An Interview with Christopher Lee (9/4/01)

my name's Brad Stevens and I'm interviewing Christopher Lee about his career in film on the occasion of the DVD release Altman city of the Dead mr. Lee earlier in your career you worked in many now legendary Hollywood filmmakers such as Raoul Walsh wrong Nicholas ray Michael Powell and Orson Welles which of these particularly sticks in your mind what they all do August there for completely different reasons Raoul Walsh was very much an action man I mean it been a star itself until he lost an eye I think coming to do with the car going up some stairs or something awesome was well genius really and when we worked in his version of Moby Dick which I don't think was ever finished or ever been seen all I'm still trying to track it down we didn't seem to buy much work because most the time he would tell us stories about John Barrymore on things like that and he was quite extraordinary he his talk all through your scenes solvus it would have to be one of the three different expressions per synchronized looped or ADR additional dialogue recording but the extraordinary cars because he it was his version of Moby Dick without any props or scenery we did it on stage at to London theatres the Hackney Empire and the Scala theatre and then we had Gordon Jackson was sadly no longer with us Kenneth Williams it was no longer with us awesome there is no longer with us on the other hand Patrick McGoohan who played the first made Starbuck Starbuck I played the second mate flask and pyrite played the cannon boy and it was an extraordinary thing it's amazing we ever got any film done but awesome would say action and we started seeing and I remember I had to say to Patrick McGoohan it's an omen of bad omen and this voice came from behind the camera it's an omen the bad I'm not saying it's a lemon the bad omen it's an omen a bad omen yes it's a bad omen and I would look at Patrick and he would look at me and we didn't quite know what was going on because also would repeat our lines then there was another occasion when he took print with enthusiasm which is a wonderful phrase and this is the most gifted company with which I have ever worked you kind of knew that he probably said that from everyone but one famous occasion which I put in the book somewhere when he came bounding what hardly binding acts in this case it wasn't the right shape for that but he came I could create galleon resting the waves down the middle center aisle of this theatre where we were all waiting with a cruel he just said roll it and the cameraman said to mr. wells I hadn't got a setup yet find one and surprise me so that was working with awesome working well Wolf's very much acting I acting but action acting that was his forte as suppose as an actor and it was his forty to a great extent director Nicholas ray well that was another matter Nicholas Lane wasn't well when we went to Libya and shot this film but a victory was Albarn British Army and he got a bit confused during them it's knowledge to the British Army it was not that's what it ought to been but obviously brilliant man very kind very nice he's told to easy to get on with Richard Burton could you organs you mentioned Roberts yacht Mac well he kind of saved my life in a way because we were going to one of our Intel annual periods of unemployment which seems to double the British film industry and at the moment it doesn't surprise me when you look at the kind of films were making because we don't have an industry in this country and we won't have until we make films of travel a lot of films and travel not just one or two or three and the stories that people can understand anywhere with people that no anyway um there was this period I got a job as a floorwalker in one store in Piccadilly when called Simpsons is now called Waterston's and one day I was asked to stand in a Teddington studios which was Warner Brothers Studio for the film studio then Burt Lancaster but the other actors up playing him in killing of auditions you know the cast Robert sealed name was directing and I had to deliver that Lancaster's lines with my back to the camera so you couldn't see my face or anything I did that and he was very kind he said who used to be in the movie and that's where like when my career sort of restarted and the Crimson pie is a lovely man Robin shield neck we lived together and very close to each other in Switzerland in the early 60s had a small white dog called Hamlet we referred to of course is omelette and then he lived on a lake we are a scholar in the casino in Chalian cantle Muslim which was almost entirely populated by a known by a Germans and so I came back now nearly 40 years what it's like now I don't know but yes rub your neck Orson Welles Ron Wolf's Michael Powell John Huston who was very nice to me I mean it was a very small scene about a small part they were all small parts journey where you learn Pitt you into the leading roles you have no experience or knowledge and the editors got to do an awful lot of work and so as the cameraman and serves the writer and so as a director because you don't know what you're doing you see that all the time of course although I don't expect the public to see them why should they they're not supposed to know but it does happen all too frequently rich and famous overnight to learns a sad because these people have a shelf life maybe five to ten years and then they're finished forever and if they're 35 or 40 what do they do with the rest of their lives I would say that in so many cases now it's it's a case of mistaken nonentity which is some scribe sounds a little harsh but on the other hand many a film has been spoiled thereby because the leading players aren't up to it which is tragic but it might work for one film or two or three or four