Terry Giliam weathered months in America's least authentic city to capture the surreal reality of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Here, he describes how Johnny Depp "stole Hunter Thompson's soul" for Fear and Loathing, and explains why he's still upset years after The Adventures of Baron Munchausen that he wasn't the first director to present Uma Thurman naked on-screen.
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"Do you think this is funny?" Terry Gilliam asks as he presses STOP on his editing machine and turns to me with a broad, open smile. With Johnny Depp's image frozen on the screen in front of us, he wants to know if I think a scene from his new film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is going to make people chuckle. He must somehow know I have an opinion about everything. But even I wouldn't dare tell Terry Gilliam what's funny. After all, this is the guy who cowrote Life of Brian, a film that's made me laugh dozens of times. On top of that, I've just taken the red-eye to London to do this interview, and I feel in no position to criticize anyone. But Gilliam won't quit.
"Oh, come on," he says, his American accent not at all Anglicized after 30 years of living in England. (Yes, Gilliam is American; he was raised in L.A., and went to the same high school as Mike Ovitz.) "Is it working or not? I've been with this film for so long I have no perspective."
"It's hysterical," I finally say. Gilliam smiles a killer smile as he hits the PLAY button. Depp is almost unrecognizable as gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, whose drug-fueled rampage is the core of the film. With all of Thompson's herky-jerky motions, and not much hair on his head, Depp is not a particularly pretty sight. In the scene we're watching, he snorts some ether, smokes a joint and takes a few hits of acid.
Suddenly Gilliam lets out an infectious giggle that fills the editing room. "I always thought that when this film was over, I'd drop a hit of acid, because I never did it in the '60s."
I roll my eyes.
"No, really," Gilliam insists. "I didn't. I never did acid or mescaline or ether. I directed all the drug scenes in _Fear and Loathing _on total instinct. So I kept thinking that after this film was done, I'd reward myself with a really wild trip. But the more I watched Johnny on-screen, the more I saw how the drugs clouded Hunter S. Thompson's thinking, and the more I realized that I was too old for that shit."
Acid may not be quite the right idea, but some people are probably thinking that Gilliam deserves a reward of some kind. After all, rumors swirled around Hollywood like crazy that the shoot for Fear and Loathing was no walk in the park. When I ask Gilliam about this he shoots me a look. "It was hectic and crazy because there was so much to do," he says. "But it was the most fun I've had in a long time. This was the quickest and cheapest film I've ever done. We shot for 55 days, for less than $20 million." End of discussion.
Terry Gilliam is 57 years old now. He appears, in person, to be at least 10 years younger. He began his career as a cartoonist, and became Monty Python's resident animator after he met John Cleese in the late '60s. He cowrote and acted in all of the Python films, and then began his solo directing career in 1977 with Jabberwocky, a satire in the same vein as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He went on to make Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys, movies that were all full of gothic images, great leaps of faith and a twisted sense of humor.
One of the most interesting things about a Gilliam film, though, is that the actors he casts end up doing the kind of work no one expected them to do. Think of Robert De Niro in Brazil. Or better yet, Brad Pitt in Twelve Monkeys.
"You have a great eye for talent," I say, "and Fear and Loathing is full of it."
"Working with Johnny Depp was a dream," says Gilliam. "Here's a guy who has so much talent, and he's so easy to be with, so generous and sweet. He really stole Hunter S. Thompson's soul. Johnny's like this wonderful vampire sponge that just absorbs everything. He spent a lot of time with Hunter and was able to get his voice, mannerisms, everything. It became even stranger because we used Hunter's personal things in the movie. Like the jacket Hunter wore on the original Fear and Loathing book cover--Johnny wears it in the movie. And the interior shots of the red shark--that's Hunter's car. It started to get a little weird."
"What about Benicio Del Toro?" I ask.
"Benicio plays the Samoan lawyer. People will not recognize him, because he put 30 or 40 pounds on for the role. When he takes his shirt off, all of his fat jiggles. It's not a pretty sight.
