Actor Ian Holm has had a career which if nothing else, has certainly been varied.
In the last 20 years, he's tried to choke Sigourney Weaver (Alien), been assaulted by a team of diminutive thieves (Time Bandits) and played second fiddle to a talking typewriter (Naked Lunch).
Holm only recently caught up with Luc Besson's sci-fi fantasy The Fifth Element although he was hardly mobbed by adoring fans.
"I was walking past the Kensington Odeon the other day," he recalls. "I suddenly noticed it was on so I thought I'll just sneak in."
Alas, the man at the box office didn't know the award-winning actor from any other punter. Holm asked if he did concessions for actors in the movie. "He burst out laughing, picked up the phone and dialled the manager and says: There's a bloke here who says he's in The Fifth Element."
Holm finally got his free ticket and an apology from the red-faced ticket man. "So I saw it with eight people and four of them walked out. It was a bit of hokum. It was all right," he says modestly. "Bit of bubble gum."
As you may have gathered, Holm isn't precious about the $70million blockbuster. After all, with over 40 years in the business, it would take a major movie to impress him these days.
Since first treading the boards in 1956, Ian Holm has spent most of his adult life suffering for his art on stage and screen.
In the Sixties and Seventies, he was said to be the most likely successor to Laurence Olivier, whom he later worked with. Holm also played the Fool to Charles Laughton's King Lear at Stratford.
In the early days, it looked like nothing could muddy Holm's waters. Then during a London preview of The Iceman Cometh in 1976, disaster struck.
A sudden bout of stage fright forced him to walk off and he didn't return for 15 years.
"To this day I have no idea what it was. Madness of some description," he recalls.
Holm has never done another job but he's also never gone hungry. During his period in the theatrical wilderness there were enough film and TV roles to keep the wolf from the door.
Alien, Chariots of Fire, Greystoke and Brazil were some of the biggest commercial and critical hits that made him one of the most sought-after supporting stars in showbiz.
"I did get to love film, obviously, because I couldn't appear in the theatre any more," he remarks.
One movie he loved more than most was Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi thriller Alien.
"That was a very good film," he recalls, little knowing at the time it would turn out to be such a blockbuster. "Because it was made in 1979, I would have done anything then," he laughs. "I certainly had no idea it was going to become one of the great celebrated pieces of cinema."
Holm has fond memories of working with Sigourney Weaver in her breakthrough movie.
"That was very strange. I can't to this day think why I got cast in that. I was one of the first people to be cast and then it was very interesting because I could see half way through the film the emphasis changed and there was the birth of a star in Sigourney. You could almost sense it. It wasn't just the underwear scene," he laughs. "I could just tell she was going to go on to big things. She's also a very nice lady.
"It was also an extraordinary experience working with someone as tough as Ridley Scott, I used the word advisedly and also like Luc Besson much later on. They are both very, very tough directors."
Chances are you'll remember the scene where the duplicitous science officer has his head knocked off and then is reprogrammed by Ripley to help the Nostromo survivors defeat the Alien. While it may look like the art department raided the local Tandy for their props, the local greengrocer was closer the mark.
"After four hours in make-up, I was surrounded by spring onions and milk." Holm grimaces at the memory. "Then Ridley would go away for a few hours and I'd be stuck there in this table with spaghetti everywhere and milk all over my face. It really stank under the lights as you can imagine."
Ian also loved working with that other visionary director, Terry Gilliam, on both Time Bandits and Brazil.
"I worked with Terry a couple of times. I played Napoleon in Time Bandits and I loved that line where there's that long speech in about all the little people in history and then he finally slumps down and they get out his arm and it's gold and this little fellow says: Inne (sic) interesting? That always made me laugh."
While sci-fi fans may know him from high profile features, one of his favourite moments was making the TV version of a recently filmed children's classic.
"My big special effects experience was The Borrowers," he remarks. "That was very difficult acting in front of blue screens and you have to be rather good at mime. Crossing stepping stones over a river or whatever and there's absolutely nothing there. They put everything in afterwards as you know. It's very complicated I don't quite know why they do it."
Was Holm disappointed he didn't get to star in the recent John Goodman remake?
"I wasn't asked to do it," he sighs. "It was the same outfit as well which is what was so extraordinary."
Holm is currently working on a host of new movies including David Cronenberg's latest, Existenz.