that's it however to get back to John here in a fairly intimidating reputation at least I'd heard he did and we have the scene which I played the little bit of painted solar in the cafe de my goal which of course is very feminine still exists in Paris on the left bank has seen I played was a forager Ferrara and platelet-rich this is the first movie well Rouge shall Jacopo was a handsome lots of people and the noise was horrendous because I mean there was Lane Bulevar with all the traffic and the police going berserk because they've all stopped in their cars to watch the shooting and then there were all the tourists in the world was July or August or something standing on the boom we call it pavement taking pictures flashes hair all over the place and John just sat down beside me I got all the photographs taken by Robert Capa of John and me and Jeff we're sitting on this table and I thought here now here's one of the world great directors because he always has done a multi spoken and he'd already done I think we as fell jungle and he just sat down beside me and said I thought here it comes here it comes world's greatest directors can't give me the most marvelous direction and it'll helped me so much and exactly what to do he just sat down beside me I got the photo card put his arm round said just be yourself kid Jamison Rix my god there were other great directors I've worked with I was in a film directed by Hagar Mo's legend directly then Edgar gee who's also extremely nice I needed to work for Pollock Goddard Gypsy Rose Lee an actor call Richard nee who decided he wasn't an actor and went into them business world became very successful and a man who in his day was a very very big star John Bulls bo Elias he was in the film and I only knew John Rose as the brother of Baron Frankenstein who created the creature the first one Colin Clive was Frankenstein both people make that mistake and think that the monster is Frankenstein when he is in the pond stays the creature and he isn't cold frame was time but they make a mistake constantly he was the brother of the scientist so coming into history for weeks as a young man as a boy I'd seen the first Frankenstein was been chilled by Mary being by it little that I think that one day I would meet the man who played it to do see films little become a personal friend close personal friend little did I think that my career would take off doing something like that is fair to save the films which what you find with who you made with Terence Fisher in the late 50s because of Frankenstein and Dracula and to me Terence Fisher seems to be a filmmaker who rigorously controls his color and camerawork but once you like to work with as an actor well I always thought the real star of Hammer the art director Brandon Robinson who literally did create a silk purse out of the metaphorical sow's ear um Terry Fisher was an editor which is was had in about now virtually a must for a director when you have to know where you get a cut what you're going to use what you're not going to use and he was very helpful I knew exactly what he wanted after you've done it by there I don't mean anything negative what I mean is that he had wonderful cameraman people like jackass ha ha to grant others the sets look superb look at the budgets it just beyond belief because I believe the budget for the first track in the movie was something like ninety five thousand pounds and of course in those days everything was performance it wasn't just special effects makeups here sir we're makeups of course and yes the were occasional supposed to face naturally and they were very much in the infancy with you putting effective but nothing like what they are today there's no CGI in those days so it was performance performance performance performance I had very been a good group of actors who were used quite often and actresses excellent I mean as good as they came and a marvelous crew that never changed to perhaps the cameraman himself occasionally same operators and I mean everybody was the same very happy days I don't think I didn't start my career that way after ten years of being a great deal but not getting anywhere with the direct as you mentioned earlier on I learned a lot and that is the only way to become an actor he's by doing it and by watching great directors even if you ain't got a line and by learning you are prepared to and don't think with your little ones down the world with your first film and believe your own PR which is fatal of course but I done films all over Europe I've worked all sorts of things and television and radio and not even Sun a bit and so on not big stuff no but during those ten years I learned by doing it that's the only way in my opinion so when the time came and I was asked to do these films I was in a sense ready I knew how to express feelings and emotion without saying anything but of course happened twice in May and live the only triangle son I did and the only mummy I did both of which were lovable movies marking Terrance was a great arranger he would say well you know the script I have the script we all know the script so never the scene is when are we going to do now you're being chased or whatever it was so you come running through that door that's the main door and do you stop we don't you didn't say anything if you go line you say the line so you show me what some what do you think you should be doing so I charge in and stop and say a line or whatever it was and Peter would charge out to me or not as the case may be and we would do all these different things and Terry would say no no that doesn't work right this way you tried another way and he'd say hmm you know I wasn't getting getting there then you do it another way so that's it so he knew what he wanted but rather like William Wyler he didn't