«Kubrick was a genius but he cheated me financially»- Corriere.it

“That role fucked me up,” says Malcolm McDowell. The British actor turns 80 in June, and the film that marked his life turns 50: Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick, the master with whom he introduced us to the unforgettable Alex, the hooligan lost in blind violence, disturbing our dreams. With Kubrick, McDowell had a “controversial” relationship. He spills the beans with his irreverent tones.

“When we argued, swear words flew between us. She had manic demands, real obsessions on set. I was screwed, I was a young actor who had to promote the film for free. Stanley tricked me into signing a paper that said I was giving up 2.5 percent of the takings. At the preview, come on creditsI saw his name everywhere, Kubrick here, Kubrick there, so much so that I was amazed, hey, isn’t there anyone else who made this movie?”.

«First of all, he spoke to me about interpretation. He wanted her with an exaggerated style, being without morals I should have made him likeable. The liberal press, like the New York Timesaccused us of being fascists, of having made my character funny».

There are scenes that remain glued, Alex breaking into the home of the writer and his wife with the droogs.

“They couldn’t get to grips with the scene of the rape of the woman and the violence to her husband. I was waiting to figure out how we should shoot it. After five days Stanley asked me point blank: Can you dance?, Can you Dance? No, I told him, but began to move humming Singin’ in the rain (Singing in the rain). Gene Kelly’s film gave me a kind of strange euphoria, I sang so and naturally. Stanley made a gesture as if to say, we’ve found the square. A year after the release, in Los Angeles, they invited me to a party with old Hollywood. Gene Kelly was there too, he turned on his heel and walked away without shaking my hand. I said to the friend who introduced him to me, do I have to apologize for something? No, he replied, only that you ruined the most famous scene of his career, by sullying his gay and festive dance. Okay, I said, but in Clockwork Orange it worked”.

Other such beautiful anecdotes?

“The scene on the hospital bed, when the Home Secretary comes to see my progress from the mad violence in which I had been a prisoner, and wants to feed me…Stanley was anxious, he was on tenterhooks. To speed things up I thought of mechanically opening my mouth, opening it obsessively while they fed me pieces of steak one after another. Stanley laughed, I chewed, and I understood that he was not going to follow the script in that scene ».

Between politically correct and cancel culture, would it be possible to shoot A Clockwork Orange?

“It’s hard to say, but even then if it hadn’t been for Stanley, I doubt that the majors would have financed such a film, even if it didn’t turn out to be that expensive.”

«Free blood at the cinema, I don’t like movies horror, although I’ve made one or two. Then I am disturbed by what is happening in the bastion of democracy, the United States. America has been infected and taken over by an idiot named Trump. A self-centered and narcissistic man who thinks he’s a demi-god while he’s a jerk. At one reception I asked the landlord not to place it nearby. He has many followers. America had never been in danger of stability. There had always been a peaceful transfer of power dictated by the ballot box. Now Trump is losing support, but he has shown us how deeply rooted racism is in America ».

She, who in her youth interpreted the wildest violence, is a pacifist in life.

“I consider myself a man of common sense. In America they don’t ban guns, a vote in Parliament would be enough. The National Rifle Association has enormous power, it is a corrupt lobby that invokes the second amendment on the use of weapons, but that was established in 1776 and had the sole purpose of getting rid of the British ».

«I’m satisfied because I’ve never wanted to make blockbuster movies that bring in big bucks, even though I’ve participated in Star Trek and I had the honor of killing Kirk, so we got rid of him. The life of an actor is made up of ups and downs and after I separated from my wife I didn’t want to go back to England because our children were small, I stayed in the USA to be a dad. The 80s are not good for me. Actors are false idols, maybe they attack you for faults that are not yours, if an actor gives a good performance in a bad film, nobody understands it».

“I had one, I’m realizing it. I had never shot a western film before, an experience that every actor must have sooner or later. In The Last Train to Fortune I’m a disgraced primary school teacher, gets expelled from school in England and goes to USA, takes a train but misses the connection and finds himself in an abandoned shed in the middle of nowhere where he meets an armed cowboy who offers to accompany him on his journey . Then I would like to make a film about vampires».

The meetings of your life, apart from Kubrick?

«But I was lucky to work with him, he was a genius with an impossible character, Matthew Modine told me that his son was being born, he asked for a short leave during the filming of Full Metal Jacket, Stanley denied him: if you see your child a few days after the birth of your wife, what changes you? I was especially fortunate to have met Lindsay Anderson».

When did you meet him?

“I was performing for the Royal Court Theater in a modern version of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, terrible, in contemporary costumes. Pretentious, he called it. He pushed me to gossip about that illustrious company, suddenly he said to me: do you know that I am the director? A genius who taught me to love life and acting. His film If was a blow to the British establishment. He was a short man with a combative attitude and a penetrating gaze ».

2001 A Space Odyssey?

«Another legendary film, d
instructed by US critics, they said that three quarters of an hour without a dialogue was wo…They didn’t get the revolutionary spirit. Then we had the intuition to change the promotional campaign, showing the fetus of a child on the poster with the inscription The Last Journey, which convinced stoned Americans to go and see the film. He turned to the counterculture embodied by magazines like The village voice, activated the alternate printing. Thus began the long triumphal journey of that film».