I first saw Terence in The Collector (1965) when I was a kid. It struck in my head as the ultimate horror film – it terrified the daylights out of me. Terence’s greatest beauties were his eyes – in some of the early films you don’t see it, but in person, when they were shining, he could hold a room. He’d sit there and say, “Watch this, I’m going to stop a restaurant.” And he could do it. I saw him do it! It was extraordinary. He once told me that he used to have real fun on Superman when he was bored, stuck on top of the ice castle. “I’d just stare down until everyone went quiet,” he said.
We tried many actors when casting Bernadette in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but absolutely everybody turned the role down. Terence was easily on the top of our list, but we thought he’d never do it. The honest truth is, he turned it down at first. But out of nowhere, his agent said to him, “Well, you’re bored. You’ve just done superhero movies. Why don’t you do something else?” It was astonishing when his agent reached out and said, “No, he wants to talk.” We were falling over ourselves. If he wanted the role, it was his.
We talked long and hard about why he’d initially said no. It was fear. And fair enough – you have got to remember we were coming out of the HIV/Aids mess. It was a taboo subject. I looked at the work that he’d done all the way through, like the Italian years when he worked with Fellini and Pasolini, and thought: this was a man who took chances. And I think he was at absolutely the right moment in his life where he was ready for another chance.
Terence admitted he was absolutely terrified to play Bernadette – he was being voted one of the best-looking men on earth and suddenly in Priscilla he was, and this is a direct quote, “dressed up as an old dog”. But he put the pain of what he was going through into the performance, and that’s what made the film.
In my head, I had a very clear idea of who Bernadette was. I remember looking at Terence when he came out presented as Bernadette for the first time. I said, “Well this isn’t what I pictured in my head, but it’s interesting. Let’s talk about it.” Meanwhile, Terence looked at the mirror and completely exploded. From that point in the film, no mirrors were allowed. It was the fear. But he worked it in – he knew what he was doing. Every day, they’d say, “You want to see rushes?” And he’d say, “No. If I’m committing, I’m going for it.”
By the time we finished the shoot, he was way past being afraid and Priscilla was a real high point for him. Over the years, we became very close. He was a loner, but we became really good pals. Anytime I was anywhere near him, I would visit. Once you got through the layers, he was an East End boy, a working-class boy, and I think over the years, the thing I most loved was that he let me into that world. And sometimes it was very foul-mouthed!
Terence would complain that he was only ever asked about two things: Priscilla or Superman. The amount of times he said to me, “Far From the Madding Crowd [1967] – I’ve never worked so hard at something so magnificent and it has been forgotten.” I said, “It’s called time, Terence.” He said, “But Priscilla is 30 years old. Why doesn’t it go away? They only ask me about two films, and one of them’s fucking Priscilla.” And I’d get the giggles. That’s when we began talking about a Priscilla sequel. On that front, let’s just say – he agreed to do the sequel a few years ago and we’ve been particularly busy over the past year.
By the end of his career, he was working to keep himself entertained. He was discerning – if he’d already seen something like it, he didn’t care. If something pressed his buttons and piqued his interest, he’d consider it. His Italian years were just breathtaking. Who the hell gets to work with all those people? He said to me, “I just drifted from one to the other – if somebody had something interesting, I’d do it. That’s the way it’s always been.”
Terence kept to himself. He was an enigma. And then he’d show up, use the eyes and turn everybody to jelly. He was a wonderful man – and he’s not done yet.