really know until he saw it she says I mean I he wasn't a person who expressed himself easily he wasn't a very he wasn't one of these hyper articulate directors who can destroy you by giving you incredible amount of direction which is literally impossible to remember and you become a robot now coming here sit down do that do this say that say that but that down do this to that up say that and then do this and that and so on and I want you to renew emphasize that word of that line pick it up bring it down and say going up at the end second down at the end I thought well I mean this can become extremely difficult you mean most a lot of experienced government something but he was an easy director to work with he was very good humoured very good tempered and he knew his job very much so and tomorrow's an enormous debt to tell us for sure and to us all of us at the beginning I also have said many times as a 5758 between let's say fifty seven hundred seventy or there abouts I owe a great debt to hammer but only at the beginning because I had the opportunity which most actors dream about some achieve it some don't I had the opportunity of making my place known and my name known and so the owners could put the two together they knew what Christopher Lee looked like not all the time but some of the time more or less how it sounds what he would do and so on so forth which is vital absolutely vital and you can't keep on making yourself up to look like somebody else or totally different because then you become nothing wrong with being a chameleon I mean that's called character acting but then you can become like Lon Chaney's senior you know it's a famous story he was always different to look at in every picture the man was a genius I never met him but as his son but there was one femme story going around in the American Studios I forget which one probably Universal because the set of the Phantom of the Opera is still there on stage twenty something because I've seen and historia some people wondering about the somebody saw a large beetle or large something of some sort skittering across the crowd on the ground and said don't step on it it might be non saving so turns knew he knew what to do and I've always said that at that particular time I own a debt a great debt to hammer which is true but I long ago discharged that debt by the end of the fifties in beginning of the 60s and of course I develop films for them black and white in which I played the you know the red herring you might say I cream of fair taste of here as we call it here Chinese won the best day ever made and then I made the pirate pizzas for them and they went horror movies and I certainly owe them a great deal and when he got to the point where I was selling the movie and I thought that that the movie was being put together and some of my name and I turned them down because I turn down all the drunken movies after the second one every single one who probably didn't love it but I did and I used to get hysterical telephone calls saying you've got to do it you gotta do it you gotta do it and I said no I don't I don't have to do it I don't want to do it you're getting further and further away from Bram Stoker story you've written a story first you're trying to pop the cake to rain it doesn't work and I don't want to do it you've got to do it you got to do it you gotta do it and eventually I would say well why have I got to do it in the same answer came back four times my name in five I can't remember who got to do it because we've already sold into the American distributor with you in the part and think of the people who put out of work if we don't do it for the nice position to be put in and that's the only reason I did the Dracula films after a second one but that's what I say it i discharged my debt to you I'm doing lots of other movies other people and my last picture the Hammonds in 1975 to the governor dota which was fire until the last five minutes which they totally ruined the movie I'm a disappearing after being hit on the head by a lump of Flint's because we shot a great deal more than that and then I was struck by lightning with my divine force if you like and the renegade priests when I when I charged after Richard Widmark who was carrying a Schnauzer Kinski was then 14 year old across the circle of blood that I drove and drawn around the altar forgetting my anxiety to get back to her he's he to users sacrifice forgetting left cross the circle of blood and of course divine retribution and I'm flung backwards and to crucify position on the ground let's the end of me and some genius in hammer said no we can't have him doing that he's done that before and about one of the reasons we don't have an industry I could give you another one actually much more recent I'm playing Saruman the white the wizard in The Lord of the Rings wonderful role and the Lord of the Rings can make cinema history it's going to have an impact unlike anything anyone seen I'm totally convinced for this my agent was talking to one of the producers of Harry Potter and she said overs as of this part because she had a script to this part he said had the ideal Papa Crystal a he and the producer looked at her and Horan somebody's already played a wizard now this is why we don't have an industry you might listen will say we can't have him playing a London gangster because it already played one or we can't have him stripping in a film because he's tripped in The Full Monty or whatever you see what I mean whereas an American producer soda said oh my god yes he's doing the Lord of the Rings which got me we got to have him so this is the tragedy and it will never get any better until we begin to use people in this country and production know what they're talking about know what they're doing and our filmmakers