The Point Radio: And The Role Goes To…Malcolm McDowell

Stage, screen, television. Malcolm McDowell has conquered it all with no end in sight to his portrayal of great characters (remember, we can thank him for getting rid of James T. Kirk!). His latest gift is in the Golden Globe nominated MOZART IN THE JUNGLE from Amazon Prime. Malcolm talks about that show plus his view on acting today. Also, master horror director Chris Landon (the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY franchise) has spiced up his latest effort with some laughs. He talks about why SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE is getting so much buzz.

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Transcript

The Point Radio. It's Mike Rodd, actor Malcolm McDowell, as it's still the top of his game with a new series called Mozart in the Jungle, nominated for a Golden Globe and for a good reason too. We'll talk about that and more with him. Plus, horror director Chris Landon has added in a little humor to his latest movie.

We'll talk about Scout's Guide to the Apocalypse on the way. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

Get The Point Radio. Stage, film and television. Actor Malcolm McDowell has done it all and done it all well. And his latest project involves a new Golden Globe nominated series called Mozart in the Jungle. I feel blessed and very lucky to have found a part like this, you know, later on in my career

because it's really so much fun for me to do this part. He's, you know, this wonderful conductor, composer of the New York Symphony. It's all about an orchestra and the various people in it and their lives and following a young oboist. You know, how difficult it is, you know, living in New York, trying to earn a living from music and all the rest of it. And we have a great cast of wonderful characters, Bernadette Peters, Saffron Burroughs,

Gail Garcia-Bernal, who is our leader and an amazing actor and a really beautiful person to go with it. So, you know, there's so many, and I've missed a lot out, but there's so many. I can't even, you know, go into them all. But there it is. We're an orchestra in New York and we're lifting the curtain up and looking into the personal lives.

And what happens, the politics. And, you know, the outline is, as it all, sex, drugs and classical music. And it really is. You'd be surprised how many of these, you know, musicians are on prescribed drugs and otherwise. And, you know, they're happily playing, but probably a beat or two behind.

Who knows? But we go into sort of endless stories, you know, that you can come up with and stuff. And so I think it's – and Gail's character is this extraordinary talent from, you know, Mexico or South America, whatever they have him from. And, you know, in his ideas of revolutionary, they're trying to excite the young audience

and bring them back to classical music, which one has to applaud. And if this series can do anything and excite, you know, young people to the richness and the wonders of some great pieces of music that were written many centuries ago, then, you know, then I think we're all really happy because it would be great to open their eyes to these riches, which they are.

You know, it's certainly opening mine anyway. And, you know, I don't know a lot about it, but I know enough. And I do love classical music as well as rock and blues and, you know, everything else. After being a successful working actor for decades, how does Malcolm tackle all the new medium with so many opportunities in online, streaming and more?

I don't know whether it's that. I'm certainly busier now than I think I've ever been in my life, which is bizarre. But and I love it. So I just keep going, you know, until they I guess till the phone stops, you know. But I think that, you know, the streaming business, as they call it, you know,

Amazon, Netflix and companies like this, they're looking really for great content because they are trying to win over a traditional audience that gets the television, you know, free, except for the ads, of course. It's basically free. You don't pay at the moment, you know.

So but luckily we've had, you know, the brilliant HBO and HBO, I think, changed that, changed the landscape completely. And when you see the list of you go back years and years, the list of companies that have won the most awards, HBO, I'm sure is right up there. And shows like The Sopranos changed the landscape of television completely.

And, you know, so this is just really a step on from HBO, just a different delivery system. You know, this you can binge watch. And that's a novel idea. You know, I didn't think I'd ever want to do that. But, you know, I got hooked into doing it with Transparent and another Amazon show.

And I thought I'll just watch one or two and you end up watching the whole thing, you know. So it's really easy to get into it. And I like very much the fact you can just watch it whenever you want, you know, which is very convenient. So what brought him to acting in the first place? When I was 11 years old, I was cast as the lead in a school play.

And even though I fought it when I was cast and rehearsed, I hated rehearsing. But when I got in front of an audience, I felt that I'd arrived at a safe place called home. And I just found it very natural, even though I was throwing up in the wings before I went on with anxiety. When I got onto the stage and the lights hit my face, that I was completely relaxed and felt that I belonged there. And I never forgot that feeling.

And I always thought if all else fails in my life, I can always become an actor. And it was such an arrogant, the arrogance of youth, you know, we think we can do anything, which is great, which is what you should do. And, you know, that's really how I started. And that's what I did. I got some very lucky breaks along the way.

And, you know, a luck has to play its part. And eventually, I was on the stage for four years before Lindsay Anderson, one of the great directors in England, cast me in his brilliant movie called If. And If was won the grand prize at Cannes in 1969. Stanley Kubrick saw it and cast me in Clockwork Orange from that performance. And so that was the beginning of my career, which so I have those two men.

Thank very much, you know, for helping me along the way. And, you know, I've managed to work through the decades and, you know, obviously won ages like everyone does. That's just old father time. And so your your whole career changes, you know, you've got to embrace it. Go with the playing the father parts and then the grandfather part.

You know, I don't mind at all because they're all people and interesting, complex human beings. And it's so much fun. I still get such a kick out of it. I just love what I do. You know, otherwise, I don't think I do it.

So of all the great roles that he's done, is there any you'd like to revisit one more time? No, I really isn't. I'll tell you why, because I never look back once I've made and done the part. I don't really care if I ever see it or not. It's because I worked on it.

I did the work and it was fun. And I got a lot out of it. But then, you know, I'm on to the next. And people say, what's your favorite part that you played? I always say the next one.

