The Extraordinary Sean Connery Takes on Superhero Flicks and Saves the World

by Anderson Jones | July 9, 2003

He turns 73 in August, but that's not stopping Sean Connery from taking on Hollywood's biggest, youngest trend: comic-book movies. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, based on a very dark graphic novel, he becomes the legendary British hunter Allan Quatermain, who can drop man or beast at 900 yards. Just about the perfect retirement-age activity for James Bond, eh?

Drawn and Quatermain: Don't make me use it, punk, because I will.

Quatermain's asked to lead a motley crew of literary relics--Tom Sawyer (Shane West), Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend) and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng) among them--to stave off world war at the beginning of the last century. It's essentially a Victorian-era X-Men, and Connery's right at home.

We sat down with him in 100-degree Las Vegas heat to talk about League, the possibility of a sequel, tackling the comic trend and settling into his role as the moving pictures' elder statesman.

It's hot out here! How can you stand it? Oh wait, you live in the Bahamas.
Yeah. [Laughs.] But you don't sit inside with bright lights on. Join the club.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is based a smart, well-crafted graphic novel, but it's still essentially a comic book movie. Did a man of your experience have any trepidation about doing a silly comic?
Well, when I first read it, I had reservations because I thought it was too much of a leap. But the more I read other stuff, the more I came back to this. And then it got me, and I liked the idea.

Pull my Goldfinger: Connery still hasn't shaken that defining role.

You also took the title of executive producer, famously crossing swords with director Stephen Norrington, so I guess that means you got to Connery-ize the script?
It certainly had a lot to do with the restructuring of the story. It was a little too literary, and we needed to get the characters introduced. It's okay for the people who've read about them and know something about them, but the other stuff has to be played out, too.

Dorian [Gray]'s story, for example--the painting aging instead of him. Anybody who has read Oscar Wilde knows Dorian Gray, but once you got through that, it progressed very well. [Editor's note: In the book, Dorian Gray stays eternally young, while his portrait image ages.]

There are certainly more comic-book movies out now than when you got started. What do you think is going on?
I had only read one before--From Hell, the one Johnny Depp did. I saw the film, but only half because it broke down in the Bahamas when I was to see it. But I did read the book--the comic--and I was impressed by the drawings. They're very, very well presented. Really, really good, like what we call storyboards in the movies.

A real cutup: Boy, those mythical British adventurers can really fight!

In the books, Quatermain's an opium addict. Did you recommend changing that to spare your image?
They changed it before. I only found that out [about him] when I read the comic. In fact, I wouldn't have minded that idea at all because [all of the heroic characters in the story] are flawed.

Early on in League, Quatermain acknowledges that he's getting older. He actually says, "I hate getting old," before putting on a pair of glasses to shoot a rifle.
Well, I don't really worry about it. What are you going to do about it? What's the alternative? I think I'm very fortunate. I'm still playing golf. I don't play tennis anymore because the results are too bad. But it's okay.

Young actors today, being approached about franchises like Superman or even taking over as James Bond, say they don't want to get stuck in a character for years and years. Did you ever feel that way about 007?
I got out because it had gone very much to special effects. I like From Russia with Love and Dr. No--that kind of movie. And that was what really made it for me...The special effects were in everything, and it took the place of what used to be the movie: Going to Turkey and the Saint Sophia mosque--all of that kind of thing would be out now. They'd just go for--

Fashion mutiny: Wait, Connery's not in that new pirate movie, too, is he?

CGI?
Yeah.

You can't avoid special effects in League, though. How is it different?
Well, it was already in the script. Once you agree to do the movie, it's already there in place. There was no question that you're not going to not have the special effects. But the point is that the difference between a Bond film and this film is it's set in the 1900s, and [we] introduce the special effects and visual effects [to achieve that time period]. It's a whole different thing. It's still contained in that world.

Without ruining anything, it might require a miracle in order for you to return for a sequel.
[Smiles slyly.] Well, there have only been a couple of us who have done it.