as opposed to deal makers and all our radical producers and writers living all down to America most of our directors to you cannot make domestic pictures for the domestic market it just will not be enough and that's why hammer of course for such an enormous success because those pictures were shown throughout the entire world and were huge successes like the Bond movies there is a scene in the mummy where because of my um heresy blasphemy trying to restore because as I was in love with I'm put to death when I'm wound up as a moment before that happens they cut on my tongue now I don't think I've ever seen that well and I say I've only seen it once but in some countries they show that same from the front but they don't share everything but we did shoot it I remember I'm being held my tank is pulled out by pincers as men with a knife across that and then it shots on my back so you see her body like electric shock and terrible sort of cry from me because I can't talk obviously now in a lot of countries that's not I know there and then you do see blood coming in another I've heard all these peculiar stores about Japanese versions hi they don't know quite what that means it's supposed to mean that they want more blood and guts across the screen which assesses well this is the main difference between the if one must call them horror films I don't like the word but the ones of the last 20 on maybe 25 to 30 years that you get this avalanche of extreme specifics on one hand makeup on the other and you really can't go any further except with commuters there's the poor actor or actress in the middle trying to keep their heads above water because it's an avalanche going from both sides how we relied on performance but when you got these and test expression effects and makeups nowadays I mean it just drowns the actor and let us know you got someone that in 1965 you appeared in the castle of the Living Dead which according the credits was directed by Warren caper but it's my understanding that the young director Michael Reaves actually directly quite a bit of that film the castle of visiting dead which was black and white and was supposed to look like an old silent movie I had thought rings out of my house like Hilde German films where people did look like that was produced by one of my closest if not my closest friend in the industry Palmer's Lansky which is first film person and I suppose as the gifts of police academy movies and radio a friend of mine very close friends to lose we are intending to remake the double rides out by the way and Joe Dante is agreed to direct it it's all a question of getting the document signed and any getting the paperwork in order it's not quite as easy as it may sound but some poor produce this picture and as I mentioned earlier cameraman was Aldo Ponte I means Fellini's cameraman the directing deed was a man called Warren Kiefer Kay fer it was Donald someone's first film and I think I don't have to tell you the name of his son keep a sudden exactly that's where I got it from from that man I think either had been or became an executive and an oil company but he directed a picture Michael Reeves who is extremely intelligent young man and colossal enthusiasm and was a joy to see it was literally the only person I've ever seen it would be ten different places at the same time or so it seemed he was a very very into film I mean he knew his film not just a question of manga both films and the names and the cast but he knew you know what had to be done in front of a camera and the right way of doing the wrong way to do don't ask me how but he did and he was the first assistant in the second or system the third assistant and this and that and so on I don't remember him actually directing me in anything he may have done but they don't remember it doesn't mean say that he didn't he went on to do which find a general with Vincent they didn't get on at all this is not acknowledged at the beginning and then Vincent telling himself when he saw the film how remarkably thought this young man was and a total change his mind about Jim thought he was outstanding you've paid a number of films based on the Sherlock Holmes stories playing several different characters we will pick your admirer of the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle oh yes and I was brought up on them like many of us have been you know I mean when you're very young he'll brought up on fairy stories Grimm's the Grimm brothers and they are grim hands Anderson Howard's from other countries you get a bit older you get into mythology pleased I didn't because I had a classical education and Latin and Greek so I get into the myths of Greece and Rome which I never forgotten then is it get a bit older you get into the Norse myths particularly if you ever go to singing vogner which I've done perfect agents the Norse gods rather not quite the same in bargmans versions but and then you start getting interested in mythology around the entire world which is an enormous help who come to do a film like the Lord of the Rings but as far as I was concerned I've played him three times once in this channel film which they didn't even use my own voice I think they didn't want to pay the fare from here to Berlin with your 1962 how Wayne Lynn I was living in Switzerland then the fare from Geneva to Berlin which Condamine very high just for me to go into my own voice so they put somebody else's voice him it's happened in other films I believe it happens in the within the body as well I think it's unforgivable and very stupid quite frankly I played Sherlock Holmes as an elderly so long homeless with an elderly dr. Watson played by Patrick Whitney in two films made not many years ago first car was made in Luxembourg and he was story about the attempted assassination