{"id":33849,"date":"2009-10-07T20:24:32","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T01:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=33849"},"modified":"2009-10-12T08:52:22","modified_gmt":"2009-10-12T13:52:22","slug":"christopher-lee-interview-on-troldspejlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2009\/10\/07\/33849-christopher-lee-interview-on-troldspejlet\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Lee Interview on ‘Troldspejlet’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChristopherLasse<\/strong> sends along a translation of a Danish interview from ‘Troldspejlet’, a Danish TV show: Lee talks LOTR – for instance some of the scenes that were shot but never made it to the screen – and a little of his love of fantasy in general. The interviewer also tries to get him to talk of his roles as count Dracula and other classic horror characters some 50+ years ago – this seems to annoy him a bit, as he was never payed much for acting in these films, which on the other hand earned quite a sum for the film companies!<\/p>\n

The show that ran the interview is called “Troldspejlet” which translates into something like “The Magic Mirror” and is a much loved weekly show that has existed since 1989 telling news of books\/films of fantasy and sci-fi as well as computer games. <\/p>\n

Christopher Lee is among the actors who have been supplying us with horror, thriller and fantasy adventures on the silver screen for the longest period. We may know him best as Saruman in the Lord of The Rings films and as Count Dooku in the Star Wars films, but actually he has performed in more than 260 films since the start of his carreer in 1948. Thus he has played both The Mummy and Frankenstein\u2019s Monster and not least his memorable interpretation of the Dracula character in a large number of films in the period of 1958-1973.<\/p>\n

Troldspejlet [\u2018The Troll\u2019s Mirror\u2019 or \u2018The Magic Mirror\u2019] met Christopher Lee in \u201cThe DR City\u201d in Copenhagen in the spring of 2009, in connection with his performance reading from the work of Tolkien.<\/p>\n

Name: Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee
\nBorn: Maj 27. 1922
\nNationality: England<\/p>\n

Intro by Jakob Stegelmann: One of the very big characters of fantasy movies visited Copenhagen this spring, on the occasion of a Tolkien concert, here in the concert hall of DR. Soon rumors were spreading that the great man was in the house, and all of a sudden \u2013 contrary to expectation \u2013 we got an opportunity to do an interview with him. We didn\u2019t let that chance slip, and here he is; whether you know him as Count Dooku, Dracula, Saruman, or just Christopher Lee!<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: Christopher Lee was born in 1922, so it would seem resonable if he had long since retired; but he didn\u2019t, and he keeps on working with new parts and new performances. This spring he visited the concert hall of DR, where he were to recite Tolkien accompanied by the [the DR] symphony orchestra. He arrived as early as in the morning to inspect the new concert hall that his voice were to fill that same evening.<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee\u2019s career started off in the late 1950\u2019s, and he was first noticed when he played the part of the fantastic and dangerous Count Dracula, one of the many monsters that the tiny English film company \u2019Hammer Films\u2019 revived during that period. He played Dracula first in 1958 and then several times after, but it\u2019s not a role he likes very much to talk about nowadays.<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dI\u2019ve seen things written, that I played that part ten or eleven times \u2013 I didn\u2019t! I didn\u2019t play that part as often as Sean Connery did Bond, or Roger Moore did Bond, or maybe Peter Sellers in \u2019The Pink Pather\u2019. They played their parts more than I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dI don\u2019t see the point in talking about something that\u2019s over 50 years ago. At the time \u2013 as I\u2019ve always said \u2013 at the time, it was very important to me. Very important.<\/p>\n

\u201dAnd it was very succesful. Not for me finacially, but\u2026 they didn\u2019t pay us anything\u2026 but to the film it made a huge amount of money.<\/p>\n

“But \u2013 eh\u2026 Now people say they\u2019re classics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: The monster films from Christopher Lee\u2019s youth are classics, and they\u2019re still worshipped by fans all over the World. And he didn\u2019t just play Dracula; he was also Frankenstein\u2019s Monster \u2013 and The Mummy.<\/p>\n

