Terry Gilliam - biography

“In advertising, I was frustrated by having to deal with the client.  It was the only time I really worked in a proper office, and I didn’t like it-simple as that.”

“I was getting frustrated with America.  It’s interesting how as simple a thing as, like, letting your hair grow longer changed in the world in those days.”

“It was lights, camera, inaction.”

“At the first screening, there were a lot of areas that we went around and around about.  Then we had our second screening.  It played better.  It’s almost a reasonable length film now!”

“I generally describe Brazil as a post-Orwellian view of a pre-Orwellian world.  That bores everyone stiff, so they leave me alone.”

“They make Spy Kids, they make Scream, they make A Scary Movie.  This doesn’t do that, so it could be a very bad marriage.  I’m trying to keep this potential nightmare quiet because we’re just finishing editing.”

“We did Holy Grail, and I got my name up there as one of the directors.  After that, I started moving more and more down the line I wanted to, which was making movies.”

“We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  I didn’t have to submit my ideas to the group.  I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.”

“John Cleese was with a group called Cambridge Circus, who had come to New York, and we became friends.  Years later that produced a certain team effort.”

“Actually, I began to think that maybe there is a god, after all.  Or maybe it’s a different one.  The old one got fired.”

“You get trapped by stories.  Though I’ve got this reputation for being out of control, it’s not true, it just happens to be a more interesting story than the truth.”

“There are moments when television systems are young and haven’t formed properly, and there’s room for lots of original stuff.  Then things become more and more top-heavy with executives who are trying to guarantee the success of things.”

“They’re simple people.  They understand the needs of a real artist.  You only have to make 40 million dollars with a film for them to appreciate the value of what you want to do next.”

“I got my head bashed in at a demonstration against the Vietnam War.  Police were losing control because they were up against a world they really didn’t understand.”

“Hyperbole is something I’d better avoid.”

“I keep referring to them in the plural but all I’m dealing with is Bob.  I don’t know where Harvey fits in the equation.  He was very present at the beginning, winding his brother up.  I don’t know where he is now.”

“I was born in 1940 in Minnesota and grew up in the country...  dirt roads, swamps, lakes, woods.”

“I was doing political cartoons and getting angry to the point where I felt I was going to have to start making and throwing bombs.  I thought I was probably a better cartoonist than a bomb maker.”

“It’s 85 million dollars and they got to be really careful because they are going to need me.”

“It’s been interesting how kids have had hardly any problems watching it, but adults have more trouble.  This happened way back even with Jabberwocky and Time Bandits.”

“Literally overnight, I became an animator...  and one that was well-known.”

“People used to think we just faked all that stuff...  it was all written, rehearsed.  The fact that it looks as cobbled together as it does is just that we weren’t very good.”

“There was a perverse side of me, with things like Van Helsing coming out.  I didn’t want to go down that route.”

Terry Gilliam directed the following films:
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Jabberwocky (1977)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983)
The Meaning of Life (1983)
Brazil (1985)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
The Fisher King (1991)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Tideland (2005)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)


Terry Gilliam contributed to the screenplay for the following films:
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Jabberwocky (1977)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983)
The Meaning of Life (1983)
Brazil (1985)
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
The Fisher King (1991)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Tideland (2005)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)