Highlander
Transcripts:
DVD Extras

SEASON ONE:
Adrian Paul and Christopher Lambert Interview

(from 2004 French DVD set)


Portion of opening credits from "The Gathering"

[Queen -"Princes of the Universe"

Here we are, born to be kings, we're the princes of the universe.]

Establishing shot: antique store, night

[Super: The Gathering]

[Super: Special Guest Star
Christopher Lambert
as
Connor Macleod (sic)]

Inside antique store, night

(1x01: The Gathering)

CM - He's not gonna fight you, Duncan... not until he's made you suffer...


Christopher Lambert:

One day my agent at the time gave me a script called Highlander. So I read it, I thought everything... What attracted me to it was the romantic side of the character was this kind of pain that immortality can create more than the action itself. I mean, it was fun to mix both the two things together because it was not just a stupid action movie where the good guys is winning over the bad guys and you know, the usual. The depth of the movie was romantic. I think that the power of Highlander today between the movies, the series, the character itself -- being Duncan or Connor -- that was the main attraction is that, finally, you had a quote "super hero" that was before being an action hero was human.

Inside antique store, night

(1x01: The Gathering)

RR - En garde, you fool! Wssst.

DM - I am Duncan MacLeod... of the clan MacLeod...


Adrian Paul - First I actually-- I remember seeing Highlander, and I remember being in a casting office and Highlander 2, the poster was up on the wall and I looked at it and I went, "I'm going to do something with that. I know." I just felt it. And about a year and a half later, I walked into the Four Seasons over at Beverly Hills here, and Peter and-- No, Peter wasn't there. Bill was there and Marla Ginsburg, and I was the first person actually that walked into the room. They hadn't seen anybody else, and I walked in and I said, "Well, what's the point in casting anyone?" You've got Duncan MacLeod here. Well, actually, his name wasn't Duncan at the beginning. We can talk about that.

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, that's true.

Adrian Paul - And they were like, "Oh, yeah, he's a real cocky actor," like, great, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so, for the next three months, they went and looked everywhere else and eventually came back to me, you know, after a screen test and that.

Christopher Lambert - You know, I met Bill and Peter. We talked about the script. I went into-- We agreed on everything. I went into heavy training. I met Russell, the crazy Aussie. And, very happy, I think, he's one of the best directors I've worked with.

Flashback - Dakota Territory, 1872 - Lakota tribe

(1x01: The Gathering)

[Queen - "Who Wants to Live Forever"

There's no time for us
There's no place for us]


Christopher Lambert:

It's a dream on one side to be immortal. You know, being able to have seen the past, to maybe be able to see the future. It's a dream that everybody's got to not age. When you look at all the plastic surgery, cosmetics, and the billions of dollars industry that it's creating, obviously, people don't like the age factor. So, that was an interesting part about the character. But, mostly, was how do you cope with a lifetime pain, losing your friends, your family, your wife, your kids sometimes? How do you cope with that when you have to do it over and over and over again? So, that was an attraction to me, trying to understand what this guy was going through.

Establishing shot: Shaman Island


Flashback - Pacific Northwest, 1872 - Shaman Island

(1x01: The Gathering)

CM - Hey... I know you loved her, but you can't keep them from dying.


Adrian Paul:

Well, yeah, the funny thing that Christopher was just talking about, you know, the pain of being immortal, I thought that was a really interesting thing, because you can see that in the character, and I thought, well, I wanted to see all the process of arriving at that point. I think that's what the series was able to give, was a series, you know, a much more detailed account of what it's like to be immortal. With a film, you're going through one story, you know. With each week, you're going through each episode of one man's life. So you had to see all the different levels of that, and I think, you know, when we got together, the funny thing was we had one scene, I remember, the scene where we shot out on... I was building a dam or something, I can't remember when he was talking about the pain of immortality, do you remember that? And we talked about pain, and him talking about it now, it kind of clicked. I mean, "Oh, okay, yeah, I now understand why he understands so much about Duncan, because he's been through it."

