Monday, June 15, 2015

Christopher Lee

Hearing of Sir Christopher Lee's passing last week instantly brought me back to 2007 when I had the pleasure and honor of working with him. Uli Meyer had hired Lee's acting services for his feature film "Monstermania!" which I was storyboarding on at the time and in which Lee voiced the mysterious Professor Hieronymus Price. Needless to say we were all incredibly excited to meet and work with the legendary actor.


 Because I did the scratch track (temp) voice of the main character Max who Lee had all his scenes with I was asked to go into the booth with the man to give him Max's lines so he had something to bounce off of and act with, an incredible experience!


After the recording session Lee mesmerized us all for quite some time with stories about his incredible life. We heard about his royal heritage, his time in the RAF's intelligence division, a sword fight with Errol Flynn which went awry, his lamentations on always being asked to play villains and monsters, his opera singing career, and his opinions about and experiences with the likes of Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, Tolkien, Ian Fleming, Sean Connery, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson to name but a few. A cab had been called after the recording to take Sir Christopher home, but because nobody wanted to end the session/storytime, the cabbie waited outside with the meter running for several hours. The cab fare must have been astronomical....


With fellow storyboard artist/film maker/animator/silly voice man/beer quaffer Elliot Cowan.