Movies | December 20, 2009 | 6 comments

Terry Gilliam: The 'Imaginarium' That Almost Wasn't

source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121636569

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The wild imagination of director Terry Gilliam returns to the big screen this week with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, about a small acting troupe that travels through London with an extraordinary portable stage. On it, a mirror — a looking glass — that can transport anyone from the audience into an imaginary world. The film is signature Gilliam, alive with color and fantasy and punctuated by flashes of psychedelic imagery.

And the fact that it has now been completed is a small miracle.

The money to make Dr. Parnassus almost ran out. Three days after the first round of filming wrapped, lead actor Heath Ledger died. A few months later, in the middle of post-production, the producer, Bill Vince, succumbed to cancer.

And in September 2008, Gilliam himself was struck by a car and ended up in the hospital.

But the director managed to overcome each challenge, and to complete what some critics are calling his best work in many years.

Gilliam tells NPR's Guy Raz that he had help from friends, family and colleagues as he worked to salvage Dr. Parnassus, but three people were particularly critical — starting with Johnny Depp.

"Johnny is a very close friend," Gilliam says, "and he was a close friend of Heath's as well. I called him a day or two after Heath died, just commiserating, and I said, 'I don't know what I'm gonna do, I might just close it down.'... And he said, 'Well, whatever you decide to do, I'm there.'"

It was a turning point. The film's financial backers had already started to retreat; Depp's interest helped turn the tide. Then Gilliam reached out to more of Ledger's friends — "I wanted to keep this in the family," he says — and soon Colin Farrell and Jude Law were adjusting their calendar commitments to join the project.

Moviemaking logistics being complicated, "it actually was an incredible dance between our schedule and their three schedules," Gilliam says. Even Depp's participation was in doubt at one point — but at the last minute the shoot for the gangster movie Public Enemy, a previous commitment for the actor, was pushed back a week.

Depp's total availability during that week? "A day, and three-and-a-half hours," Gilliam laughs

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121636569
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