{"id":80837,"date":"2025-08-19T21:09:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/80837\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T21:09:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:09:15","slug":"he-gave-me-a-massage-ive-never-been-in-more-pain-in-my-life-terence-stamp-remembered-by-paul-andrew-williams-terence-stamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/80837\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He gave me a massage. I\u2019ve never been in more pain in my life\u2019: Terence Stamp remembered by Paul Andrew Williams | Terence Stamp"},"content":{"rendered":"

We sent Terence the script for Song for Marion, and he just turned up at the office. He buzzed the door and said: \u201cIs Paul there?\u201d There was a new person working in our office at the time, and she said: \u201cNo, no one\u2019s in at the minute. Who\u2019s calling?\u201d He said: \u201cIt\u2019s Terence Stamp<\/a>.\u201d And then she was like: \u201cWell, he\u2019s not here, shall I leave a message?\u201d She didn\u2019t invite him up or anything. She left him standing there. And he didn\u2019t give a shit about that, to be honest.<\/p>\n

Me, Terence and Gemma Arterton, who played the music teacher in Song for Marion, went to lunch at a vegan cafe in Shoreditch. His character, Arthur, was someone who loved his wife (played by Vanessa Redgrave), and would do anything for her, but always moaned, was always cantankerous, and found it very difficult to show any form of love to his son.<\/p>\n

He was someone who I based on my grandad, and bits of my dad. When his wife dies, it\u2019s Gemma\u2019s character who brings him out of his shell a bit, and encourages him to sing.<\/p>\n

We were talking about this character and he looked at me like I was talking in French. I stopped and said: \u201cWell, you can always just wing it.\u201d He went, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s wing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with him, I learned that veteran actors do like to be talked to, in terms of being directed. I also learned, without him telling me, that he had insecurities as well. When I met him, the first thing he said was: \u201cI\u2019m only going to do one take. That\u2019s it.\u201d But then when you got to know him, he was like, \u201cOh, don\u2019t be silly.\u201d He had his bravado.<\/p>\n

But he was a very underrated, very understated actor. When he sang Lullabye by Billy Joel in the film, he broke everyone. It was obviously very good, but it was so sad.<\/p>\n

\u2018When he sang, it broke everyone\u2019 \u2026 Terence Stamp in Song for Marion. Photograph: Steel Mill Pictures\/Allstar<\/p>\n

As a kid, I loved him as the baddie in the amazing Superman and Superman II. He\u2019s good at frustration. He punches his hands in rage at one point. When we were shooting Song for Marion, I remember him coming over to give me a massage, because I\u2019d said my back was sore. I\u2019ve never been in more pain in my life. He was not the most tender of men.<\/p>\n

Terence was super, super fit. During filming, I went to the apartment where he was staying. He had this set of rotating press-up handles. They\u2019re on the ground, and you put your hands on them, and as you go, you can turn them. He said: \u201cGo on, do one.\u201d I was like, \u201cFucking hell, I don\u2019t know if I can.\u201d He did loads, and I did one. I was in the peak of health, about 39 years old. He was 74 when he did Song for Marion.<\/p>\n

He was so healthy. He didn\u2019t drink. He didn\u2019t do any bad stuff at all. He was supposed to eat a chocolate bar in the film, and we had to swap it for a carob date bar, otherwise he wouldn\u2019t touch it.<\/p>\n

We always used to go to a place on Berwick Street for tea \u2013 a herbal tea, because I thought he\u2019d really like that. He had this blue carrier bag with him. In it, he had his script and a load of raw beetroot and carrots. He said: \u201cI\u2019m going to make a wicked salad: beetroot, carrot, that\u2019s it. A bit of vinegar \u2013 gorgeous.\u201d That\u2019s what I remember.<\/p>\n

When we made Song for Marion, he was obviously still known. He had just done The Adjustment Bureau, and he had done Steven Soderbergh\u2019s The Limey, which wasn\u2019t a massive hit, but it was a really respected film. I didn\u2019t expect him to like this kind of script, because it was more commercial in terms of the story itself. But we talked about the fact that it reminded him very much of the relationship he had with his father. The troubles he had with his dad were not dissimilar to his relationship with Christopher Eccleston in the film. There was a jealousy of the mum\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

We were the closing night film at the Toronto film festival. Terence was there, and behind him was his younger brother, Chris, who had managed the Who. Chris was crying his eyes out, and Terence was very comforting towards him, because they recognised their old man.<\/p>\n

He did like to talk about himself. I\u2019ll give him that. He would always go on about how big guys in gyms would beg him to say: \u201cKneel before Zod.\u201d He told me, obviously, about going off to India, about how he was absolutely broke and he had to borrow coins to call his agent to find out about Superman. He\u2019d tell stories about him and Jim Morrison. The thing is, he did have an amazingly interesting life.<\/p>\n

He was low-key, but when he put a suit on, he looked good. He is possibly the best looking man I\u2019ve worked with. My old drama teacher came to our screening at the London film festival, and the first thing he said to her was that she had wonderful shoes. She\u2019s still dining out on that.<\/p>\n

He was the most charming grump I\u2019ve ever met. He was great to work with, but he was such a moaner. Then he would smile, and you\u2019d think, he knew what he was doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We sent Terence the script for Song for Marion, and he just turned up at the office. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-80837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}