|
The Lightsabre Interview Rick McCallum
Welcome to the third
and final
part of our Lightsabre interview with the most vital cog in the Star Wars
machinery along with George Lucas himself, and without this man nothing weve
seen in the past decade would be the same.
Hes the producer of many Dennis Potter classics, saw Young Now, just as a brief recap at the end of the second part of the interview the phone went dead and the line was cut. I opted to not annotate the following two minutes of Homer Simpson-style whining and swearing and moved forward about five minutes to the downstairs phone ringing.
MN - Hello? TC - Hey Mark, it's Tracy. MN - Hello Tracy, we lost the line there (Laughs) TC - Yeah, I guess so. MN - We were just in mid-flow. (Laughs) TC - (Laughs). Do you have a couple more questions for Rick? MN - Yeah, just one more really, then I just wanted to say thank you very much for giving his time. TC - Of course, fantastic, well hang on, let me get him for ya. MN - Thanks again. TC - Thanks.
There was a minutes pause as Tracy connected us back to Ricks office.
TC - Mark? MN - Hello? RM - I don't know where we lost you. I just thought 'Oh my God, I've just started slagging off Tony Blair and thought he'd probably left.' MN - I think the Gremlins are out to get us. (Laughs) TC - (Laughs) MN - You can say as much as you like about Tony Blair, I don't mind one little bit. (Laughs) RM - I mean where did we lose you? MN - You know, I was that flustered that the line went down I can't remember. (Laughs) RM - Ahh, let me just think, Jesus Christ. Let's go back to wherever you can remember.
I quickly excused myself to shoot back upstairs and grab my questions before continuing.
MN - Serves me right for not paying my phone bill, that's what it is. RM - Nice. TC (Laughs)
Q - We were talking about if Star Wars was being made today instead of in '77. A Yeah, you know I think I'm saying basically that it was just such a special moment, like Godfather One and Two, there's just a whole bunch of films, going all the way through Europe. You know, Persona, Tom Jones, there's hundreds of them and they just work and their moment because they took the package as a whole psyche of the world, and now, when it's so wired when you have day in day releases it's just amazing, the impact it has. But, I think we would have probably fucked it up because there was a limit to everything. It was such a hard movie to make, hard in terms of you couldn't have had a more unsympathetic crew, you couldn't have had a story that was more bizarre. It's easy too look back and be a back seat driver when you're not even in the same car and you look back, and you kind of rewrite history but at that time to have to walk on the set at Elstree, especially within the context of how the film business was run, and have a character like Chewbacca come walking on the set a talking lines with a guy in a black helmet who was a cockney guy who couldn't...well, I won't go into it. It must have been so bizarre. Q For the crew as well I guess. A
Oh, absolutely it was. I mean it was one of the worst
experiences anyone could have gone through as a director. This is a
completely unsympathetic crew, there's probably five people who really
understood what he was doing. Q
A
Absolutely, it's just one of those things. So, you have that dilemma
and what happens is you say 'Well, the stress and not having any money is
the worst things for a movie' and often it isn't. It just happens to
be what happens to that person at the time.
Q Yeah, well I'm hoping to get, if I'm lucky enough, to get an interview with Irvin Kershner so I'd be very interested to... A ...well he's around, we can definitely arrange that. Q Could that be done? A
Yeah, absolutely. Q Fantastic, thank you. A He's such a guy, he really is. I saw him about six months
ago and he's like eighty-three. Q I know, he's
filming a new movie now isn't he? A Yeah, and he's so full of life and a wonderful, wonderful human being and he did such a great job, as the script was brilliant and everything was just again an alignment of things that worked out beautifully. Q Serendipity, it all falls into place at the right time. A
Absolutely. Q One final question, I can't keep you here forever as much as I'd like to. Will we be lucky enough to see you over here for Celebration Europe? (Note, this interview was recorded on 22nd March and Rick was officially announced for Celebration Europe on 8th June). A Oh absolutely, definitely, definitely planning it.
Q Would you describe yourself as a bit of an Anglophile then? A
Very much so, you know I still have a place there, I've lived there since,
God... MN Well that's great and I'll make sure I buy you a pint when you come over.
RM
Absolutely, it would be great to see you and
keep in touch and let me know what happens with your friends, is it your
friends kids or is it...
RM How old are they? MN Sam is four and Adam is just about seven. So he's the age I was when Star Wars came out. RM That's the ones that we're after!
MN Exactly.
RM And if there's anything that was totally incomprehensible, which is probably most of this, just call Tracy and I'll get back on to you if there's anything that needs to be cleared up. MN I appreciate that very much. RM - Not at all, take care. MN - And you Rick, bye. |
