The actor Terry Gilliam hired because they had a “penile-shaped head”
No, this is not a joke, and yes, it does refer to a major Hollywood A-lister. Terry Gilliam is renowned for his maverick approach to filmmaking and humour—a fitting combination for an independent director navigating Hollywood. It’s no surprise, then, that he made a series of simply bizarre remarks about one of his former leading actors. The film in question? The dystopian sci-fi classic, 12 Monkeys.
Set in a future where humanity is all but wiped out by a deadly pandemic orchestrated by the titular faction of anarchists, 12 Monkeys bends time travel, infectious diseases and mind-bending storytelling as humanity’s last remaining survivors plot to change their fate by learning more about how the virus was created by repeatedly sending prisoners back through time to uncover its origins.
Now, if you have seen the movie, then you might have already guessed immediately who Gilliam is referring to, but one of the core influences that was playing on the director’s mind during the creative process for the film was that in order to protect oneself against harmful diseases and infection, people essentially turn themself into “human condoms” by covering up with protective layers. An anecdote the director would rather unflatteringly apply to his leading actor.
“Even the lamp over one’s head had a latex — had a condom on its handle,” he said. “So there’s all this latex, sealing people from other things, if not themselves. And so when it came to doing a suit for the character Bruce Willis plays to come above ground, I just wanted to do something that was like a human condom. And Bruce Willis has a very penile-shaped head, which completes the human condom metaphor!”
Bruce Willis, Hollywood royalty, beloved action icon and also, according to Gilliam, the physical manifestation of a literal dick head? Gilliam followed up by flatteringly referring to Willis as having “one of the great architectural craniums in the world” but, in more recent years, it has emerged that Gilliam wasn’t always as fond of the actor or his features and, in fact, felt they resembled another intimate part of human anatomy.
Speaking in a 2021 retrospective look at the production of 12 Monkeys, Gilliam said, “I had never been a great fan of Bruce’s before, but I liked talking to him, and I thought, OK, this guy’s smart; he’s funny. I explained to him my concerns about him as an actor. I hated that moue [pursed-lip expression] he does in his films when he gets a bit nervous. I thought, ‘God, that’s horrible.’ He does a moue with his mouth; it’s a Trumpian mouth. For a moment, it goes all Trumpian. Rectal. It’s like I’m looking at somebody’s asshole.”
Going from being compared to an arse and Donald Trump – though not a literal one, but understandable if there’s confusion – to a penis is hardly an upgrade. However, despite Gilliam’s less-than-flattering comments about his leading man, he and Willis still managed to deliver an outstanding performance and knock it out of the park.
I wonder, had Gilliam got his way and managed to cast Nick Nolte, if he would have had similar words of, ahem, “praise” for Nolte’s looks.