"To fill out the little roles," Gilliam continues, "we got great people. Christina Ricci plays the girl they pick up, and she has a wicked sense of what's right and wrong. She is just perfect. Tobey Maguire, that kid who was in The Ice Storm, plays the hitchhiker. It's a great little role, and he's just terrific. We'll be watching him for a long time."
"No one knew who Uma Thurman was until you gave her a break in Baron Munchausen," I say.
"I was very disappointed," he says with mock sincerity. "Munchausen was delayed because of the crap with the studio, and Dangerous Liaisons [in which Thurman starred] came out before us. So the world got to see Uma naked before I got to show Uma naked. I thought that was disgusting. Very unfair."
Gilliam lets out another giggle then continues, "There's a quality to Uma that you don't see too often. And she was up there with people like Ollie Reed, who's a dangerous man at best, and great actors like John Neville. She held her own when she was only 17 1/2 years old. It was quite exciting to see."
"Who else has that kind of quality?"
Gilliam doesn't even have to think about it. "Cameron Diaz, who plays a part in Fear and Loathing. I adore that girl. There's a transparency about her that's wonderful. She reminds me of Johnny [Depp] in that she's technically incredibly good, and it's so natural. It just comes out without any effort. And you don't seem to get any credit these days for being effortless. You have to be seen acting. Because she's an ex-model and incredibly beautiful, some people don't think she can act. Cameron's encumbered, unfortunately, by a beautiful face. Cameron's always good."
Gilliam takes a deep breath. "I've been trying to do this other film with Cameron that never seems to take off. It's called The Defective Detective. I cowrote it with Richard LaGravenese [who wrote The Fisher King]. Cameron's the one I want to play the girl. She's gotta play a medieval virgin princess, a corporate hooker and an earth mother. This would be the chance for her to finally show her stuff. Does that answer your question?"
Question? I can't remember asking one. "How did you decide on Ellen Barkin for Fear and Loathing?"
"Ellen is someone I've wanted to work with for a long time," says Gilliam. "She was up for a part in another film of mine and at the last minute we went with someone else. Then I ran into her at a party last year and we patched things up. When I asked her what she was up to she told me they don't write good roles for women, and if I had anything in this film, she'd love to do it. That's how Ellen Barkin got to play a waitress."
"Before I saw a few scenes from Fear and Loathing," I tell him, "I couldn't really imagine you directing this film. It seemed not to have the visual elements that make most of your films so great. But what you let me see convinced me I was wrong. Who better than you to show Las Vegas as the distorted torture chamber that it really is?"
"Exactly," says Gilliam. "But I still get to meld the elements that I so love. A large part of this film takes place in Vegas while Thompson covers an anti-narcotics convention of cops. All the time he's there he's absolutely stoned out of his gourd, so the way he sees it is truly twisted. As they say, I'm the King of Twisted."
I could talk to Gilliam forever about his love of all things twisted, but instead I want to clear up a rumor. "I heard that Brad Pitt almost lost his role in Twelve Monkeys to Johnny Depp."
"Certainly Johnny's name had come up," says Gilliam, "but Brad actually pestered us for that role. At first I said, 'Come on, Brad's not a fast talker, he's not snappy. You want a young Jack Nicholson, a wild guy who can be quick.' Brad came to London to meet me and I liked his earnestness and his determination. He's a sweet guy. He was putting on a good show for me of talking fast. And, as good actors really can when they want something, he started to become that character. But I still wasn't sure. Then Brad turned up again, this time when I was in L.A., and I'm a real sucker for people who are that keen. If they want it that badly, you know they're gonna work their ass off. So I said, 'OK, we'll do it.'"
Just when I think I've heard a sweet Hollywood story Gilliam sighs and says, "Then I thought, 'Oh, God, I fucked up. Brad can't do it.' I asked a guy named Stephen Bridgewater, an ex-DJ who had worked with Jeff [Bridges] on The Fisher King, to train Brad. Stephen called me after their first meeting, because Brad was resisting all this stuff, and said, Terry, what have I ever done to make you hate me?' because he thought Brad couldn't do it either. He said, 'Brad can't talk, he has a lazy tongue. He's smoking, he has no diaphragm control. After a couple of seconds, he's out of breath.' So I was feeling less than perfect. But then Brad kept working and working, and the months went by. He was supposed to be sending me tapes of his progress, which he wouldn't, because he wanted me to trust him. [But] when Brad turned up to work, he was just fucking great.
