Terry Gilliam Was Extremely Proud to Be Insulted by George Harrison
George Harrison and Terry Gilliam met before Harrison founded HandMade Films, but they soon worked together on a movie for the production company. They did not have a smooth working experience, due mostly to the fact that they had different ideas for the direction of the film. While Harrison tried to be understanding of Gilliam’s creative vision, he eventually reached a breaking point. He lightly insulted Gilliam, and Gilliam said it made him proud.
The former Beatle befriended members of Monty Python
Harrison founded HandMade Films as a way to finance Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Before this, though, he had befriended members of the comedy group. He first met Eric Idle at a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
“I had heard that George wanted to meet me, but I was somewhat shy of meeting him,” Idle wrote in his book Always Look On the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography, adding, “I was shy and tried to avoid him, but he snuck up on me in the back of the theater as the credits began to roll. I hadn’t yet learned he was unstoppable.”
Idle’s worry was unnecessary. He and Harrison got along exceedingly well from their first conversation.
“We began a conversation that would last about twenty-four hours. Who could resist his opening line? ‘We can’t talk here. Let’s go and have a reefer in the projection booth,'” Idle explained. “No telling what the startled projectionist felt as a Beatle came in with one of the actors from the movie he had just projected and lit up a joint.”
Terry Gilliam was proud of an insult from George Harrison
Harrison also got to know Gilliam, who was a member of Monty Python. He was excited, therefore, to work with him on the film Time Bandits. Quickly, though, Gilliam’s attitude tempered his enthusiasm. Gilliam frequently clashed with Harrison and his business partner, Denis O’Brien, over the direction of the film.
“We had huge fights,” Gilliam said, per the book Very Naughty Boys by Robert Sellers. “It just became like bashing a head against a brick wall, but I was the brick wall and he was the head, that was the stupid thing. I kept saying, ‘No, don’t go there, Denis.’ And he’d go — Wham! ‘Stop it, Denis.’ And eventually I started screaming at him, ‘You’re a f***ing idiot, Denis. I’ve told you time and time again your brains are bashed out all over this wall that I am and you won’t stop.'”
Harrison was more understanding, but he grew frustrated that Gilliam refused to include his songs in the film.
“You remind me of John Lennon, you’re so difficult, so bolshie,” Harrison told him. “Can’t you just compromise?”
According to Sellers, this was “the thing that Gilliam was most proud of that Harrison ever said to him.”
Terry Gilliam said George Harrison helped make his career
Though they didn’t always get along, Gilliam expressed his gratitude to Harrison for helping his career.
“I wouldn’t be here talking to you if it wasn’t for HandMade films,” Gilliam told Metro. “The world wouldn’t have Time Bandits, A Private Function. It wouldn’t have any of these things … It’s very simple. To have a Beatle as a patron is what you need in life, it really was. I mean George stepped in and saved our a**es basically.”
