STARLOG Magazine Issue #106 May 1986 Clancy Brown: Call Him the Kurgan By Adam Pirani

From enraged immortal to misunderstood monster, this Banzai veteran insists
there's no method to his "Highlander" madness.

 

Actor Clancy Brown is not wearing a visually stunning prosthetic makeup. He is not dressed from head to toe in black leather.  In fact, the 6' 3" tall, 27-year-old actor is sitting quite unobtrusively in an English pub, just down the street from the London apartment where he is staying while filming "Highlander" (Starlog #104).

 In his third fantasy adventure, after "The Bride" and "Buckaroo Banzai," Brown portrays the Kurgan, an Immortal who battles through the centuries for an ultimate Prize which offers the victor "power beyond imagining." The vicious, leather-clad, 3000-year-old Kurgan would certainly stand out in this pub. But Brown - who, among other jobs, worked as a bartender in Chicago before becoming an actor - is dressed casually, and apart from playing a few games of pinball, does not disturb the pub's low-key atmosphere.

Brown took the "Highlander" role partly as a contrast to his last movie performance, as Frankenstein's monster Viktor in "The Bride" (Fangoria #50).

"What attracted me to 'Highlander,'" the actor says, "was the opportunity to play a character completely opposite of Viktor, who's very nice and sweet and vulnerable - and new. And now I'm playing this guy who has been around for ages. The similarity is that they're both fantasy characters - which I don't want to be typed as - and they give you a chance to just let your imagination run free.

The movie's other major Immortal battles against the Kurgan's evil influence. He is Conner Macleod, portrayed by Christopher ("Greystoke") Lambert (Starlog #84). Beginning with Macleod's discovery of his immortality in the 16th century, the story continues through to its present-day climax. The script sparked off Brown's imagination about the possibilities of an unaging character's perspective on the world. "You start thinking about all the things the Kurgan must have seen," he says. "You just think about his role in the whole of history - which sides he was on - if his main drive is to find these other Immortals and waste them. I definitely thought of the decapitations in the French revolution, all the wars, the Crimean wars, and the Russians, the Inquisition - it's just incredible what you can come up with.

"And then I thought, 'Well, why make the Kurgan a Nazi, why not make him an American general?' And that would say that the good guys aren't always all good. Atrocities are human nature - they don't have political beliefs, color, creed or anything like that. They just happen, it's human

"The Kurgan is in a heavy metal sort of get-up. Now, wouldn't it be interesting if he wore a business suit and a bowler hat - that's scary. You expect a heavy metal punker with skulls on his jacket to be a badass. But the really tough, mean and nasty people don't necessarily wear clothes like that. So there's a chance to make a real statement, buy I think the whole idea was to stay away from statements, and to just tell a good guy/bad guy story."

Brown was drawn to "Highlander" by the original script's imaginative examination of immortality, but regrets that "the idea that the Kurgan has lived forever, for 3000 years, has been forgotten in this film. There's an incredible possibility in the script about the relationship between Macleod and the Kurgan, and their relationship to everyone else because they've lived so long," the actor notes. "But this idea didn't really get explored, which is something that twists me up because imagine the wealth of knowledge, and the things that they would have seen. Nothing would surprise them anymore.

"For the scene we did in the church there could have been a wonderful dialogue - 'God, this doesn't compare to the Greek Orthodox Church,' or 'I liked it better when they did it in Latin,' or any type of thing. There's all sorts of twists that could have been done. I like the little twists like that because they make the audience think. 'Highlander' still has its action and everything, but that's really all we went for here, the good guy/bad guy, cops and robbers type of thing.

"It's now kind of an elementary script. I met the original writer, Greg Widen, a fellow about my age, and saw his original script, and he had more of that witty dialogue in it. But then, the producers gave it to these other writers who just made it a straight story. Some of it was 'TV dialogue' that Christopher cut because he has the position of power to do that. He would say, 'This is ridiculous and there's no need to say this.' They were all good cuts, so I got a little brave, and started saying, 'Yeah, and there's no reason for this either.' It's a better movie for it. And Russell [Mulcahy, director] wouldn't have allowed the cuts if they didn't make 'Highlander' better.

"But, other bits were added, so it's pretty much another visual extravaganza of violence - lots and lots of violence and swordfighting - but no philosophy."

Menacing Masks

Brown's portrayal of the menacing Kurgan involves wearing prosthetic makeup, designed by Nick ('Lifeforce') Maley. Makeup is a sensitive issue for Brown - during '"The Bride," wearing the monster's makeup daily caused a chemical reaction on his skin and shooting had to be delayed. Also, Brown has discovered that when he's wearing makeup, the people around him on a movie set find it harder than usual to separate the actor from the character he's portraying. "When you do extreme makeups," he explains, "people tend to regard you that way, because we're visually oriented, especially in the film industry. And so, on 'Highlander,' people would stay away from me because I did look pretty scary. I didn't go out of my way to say, 'Hey, it's not me, don't worry about it,' because that helped out: it helped me maintain my concentration, not to break it.

"But in 'The Bride,' for instance, I wore three makeups that they had [designed by Sarah ('Quest for Fire') Monzani and Aaron Sherman]. The first stage was very horrific. I had a big nasty scar and a scowl on my face and I'm not in a pleasant mood, because I'm in the monster's early stages. By the end, the scars are healed and atrophied, and Viktor is becoming a more normal human being.

