LA: Thanks for staying up later, Tim Curry is with us. He's Cardinal Richlieu in the latest Three Musketeers, which has just opened. How many Three Musketeers films have there been?
TC: I think there have been at least four. Umm, I, I, I believe there was a silent film version, there was an Errol Flynn version, there was the Dick Lester version, which I think was the early 70's. Um, so pretty much every 20 years it gets a, it gets a new version.
LA: Uh, huh, from the trailers I've seen, its a beautifully photographed film, but that's all I can tell. As we tape, I haven't seen it--
TC: No.
LA: --from start to finish. What's gonna put a different twist on this? Or is it such a classic story that you can do it once a generation?
TC: Oh, I think , I think certainly the latter. I mean, I think you know, it's the adventure story that's stood the test of time. Um and it's, it's very beautifully shot on locations and it's, it's a kind of rollicking popcorn movie, I think. Um, I mean somebody called it "young guns go to Versailles".
LA: What was the most enjoyable aspect of it for you?
TC: Umm.
LA: The chance to ham it up is something actors always like.
TC: Well yes, I mean I tried not to be caught with large pieces of scenery between my teeth.
(LA, and audience laugh)
TC: Uh, but yeah, it's the man you love to hate, but also the actual ruler of France. So it's nice to play a villain with a sort of Machiavellian brain.
LA: Did you go back and look at the other Three Musketeers films?
TC: Well, I saw the Richard Lester one when it came out. Whenever it was, '72? Something like that. And in fact I tried to rent the Errol Flynn version and they put the wrong cassette in the box.
LA: What did you get?
TC: I don't remember, actually, but I took it as a sign.
LA: (laughs)
TC: I thought , "No, they obviously don't want me to see this".
LA: You think it would have been daunting? I mean in a sense, Errol Flynn was born to play these, these uh sort of swashbuckling characters.
TC: Well, I mean, (coughs) in some ways not any more than Keifer Southerland was. I mean, I think it's just re-interpreted for another kind of generation. And actually I think that probably all these versions of the Musketeers reflect the attitudes of their times. So I, you know, I've done a part in London that was played by Olivier, and now I'm not daunted anymore. Somebody's got to play 'em, you know, might as well be me.
LA: How did you feel you stacked up?
TC: Very badly. (laughs) As was, as was rather coldly pointed out at the time.
LA: In the reviews? Do they get to you?
TC: I've got a pretty good relationship with the critics, thankfully. But there was this sort of period this particular year at the National which was, uh, not very successful. Uh, and in particular, a production of 'Thruppenny' (Threepenny) Opera where I played McHeath, which I'd always wanted to do and was truly slaughtered. Uh, for the first time in my life, and it was very, it was very difficult. Particularly at a place like the National, where if a production clearly doesn't work, they don't take it off.
LA: Uh huh.
TC: You play it for six months.
LA: It's your punishment.
TC: It's your punishment, "What fresh hell is this?" (laughs) Umm, so you --, and that was very hard, um, so after that I don't read umm notices in the theater, because they can really effect the way you play it.
LA: Yeah. I was going over your resume, so to speak, and it's so diverse. Work in film, in television, classical stage work, more main stream stage productions, so now you've got this whole body of work into which Rocky Horror Picture Show falls s omewhere. But I would imagine if we went back eight-ten years ago this would be an almost annoying topic. Because there, there was such a mania surrounding it that you would practically have to have gone out and scaled the Matterhorn to get noticed for anything else.
TC: Yeah. Yeah, well, you know it was the sub editors dream, Rocky Horror. So, so the first kind of round of publicity uh, was, uh, you know, fascinating, uh, and then the second time that I was doing stuff, it was, you know, the man who did the Rocky Horror Show, so that was an excuse to print another picture of you in fishnet stockings and high heels, uhh-
LA: Uh huh, and we can't get enough of those, by the way.
TC: By now that's sort of pretty much been exhausted, you know, except around Halloween.
LA: Is Frank-N-Furter still a popular Halloween get-up?
TC: Oh, I think so, yes. Well you know, Frank, er, uh, one of the things about Rocky is that it's become a sort of rite of passage you know, along with hazing.
LA: Uh huh.
TC: (Tim does THAT laugh)
LA: For the uninitiated, I don't know if there still are, but there was a long stretch, years and years, when the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which might not have been a traditional box office smash--
TC: Uhh.
LA: --played every Friday and Saturday night at a given theater on college campuses around the country. Usually every college campus of any size had one theater that played it every Friday and Saturday night.