of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria and I'm brought back in bored to death in I was retirement and says what's Seng mom's made in Zimbabwe which I don't think we would be doing now and it was all about the theft of a great diamond called the star of Africa which does exist it's similar regalia in the Tower of London it does exist that is damn called the star of Africa and it's stolen and circling into the seventh tells me to go down to South Africa and find it we felt a great deal of the film Tory Falls and around there was great fun and people to solve full-length films and joined them anonymously and then again some genius - sighs - put the one to TV and they cut him in half so where's the story incomprehensible it never ceases to amaze me what people do and they honestly think they know what they're doing but of course they don't but there's too much amateurism around them as our question arises far too much and too much fear I mean people are absolutely terrified you know in film industry almost everyone except the people - very very very very top we'll never get blamed cause but anyone else is terrified of making a decision saying I think we should do this or we should do that no no no yes yes yes because if something goes wrong they're going to get the blame whereas you see this all the time at the level of the top producer and certainly the level of a star who between them or separately will make flop after flop after flop after flop I'm not going to name them and I know they are and they're not all American over and they still get paid huge sums of money for being in terms of nobody wants to see and producers make pictures at which they take enormous sums of money and films again are not from scream or see they always going to blame somebody else always not their fault oh no no you were the one who said or whatever and there's a word for that it's called upward failure he see it all the time so doing homes was fun particularly as Patrick Dean either on stage together at the age of 11 school in Shakespeare he was Brutus I was Cassius he was born in Brooke I was Mowbray enriched of the second he was headed to fifth and I was Padova because he speaks French to doe fan in the play quite a bit and I was anyone they trusted to speak of properly anything and so that was fun and of course I am the only actor in history who's played both brothers Sherlock and his far more intelligent as he himself says brother Mycroft the brains of a family or in the family and there again you were talking earlier on about great directors I draw a truth well I've worked recently with Tim Burton wonderful to work with Peter Jackson marvelous George Lucas terrific so what could feel the biggest directors in modern times three of the cleverest see the most imaginative she the most helpful and I also work ghost with Steven Spielberg Joe Dante John Landis many others so I've been fortunate in that respect but tunnel has one director still with us I spoke to him about a month ago in Los Angeles he's 95 he's a greatest director I've ever worked with Billy Wilder could he directed the private life of Sherlock Holmes I remember how grateful I was to him because when I first saw him just general chitchat you know jamming him down with my agent and said he'd see me pardon wind cast I subsequently discovered George Saunders had been up for it I was told on to live Eamonn I'm falling and certainly James Roberts and Justice has been up for it well I got it I was the last person to be seen sometimes that's what happens the last person that you see is a person against the job I can often add I was lucky I many said to me I know what you've done your career I thought a generator and one was going to have a mouth because I'd seamless to his movies and he said it doesn't concern me in the least anything I'm interested in is are you the right part to play this role in my movie which I'll be eternally grateful and I have the opportunity of working all these great directors beginning of my career great directors towards the end of my career has put it obviously because my age and done in the interim period in seventies great directors like Spielberg and in 1970 the greatest of them all as far as I'm concerned he did that change my own life as an actor in spite of what you read in the press because they just don't do their homework in spite of what casting directors may or may not say to produce it because they don't do their homework either who asked casting directors in this country what my last three or four films were or what were the films I did when I lived in Los Angeles for 10 years he would have been remotest idea well that's simply not doing a job isn't it and the press just wants an easy label for anyone for everyone they put a label on you stick him in a pigeonhole when they need to mention your name they pull it up and they use a label and to use it was Shawn SS em to do it's just farcical they haven't got imagination or the courage to say well he was many many years ago it's a British press what does it all the time I can almost write the article I can all like write dating the presented to puts in and I remember giving an interview to a very nice girl from The Observer I forget - four years ago she asked about everything under the Sun we didn't get into hammer very much wasn't anything to discuss his long since gone kept repetitions of course on the television which is why all the generations know me and that's also very important mind you then I have to explain the last time is 1972 well no matter what you may hear will read about me doing a film in France that title it wasn't done by their character and I never parented the character no matter what the press may tell you you're getting it from me and it gave me the truth similarly