Christopher Lee died earlier this week, but the renowned actor leaves behind an impressive body of work, including a ton of great genre films.
Back in 2010, Lee spoke with Cinefantastique Online about the power and popularity of fantasy films:
I think it’s because we all love to dream. We don’t live in a particularly attractive world. I don’t really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world. I’m old enough to have seen Hitler in the flesh. I’m old enough to have been in Munich in 1934, on the night of the long knives, when Hitler butchered so many of his own people. I’m old enough to remember the Second World War and all the other things. So I’m not being a Cassandra, who prophesied nothing but evil and misery; I’m simply facing reality. So, yes, let us not lose faith, let us be optimistic, let us believe in the good things, but we still have to face the world as it is. When you live in a world like that, what do you want? You want to escape, to get out of this world from time to time, into another world, a magical world, an enchanted world, where things happen we dream about, a world of fairy stories and wizards. It is like the conjurer, the enchanter, or magician who says, “Look, nothing up my sleeve. When I do this, you will come into my enchanted world!” Dreaming, escaping, that is what we’re talking about. I firmly believe that is why this kind of film is so universally popular, and always will be, because people like to get into another world.
The whole interview is really fantastic (and very nerdy), and it touches on many facets of Lee’s career, including the fact that he took the role of a Wizard in The New Adventures Of Robin Hood solely to prove to Peter Jackson that he would be a good fit for Lord of The Rings.