Inside antique store, night

(1x01: The Gathering)

[Both MacLeods raise their swords.]

Slan - Haa! Not two against one. Tsk tsk tsk tsk.

CM - Thanks, Slan. I know the rules. You and me. Now.

[CM & Slan begin to fight.]


Christopher Lambert:

Well, at first, you know, I thought doing the series was a good idea, was a given, because when the movie number one, number two, we might have shot number three at the time, but I know- yeah, number three, the series had already started. So, number one and number two. It was a given for this movie, exactly what Adrian is saying, is you follow one story in number one, you follow another story in number two. What was great for Highlander, because he can travel through the age, because of his immortality, it's endless. You can go in the Middle Age, you can go at the time of Christ, you can go in the French Revolution, whatever you want to do, an episode is a part of his life, which is true when Adrian is saying, you can probably go deeper into the pain side of the character because of that. When you do a hundred episodes, you have a hundred lifetime. So, it's probably more, creatively more interesting for an actor to be able to do the TV series. So, when they approached me for that, I said, listen, I've done the movies, so far two of them. I don't really want to do a TV series myself, which anyway wasn't in question at the time.

Duncan's warehouse

(1x01: The Gathering)

[CM & DM are fencing.]

[Queen - "Princes of the Universe"

--come to be the rulers of your world]


Christopher Lambert: If you look at choreography on number one and two, they're very good, but looking at number four, for example, they're very simplistic. It means Bob Anderson is an amazing sword master, but he needs also to be with somebody who can bring it to another level. It's not-- I'm in good shape, but I'm not a connoisseur of martial arts, of different moves, of creative moves for that. When we started to work on number four, I was looking at Adrian and saying, well, well, hold it. I'm going to need six years to do what you're asking me to do. So, it was, in some ways, number four was the first Highlander where I did a lot of sword fighting, but much less than one, two or three, because it was very sophisticated. And, you know, what I'm saying, six years, I'm exaggerating, but a good three months every day. We didn't have that time, but I thought it was great for the movie. So, everything went well, clicked, and, you know, when you've done a series for six years, there is a reason.

Warehouse

(1x03: Road Not Taken)

Kiem - [attacks DM from behind. They fight.] You have improved over the years, MacLeod. [Fight continues.]


Adrian Paul:

Bob, to me, I mean, he's had, at that point, he'd had thirty years' experience. He'd done the Highlander movies, he'd done Star Wars, he was actually the guy behind the Darth Vader suit. He'd had so much different experience, and I was like, wow, this guy's amazing. And he taught me-- What I liked about Bob, I mean, I worked with Bob for like two or three years-- Two years? Two years. Both in Paris and in Vancouver. And what I liked about Bob was his creativity. It's true, he has only one particular style. He's into the European style, and you need to expand upon that when you're dealing with a series that travels to sort of every different corner of the earth. But what Bob does, which I really like, and I learned a lot from him, is that he's a great, he's an artist. He's not a bricklayer. In other words, you can put a sort of fight together and be like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. But what he does is he'll walk into a room and he'll go, "You know what? We should do something with that crane or those barrels over there. We need to do some flips off." He'll create a picture for you as the entire thing. So you're not just seeing a sword fight, you're seeing a dance, a recreation of something. And that's what I really liked about him.

Duncan's warehouse

(1x01: The Gathering)

[CM & DM fencing.]

CM - A mere pinprick.

DM - By my count, you look more like a pincushion!


Adrian Paul -When we first met, I remember that in the very first script, my name was Connor. And there was this whole thing about, "Okay, what should we name him? Because it shouldn't be the same." And I said, "Yeah, it shouldn't be the same. It should be different. It should be somebody--" So they came up with the idea that it's his cousin. And the names went through Ian, it went through-- oh God, how many other names were there? There were like four or five different names. Eventually, Duncan was chosen. And when Christopher came on the set, I thought, well, I've never met Christopher. But as he said, it was very easy. And I remember the fight we had in the Wig Warehouse, which is the big warehouse.

Christopher Lambert - It was the first scene.