Many of the great film instructors of our time saw Christopher Lee being monster in their childhood, and now they\u2019ve brought him out for new, maybe even better, parts. George Lucas gave him a fantastic villain part in the Attack of The Clones, the second film in the Star Wars saga, where Christopher Lee were allowed to fight against none other than the jedi master Yoda.<\/p>\n

Count Dooku (Christopher Lee): \u201dIt is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of The Force, but by our skills with a light saber!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee): \u201dCaramels!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: Director Tim Burton is also crazy about Christopher Lee.<\/p>\n

In \u2019Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2019 he was given yet another evil part as the father of Willy Wonka.<\/p>\n

Dr. Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee): \u201dLollipops! \u2013 What we call \u2019Cavities on a stick\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: But among these many new parts maybe the one with the most substance is that which he was hired to do by Peter Jackson. The wizard Saruman is central for \u2019The Lord of The Rings\u2019, and after this film version it will be hard to imagine anybody else playing the powerful wizard turned evil.<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dI wish it had been possible to explain why, he became like that, because, when Gandalf says \u2019I will go and see the head of my order; Saruman! He will know what to do\u2019\u2026 He gets on a horse\u2026 You hear my voice saying \u2019And Gandalf the Gray is coming to me for advice\u2019, and then he arrives; I walk down the steps; and he looks at me and he says \u2019Saruman!\u2019 you know; very respectfully. And I say, well \u2019My dear friend\u2019 \u2013 you know; I seem to be completely normal. And friendly.<\/p>\n

\u201dBut at one particular point in our walk through the garden, I begin to show signs\u2026 that I\u2019m not\u2026 a good man. I\u2019m asking strange questions. Giving him strange answers. And then, in\u2026 When we actually shot it, there were orks in my garden. And Gandalf said \u2019Orks?! In Isengaard?\u2019 And Saruman sort of \u2013 phft \u2013 \u2019Ah, well, I mean, you know \u2013 they jus\u2019 work for me, you know\u2019 \u2013 and so and so. But that was all. But that was never shown in the films. Ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saruman (Christopher Lee): \u201dSauron has regained much of his former strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: Saruman would have been in the last LOTR film as well, because he is in the book \u2013 but it turned out there were no room for him!<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dThey told me \u2013 which I thought was rather strange \u2013 \u2019We would\u2019ve been worried about putting it in, eh\u2026\u2019 Well after the first five minutes of the third film \u2013 because everybody would think it was a continuation of The Two Towers, where you see me and Wormtounge on the balcony, looking horrified because everything is being destroyed, and eh\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201dThey said \u2019Well, we thought, if we put it in it would look like a continuation of The Two Towers.\u2019 And I said; \u2019But it is?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: (Laughs) \u201dExactly!\u201d<\/p>\n

Saruman (Christopher Lee): \u201dI want it armed and ready to march within two weeks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: Actually there is a mythical and wizardlike air about Christopher Lee himself, but that may be because he has a very close relationship with the world of fantasy\/fairytale.<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dI\u2019ve always been interested in Fairyland\u2026 in magic\u2026 in fantasy\u2026 and, ehm\u2026 These books are all of that. All of that. That\u2019s why they\u2019re unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jakob Stegelmann: But what made Christopher Lee so exceptionally good at playing evil parts?<\/p>\n

Christopher Lee:<\/strong> \u201dI find something fascinating about them. I always try to put something in. Somewhere (I don\u2019t think I succeeded in Lord of The Rings) to show they are very lonely people. That they are evil, but they are lonely. And, eh\u2026 they can\u2019t help what they do. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case with Saruman. I think he took a \u2013 he made a choice.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhy? I don\u2019t know. Maybe because of the Palant\u00edr, you know? He could see The One Eye, and gradually it got an influence over him. And suddenly he well\u2026 he; he became an obsessed servant of Sauron. But also \u2013 which is equally important \u2013 I think he suddenly decides \u2019I want to be The Lord of The Rings.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lasse sends along a translation of a Danish interview from ‘Troldspejlet’, a Danish TV show: Lee talks LOTR…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lee","category-events-television"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-8NX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}