The “terrible” Hunter S. Thompson movie cameo
Even ignoring his famously eccentric personality and free-spirited existence, journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson was never one for marching to the beat of a drum that wasn’t his own, which helps explain why he was such a nightmare on the set of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas despite his limited screentime.
The source novel featured one of many instances where Thompson wrote himself into his work as semi-fictionalised surrogate and protagonist Raoul Duke, and he was invited to make a cameo appearance as the older version of the character – as played by Johnny Depp – in Terry Gilliam’s feature-length adaptation.
Not only was it his first-ever part in a movie, it was also just the second acting credit of his entire life, and even at that, he went uncredited when he showed up in the background of a Nash Bridges episode as a piano player in 1996. Gilliam himself has a reputation for being a prickly customer on occasion, so the pair were almost destined to butt heads.
Appearing on Couch Surfing, Gilliam outlined his frustrations with what he called the “terrible” experience of trying to wrangle Thompson for something as fleeting as mere seconds of screentime: “Hunter has to be the centre of attention. Harry Dean Stanton was there that day, and Hunter was throwing bread rolls around the set all the time,” he recalled. “Finally we had to get him for his scene. I put the best-looking of all the female extras on his table and whoosh! There he was.”
That wasn’t even the first time Gilliam had explained his unique method for coaxing Thompson onto set, either, telling a similar story to Hey U Guys. When asked if the creator of the source material had spent much time on set, the filmmaker didn’t hold back: “Thankfully, no. Just the one day, and we hoped never again.”
Continuing to voice his exasperations, Gilliam again pointed to Thompson’s apparent self-servitude: “It was the day we did the Matrix club scene. Hunter comes in and it’s suddenly not about making the film anymore. It’s about him,” he added. “After being told to sit down for his cameo, he started saying ‘I wouldn’t sit there, I’m a journalist. I’d be out there!’ I said ‘We need you there! Because the camera’s there’. Then he refused to go on set.”
Describing the process as “trying to get this recalcitrant sheep into the corral,” Gilliam once more mentioned the “best-looking female extra,” but not without noting that “on the first take he didn’t even look up when he was supposed to, because he was too busy talking to her.” Neatly surmising him as “such a fucking pain in the ass,” he did at least confess, “that’s the price you pay when dealing with Hunter Thompson.”
