‘Never be terrible in a terrible movie’

Tim Walker

31 May 2006

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Lee worked with and loved both Price and Cushing, and says that, while they, too, often had to work with pretty ropey material, their professionalism and charm always got them through. ‘Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time,’ Lee says, ‘but the trick is never to be terrible in them.’ Conscientious old Wellingtonian that he is, he has always tried his best. And always — except with perhaps one exception — he has gone about his business with an old-fashioned sense of courtesy and good manners.

The behaviour of a lot of young actors today dismays him but he doesn’t blame them. ‘Films are now made by accountants. They pick a pretty young female or male face out of the air and give them a part not because they think that person is right for it, or is ready for it, but because they think that person will make them money. All too often these youngsters can’t cope — and they don’t know how to conduct themselves — and all too often they disappear as quickly as they appeared.’

It was Johnny Depp’s behaviour on, as well as off, camera that endeared him to Lee when they first worked together in Sleepy Hollow. Lee recognised in Depp a fellow survivor and a man who has, like him, reinvented himself once or twice, too. ‘Johnny has, almost single-handedly, restored my faith in young actors: he is inventive and has enormous versatility. He is without doubt a great film actor. And he is kind and courteous, which is why he is also a friend.’

Lee has been garlanded with industry and artistic awards in recent years, but still has his frustrations. The two relatively recent films of which he is most proud — Jinnah, in which he played the founder of Pakistan, and A Feast at Midnight, in which he did an amusing turn as a teacher at an old-fashioned prep school — were not given proper distribution. The first he did for a nominal fee because the part appealed to him, and he worked for nothing on the second. ‘The director, Justin Hardy, was the son of Robin Hardy, who directed me in The Wicker Man. Those Hardy men make great films, but I’d be a bankrupt by now if I had depended on them for my income.’