Terry Gilliam names the one person he hates the most
The film industry is full of misanthropes. There’s Ridley Scott, who loves nothing more than to tell reporters to fuck off, Lars Von Trier, who, though an undisputed auteur, seems hellbent on spreading misery through his movies, and Hollywood itself, which has consistently taken the cynical route of funding exhaustingly repetitive blockbusters over creative masterpieces. Then, there’s Terry Gilliam, who, depending on how you look at it, is either the industry’s biggest pessimist or its only eternal optimist.
Since the 1970s, Gilliam has been making surreal, off-the-wall movies that defy categorisation. Brazil, Time Bandits, and 12 Monkeys are just a few of his films, but more important, perhaps, are the ones he hasn’t managed to make. The list of unrealised Gilliam projects is significantly longer than his actual filmography. A combination of his refusal to artistically compromise and his reputation for runaway productions has meant that the filmmaker has had a rough time getting any of his ideas off the ground. After 50 years in the business, he’s had a rough time with his profession and is more than happy to discuss it.
That said, as a former member of Monty Python, Gilliam possesses a uniquely quirky sense of humour that makes his comments on the industry—no matter how negative—extremely entertaining. Even when describing the most frustrating moments of his career, he does so in a comedically self-aware way, something that certainly cannot be said of many of his peers.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2012, Gilliam was given the perfect opportunity to showcase his trademark wit with a rapid-fire question-and-answer session. In the interview, he revealed, among other things, that the words he overuses most are “fuck” and “stuff”, that his favourite smell is swamp gas (it reminds him of his childhood, obviously), and that the worst thing that anyone ever said to him was that he was a genius (we’ve all been there).
Then, he was asked which person he hated the most, and his answer was surprisingly sincere: “Jerry Springer,” he revealed, “For encouraging the worst in people.”
Springer might not seem like an obvious choice for a person who has seen the worst and most infuriating sides of the film industry (surely Gilliam was tempted to call out some of his least favourite studio execs), but he is a worthy target of Gilliam’s and everyone else’s ire. His eponymous daytime show ran from the early 1990s until 2018 when it was finally, finally pulled off the air.
Originally styled as a thought-provoking political talk show, it morphed into the trashiest and most poisonous forms of pseudo-reality TV when ratings slumped. Incest and cheating were the most popular topics, with guests often devolving into messy physical altercations as the audience whooped and jeered them on.
The Jerry Springer Show has frequently been cited as the worst television show ever made, which is an increasingly high bar to clear in the ever-expanding universe of trashy reality TV. But its sleazy exploitation of its guests and appeal to, as Gilliam noted, the worst part of its audience makes it the high watermark for despicableness, and there are plenty of people who might have had the same answer when asked the question.