Adrian Paul - It was the first scene. It was so much fun. It was like being kids. Oh, look, what we're doing. [waves his arms around] And the fun you see in that scene was actually the fun we were actually having.

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, that's true.

Adrian Paul - Remember that?

Christopher Lambert - We had-- It was just, it wasn't like saying, 'okay, let's do the scene.' We were having fun before. We were having fun during. Because we were just having fun.

Adrian Paul - Yeah. And that's a great thing.

Christopher Lambert - And it wasn't a competition, you know, it was-- If you look at the scene -- I haven't seen it a long time -- I think you could see in the eyes the fun that we're having. It was more a challenge than a competition.

Adrian Paul - Yeah.

Duncan's warehouse

(1x01: The Gathering)

[More fighting, laughing.]


Christopher Lambert - It wasn't like saying, "Oh, I got to be better than him or what." No, it was just, okay, two people are meeting. Two people are going to have to fight, knowing, no matter what, that we weren't going to behead each other.

Adrian Paul - But, you know, there can be only one, you know, so...

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, I know, but that's exactly-- What he's saying is right. Is that, at the corner of the eye, there is two people battling, knowing that whoever is going to win, if there is a winner, is not going to kill the other one. Because family, because friendship. And this, even without knowing Adrian at the time, I believe is there. I think we met on the set that day.

Adrian Paul - We met on the set. Well, actually, we did sword rehearsals with Bob. You know where I met you? Outside the trailer.

Christopher Lambert - Outside the trailer, exactly!

Adrian Paul - Outside the trailers. Remember, we were outside the trailers. And I'm like, oh, this is Chris; oh, this is Adrian. Hi, how're you doing? I think we met with Bob Anderson at the time.

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Adrian Paul - Yeah, we were going to go and sword fight. And that's when we had to rehearse.

Christopher Lambert - We were going to sword fight, then we went to each other's trailer. Like, you know, we had been on the set for six weeks. So, it's just clicked. Which, luckily, happens. Probably not as strong as it did to us, but it's more pleasant to start a movie clicking with the people than not.

Inside antique store, night

(1x01: The Gathering)

CM - ...until he's destroyed everything you love in this world... until you don't know whether you want to live or die. That's your way, right, Slan?

DM - Connor, what are you doing here?

CM - Headhunting. Sorry, Duncan, but this one's mine.

RR - Man, these guys are out there. [heads for open window]

CM - [to DM] Let the boy go.

Slan - My challenge was to Duncan MacLeod, not you, whoever you are.

CM - I'm Connor MacLeod -- same clan, different vintage.

Slan - Ah...


Adrian Paul - There was one little moment in the rehearsal with the sword, remember, when we were doing that thing, where you had to turn around and you had to do this...

Christopher Lambert - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrian Paul - I went like that, and you missed it. And the point of the sword went-- [points toward his eye]

Christopher Lambert - Oh, yeah.

Adrian Paul - You had glasses on, remember?

Christopher Lambert - That was-- That was--

Adrian Paul - And it hit his glass and hit the--

Christopher Lambert - During rehearsal, right?

Adrian Paul - Wooden sword.

Christopher Lambert - Wooden swords, thank God, but the sword went right and slipped on the glass and just hit me here. [points to his cheek] But that's where I'm saying. This was the only really accident we had on the movie. But it is dangerous. It is something that has to be rehearsed and prepared. And that's the proof, because no matter what-- I mean, if I didn't have glasses, I'm not going to say I would have lost an eye, but it would have been seriously damaged, because it really went in.

Adrian Paul - I would have had, like, barbecue skewered, your eye.

Christopher Lambert - I mean, you know, so little--

Adrian Paul - What they call them, the ones you roast. You know, the little--

Christopher Lambert - Marshmallow.

Adrian Paul - Marshmallow, that's it.

Duncan's warehouse

(1x01: The Gathering)

[More fighting.]

CM - Slan is mine.

DM - Protecting Tessa is MY job.

[They both laugh.]