"Anyway," Gilliam continues, "by the time the film was over, Brad could barely stand up because he had worked so damn hard. All those great, quirky things about his character, the funny way he moved his eyes and all, that was Brad's stuff, things he thought of. I get the credit for it, but the fact is, those were Brad's ideas."
"There are two types of directors," I say. "The bad father, who yells at and humiliates his actors to get what he wants, and the good daddy, who nurtures, encourages and gives his actors a lot of support. I picture you as the good daddy."
"I'm not either. I'm the buddy. The ones who yell, that's about power. I'm not about power. I'm trying to get the best film I can. To me, the film is God, and we're all trying to serve our God."
"How did you get Bruce Willis to buy that theory?" I ask. "I've interviewed him and I'm pretty sure that when he's in the room there's no question in his mind who's God."
"When I heard Bruce was interested in Twelve Monkeys," Gilliam says, "I wasn't so sure about it. But we met, and we had a really funny afternoon. The one thing that impressed me about Bruce was a scene he did in Die Hard. In it he's picking glass out of his feet while he's on the phone talking about his wife, and then he starts crying. I thought, I've never seen that in a macho-man movie. He told me that was his idea, it wasn't scripted. So I thought, There's something going on here that intrigues me. I said to Bruce, 'Here's the problem. I heard stories about your entourage and we can't have that on this film. You have to come to this naked. You're a monk, you're a man without friends and you can't bring the support team.' He asked if he would bring the wrong kind of baggage to the film and I said, 'Potentially you do. But there's a side of me that wants to keep confounding the public' And I told him, 'If we're gonna do it, we do it this way--no smirk, no steely-eyed thing, and no little moue thing you do with your mouth.' That was the total sum of my direction."
That's it? That's all it took to tame Bruce Willis?
"Not really," says Gilliam. He takes such a deep breath you'd think he was going underwater. "Bruce is aggressive, he likes fighting. No, he loves fighting. That's where he feels the most comfortable, when he can suddenly push against you, and you push back, so he pushes harder. The other bit of direction I did, which almost killed me, was to let him push me. I just kept going backwards. But I think Bruce is a very good actor."
"Good actor or not," I say, "he's still a piece of work."
"Bruce Willis really wants to be loved and liked by people," Gilliam insists, "yet he puts all these barriers around him. I think he's actually quite vulnerable, but the barriers are so thick and deep now that most people never get into that inner core."
"After listening to you talk about Bruce," I say, "I feel a lot less hostile toward the guy."
"Oh God," Gilliam shrieks, "don't let me change your mind about anything. That would be sad."
After Gilliam shows me a few more scenes from Fear and Loathing, I think how difficult it must be to be responsible for a big movie. "Did your experience with Baron make you insecure about releasing a big picture?"
"Batman & Robin, The Postman," Gilliam says, "now those were colossal flops that cost a fortune. Baron Munchausen was nothing compared with all those. I have certainly fought with the studios over the years. Nobody got Time Bandits. They told me that blowing up kids' parents at the end was going to kill the film. Of course, they were wrong. Kids and their parents loved that film and it made wheelbarrows full of money. Twelve Monkeys made gobs of dough. The Fisher King did really well. So when people still bring up Munchausen as an example of my being out of control, I just have to laugh."
It's already been hours since I first walked into Gilliam's editing room. As I start to gather up my things, Gilliam grabs my arm. "Don't tell anyone what Johnny Depp looks like in the film," he pleads. "I want them to pay their six dollars to go to the theater and see Johnny Depp bald."
Six dollars? For the first time all day I realize that it's been a long time since Gilliam has lived in America.
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Martha Frankel interviewed Angelina Jolie for the March '98 issue of Movieline.