Lost star Naveen Andrews plays a military scientist involved with the government's handling of a disease agent from the Afghanistan war in Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, the collaborative effort of Rodriguez and filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. Be forewarned: Andrews' character has a very bizarre obsession (he likes to remove the testicles of his enemies and keep them in jars) and the actor discusses that in this interview.
What movies were you shown to prepare for this character?
“Well, we were all subjected to indoctrination and re-education (laughing). The screening was in Quentin's cinema [and] we had to watch this… There was one film called Zombie that I remember and then this other one with, I think, Mia Farrow's sister. They were appalling, I thought. Just drivel - abysmal films. And for the life of me, I was looking around and I saw Robert and Quentin laughing like maniacs and I found it amusing for maybe like two minutes. ‘What am I not getting here?’ I felt embarrassed.
To be honest with you, in England we're snobs. Our in-cinema is Pasolini or anything with an ‘I’ on the end, so it's kind of a jaundiced view of this genre of filmmaking. Yet Robert and Quentin, they can see some kind of aesthetic which I think may have something to do with sort of an obscene kind of humor that's partly schadenfreude and yet in the way children like to be frightened and then suddenly reassured. Maybe that.”
If you aren’t really a fan of the grindhouse style, how did you make it through the screenings?
“Well, just because of Quentin's irresistible sort of enthusiasm and energy. It's infectious. Try as you might to actually perceive the aesthetic that he and Robert seem to, I didn’t perceive it until I was actually doing it or have some idea what they were on about. When Robert would actually edit the scene that I was in, stick music on, so you could see the rhythm of the scene and then actually seeing on the screen, I thought, ‘Oh, that's what they were on about.’ It's not something that can be easily defined. But at the time, God, it was really hard to get through. They were interminable, those films. It's impossible, isn't it?”
Zombie movies are often political allegory. Do you see this film as a metaphor for anything political?
“I thank god there's no political context to the violence any way, even though
Bin Laden's name is mentioned. I mean, quite frankly, to me it's hilarious.
In some ways it's very clever in that way because Robert's a child. To me the
real violence is going on in the war. That's what's really f**king violent —
people dying in a war, young working-class people dying in a war. That's more f**king offensive to me than anything a film could produce.”
How difficult was it to develop a character who has more than a passing interest in other men’s testicles?
“Well, it was the first thing that I sought. We weren't given scripts, we
just had this scene with a castration, and of course I was intrigued. Then
you discover that you can develop a predilection for collecting things. Like
children collect marbles - it's the next stage. Like, ‘Oooh, I'm an adult now. I
collect body parts and display them. Trinkets and trophies.’”
So that particular interest wasn’t part of an experiment or anything? You’re character just likes men’s scrotums?
“At first. And then he suddenly developed a love of humanity for no
particular f**king reason. There was a missing reel.”
Are you part of the missing reel we’re presumably seeing some time in the future?
“I certainly hope so.”
Were you a fan of Robert Rodriguez when you were approached for this film?
“Both of them. Robert particularly for El Mariachi - the first one. And Quentin
for, I would say, Jackie Brown because who else in Hollywood would cast an
African American woman in the lead and make a film as good as that? I love that
film. I like a lot of his films, but that's the one that stands out for me.”
When you’re a part of a movie like this that’s designed to pay homage to the old grindhouse films, are you just having fun playing your character as a sort of genius scientist guy or are you trying to develop a real character?
“Probably less, because we discussed this, Freddy, Rose and I. I remember
saying, ‘What is the style here? What is required? For f**k's sake, what is this?’
It's not pastiche. It's not parody. It's not farce. And yet you've got to be
like totally committed to it for it to work, and yet not take it too
seriously. So it's a fine balance to get. It's not easy.”
Essentially you played him straight.
“I hope so. It's very difficult to define something like that. How do
you make it real, grabbing people's scrotums and collecting them? It's
ridiculous.”
Did you have a chance to keep the balls as souvenirs?
“I did. I took all of the balls and gave them to my 15-year-old son (laughing).”
The entire film proceeds on a level of delirium. Were you conscious of that during filming?
“On the screen, hopefully, there should be chaos and anarchy, but when we were
actually shooting the thing, it was very relaxed. Robert has a guitar strapped
to the monitor. He'd take it off and I play guitar as well. We'd be playing
guitar, singing. It takes a lot of discipline to achieve that kind of delirium, as you put it. It's hard work.”
Page 2: Naveen Andrews on Films and Lost
