The Lightsabre Interview

Julian Glover

Welcome to Lightsabre.  He’s portrayed giant spiders, Imperial commanders and Nazi lackeys, but today he’s our very welcome guest.  Ladies and gentlemen, Julian Glover.

Q - Julian, welcome to Lightsabre.

A – Thank you.

Q – You’re an acclaimed stage actor, have starred in a Bond movie and been the main villain opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but you are internationally best known for your role as General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back.  How do you feel about that?

A – Well I’m surprised to hear it because it’s such a small part.  Indiana Jones is a much more substantial part.  Also the part in the Bond film, though the Bond films are such a cult.  I find that at conventions everybody knows me from Indiana Jones, and most people know me from Star Wars, but not everybody.  Only people who are Star Wars freaks like you!  I had such a small contribution, I think it’s because I had a conversation with Darth Vader and all that.  There was talk of me being in the film after that, a very small part but I wasn’t free to do it anyway, and so the producer who I knew, Robert Watts came up with a new General Veers, fulfilling the function of General Veers had he been in it. 

Q – Tell us of your experience working on Empire.  Was there a feeling of pressure on the set to duplicate the huge success of Star Wars?

A – There wasn’t as far as we were concerned because we were…the stuff that we filmed was mostly me and Ken Colley and we only filmed for a week.  And there was one scene with Darth Vader and me.  We didn’t meet the main actors, didn’t meet the Harrison Fords and all that, and we weren’t aware of any pressure.  And as far as we were concerned we had no idea of the enormous success of Empire, we got paid ridiculously low money.  At that time my next door neighbour was the line producer Robert Watts and he invited me in and I thought, that’ll be nice.  And I didn’t go looking for it, I just did it and thought that was alright, so did most of us.  And then I thought my God, it’s so big.  And I must say despite having such a small part in it I think Empire is still the best of the lot.  It’s the best constructed, the technical advances since Star Wars are introduced and it got even better.  Since then I think they’ve gone so far I’m rather bored of them, although I’m not young anymore.  But I still find Empire to be the best, I think it’s a terrific film.

Of course that first summer when I saw Star Wars I was absolutely staggered, most of us were, absolutely staggered, I can’t tell you, people of our generation to have that…oh god it was amazing.  Back in the beginning when those planes went through those ravines.  And I found that later (the stories) got very confused and all a bit silly, but that’s my opinion and I know it’s not shared by most.  Fortunately it’s not shared by most otherwise it wouldn’t have earned any money.

Q - Tell us something of your career.  How did you begin in entertainment and what led you to where you are today?

A – I was at school and I had no idea of being an actor because I was just fifteen and at Alleynes School in South London, and I was very fortunate, as was most of us, that there was a young English Master there and he decided that he was going to revive the theatre of Shakespeare, because the school was founded by a Shakespearian actor called Edward Alleyne who was the second leading actor of Shakespeare’s plays.  So this English Master decided to go back and start to do Shakespeare, a school habit that had long lapsed.  And we did it, starting with a production of Julius Caesar using the school military corp, and I had never done any acting at all but I was quite good at doing technical reading aloud and I got the part of Marc Anthony and that was tremendously exciting and an extraordinary thing for a young lad of fifteen to do.  The next time they did a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, nothing to do with this young English Master this time, and I played a comedy lead in it.  And for the first and probably last time in my life I said I think I knew what to do, and my parents could tell that I wasn’t just being star struck, this was something I could do, so they helped me.  That was the kick off, and then I auditioned for R.A.D.A (Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts) , did my military service then started.  And my first job out of the army was Butlins Holiday Camp, Skegness. 

Early on I auditioned for Stratford-upon-Avon for the Royal Shakespeare Company there and I got a walk on, literally a walk on, and in those days it was a very exciting place to work, it still is now, and I did three seasons and gradually built my part up to small parts, and by the time I left I was fairly experienced in the Shakespeare parts and so that’s what kicked me off really.  Then I went to the Royal Court Theatre in a play there for the great Tony Richardson who was virtually running it, and he was also beginning to make films – he made the film of Tom Jones with a lot of people from the Royal Court Theatre in it including me.  It was my first film and it was a really good part.  It was David Warner’s first film that was too and Albert Finney’s second film.  That set me off in films.  I’d done twelve seasons for the RSC, and if you count leaving Stratford and going to Newcastle I did eighteen seasons with them, so I knocked around with that lot quite a lot.  I’ve done a lot of theatre work, but as you know I’ve done a lot of films too.  Hell of a lot of televisions and radios too.  I’m old now, my CV’s very long.  I couldn’t write my CV now, it’s too long.

(TV, radio and film) are different sorts of work.  I’ll do it as long as it’s good.  And it helps if it’s well paid.  The trouble with the theatre is there’s a lot of really good work but it’s very poorly paid.  Working for a theatre company is great but it’s only a weekly rate, it keeps you going, (but) you can’t save on it.  Working at the Royal Court was no money at all.  Doing Indiana Jones was quite comfortable.  Doing Star Wars was £200 for the week thank you very much.

Q – I suppose that wasn’t bad for 1979.

A – Oh it was bad, even then.  Then doing the last one I did, Troy, where I had a couple of scenes the money was really good, so you use one of those to set off and do those far things in untold places.

Q – You have played two roles in Lucasfilm productions during the 1980’s, General Veers in 1980 to Walter Donovan in 1989.  What is it like working for the company?  Are they like a family or are they simply a group of people?

A – They’re not a family, no not really.  I’m sure they do but we wouldn’t be aware of that.  When I worked for Spielberg I worked for Spielberg, we filmed at the studio, went abroad, went to Spain, and the actors who were on that film which was terrific.  Before that I worked for George Lucas. Spielberg looked in once on the week we were there (filming Empire) and Lucas looked in once when we were doing Indiana Jones, - “Oh hello Mr. Lucas, oh that’s Spielberg over there – crikey!”  But you don’t take any notice of that you just get on doing what you’re doing.  And I’m sure they are (friends), they keep on doing things together don’t they, so I’m sure there is a sort of business family thing about them, and obviously they refer to each other all the time and ask each other for advice.  But we’re not part of that.  We’re actors, we’re just actors.  That’s all we are, we’re not part of the creative process at all.

Q – You’re just set dressing.

A – (Laughs)

Please check back next month for the second part of our exclusive Julian Glover interview.