Monday, May 14, 2018

Quote of the Day

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It's a very sad day here at MNPP HQ and elsewhere I assume too what with the news of the great Margot Kidder's passing. I've been trying to figure out a post to honor her, maybe something about Black Christmas or Sisters or of course Lois Lane... but you know what? This fabulous and funny woman wouldn't want us to be sad, and she should be remembered for more than just her iconic roles - she should be remembered for everything, all of her. So let's let her speak for herself - there's a tremendous interview with her from 2009 at The AV Club where she goes through her career talking about some of the experiences she's had, I recommend the entire thing, but this portion will give you an idea of what a bright light we lost:

"I did a version, a very bad version, of Crime And Punishment that [Menahem Golan] directed in Russia, with Vanessa Redgrave and John Neville and John Hurt and Crispin Glover. Now, he was not a good director, but again, you had this humongous personality. [Laughs.] Just this humongous, humongous personality, who took it upon himself to rewrite Dostoyevsky, and got very flustered whenever Crispin Glover would point out that the script was betraying the book.
At one point, I remember he screamed my favorite line in movie history, when we were arguing about a scene. I had this great death, initially, where I died in great sobbing heaps on a bridge, and I go mad and die of tuberculosis, blood spurting out of my mouth and lungs. Every actor’s dream. And we got there, and there was some demonstration and then a counter-demonstration by the communists that day, and it was really exciting coming to Russia. And I’ve always loved Russia, and Russian history. So I was kind of, again, having a really good time.
But I remember getting to the set, and Menahem said, “I’ve cut the death. We can’t do it anymore, because the communists are demonstrating,” or something. And so Crispin said “Cut the death? You can’t cut the death, it says right here in the book—” and he brings out this dog-eared copy of Crime And Punishment and Menahem says “This book, I’m sick of hearing about this book. I wrote the script!” Which was just my favorite thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, it was just fabulous."
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1 comment:

joel65913 said...

So very sad. She had her many issues no question but she seemed like a fun person whenever I saw her interviewed.

While Noel Neill set the template for Lois Lane Margot was just the perfect embodiment of the character. No one who has attempted it since has even come close to her mix of intelligence, charm and most importantly spunk.