"Invariably, there were days when I was in the horrible makeup one day and the good-looking makeup the next. And every time, in the horrible makeup, someone would say, 'What's wrong? You have a rough night?' Then, I would come in the next day, and the same person would see me in the good-looking makeup and say, 'You look so much better. Did you get some sleep?' No, I never got any sleep - only two hours of sleep! The difference was the makeup. Because that's the way you look, people regard you that way.

"In 'Highlander,' I'm in a very striking makeup. It's very pale and it almost looks like Kabuki [Japanese stylized theater] makeup, so people aren't going to come up and say, 'Let's go out and get a drink afterwards.' Even if I said to them, 'Let's get a drink,' they'll hesitate. They're not going to say no because they're scared they'll get their heads ripped off - but they also don't want to say yes either."

Such human responses to the prosthetic makeup mask does have its positive sides for Brown's work. "It's useful. I mean, what should I spend my effort at? Should I try to be a nice guy on the set and make friends with everybody, even when I'm in this horrific stuff - especially in 'Highlander' when I'm playing the most despicable person in the world? Or do I just sit back and take what comes and do my job the way I know how?

"When everybody else regards the makeup as the character, it makes my job that much easier. If you're supposed to play the bastard, and people look at you and think, 'What a bastard!', it's very easy to be a bastard! It cuts out a few steps. I would not walk on set and be a bastard, I just looked like one."

Browns' attitude towards working in makeup has led to some misconceptions. He "Bride" co-star David Rappaport's description (Starlog #96) of him as a "method" actor who always stays in character astonishes Brown. "All English actors think Americans are method actors!" he exclaims. "I'm a method actor? I don't know if I'm a method actor or a 'classical' actor of anything like that, I'm just an actor, I just do it. And there was a feeling between David and I, a good trust, and we just ran with that. He was wonderful to work with.

"If I had to be burning and on fire for a scene, I didn't burn myself to learn how it feels. So, if I was a method actor in 'The Bride,' it was an enforced method, because I was walking around as a big guy with no hair. I was a pretty odd sight on the streets of Sarlat, and David was too, and so we had fun with that. But it was more enforced than it was intentional.

"I certainly don't walk around in character. If I did, I would hate everybody on 'Highlander.' I don't go out of my way to experience everything the character experiences, and gain weight and lose weight, and walk around with an accent - I don't like that."

Brown concludes with a laugh, "Maybe some day, I'll use my own face!"

Though Brown didn't have much involvement with "The Bride's" other stars, Sting (Starlog #101) and Jennifer Beals (Starlog #98), the actor has maintained his relationship with the diminutive Rappaport. "Highlander's" lensing in London afforded Brown the opportunity to encounter Rappaport again. "I saw him right before we started 'Highlander,'" says Brown. "David is one of those magical people. He's like a leprechaun, a real leprechaun. Everybody loves him, and he has no respect for anyone. It's great fun to be with him, and I'll run into him again, I'm sure. Probably in Hollywood, I'll be walking my dog, and David will come up and try to steal it, just out of the blue."

Rawhide's Return

Born in Urbana, Ohio, Brown attended Chicago's Northwestern University, attracted by its drama department, and also worked in summer stock companies from age 16. After college, he acted on stage in Chicago, and between movies, he often appears in plays in LA - his most recent stage role was Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet." His first movie role was in 1983's teen-gang thriller "Bad Boys." Prior to "The Bride" and "Highlander," Brown made a genre excursion as Rawhide in "Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension" (Starlog #81).

"It's a terrific movie. It was a wonderful wacky, crazy script," Brown says. "What Earl Mac Rauch [screenwriter, Starlog #84] did was just create this superhero and then throw him in the middle of a Marvel comic, like the series had been going on forever, and everybody knew about it. We were always coming up with new things, and W.D. Richter [director, Starlog #89] was great because he said, 'Sure, why not? That could have happened. Go ahead!' Even now, people are still creating their own stories behind these characters. So , it was a very fun movie.

"Rawhide was the most ambiguous of the characters because you really didn't know what his relationship was with Buckaroo, but you knew it was very strong and deep."

Although it's a cult hit on video, the movie's theatrical release disappointed Brown. "I think it could have done well, but it got mixed up in one of those Hollywood studio game things, where they all change places," the actor laments. "'Buckaroo Banzai' was just so strange that nobody really knew how to approach it. It really is way ahead of its time."

Despite Rawhide's death in Buckaroo's first screen adventure, there were plans for Brown's character to return if ever there was a sequel. "They were planning something," he says, "and we were always talking about it because I was signed to do a second film. Would they have twin brother or what? Because maybe there was one of those axolotl tanks, like in "'Dune,' where they make clones. We figured that maybe Rawhide had an evil brother."

The official Buckaroo Banzai Fan Club has since presented a less sensational solution to the resurrection riddle, claiming that Rawhide recovered from the ill effects of arachtoid poisoning with the aid of Black Lectroid medicine.

Still, Clancy Brown doesn't intend to let Red Lectroids nor any other alien hordes interfere with his career. "I hope I'll continue to make films and work on stage," he says. "I just hope to keep on acting. I like it. It's fun. You don't have to work. I mean, what a way to make a living! It's hard but in how many jobs, can you ride a horse, and dress up in armor, and swing a sword, and really chop people up, and drive fast, and not worry about police, and run people through, and play pretend, and get paid a lot of money for it?

"It's a great job," he laughs.  "Then, you can always come back and say, 'No, that's not me, that's the character, I was only acting.'"

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