At sixty-nine, Terry Gilliam has been writing, directing, and animating longer than some of us have been alive. His latest film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, famously stopped production after Heath Ledger’s untimely death. Gilliam’s loyal friends rallied him to continue production, with Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all sharing Ledger’s role. The film opens December 25. His advice is good right now.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?
I have no advice for the young except to get a job, a proper job. I myself decided to quit the night shift at the Chevrolet assembly plant, out in the San Fernando Valley of California, and go and get a job at a children’s theater, building sets, painting myself green and playing ogres, and making absolutely no money at all. It was the best thing I ever did.
Try to do the things you want to do, that you get fulfillment and pleasure out of. I come from cartoons, where all I needed to get my ideas realized was a piece of paper and a pen. Early in my career, I got used to that kind of freedom. And eventually, that led to [Monty] Python, where there were six of us doing exactly what we wanted. We were lucky because we were on the BBC, so we had access to a public of millions, and we succeeded. Along the way, you develop confidence in your own ideas and your ability to carry them out.
FEAR NO MISTAKE
At the end of the day, you will make your share of huge mistakes. But often the mistakes lead you somewhere more interesting. As far as I can see, things never work very smoothly and you just have to keep your eyes and ears open. It helps to be very clear about what you don’t want to do.
THE BRUCE BANNER OF FILMMAKING
Movies are like reality. They’re like life — unless you happen to sell your soul and go work in Hollywood and do whatever they want you to do, with all the money they throw at you. But if you’re out there doing what you want to do and maintaining your independence, it’s really rough.
I actually find that the restrictions placed on me have led to results that were better than my original intentions. Something happens when people start blocking me, when events block me or money blocks me: I start getting angry, and kind of like the Hulk, my adrenaline starts flowing, and instead of turning into a big destructive monster, my creative juices start flowing, and I come up with really good ideas. I guess I’m the creative Hulk.
The last few films I’ve done have been based on other people’s material — books, whatever — and this time I thought it would be interesting to start with a blank page and see what we [Gilliam and his co-writer, Charles McKeown] could come up with. We didn’t have a story or even any characters in mind. One idea led to the next, and it started taking form, and then we’d throw more things at it and see if they’d stick.
THE THIN LINE BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
My wife thinks I keep making the same movie over and over. I’m always playing with the borderland between reality and fantasy, trying to find the line that divides the two. To me, they both need each other, they feed off each other. Fantasy is often a reaction to the reality of your life, and the reality of your life changes according to your dreams. It’s a dialogue between these two things. I just keep trying to find ways to keep the dialogue fresh.
ACTORS NEED PLAYPENS
I’m careful about who I work with. I really love my actors, and I create a kind of perimeter wall around what they’re doing. It’s a kind of playpen. I’m always trying to defend that space where people can play without fear of failing. I’ve tried to cast actors against type, so that they get a chance to show the full range of their talent. Particularly if you’re a star, a big name, you’re under this incredible pressure to maintain your success rate. And of course, that leads to your having to do things that you’ve done before. If you’re Bruce Willis, you have to do Die Hard for the rest of your life; if you’re Johnny Depp, you have to do Pirates of the Caribbean for the rest of your life. At a certain point, even though you may be making money and maintaining your level of success, it becomes a trap. You want to do something different.
HEATH LEDGER
I worked with Heath Ledger on The Brothers Grimm and just loved him. After that, I was happy to consider doing any film with Heath playing the lead. I just thought he was so special and wonderful and just a great friend, so when this one came along, I was very keen for him to be in it. It was a funny time for him, because he was being inundated with offers after Brokeback Mountain. I knew that the more pressure I put on him, the more he might drift away from something, because he was feeling a lot of pressure at that time.
He was working in London playing the Joker, and at the same time, he was working on this music video that he was writing and directing. He needed a place to work, so I set him up at the special effects company. One day I was going through my storyboards, and Heath was there — by this time, he’d read the script, but I hadn’t spoken to him about it — and at the end of the presentation he slipped me a note that said, “Terry, can I play Tony?” I asked him if he was serious, and he said yes.
There really are no words [for Ledger’s death]. I was devastated. I always say that nothing can surprise me anymore, but Heath gave me the biggest surprise of my life. At the time I thought Parnassus was dead, that we were going to have to close it down. Luckily, I was surrounded by people who told me not to give in to my own cynicism. Eventually they beat me into submission, and I started thinking, well, maybe there is a way to save this film. Most people were just concerned that Heath’s last work not be gone. He was so loved by so many people, and Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell came to the rescue.
LEAVE OBAMA ALONE
A couple of years ago, when I was in New York, I said that I was threatening to sue Dick Cheney and George W. for the illegal, unauthorized remake of Brazil. I’m afraid that America has become more and more like Brazil, and I think that right now, America has the best hope for the future imaginable in President Obama. But boy, are they beating the shit out of him. By being elected, he was certainly handed a poisoned chalice. How do you fix the mess that the previous administration left behind? It’s a deep, deep hole he’s trying to dig out of. I don’t know if it’s possible, and people are so impatient, expecting solutions immediately. America is more deeply divided than ever before; it’s like two countries. I’m not sure where it’s going to end, but it’s interesting times.