TC: Yeah.
LA: And there were kids who had seen it literally hundreds of times and it became a participatory thing where you could go to this and most of the people knew every line of dialog, they'd respond to the characters, many times they'd come dressed as the characters. If it was an old time theater that had a stage in front of the screen, they would run up and jump on the stage and start doing silhouette stuff up there. It was wild.
TC: Well, it was pretty amazing. And I mean, one of the things that actually was kind of triumphant about the film in a sense, we were , we were deliberately trying to break down that kind of, what would actually be the fourth wall in the theater. I mean, we were actually trying to burst out through that screen and it was very deliberate that I talked to the camera an awful lot. And in a curious kind of way, it actually kind of worked. I mean it was a film that opened up a kind of dialog with an audience. And it happened quite spontaneously and sort of organically, it was very strange.
LA: You're the Transylvanian Transvestite?
TC: That's right.
LA: And uh, uh, Susan Sarandon is in this film?
TC: Uh huh.
LA: What kind of box office did this actually do? Apart from its cult standing? Was it a hit in any sense?
TC: When it came out it was a terrible flop. In fact, I went to a screening with the director when the finished cut was played for the executives at Fox and at the end of the screening there was this plangent silence that just sat like porridge. And then Jim Sharman, who directed the film, ran out of the room. And whichever executive had been assigned to say (TC does a 'bon- homme' imitation) "this is a really wonderful film, we love it, it's really great, it's gonna do swell, so glad you came", uhhmm, and, and basically, they just barely bothered to release it, and it went straight down the tubes. And actually it was rescued by somebody, an executive, whose name I now forget, who was given it as this kind of turkey to see what he could do with it, and he, umm, he sort of invented the midnight circuit. Actually, he put it on at midnight at the Waverly cinema in New York and it found an audience and has taken something like 150 million dollars.
LA: How often, if ever, did you see it, in a theater?
TC: I saw it about twice. I was actually in New York, I'd just moved to New York when, and, was starting to make records when, when the phenomena began to happen and a friend of mine called me up and said "do you realize they're all going at midnight? da da da da.", so we tried to get tickets and umm, it was sold out. I called up and said "you know, this is Tim Curry, do you think you could sorta squeeze us in somewhere?" this voice said (Tim does his British-New York accent) "You're the third Tim Curry today:", wham! (laughs) And that, so we show up anyway and they gave us seats, there were about four of us, and umm, it was very strange, because people sorta started coming up and touching me and kinda of uhh, it was really peculiar, and about twenty minutes in this woman, the manageress, actually turned us out and said (the Brit-New York accent) "You're impostor, you're starting a riot, it's a nightmare, and uh--
LA: Disrupting the otherwise staid atmosphere-
TC: Absolutely--
LA: --that prevailed at the show.
TC: Absolutely. Uh, so that was the first time I saw it. And I saw it at the Tiffany theater in Los Angles, because when I was about to start touring with my band, I took them to see it. Bet they came out in a state of shock!
LA: Do you find that you're recognized by little kids now? Because of Home Alone 2?
TC: Yes. Well, I've actually done quite a few things that kids see. I mean every little girl has a video tape of Annie. Umm, uh, but Home Alone 2 certainly, uh, umm, you know it's good to be in a hit, because you tart to sort of become part of the conscienceness in some peculiar way.
LA: Now Annie was not a hit.
TC: Not at the time.
LA: One of the greatest stage hits, but a movie bomb.
TC: Mmmm, yeah, absolutely, (draws a deep breath), well it was a---
LA: Would seem to have the ingredients--
TC: Oh, certainly.
LA: --John Houston directs.
TC: Certainly, I mean, I think that probably in the end, uh, it was perceived as over produced. Umm, and actually it's sort of interesting really because I was terribly aware when I was making it, I was thrilled to be making it because, as a child the one thing that I always really, always wanted to see, were the huge Hollywood musicals. South Pacific, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and that was what I wanted to do. I mean, I knew that that was something that I really wanted to do, so Annie was really in a sense the last, it was the sort of dinosaur, it was the last of those great big huge Hollywood musicals. And, and, there were so many kind of tie-ins with it, there was a very strong hype with it, there were plates and toys and there were---and I think it was perceived in the media as just a sorta giant hype and they went for it. Where now it's become pretty much standard practice, but it was pretty new then. That kind of you know, mega marketing.
LA: Uh huh.
TC: Umm, so I think it suffered a lot from that.
LA: Pretty good video sales and rental though? Now?
