Time Capsule Terry Gilliam
THE ANARCHIC DIRECTOR ON HIS LIFE IN PICTURES
WORDS DAN JOLIN
“THAT’S IT?!” CRIES Terry Gilliam as we start to wrap up our interview. “That’s my career?!” He’s a little put out that Empire’s photographic trip down memory lane doesn’t cover his troubled epic The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, or 2005’s Tideland, which he describes as “my favourite film”.
Still, this being Gilliam, he’s laughing as he says it. And there’s still plenty covered, including iconic 1981 fantasy Time Bandits, coming out imminently as a remastered 4K Blu-ray and a journey back in time itself...
TROLL ROMANCE
TIME BANDITS (1981)
“One of my early love affairs, here. It wasn’t me in the love affair, though. It was Peter [Vaughan] and Katherine [Helmond], who took to each other very beautifully and made that sequence on the ship work so well, because they just played it for all it was worth. Originally, I was under pressure to use Ruth Gordon, because Ruth was a star in films and Katherine was not — she was a huge star in television, on Soap. But Ruth was in some Burt Reynolds film [Any Which Way You Can] and broke her leg, so she wasn’t available. Katherine and Peter gave their scenes a much more romantic feeling than was originally planned, which was wonderful. There were so many more hormones and fluids flowing! [Laughs]”