Because in a way, that's true, because you get really charged up about whatever it is that, you know, that is before you. And I never look back. I just never do. I think I don't know why it's probably an anxiety from my mother or something. Who knows why?

But I just really I've lost interest to a certain extent once the work has been created and done. And really, I hate looking at myself, you know. I'm not amused. And I see that I see that, you know, stuff. And I know the moves, you know, so I'm a little embarrassed by some of them.

But others I'm not. Others I'm quite pleased. But, you know, I think any older actor would say the same. Seriously, I think they would. You know, if you talk to Tony Hopkins, I'm sure he would say, oh, I can't look at myself at all.

And I think we all feel that way to a certain extent. Not that we're not proud of what we do. We are. You know, I know we work very hard at it, you know. But I don't know.

I just don't want to see it. So I'm always looking for the new one, the new thing, the new challenge. See Malcolm in the Golden Globe nominated series Mozart in the Jungle. Both seasons available right now exclusively on Amazon Prime. The flight radio.

Judd Apatow is headed to Netflix. It's going to be a good year so far, huh? Let's check out that and more with the latest in pop culture. Getting the readers all primed for 2016, Value has released a few teaser images. And some basic information too on some big releases for the year.

They'll include a new series of Archer and Armstrong, the return of Bloodshot and even a Ninjak series as well. You can check them out on the Value website. Most of the series will debut in the second quarter of this year. Yahoo! Screen has come to an end. The video hub has been closed at the beginning of the new year.

And material like Dan Harmon's Community have all been switched to Yahoo! Music. Yahoo! has made it clear they have no plans for original programming any time in the near future. Meanwhile on the flip side of that, Judd Apatow is officially coming to Netflix with a new series called Love that will star Gillian Jacobs formerly of Community.

There's a teaser available online. You can see it at the point preview at G and the series will debut on Netflix on February 19th. The social analytics company Listen First Media has released their television interest ratings for the entire year of 2015.

These are the television shows that garnered the most interest either on Hulu or Wikipedia and other sources online. And the list is kind of interesting. There's 10 shows all together. On there are some familiar names including Flash and Arrow both who fall at number 5 and at number 3 respectively. But the Listen First Interest Ratings number 1 show is supernatural from the CW network.

If you're following the awards season, here's another list to add to your list. Nominations are out for the American Cinema Editors Awards, the Eddies they're called. And they include nominations for shows like Inside Amy Schumer, episodes of Silicon Valley and Veep and Better Call Saul as well as The Good Wife, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, House of Cards and The Men. Christopher Landon's long time association with a paranormal activity franchise has made him a superb horror director.

Now he's mashed up that horror with a little comedy and something called The Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. And I asked him if it was hard to combine the two genres. You know, I have to be honest, I felt really comfortable because, you know, I've always tried to use humor in all my work. And so even going all the way back to Disturbia, which was a thriller but still had a lot of humor in it. And I think if for anyone who's actually seen the paranormal activity movies, especially Paranormal 3 and the last one that I did, the marked one,

I used an enormous amount of humor in those films as well just because I find that it's a really easy way to disarm an audience and also to get them to really sort of to endear them to the characters. And so it's always been a part of my work, but this is just an opportunity to really go for it and make this a full out comedy with horror elements. And so, like I said, it felt pretty comfortable. So would he ever consider directing a straight comedy?

Yeah, I would. I think I would definitely go for it. It would have to be the right thing. I mean, I would, you know, whenever I choose a project or I'm writing something, it's very much like, I would say, it's kind of like dating. I'm sort of a love at first sight kind of a person, and so I have to be attracted to the material instantly. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be a horror thing or I mean, I'm open to, I mean, I've worked in all genres. I mean, I've written dramas and comedy and dark comedy, so I'm a little all over the map, but I just, I love, I love writing.

I love movies. So I'll go for anything. With over a century of horror movies on the big screen, is it still possible to scare an audience? Look, I mean, I would say that the challenge is definitely there just because I think that audiences are pretty sophisticated, and they do know all the tricks of the trade. But I also think that life is always providing us with new horrors.

And so I think there's plenty of stuff out there that's yet to be mined. But I think a lot of it too, like when I approached all the paranormal films, you know, a thing that we looked at a lot, apart from sort of what felt like an organic extension of the story, was also like, how do we, how can we subvert expectation? And I think that's a big part of horror. It's sort of like dangling something in the audience's face and saying, look at this, look at this, and then you surprise them with something behind it, you know? And that's, I think that's sort of the way that you try to get a good jump scare in there, is to find a spot where they're not looking.

But no, I mean, I think that horror is an enduring genre because it has a place in our culture, and I think that people like to be scared. I think it's a safe place to put your fear. So how about a dream project? If we could offer him any franchise, any medium, anything you'd like to do, what would it be? Oh, man, that is a big, tough question.

You know, it's funny because, again, going back to having lots of different interests, like I love sci-fi. So if I could make a show, I would love to adapt Dune. It's one of my favorite books. And do it right, right? Yeah, which is probably everyone's dream.

So that's definitely, definitely one. But for me, I think it's just more about discovering new stuff and trying to tell new stories as well. I have a couple scripts that I've got that I would love to go off and make at some point. But, you know, it was stuff just this time. Christopher Landon's Scouts Guide to the Apocalypse, available right now on Digital HD.

That does it for the podcast for right now, but we're back in a few days. And when we are, we'll look at Colony, the new sci-fi series of Carlton Q. This is bringing you to television. And you'll hear that and more on great websites like popcultureupload.com, getthepointradio.com, ComicMix.com, and of course, trektvnews.com as well. And we're always in the iTunes podcast directory, under the point radio.

On Twitter, follow us under PC upload, and on Facebook, we're under the point radio. See you back here in a few days. Thanks for watching.