Lisa Kudrow brings her daffy charm to 'Time Bandits'
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, November 23, 2024


Lisa Kudrow brings her daffy charm to 'Time Bandits'
Lisa Kudrow in Beverly Hills, Calif., July 16, 2024. The actress dialed up the zaniness in the TV reboot of the Terry Gilliam fantasy classic “Time Bandits,” created by the team behind “What We Do in the Shadows.” (Amy Harrity/The New York Times)

by Esther Zuckerman



NEW YORK, NY.- Lisa Kudrow doesn’t particularly like to travel. Raised and based in Los Angeles, she mostly hasn’t had to. Even the quintessential New York sitcom “Friends” was shot in Burbank.

“I like LA,” she said in a video call from her home there. “I guess vacations are nice, but I feel like I live in a vacation spot so, where am I going? I can watch a video.”

But when filmmaker Taika Waititi sent her a message on Instagram asking if she would come to New Zealand to star in a series-length adaptation of the 1981 Terry Gilliam movie “Time Bandits,” she said yes. It was a six-month commitment, but in one of the few places on Earth that Kudrow had always wanted to visit.

And, as she said with a laugh, “no one’s putting me in a Hobbit movie.”

There are bigger departures from Middle-earth than “Time Bandits,” a 10-part adventure-fantasy based on a movie about time-traveling dwarfs. The series, which debuted July 24 on Apple TV+, puts a new spin on the beloved film — an ambitious task, given the movie’s bona fides and cult status. The original was written by Gilliam and his fellow Monty Python player Michael Palin, and it starred John Cleese, Sean Connery, Shelley Duvall and Ian Holm.

The new version, created by Waititi and his frequent collaborators Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris, stars Kudrow as the makeshift leader of the bandits, Penelope, who is perturbed by the arrival of a new member, a history-obsessed boy named Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) who accidentally joins them after a portal opens up in his bedroom. Kudrow leads an ensemble cast; Waititi plays the ostensibly benevolent Supreme Being, from whom the bandits have stolen a map of the time portals, and Clement plays Pure Evil, who can’t even say his cosmic nemesis’ name without gagging.

For those who still associate Kudrow, 60, with her most famous role, the daffy Phoebe Buffay of “Friends,” “Time Bandits” sees the actress reprise her well-honed comedic talents; she has a knack for reaction shots and unexpected line deliveries, and for playing off blonde Valley Girl stereotypes. (She grew up in the Valley, in Tarzana.) Her characters can be as cutting as they are quirky, and just as memorable as Phoebe. See: the ditzy-but-creative Michele in “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” or the thirsty former sitcom star Valerie Cherish in HBO’s “The Comeback.”

It was partly that legacy of indelible characters that director Olivia Wilde had in mind when she approached Kudrow about a role in her 2019 high school comedy “Booksmart.” Wilde said she was honored that Kudrow said yes.

“People feel excited to see what she’s going to make because she doesn’t need to work so when she makes something it feels like she chooses only the most interesting things,” Wilde said.

Fantasy, though — dodging mortal danger, running from monsters, leaping through tears in the space-time continuum — was new territory for Kudrow. It was also a welcome change. When Waititi reached out about “Time Bandits,” Kudrow had been looking for something that was pure fun.

The anxiety from the pandemic was then still lingering, and every new show she watched seemed to be about some sort of Armageddon.

“That is the last thing I wanted to watch,” she said. She didn’t want to act in anything like that either. “Time Bandits” seemed to fit the bill.

“This is pure fantasy,” she said. “It’s not even much commentary on anything.”

Apple picked up the rights back in 2018, with Waititi signing on the next year. But Kudrow didn’t come on board until about two years ago, when the show was already in preproduction. At that time her character was still a man named Randall, after the Time Bandits’ leader in the film, played by David Rappaport. (In Gilliam’s version all the Time Bandits were played by people with dwarfism; the change to the makeup of the group has faced some criticism, including by the granddaughter of one of the original stars.)

They had been struggling to find the right person for the role despite a global search. “We were trying to put this cast together; it was a bit of a panic,” Clement said.

The creators were plenty acquainted with “Friends” — Waititi once wore a “Smelly Cat” T-shirt in front of Kudrow — but it was her work in “The Comeback” that they believed made her right for “Time Bandits.” In “The Comeback,” Valerie is so desperate to regain her fame that she agrees to do a reality show about her life. It’s a brilliant performance of insecurity, which was just what the boss bandit needed. Penelope is a textbook overcompensator.

