After two decades of trying, the director and former Monty Python member has finally managed to make ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’. But he’d rather talk to Alexandra Pollard about #MeToo, the trials of being a white man, and why he’s decided to become a ‘black lesbian in transition’
By his own admission, Terry Gilliam is offensive. But it’s not his fault, it’s yours. “People work so hard to be offended now,” he says with a grin. “I don’t know why I’m doing it. It’s not fun anymore.” He seems to be enjoying himself today, though. The more incendiary his opinion – that the #MeToo movement is a witch hunt; that white men are the real victims; that actually, it’s women who hold all the power – the bigger that smile.
We’re in his publicist’s London offices to discuss Gilliam’s new film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. But the 79-year-old writer, director and former Monty Python member has other ideas. “I’m so booored of talking about the film,” he groans, rolling up the sleeves of a maroon overshirt, which has a cut not dissimilar to a posh dressing gown. With grey hair, cut short except for a long rat’s tail around the back, and a weathered face, he looks his age – just about – but he has sharp, keen eyes, and the air, energy and trainers of a man many years younger.
You’d think, given that he’s been trying to make his magical-realist adaptation of Cervantes’ 1605 novel for nearly two decades, he’d be itching to talk about it. The film’s journey to completion has been so troubled – there were lawsuits, funding failures, collapsed distribution deals and natural disasters – that a documentary was made about it in 2002. Gilliam even started filming back in 2000, with Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort in the lead roles, but production was abandoned on day two when a flood wiped out the set and Rochefort’s back went into spasm.
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