There’s a nice story about how Terry Gilliam got legendary actor Sean Connery to star in his quirky time-travel fantasy Time Bandits of which you can watch the trailer for above.
To watch the trailer, click the play button at the left of the above, very top, feature image.
In an interview with SFX magazine, Gilliam and co-writer Michael Palin just kind of wistfully wrote Connery into the script with a touch of Monty Pythonesque prose.
“We put in into the script, ‘And the Greek warrior removes his helmet, revealing himself to be Sean Connery or an actor of equal — but cheaper! — stature. Neither me or Michael imagined that he’d want to be in it,” Gilliam said.
“We caught Sean when he was in an interesting mood. He liked the idea of Agamemnon being a surrogate father to Kevin (Craig Warnock),” he said.
“I got the sense that he maybe had a bit of guilt about sidelining his own children when he was off being James Bond and roaming the world.”
Connery’s role as the Mycenae king was one of the highlights of the unique movie released in 1981 that also starred John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, and Palin.
The modestly budgeted film went on to be a box office hit that was well-received by critics and moviegoers.
Gilliam said he enjoys how the film was still well regarded by those who saw it decades ago.
“Fairy tales have always been central to the way I look at the world. They are all moral tales, in one form or another. That’s really what I wanted to create here,” he said.
“I love the fact that people who are 40 or 50 years old tell me that the film had an effect on them. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, really.”
Time Bandits was the first of three films that Gilliam made during the 1980s, with the other two being Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
There have been recent media reports that a version of Time Bandits will be made into a TV series for Apple with Kiwi filmmaker Taika Waititi set to direct the pilot.
