. Usually, especially in science fiction, the writing is very unpoetic: you say what you mean. But of course, nobody really says what they mean, so I try to give another spin on things. I try to give these characters as many colors as I can, to make them complex human beings. I never like to play a line in an obvious way. I'll go against it, or do something else with it if I can. I'll give you an instance. There was a tiny little scene in Deadly Wake, where the captain sees a bomb hidden on his ship and there's really not much he can do about it. That's all it was in the script. I chose to play up that he has a major breakdown. I made it into a huge moment, an important scene, just because of intuition. The man sees the bomb and realizes that his life dream, and that the thing he loves the most, the sea, is about to die, because on the ship is this material that is so toxic it will kill the oceans. It may work out to be a terrible mistake, but somehow, it just felt right."
    After playing so many roles, for so many years, Malcolm McDowell, a comedic actor at heart, is philosophical about the fact that so much of his career has been spent playing villains.
    "This is just the slot that I've been dealt in life," he points out, "but I don't think that's me at all, or that's me as an actor. All the serious work I've done has been on stage, which is where you really get to fill out your complex characters, and get to really stretch yourself and work properly, you know. Not that you can't in film, of course, but not quite to the same extent. As Anthony Hopkins used to say, 'well, it's just acting isn't it?' Honestly, I can't put it any better than that. Usually, things pan out. It really is a very instinctive thing, and that's not just for actors. If that little voice inside you says 'do this' then usually it'll be right. You can always tell, because if you're doing something another way, there's always a niggling doubt. I hate that feeling. For example, I think that Deadly Wake is a really wonderful part for me. I was playing a good guy this time. That's probably why I enjoyed it more. It was a bit of a change, you know. I was really thrilled to do it. Everybody in Toronto was really supportive of the project. I don't ever remember an angry word on the set at all. If all the films that I do in the future are like that I'm going to be a very lucky man."