Adrian Paul - What was the moment you remember the most in the movie itself? What was-- If you picked any one moment, what moment was kind of like was either the most spiritual, the most touching, the most interesting to you?

Christopher Lambert - Probably Heather's death. This and the explanation from Ramirez before that, saying, you know, he's talking about his first wife two thousand years ago and saying, "I was shattered." And Connor answering, "I don't care." He doesn't care because he doesn't know. And when Heather dies, that's where knowing you are immortal is one thing; experiencing what it is to be immortal is something else. When Heather dies, Connor really becomes the succession of Ramirez, because now he knows what the pain is about, and he understands that he's going to experience that pain if he's not cautious, over and over and over again. That's really the key scene for me where Connor knows what is the pain of immortality. And he looks at his wife. And when she dies, she's seventy years old, seventy-five. And he's still looking twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight or whatever. He loves her the same as the first day they met, I mean, he says it, which is the beauty of love. It doesn't matter. The physicality of it, I mean, the physical aspect, if you love somebody, you love first the inside. If the outside's beautiful, great, but the inside matters. At that point, he is Connor MacLeod, Immortal, with all the baggage.

Adrian Paul - You know, I think I'd ask-- as a couple of people ask me that, and people have asked me that same question. So I was kind of curious what your answer was. But one of them was that moment. And to me, I think that moment of her, but there's another moment for me that was really, really interesting for me, was when you and Ramirez were on the beach and you're running and he says, "Can you feel the stag? Can you feel the heartbeat?" And you went, "Yes, I can feel it, I can feel it." And to me, that was really interesting, because I thought, well, you've kind of taken the human consciousness to an entirely different level. It's really dealing with Qi. It's dealing with, I don't know, spirit. And I thought, well, when you become the One, what is it? That you understand the consciousness of the entire mankind? Is that where it's going? So I thought, well, there's a real interesting possibility to take it somewhere else on that level, which I thought was kind of fun. But you know, also, when I first came on the series, people said, "So how are you going to approach the character? What does it like to be four hundred years old? And I'm like, I don't know, look at him, [points at Christopher] you know? And I remember one scene we were doing, which was the one in the kitchen.

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adrian Paul - When you're telling me about immortality. And, you know, I've seen Christopher. We've been rehearsing and we've done sword fights. And then we get to this scene. And suddenly, I hear, [low, raspy voice] "So I get into this thing--" [normal voice] You get this voice tone, I'm like, there he sounds like he's four hundred years old.

Loft apartment - kitchen

(1x01: The Gathering)

CM - "There can be only one." Remember that rule?


Christopher Lambert - The concept of what you're talking about is that the superhero, the guy, Batman's got that, Spider-man's got that, whatever-man's got that, I don't know, but they all have that. The thing -- and I'm not saying Highlander changed anything about that -- is that it's great to be a superhero. If you're not a superhuman, it's not great. And that's what Highlander was from the start. And the action genre is changing on that level. It is no fun to see, even though they are great movies, but we're tired of the unbeatable superhero. We want to see the superhero down, so when he gets up, he is even stronger because he gets up with his willpower, with his sensitivity more than his muscles. That's exactly what Highlander was. As Adrian is saying, the guy, when the sword go through him, is in pain. It's exactly the same as any mortal human being. I believe he is more a human being, he is more a sensitive guy. Apart from the physical pain, he's got the mental pain. And that's what-- It's fun to say, "Well, listen, I can't die, so I can take on--" That is not his purpose. He is not the kind of guy who comes into the bar and say, "Well, who can I fight, because anyway I can't die, so I have no risk." This guy is risk, is-- What is life going to bring him as pain and how is he going to be able to deal with it again? That's all. Therefore, he is human.

Adrian Paul - You know, the other thing is, and you've gone back to a point you made a minute ago, is that what people don't want to see, and there's a reason they don't want to see it, is they want to see a hero that's vulnerable. You want to find these, like Superman had his kryptonite. Everybody has a vulnerability. And the reason why we like to see that is because we as humans have our vulnerabilities, and we want to believe that we can be that hero. We can go through the pain and have our vulnerabilities, but it's all going to be all right in the end, and we always want the underdog to win. And I think that's one of the reasons Highlander was so successful, is because they were never-- The superhero with nothing could happen to them. They were always vulnerable. They had problems. They had their sides that they weren't perfect. And I think people understood that, and that's why they tuned in to both the films and the series.