TC: Oh, I think it's made lots and lots of money, yes.
LA: You intersected with Houston towards the end of his life.
TC: Yes.
LA: And maybe, well past the peak of his powers? Is that fair to say?
TC: I don't know that he was terrible interested in Annie. I mean I think if you look at his career, he often made movies, umm, because he thought that they would make money and because that he needed money. I mean he was a great gambler. I mean I think he was sorta fascinated in a sense doing it because it was set in the 30's and of course he'd been there. Uhh, but you know the oxygen was ever present. And, uh, half the time he seemed to be on the next set reading scripts as far as I could see. (Tim does a dead-on 'Houston' voice) "Watching it on television" (Tim laughs) "that's very good, just bring it up a little closer". Um, I had a, when I met him, I was sorta offered the part before I met him, which uh, when we started shooting in New York, he was staying on Central Park South, somewhere, and he asked me to come over and talk to him and he said (in 'Houston voice') "Have you had any thoughts about how you're going to play it, Tim"? And I said, "Well, I've been watching this stagehand", because I was doing Amadeus at the time, "Who had a kind of, particular sort of, physical tick". He said "Show me, show me, show me". So I kind of did it for him, and he said (the 'Houston voice') "Oh yes, that's wonderful, that's great great, yes, that's very good, very shifty".
LA: Can you tell in the middle of something, for which you had high hopes, that it's going down the drain? I mean Clue was another one you were in--
TC: Ummm.
LA: --and a big time cast and again almost had a built in audience, because all of us as kids had played Clue--
TC: yes--
LA: --we wanted to see it. Everybody knew Annie was a great stage play and wanted to see it. So it looks like almost can't miss and both of them missed.
TC: Yeah, well you know I think that there are a couple of things about Clue. Paramount were very, very high on it when we were shooting it. And they, you know, were crazy for the dailies and so, so pleased were they that they, they rush released it, which meant that Johnny Lynn who directed it, um, whose first film it was, umm, really had to no chance to test it in front of an audience, um, he really had to sort of pretty much throw it together and get it out there. And I think it suffered from that, a lot. Um, it's, uh, it's very successful video. Um, and in fact. (laughs) In fact, I was at a dinner table in New York and they had, my host had two daughters at Princeton and they said it had become a sort of cult thing at Princeton, and that whole lines of dialog from the movie had gone into the language, and I thought (very dramatic) "No, no, please no!". But who knows.
LA: We're back with Tim Curry. Many people may not be aware of your recording career. But if they're fans of Saturday Night Live they might have been able to infer it from your Mick Jagger bit with Piscapo.
TC: Yes, well, I did, umm, it was supposed to be Mick Jagger's first TV special. Umm. and it was really rather well written. the guests were Joe Piscapo as Frank Sinatra, who sang (he does a pretty good Sinatra impression) "Hey you get off my cloud, hey you, take a hike" (LA laughs), "And I sang Strangers in the Night (does a good Mick Jagger). And Shari Lewis and Lambchop were guests.
TC: It was a lot of fun, I mean it was , it was a very good time at Saturday Night Live thing.
LA: how big a slice of your career are the recordings?
TC: Well, (clears throat) it was something I had always wanted, to make records and really when I started I didn't know really whether I wanted to be a singer or an actor. Umm and my first job was in 'Hair' which kind of postponed the decision, really. Umm it was very clear that the people who went from hair into recording contracts umm actually had a pretty miserable time because really in the late 60's people um er had very little control over what they were allowed to record. So I really just decided to wait until I had, you know, enough power to to choose my own material which sorta really happened because of Rocky horror. And um so I make the first record in Toronto and New York and I pretty much stopped acting for about three years because I wanted people to kind of understand that I was serious about it, particularly radio and I toured the States a couple of times and Europe and--
LA: is there a style we can identify there? A type of material you usually did?
TC: Well, (clears throat), the first record was very eclectic. And sold 25,000 copies and cost a great deal of money, umm--
LA: But you maintained your artistic integrity?
TC: Well, I did, absolutely, absolutely. The second record I actually started writing and wrote a great deal of it and then the third record, umm, and I did them both with Michael Kamen, who is extremely successful writing scores for movies now, and in fact he's doing the score for the Musketeers. Umm, they were, the songs were a tad literate for the market really (laughs). They did very, the records did very well in college towns.
LA: Run out and see Tim Curry and Keifer Southerland among others in the Three Musketeers, as they say, in a theater near you. It was great to meet you.
TC: Thank-you very much.
LA: Thanks a lot, see you later.