When a director begged Sean Connery to smack him in the face: “I’m fed up with the idiots”
By the early ’00s, Sean Connery had been a world-famous Hollywood leading man for four decades – and it had taken its toll. After 2000’s Finding Forrester, a drama about a Black teenager attending a prestigious private school who befriends a reclusive writer, he turned down the chance to work on two major franchises. Those close to the iconic Scottish star believed he didn’t like the path Hollywood movies were heading down, but still agreed to star in another 2003 blockbuster against his better judgement. The result was an unmitigated disaster that hit a low point when the director begged Connery to punch him in the face – and neither man worked in Tinseltown again.
Connery’s path to starring in the misbegotten dud that caused him to swear off Hollywood begins with a certain adventure in Middle-Earth. He was offered the chance to star as Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s all-conquering The Lord of the Rings trilogy but confessed to being baffled by Tolkien’s tale. Around this time, he was also approached about starring in The Matrix and turned that down on similar “I don’t get it” grounds. The James Bond star then watched on as the LOTR trilogy made obscene amounts of money, which stuck in his craw because he’d been offered a cut of the profits if he agreed to star in the films. In the end, it was estimated he missed out on an eye-watering $350 million.
Perhaps this miscalculation prompted Connery to sign up for LXG: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a movie he admitted he “didn’t fancy” at first. After all, this comic book adventure that united a cast of literary heroes to stop the Sherlock Holmes villain Moriarty from starting a world war was pitched as a CGI-heavy action-adventure – the very thing Connery seemed to have no interest in.
Still, Connery cut a deal to be paid $17million to play adventurer Allan Quatermain, and reported to set to work under director Stephen Norrington. At the time, the young British director only had one major Hollywood feature film under his belt – 1998’s Marvel vampire martial arts flick Blade – and his follow-up, The Last Minute, was never even released theatrically. Entrusting a $78 million blockbuster to him seemed to be a calculated risk – and to say it didn’t pay off would be an understatement.
From the beginning of production, Norrington was uncomfortable working with a large cast and an extensive crew. He also chafed against what he saw as studio interference, much preferring the experience of working on smaller productions with little oversight.
In addition, the production was beset by difficulties from the start, including unprecedented rainfall in Prague that flooded $7 million worth of sets. Everything had to be moved to Malta while the sets were rebuilt, and star Stuart Townsend admitted things were in disarray when they returned. “When we came back, it was like another production,” Townsend told The Independent. “No one knew what was going on; there was no finish date. It was like doing two movies.”
Amidst this chaos, Norrington and Connery were at each other’s throats almost constantly. Connery was remarkably honest when he told The Scotsman, “There have been differences of opinion about almost everything. Professional differences, personal differences, you name it.” By most accounts, Norrington was a young firebrand director who had a very “Fuck you, Hollywood” outlook. By contrast, Connery was a Hollywood institution known for involving himself heavily in every aspect of production. He was also someone who prided himself on running a tight ship.
Their discontent came to a very public head during an Entertainment Weekly set visit. When Norrington tried to shut down production for a day because he wasn’t happy with a specific prop, Connery was incandescent with rage and threatened to have the director fired. To the shock of EW’s team, they witnessed Norrington get in Connery’s face and beg him to strike him, just so he’d have an excuse to react.
“I’m sick of it! Come on, I want you to punch me in the face!”
stephen norrington
Ultimately, it was rumoured that Norrington sat out much of the film’s post-production, with Connery being heavily involved in editing the picture. The director subsequently failed to attend the premiere and sent a letter to producers he had planned to work with in the future, telling them he was quitting Hollywood. He was true to his word, as well – the man hasn’t directed a movie since LXG.
The exhausting experience had an enormous effect on Connery, too. At the premiere, he was asked where Norrington was and quipped, “Have you checked the local asylum?” When more and more interviewers kept asking the same question, though, he grumbled, “Ask me about someone I like, will you? Everyone else in the film was a pleasure to work with. Not him.”
Like his director, Connery never worked in Hollywood again after the LXG debacle. In 2005, after announcing his retirement, he told The New Zealand Herald, “I’m fed up with the idiots. The ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and the people who greenlight the movies. I don’t say they’re all idiots. I’m just saying there’s a lot of them that aren’t very good at it.” It’s not hard to imagine Norrington was one of these “idiots” Connery despised so much.