Flashback - Dakota Territory, 1872 - Lakota tribe

(1x01: The Gathering)

CM - I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

[Who wants to live forever?]

CM - [voice-over, as they watch funeral pyre burn] Do you think we ever lived like this? Like a tribe?

[Who wants to live forever?]

CM - [voice-over continues] Together with a common language, a reason and a name for each living thing? Did we once belong somewhere -- a time and a place, however briefly?


Christopher Lambert:

How do you cope with the pain or the joy of immortality? And the fun about it. The fun to have seen the past, or at least part of the past, the mystery about them, which, that's one of the reasons, on number two, I was saying, "Why do you want to explain where they come from? Who cares?" And I'm not saying it's bad or good. I'm saying who cares?

Flashback - Highlands of Scotland, 1622

(1x02: Family Tree)

Ian - ...we took you in and banished the midwife, may God forgive me. We buried my wee son and put you in his place, and no man ever knew you were not of my blood. You were my heir!

DM - Then where do I come from? Where do I come from? Where do I come from! Where do I come from!! [Ian rides off.] Where do I come from!! Where?! Where do I come from!! Where?! I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod!!


Christopher Lambert - I would love to see the world fifty, a hundred years from now. I would love to see what's going to happen. Are we going to go back? Are we going to be this society with flying cars? And so I would love to see it. That's a dream that I had as a kid, that I have today, that I will always have till I die. Because it's an amazing ability.

Adrian Paul - But you won't die, you're immortal.

Christopher Lambert - Yeah, that's true, I forgot about that. See, I mean, it's so in me that I don't even remember it. I can't die.

Adrian Paul - What kind of interested me was the fact that, you know, you can go through-- As an actor, you can look at a guy's life for sixty, seventy years. But as an actor looking at an Immortal's life, you're looking at four hundred years, and how do you-- Are you able to learn from the mistakes you make as a person? And the mistakes that society makes in general? And, you know, the interesting thing was I learned as a person that we don't really learn from a lot of mistakes we make. We do the same things over and over again. We're doing them today. And, you know, it would be nice if somehow we could live that amount of time and realize that we do do the same things. And why not rectify it and make life better now for us? So it was always kind of, I guess, in the back of my mind, because I remember seeing the first film and seeing, you know, learning about the whole Highlander concept, how it really could give you an insight how to better your life and wow, there's a certain spirituality there. And that's where I wanted to bring it more, was the spiritual side of the human nature.

Antique store - office

(1x01: The Gathering)

DM - There's no way you could have known what this was going to be like.

Tessa - Well, I have an idea now. So, what has this been for you -- these past dozen years? Was it like a summer fling? R & R? "Sorry, darling, back to the wars, you know." Damn you! Damn your Gathering! Damn your whole race!

DM - I'm not your enemy, you know.

Tessa - No. An enemy could never hurt so much.


Adrian Paul:

Each week it was a different-- it was just another little piece of Duncan MacLeod, you know, it's like, okay, this relationship is what? I mean, okay, the story is this, but what's the relationship between me and whoever it is I was playing with? And so therefore it wasn't really a conscious thought to say, "Well this is going to be this, this week. I want to show this, this week." I just kind of went with whatever it was that was in front of me and tried to do what I thought would be another side to Duncan MacLeod. And doing it in such a way that he was getting enlightened as he went along. I think that the timeline was a very important factor in the series, because when we first started doing the series they would put me into a flashbacks and I'm like, okay, it's great for this to be a flashback, but do you want the guy to be the same three hundred years ago as he is today? I don't think so. I think the question for me was, okay, how is he in this period of his life and how is he in that period of his life and that period of his life? So when three years later we go back to virtually the same period, I can be roughly the same or I've learned or I'm the same as I was in that particular time period. So therefore if you actually took, I don't think anybody's ever done this, took all the flashbacks and put them back to back as a timeline. You would probably see an entire arc as to who Duncan McLeod became and where he came from.

