Why I wish I’d gone home with Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam, by Mark C.O’Flaherty

I was working in the Asian specialist shop Neal Street East in Covent Garden in the 90s when I encountered my idol Terry Gilliam. A handful of celebrities would pop in from time to time, sometimes those encounters were a curio, occasionally a breath-taking moment. This was the latter for me. I’d just graduated from film school and was trying to work out what I actually wanted to do. His brand of bizarre, raw, fun creativity spoke to my off-kilter cinematic soul.

“No, but give me a job – any job – on your next film”

The item Terry Gilliam purchased was an indigo-dyed Japanese robe. It looked very similar to what he was already wearing – obviously something of a leisurewear uniform for him. As with a lot of things we sold in the textiles department, I had to go into a long spiel about fixing the indigo with vinegar and then washing ever after in cool water by hand. Most people gave up at this point and walked out sans purchase. I got it. Who wants that much hassle? Terry Gilliam let me run through the whole thing, giggled and said – I assume, jokingly – “you don’t want to come home with me and wash them for me, do you?” I laughed and mumbled something I’ve since forgotten. I wasn’t then, and have never been, offended. Even though I realise he wasn’t for a second serious, I have regretted ever since – for twenty years – that I didn’t say “No, but give me a job – any job – on your next film”. If I’d had a speck of my usual chutzpah I would have said exactly that.

It’s not because I’m willing to do anything. It’s because there are is a tiny handful of people whose talent, whose brains, whose soul are so unique that I would take any opportunity to just be near them. Well, in theory. Offered the chance, I blew it.

There are filmmakers and other artists whose work stands out, who have a signature, an immediately identifiable oeuvre but there are also many who are “just” incredible stylists. Then are true artistic geniuses – individuals whose work you could not begin to imagine being done by anyone else. No one could even closely pay homage to their vision without coming across as crass and derivative and try-hard. Gilliam is so set apart from the rest that his cinema is its own animal.

Gilliam’s warmth, charm, charisma, playfulness and cheekiness is all genuine. And that all came to the fore when he spent a good couple of hours chatting with Will Gompertz at Royal Festival Hall as part of the 2015 London Literature Festival. I was thrilled to see him wearing a short Japanese robe as he walked onto the stage. It may have been indigo – I couldn’t quite make out from my seat – but one thing’s for sure: unless he’d paid miraculously close attention to my washing instructions 20 years ago, it wasn’t the same garment I sold him. But how wonderfully apt that he should be wearing such a thing! As part of a discussion loosely based on the release of his book, Gilliamesque: A Pre-Posthumous Memoir, Gilliam talked about his childhood (there was a lot of references to pissing, just by-the-by), college days as an exceptional student, breaking into the satirical cartoon world, meeting Cleese and the move to England and formation of the Pythons. He also talked a great deal about filmmaking. Not surprisingly, given his history and reputation, a lot of the stories around that topic were of battles with studios and film executives. But in these stories Gilliam always comes out on top because – as he put it – he’s David against Goliath, and we’re always going to be rooting for him.

The tales of his career were about stumbling into things. He admitted he’d never had goals or ambitions or had any idea how to break into the careers he found himself part of. Things fortuitously happened to him – “I’m very, very lucky”, he said. And for someone who has had the great professional misfortunes he’s had – a second go at Don Quixote came to a halt this year when his second dream list lead John Hurt announced he has pancreatic cancer – he does hold a very whimsical view of his life. Gompertz pushed him on this, even though Gilliam claimed his cheer was all an act for the public and that he couldn’t dwell on regrets or he’d never do anything else ever again. But Gompertz has a point when he says Gilliam embraces life. Will told us about watching a very drunk Terry falling off a bicycle; the director lay on the ground laughing. Gilliam said, “Well yes. I could have fallen off that bike and cracked my head on the pavement. I didn’t! So that was a great day”.

And the thought of a 74 year old Terry Gilliam laying under the stars, chortling at his pissed prat fall fills my heart with absolute glee. When I think of Terry Gilliam, as well as the regretful missed opportunity to wash his clothes for a living, I think of his giggle. It really is the best, most heart-warming, silly giggle in the world and it’s a laugh that appears to totally sum up his joy at his very particular, spectacular way of looking at the world. C