Fed: Geoffrey Rush shows both sides of Peter Sellers

AAP General News (Australia)
04-29-2004
Fed: Geoffrey Rush shows both sides of Peter Sellers

By Jonathon Moran, National Entertainment Writer

SYDNEY, April 28 AAP - Acclaimed actor Peter Sellers played the prankster and the funny
man in his films but behind the cameras his life was less than perfect.

Australian actor Geoffrey Rush has tried to capture the complexity of Sellers' personality
as the lead in the new biopic of the entertainer's life - The Life and Death of Peter
Sellers.

"His career went ballistic and then he kind of troughed out for a very long time and
married a lot and did drugs and got very unhappy and made this extraordinary artistic
comeback at the end," Rush told AAP.

"The script reflects how perhaps an already fragile temperament responds to the height
of fame and celebrity in that particular era when those ideas were relatively new on such
a scale."

Sellers, who appeared in a total of 60 films in his career, was best known for playing
Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.

Rush said the film was not just about the comedian, saying it "transcended that in a way".

"One definitely has to call it a biographical story line because it is about Peter
Sellers' life but at the same time it sort of stands outside the normal conventions of
the biopic," Rush said.

"It is almost as if the film was made in the way a Peter Sellers movie might be made
about his life which is kind of an interesting conceit.

"It does go inside his head rather than laying forth a very mosaic narrative about
what happened. It gets inside the iconography and the world of Peter Sellers movies and
the way they shaped his life."

The feature adaptation of Roger Lewis' book about the actor also stars Oscar winner
Charlize Theron and Stephen Fry.

Sellers was known for his incredible versatility as a performer, of being able to slip
in and out of characters with bewildering speed.

"It was like he could just in front of your eyes transform himself into some other
person," Rush said.

This was displayed in his depiction of multiple characters in The Mouse That Roared,
as well as in several other films throughout his career.

Dr Strangelove was considered Sellers' best film and earned him his first Oscar nomination
in 1965.

"Beyond what any other English comedian or actor had ever achieved Sellers was more
like pop culture or rock and roll in a way," Rush said.

"He was part of the early days of the jetset so he seems more at home in that world
of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton."

Though Sellers was a great success professionally, his personal life was not so perfect.

He was the son of an overprotective, controlling mother and is said to have often behaved
like a child, throwing tantrums and demanding his wives' undivided attention.

Sellers was married four times, to Anne Howe, Miranda Quarry, Lynne Frederick and Britt
Ekland - played by Theron in the film.

The film has attracted some criticism from Britt Ekland and Sellers' son Michael.

"The book has sometimes received a negative reaction because when Lewis wrote it, it
was in many ways a revelation that this man's life had such complicated and in some ways
tortured dimensions to it which seemed at odds with this rather hapless brilliant cinema
clown."

Ekland has reportedly threatened legal action to block the biopic.

The film charts the couples' turbulent relationship, including their first night of
passion at London's Dorchester Hotel, their marriage 11 days later and their subsequent
divorce.

Lewis' biography alleges Sellers treated Ekland with "disdain" and was obsessed with
Italian screen legend Sophia Loren.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers will debut at the Cannes Film Festival next month
and has an August release date for Australia.

Rush said Cannes was the perfect place to premiere the movie.

"For some reason the sixties celebrity thing is how I always think of the Cannes Film
Festival," he said.

"It is associated in its real kind of glamorous heyday with that period.

"It gives the film a smart European gloss rather than a tacky commercial one and it
is a great honour."

Meanwhile, Rush was this week nominated for an MTV Movie Award for his portrayal of
pirate Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The film received six nominations in total with lead actor Johnny Depp up for best
male, best comedic performance and best on-screen team with Orlando Bloom. Rush was nominated
for best villain.

The winners will be announced during a June 5 ceremony in California.

"That is fantastic," he said.

"They have very curious hip categories for younger people like best kiss or best duo
and stuff like that so I have been given a nom in the best villain."

Rush's filmography includes this year's Oscar-winning short film Harvie Krumpet, The
Tailor of Panama, Finding Nemo, Quills and Elizabeth.

He also won an Oscar for his portrayal of David Helfgott in the 1997 film Shine.

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