Duncan's cabin

(1x01: The Gathering)

DM - It won't end until...

CM - We don't know when it's going to end. We never do. But while we're here... living in this time, in this place... some of us... the lucky few... will still have all the fun. And?


Christopher Lambert - First of all, you know, Ramirez, Sean Connery, was the mentor in the movie story. He never acted as a mentor, as an actor, whatever, I have nothing to teach to Adrian or whatever. But even on the character, let's say Connor's been immortal for four hundred and fifty years. Connor's been immortal for four hundred years, which is one of the scenes that I like best in Endgame is when we meet on the battlefield. There he is, like saying, "Come on, buddy, get up, get up. It's not over. It's only starting." And he's saying, "Who are you?" Whatever.

Adrian Paul - Can you do that again?

Christopher Lambert - That's the fun. That's the fun. It was fun because not the mentor side on the series or on Endgame. What was fun is to see the look on his face, which was the look, quote, or the feeling that I had when Ramirez was telling me, "We're brothers, you're immortal, you cannot die. Accept it." I was looking, saying, "Who is this lunatic?" Okay, he had that same look. That was the fun going back, viewing me as Sean Connery and viewing Duncan as Connor. But otherwise, the mentor, no, because again, these people's got the ability of learning very fast. He was a warrior when I met him. The only thing he didn't know is that he was immortal, and that's all.

Adrian Paul - I lacked a certain finesse, I think. Let's put it that way. I lacked a certain finesse.

Christopher Lambert - The way it was set was nice. Means I think it was nice for Connor to meet Duncan and to say, "Okay, buddy, you're on your own now."

Adrian Paul - "Okay, your turn."

Christopher Lambert - I think it was nice. If they had said, "Well, listen, we want you to appear on one, three, seven, and eight." I would have said, "Listen, I mean, first of all, I can't tell you if I can do it. And secondly, I think this-- why would you want Connor to interfere in Duncan's life five times a year? Why?" There's no reason. It's like if Duncan was suddenly jumping into-- That's where number four was clever, is that it wasn't Duncan meeting Connor, it was two separate entities doing a different character with the same purpose meeting in a feature movie. That's great. That's great. But it's like Duncan arriving suddenly, number two and number three and no. It's interesting to do a movie together, like it's interesting to have Connor coming and saying, "Hey, Duncan, long time no see. Now bye, and I'll see you in six years," or whatever. That was great. But to jump every week or every two weeks or every three weeks, no, no, it's interfering with what he is doing.

Adrian Paul - The other night, I happened to come home late at night and I'd just gotten the box sets and I looked at the box sets and thought, "Wow. That was me." It was kind of like, "Whoa, that's kind of..." And at the time, you don't really think about it, you know. And then you get fans and you get the series being successful and you get merchandise and posters and duhduh, and it's overwhelming to a point. But there again, and I was really proud of doing this, this series. I think it's probably the most complete amount of work for me, that date, that I'd ever done, and the most adventuresome product I'd ever done, but I think also-- and I had a lot of great memories. I mean, some really great people on it. I mean, Christopher and Stan and Elizabeth and Peter and Jim, and you know, they're all fabulous people and I still see them. I still love them daily. And I was like, "Wow." It really touched me. But to the same point, as a career, yes, I think Highlander has been a little bit of an anchor. I think people still saw me as Duncan MacLeod. They saw this figure of, okay, it's the long-haired guy or the guy with the ponytail. That's who he is. But that's not really who I am. I'm somebody else, and the stigma is kind of faded now, but it did hold me back, I think, for a while.

Soldier's Bridge, night

(1x01: The Gathering)

Slan - Aaaaaaaaaah [charges DM, gets sliced across abdomen, falls to his knees] Finish it, Highlander.

DM - There can be only one. [beheads Slan, takes Quickening]


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