there's already very good article and she said of course since 1970 and all the work that you've done in America when 1970 was private life of sherlock holmes i did my first western michael wealth then i went to america five years later on the advice of many many producers and finally in richard widmark whom i was doing to the develop daughter they said you know if you stayed but because of a lack of imagination amongst the casting directors and producers you will go on doing the same kind of film and you will never get away from it and you'll make a reasonable living but you'll get awfully fed up with bordered it I said well if I get borders it is going to show I said you must come to the states because you learn their cell many different kinds of film are made there so many different productions and if you are asked if you can play in America you'll get the chance to prove it but you've got to deliver the first time so I played I was in westerns are some comedies iris to Saturday Night Live still third highest rated show them all 35 million people I still show it occasionally come legendary show with Aykroyd and Belushi and Bill Murray and Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner all the height of their past in 79 so comedy comedy comedy so I did a lot in the States I did a picture called cereal which I played an American businessman so I wait for that because they had to be convinced so I could play an American all I can I'm not going to tell them I can't if I can't because you've got to deliver that's my point and if you don't did I get no chance unless you got brilliant PR working for you but or brilliant agent but if I must dimension here and now in this country or you where to speak to producers in this country and casting directors in this country and say you do realize it since 1970 Christopher Lee has not been typecast at all because he's done this to went to the whole list and his own screen you know so you can see it who won't accept it because they will not accept the pillar wrong I was telling about this woman write his article and the observer about my not being typecast which is true what is the heading for some it is a put in I'm sick of being typecast as Christopher Lee total I John Webb for is a lie such that's the opposite of what I said is totally untrue what is something a totally untrue it's a lie and this is the problem that you have here they will not let go they will not let it go if I'm still on my feet when her Majesty invests me with the CBE you know what the headlines going to be the paper it is a photograph of me I know yeah I know it will be no question the count becomes a commander or something I get it incredibly witty I mean such originality so intelligent so I mean they it's a little you know one stanza in all has the depth of the brilliance of the mind that can think this up it's pathetic there's no other word for it it is pathetic Anthony Hopkins case in point there are many many others what's he remembered for in the world today one part Anton a Hannibal Lecter or Antony Hannibal Hopkins I antenna let dark they must put a label on you because they won't do their homework they don't know what I did in America in the 10 years I should things accustomed lurked in this country that does I hosted Saturday Night Live as a result of which Steven Spielberg was in the cinema so will you do his picture for me was in the studio said will he do this picture for me who's there in the organ oh this guy can be funny I'm making a comedy like a minute they will not accept it here anyway you were talking about the Musketeers I don't know if you call that comedy suddenly wasn't comedy for me with only one eye I couldn't see whether all these blades were coming from in the fights they were very tough fights very very tough with grilled souls which are very long and very heavy and daggers sword and dagger is not easy and well there was a comedy element of course very strong one but it was very rough they tough and I was supposed to be the greatest swordsman in France even Oliver Reed as Arthur's says that no if you see him on the other side of the street do not cross over but all right that's light hearted but if somebody says to me well what did you do in have a 74 feel for I went to America so was the bond memory of course a moment ago and go but maybe I think I'm right the same within a year well alright I played the heavy in both cases but very different thing from making a quote horror unquote film fantasies the word melodramas words there are others so on youth but it's a morality play because could always times they were evil rail or not and never get a lot of these casual imaginary went real I had to make the orders believe they were real but they weren't coming all of us have some claims to famous person one way or another sometimes positive sometimes negative I have probably two I suppose really which are unique one is that I am the only actor in history history of the cinema was played both the Holmes brothers of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft never deserved nobody else has done that secondly I am the only person so far as I know it was executed King Charles the first of England and King Louie the sixteenth of France whatever kind of record that makes only I believed you to work out yourself Chris Polly thank you very much

Channel: Ajace1000

Views: 97,752

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: sir, christopher, lee, brad, stevens, interview, 2001, september, city, of, the, dead, horror, hotel, dvd, extra, feature, bonus, count, dooku, saruman, star, wars, prequels, lord, rings, trilogy, dracula, movies, tv, television, hollywood, actor, film

Id: QNrs0j-5eSw

Length: 45min 4sec (2704 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2017