Three Extraordinary Gentlemen

And Three Extraordinary Women

One job I got which was good for a bunch of reasons beyond the part, was playing ‘Headphones Crewman’ in Stephen Norrington’s ‘League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (LXG).

Steve Norrington rose to fame for the uber-stylish Wesley Snipes vampire flick ‘Blade’, having worked his way up to directing through the almost mythical Jim Henson Workshop - responsible for creatures, puppets and special effects in an astonishing number of seminal productions, including: Sesame Street, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, The Hangover, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Harry Potter.., 101 Dalmations, The Neverending Story, The Flintstones.. the list goes on.

2002 marked my first experience of Hollywood, taping for a role at the offices of Casting Director, Lucinda Syson. In and out in five minutes, I remember it as being just a couple of lines and didn’t for a moment think I’d landed the part.

LXG meanwhile, was full steam ahead out in Prague with leads Sean Connery, Peta Wilson, Jason Flemyng, Tony Curran, Shane West, Stuart Townsend, Naseeruddin Shah and Tom Goodman-Hill, in what would prove to be Connery’s last film.

The reason I was there at all was due to the original 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, the fact that the Nautilus was helmed by an Indian Captain (Shah) and was therefore to be populated by a Sikh crew, of which there were none to speak-of based in Prague, hence the casting sessions in London.

Having landed the part, I busily went about pushing a beard out as fast as I could, already in possession of a good head of hair. I’d four week’s growth and a very full beard by the time of my first shoot date, only for it to be cancelled two days before, being informed I wouldn’t be called for weeks, possibly months, due to a rapidly changing schedule. Shaving with no small element of relief, I was of course then called up the next day - for the day after.

Coming out the other side of Make-Up, I couldn’t actually move my face, what with a glued-on beard, tight turban AND Headphones, it felt as though my head was in a vice. The one thing I did know with some degree of certainty, was my scene couldn’t be cut, as my character was offering information critical to the plot via my submarine radio-set.

Attempting a smile with the brilliant and splendid Dr Jekyll (Jason Flemyng) ~ LXG

Despite word of massive tensions on set, Jason befriended me from the off, making me feel welcome and at my disposal, filling me in with practicalities and protocol, as well as all the goss. He’d really no reason to be so charming and I’m indebted to him to this day.

Sure enough, after a day sightseeing in Prague, I was on set, my scene with none other than Sir Connery himself. Effortlessly gracious, he came and introduced himself early on, very sweet, very friendly, only serving to completely wrong-foot me minutes later.

Any scene with a star, you expect to shoot them first, they can then retire and someone else will read in their lines off-camera for your dialogue, once lights and camera have been turned around to face you. It came as a great shock therefore when I found myself sat in the full glare, first to be shot and the man himself doing his lines to me, off-camera.

And that’s when the Extraordinary happened. As soon as the camera turned over, he simply transformed.. switched on. Eyes aglow, the Sean Connery of countless movies of my childhood appeared before me... The Untouchables, The Hill, Indiana Jones, The Rock, Highlander, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Dr No… Frickin’ James Bond, for God’s Sake. And I froze.. albeit not for long.. it’s very hard to know exactly.

In the midst of it, I recall having a very strong word with myself - even as it was happening - to ‘pull myself together’; that ‘a lot of time and money was in suspension, waiting for me to deliver my precious, (overworked) lines’. After a pause - of aeons, for me at least - I finally broke through to get my first line out and the scene proceeded - I don’t recall whether we needed to go again or not. I just remember it being a huge relief to’ve come out the other side.

Thereafter, Steve got me out to Prague time after time, I forget how many, perhaps five over the proceeding months, just to fill in as background for other scenes aboard the Nautilus and experience more of what it was to be on a Hollywood set and budget.

The Nautilus set ~ LXG, Prague, 2002

The whole shoot was beset by problems. At one point, it was decided by the government that Prague needed to flood in order to regulate water flow on the river, but in doing so, they would completely immerse the studios and all the sets therein.

Filming transferring to another location, the studio then submerged and they then had to go about rebuilding the many sets. The mind boggles. Certainly, it can’t have been easy for Steve - I watched him lose a a lot of weight over the course of my visits to set. The shoot stretched longer and longer - months over schedule - and by the end, Connery was out of contract and needed to be shot out of the film, in order for the production to survive, he being so expensive to retain over and above his initial fee.

So they shot for I think three-weeks, just Connery on his own for the rest of the screenplay - at each and every location, only to release him and then rewind and shoot all the scenes again with everyone else, purely to free them from his daily fee -alleged to be 750K. Per day.

Steve Norrington was a fellow Brit and for some reason we got along. He’s still a mate to this day. Both he and Connery had a torrid time on that shoot, with both of them subsequently retiring from Hollywood, albeit for different reasons - as a result of this film.

Steve was sacked by the producers during the edit, quitting Hollywood altogether, although he’s still making films. For me, he continues to be an inspiration and indeed, a walking film school. I continue to learn a huge amount from him over the intervening years, he’s also been a great source of support and encouragement.

Credit: https://pro.imdb.com/title/tt0311429/?ref_=nm_ovrvw_cnct_tt_1

Regarded as something of a flop at the time of release, it nevertheless made very respectable box-office of about $179m from a budget of $78m. Steve understandably unhappy with the edit the producers finished up with, it seems no one was particularly happy with the final outcome, despite its success. A strange, fraught process, all in all.

The other thing that happened of note was befriending Peta. A star from Nikita, I found myself sitting beside her in Make-Up and chat whilst we were done up.

Credit: https://www.wallofcelebrities.com/celebrity/peta-wilson/pictures/peta-wilson_202902.html

Shortly thereafter, she invited me to lunch at her idyllic apartment on the river. I turned up to find it was in fact to be a party of four: Peta, Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and yours truly.

Jesus.

During that period - little did I know it was the dying days of film - I purchased a cheap 35mm camera and some black & white stock to take arty-farty shots around the City in my downtime.

One of the snaps I took was of Peta and her baby boy, Marlowe. I won’t share it here as it doesn’t feel right to do so, but it’s a quite lovely shot of the two of them - both smiling, on the other side of a cafe table in a Prague square, the sunshine relaxing the pair of them, it’s one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken.

A copy was subsequently given to his grandfather Richard Harris, a man I’d also worked with, shortly before he died in Oct 2002.

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