“I think we both found it funny the idea of Lisa — knowing her from her work in ‘The Comeback’ — as a constantly frustrated person,” Clement said of himself and Waititi. They loved the idea of “seeing someone like that trying to organize heists with a bunch of people who don’t know how to do it.”

“We’re just lucky she came and saved us and did a great job,” he added. “And now it’s hard to imagine someone else in that part.”

The original film debuted when Kudrow was nearing the end of high school, and while she found it funny at the time, it wasn’t a touchstone. For her, the appeal of joining the series was mainly the chance to work with Clement, Morris and Waititi, whose best-known collaboration is probably the FX comedy “What We Do in the Shadows,” about vampire roommates in Staten Island, based on Clement and Waititi’s 2015 film.

Kudrow did wonder, initially, how her style would fit with the “Time Bandits” tone.

“I do what I do,” she said. “It felt like, Is this a little more Python-esque? Can I do that? I don’t know if I can do that.”

She didn’t have to worry. Morris told me she was a “joke genius.” Clement said that some of his favorite lines were improvised by Kudrow, including the quip “Well, this was a colossal waste of time travel.”

While some actors balk about letting their best-known early roles define them, it doesn’t bother Kudrow that fans still associate her with Phoebe. That performance was an outgrowth of her own comedic sensibilities, developed with Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings and gleaned initially from her love of Lucy and Ethel on “I Love Lucy.”

“A sort of muttering and overreaction to some things is what’s funny to me, so there’s a lot of me in Phoebe anyway,” she said.

Kudrow also appreciates the attachment people have to sitcoms. While shooting “Time Bandits,” Kudrow watched episodes of “30 Rock,” “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Big Bang Theory” as palate cleansers at night. After the death in October of her “Friends” co-star Matthew Perry, she began watching marathons of the show as a comfort mechanism, focusing not so much on herself but rather on the rest of the cast.

“That’s been really helpful,” she said.

Although she has been watching her old show a little less these days, she still lingers when it happens to be on, and no one is home to catch her. She found herself recently watching the episode where Phoebe gets married, one she had never seen before.

“She had the most genuinely happy smile on her face,” Kudrow said of Phoebe. “So innocent, so hopeful and so happy that it made me tear up. Which makes me feel like an insane person too.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

August 3, 2024

Items from "Gone With the Wind" author Margaret Mitchell featured in Slotin Folk Art Auction's sale

Georgia Museum of Art receives Helen Frankenthaler Foundation gift

Sale features nearly 300 lots of items by famous designers and makers

This filmmaker saw war everywhere, and so can you

At Sundance lab, movie economics can't be ignored this year

Lars Eidinger, Yoko Ono, and Katharina Sieverding: The Fall Highlights at K20/K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen

Largest exhibition to date of the acclaimed Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto opens in Sydney

Champagne, soft piano and no lines: Luxe life at the Olympics

Thomas Dane Gallery announces second solo exhibition of works by Terry Adkins

Icon or eyesore? Palm Springs to move divisive Marilyn Monroe statue

New portrait of human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell goes on display at the National Portrait Gallery

Hannah Kendall writes music with a vocabulary of her own

Tolarno Galleries announces representation of Raymond Tan

Some final notes from the 'voice of god'

£1.5m grant to transform energy efficiency at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

Lisa Kudrow brings her daffy charm to 'Time Bandits'

Bennington to revive dance program of Philadelphia arts school

Baldwin's 'Blues for Mister Charlie,' 60 years after it hit Broadway

Meshell Ndegeocello could have had stardom but chose music instead

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco presents "Rhythmic Vibrations" first-ever American pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale

Changes at the helm of Australia's leading international arts festival

Only CGC-graded Pokémon Charizard playtest card is in play at Heritage's Trading Card Games Auction

Heritage celebrates the entire history of animation in its Glad Museum Collection event

Gabriel Collalto on Pushing Boundaries: The Intersection of Art and Technology in Motion Design

NavMetrica Introduces Groundbreaking SEO Tool For User Signals

Timeless Reflections: Success of "26462 Suns" Art Exhibition in London




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Houston Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง
Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful