Highlander
Transcripts:
DVD Extras

Adrian Paul (Actor • Director):

You know, "The Modern Prometheus", I think, was probably my best technical show that I did. And one of the reasons was because I'd learnt so much from all the other shows I'd done before. But I still learnt a lot of stuff on this particular episode too. The one thing I wanted to kind of show here was that-- was the reality of Byron, of Lord Byron, and what would it have been like if he HAD been an Immortal?

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[Methos & DM sense 'buzz' as Byron enters club.]
Methos - [smiles] Well, well. Look who's here.
Byron - [walks through club, shakes Maurice's hand] Good to see you, man. All right?
Joe - Byron.
DM - THE Byron?
Byron - [walks toward them, two Groupie Girls following him] Hey, Doc.
Methos - [stands to greet him] Hey.
Byron - It's been a long time. [shakes his hand]
Methos - You've become kind of famous again.

I read the entire Byron's history to really see what, and who, he was. And I found a lot of his poetry really meant something to this particular episode. And I actually implemented it in the show itself, especially toward the end where we did the final fight between him and MacLeod.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - --"bleeding, breathless, furious to the last, / Full in centre stands the Bull at bay!"
Crowd - [in stadium, chanting] Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron!

The beginning, I wanted a kind of a look to the show so that it had this flow to it. And what was really great is watching the post-production put in this washed-out look which gave it this rock 'n' roll video feel. And they put in a lot of stuff in it which was really very interesting.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Jerry - You listened to it.
Byron - I thought it was good. Come on, Jerry. Let's go for a ride.

The funny thing about the show itself was that it was supposed to be this really easy show for me to direct. And yet, I mean, it was probably one of the hardest ones, because I had so much technical stuff to do. I mean, right from the very beginning shot, you had these two guys on top of a crane area which I found. I found this great location for that. And it's a huge stunt for a guy to come in-- Stunts take time. When you have high falls, it takes a good hour to set the stunt up. You've got to set the cameras up, because you only have one chance at the stunt. You've got to set the boxes up, you've got to do all this stuff. And I was trying to work with visualization on this stuff too. The thing about destruction of a soul through drink and through drugs and what that meant. And the symbolism of it too, because the bottle flying through the air was symbolism of the guy falling through the air. And I was trying to come up with stuff that made this story compelling.

And then when we went to the past, I was trying to create a fairy tale. Something that was this Byron-esque poetry. So a lot of the shots I was actually incorporating in the past were these long languid one-shots, and then popping in at the end to a close-up that was the real moment of the close-up. I also utilized stuff such as different frame rates on this particular show that I hadn't kind of used before. It was kind of fun to watch the final cut when this stuff actually came together. And the cut I'd done worked.

I was very, at that point, interested in utilizing the crane. And the very first shot we have of Byron after he's fallen on the ground, you see the crane come down to him like this and come up and then it pulls away and comes back. And I thought that was actually an interesting shot because it had a movement to it, and it had the expanse and openness of an opening sequence.

But you know, it was a challenge because there were-- In this particular show, there was, I think, two or three sword fights, two Quickenings, one at night. There was playback, which is always very difficult in a show, because you have to re-cue the music, make sure the actors on the actual music, we had at least two playbacks. We had five- or six-people scenes, which means you have to cover each person all the time, which takes more time than if you've got two-people scenes. We had a coach race. And it just went on and on. So I didn't realize quite how much I'd bitten off.

And the very first day we started shooting, I was prepared. I'd shot-listed a lot of this and I had my first A.D., who was a great guy, but he was a little afraid of telling me things sometimes. And I remember seeing him walk around kind of shy and quiet. I was like, what's he doing? And he was talking to the second A.D. and I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Oh, nothing, nothing, nothing." And I walked on and I was like, oh, that's kind of, you know. And earlier in the day, we'd actually had the makeup truck-- I'd gone on set and the makeup truck hadn't turned up. It had broken down. So we had no electricity, no lights, no makeup. So we were already behind. We were an hour and a half behind, first day. And I hadn't done anything. The next thing, I turned around... So that was the first day.

The second day was when my A.D. was like, 'um'ing and 'ah'ring. And I finally got out of him that, in Paris, you don't have drivers, per se, that take people to and from set. It's mostly the A.D.s that do that. And so this driver had gone to the hotel, and he'd picked up the actress, all right. But he'd picked up an extra. He hadn't picked up the right actress. He picked up the wrong person. So the actress was sitting back at the hotel in Paris, which was like forty-five minutes away. So then we had to-- so we lost another hour and a half, two hours the following day. So I was like, oh, gosh, you've got to be kidding me.

Um, but anyway, the, um, I was really lucky also to have Peter and to have, uh, Jim in this. And playing Lord Byron was an interesting choice. I thought he had, he had a really interesting, uh, feel for Byron. He was this long-haired, rock 'n' roll-- because I saw him as a rock 'n' roll star, because of which he was in the present, and I saw him as that in the past, too. So, um, I think he had a really interesting look on-- take on that.

The whole thing he was doing in this to me was that he was trying to find the meaning of existence, what excited him in life. And he was destroying everything around him that had some sort of quality to it. And he'd almost burnt out. So, his look, his way of being in the present, was much whiter, much shallower, skinnier.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - But you know who you are, Doc? Eh? You're the guy in the audience, and I'm the guy on the flying trapeze. Who do you think's having more fun?

And in the past, he was still trying to find out about life. He was debauched, as Byron was, but he hadn't gotten to that stage yet.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[Carriage approaches two girls by side of road.]
Girl - Oh, look! Byron!
Methos - My, what do we have here?
Claire - [as Byron stands, reaches out to the girls] Byron, sit down.
Byron - [quoting himself] "This band, which bound thy yellow hair, / Is mine, sweet girl! Thy pledge of love; / It claims my warmest, dearest care, / Like relics left of saints above." [tosses gold scarf to the girls as carriage passes them]

The carriage race to me was, oh, so much fun, when we did the Switzerland 1816 flashback. That was, I mean, it was-- Peter's on this, on this horse. I mean, we actually dragged the horse behind a car. [I think he means they dragged the carriage behind a car, in the scenes with no horse visible.] And I found this spot, this chateau, that was so beautiful. And, you know, there were these great, beautiful views I could get. So I could expand this poetry. And so I saw the flashback as a poetry. And, um, Peter and Jonathan Firth, you know, they had a great time playing in the flashback.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - Am I as dangerous as my reputation, Doctor? [brings carriage to halt]
Methos - [laughing] You are mad, sir. Mad. Are you trying to get us killed?
Byron - You speak of death. Yet note how quickly your heart beats. You seem more alive than ever, sir!
[They walk toward villa together.]

You know, the costumes were just so much fun to play with. Byron's debauchery in the past, I wanted to sort of bring forward, and his excessiveness, I wanted to bring forward, which I think we did.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - It's all drivel! [throws book to the floor] My God, I bore even myself.
Percy - I thought it was wonderful, Lord Byron. You are too critical of your poetry. And for the evening's entertainment... [holds up opium pipe]
Byron - It'll take more than Morpheus's smoke to quiet me today, Shelley.

Shelley was a romanticist. And, you know, that's why I shot it that way, with long shots or long lenses. So that it would have that feel of a romantic adventure. And then also on top of that, we had F. Braun McAsh as the bad guy in the past. So that was kind of kind of fun. And having the-- I thought the chariot race was-- To me, it was important, the chariot race, because it gave a sense of the era. And gave a sense of the-- it's the modern-- It was the old-time car race, car chase. And, you know, it's funny because we actually nearly ran out of time on that because we were there late one day. And we hadn't quite finished the stunt and we literally, with about five minutes to spare before the light totally disappeared on us, did the final stunt where the carriage goes rolling over onto the ground. But what was really nice was that we were able to find some stuff that was back lit and made it very romantic. And Peter and that, they stayed in the carriage and were the ones that-- you could see that they were the ones in the actual carriage itself. So, I was very happy about that.

What I felt that the past was, was a play. And I shot it like a play. I didn't shoot: So, okay, this is it and this is it. I wanted it to be a constant flow and very languid and very, um, romantic in that sense. And when they go in that evening, even inside the, uh, the first time we see them inside reading poetry in the hot house. That to me was a movement and, you know, the people were supposed to be-- the camera was always moving from one person to another and how it, you know, affected people. But his movement was still-- there weren't so many cuts. Even if there was a cut, the camera moved them to the next person. Because there were so many people in that scene that you couldn't just, you know, do it like this. [holds hands up as if taking multiple separate shots] It was supposed to have a poetic license to it.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Mary - [to Methos] I trust you had a pleasant journey this afternoon, sir.
Methos - Only if one enjoys dancing near the halls of death, Mrs. Shelley.
Claire - I LOVE to dance.
Byron - [to Methos] What have you to quiet a troubled soul, Doctor?

What I looked at, I said, "Okay, guys, this is where I'd like you... Do the scene for me." And then I'd say, "Okay, I want YOU to be much more vivacious. So you can move between each one and you can take me to this person. And you two are much more solid in the background." So it was-- each character was very defined in this flashback, which I like very much.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - Shall we test your theory, my little nymph? [grabs up pistol from nearby] Shall I kill you here and now? [points it at Claire]
Claire - Lord Byron, no.

Well, that was the interesting thing. He pushed the envelope at that point. He was probably pushing it to the degree, I thought, of trying to feel life, you know, trying to sort of feel this whole experience of life. Because that's what Byron did. I mean, his stories were, you know... but the funny thing was, that's the one thing that we haven't seen Methos like either. That's what I wanted to see. I wanted to see what Methos was like within the confines of what they did, which was, they did laudanum, they did, you know, all these different hallucinatory drugs and booze and sex. And so, like the scene in the living room is one shot and you see them all acting. It's like one big play. And that, to me, was interesting.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - ...the armies of the night, and do them battle, soul to soul, till they, or we, cry, "Hold, enough," and give over the field.
Claire - Sounds thrilling.
Methos - Sounds morbid.
Percy - Stories of horror... to bring forth our own ghosts from deep within us. From those dead humors rattling around the midnight of our souls.
Byron - Yes, yes, but who shall be first to amuse and frighten us tonight?

Everybody had-- was doing their thing, but it was, it gave it much more texture. And I only cut in when it became very into Mary Shelley, when she was like really being drawn in and he's hypnotizing her. So I felt that was the point when you wanted to see what she was feeling. But other than that, you know... and it was great that everybody else was acting within the scene. You know, sometimes it's this and this [indicates two distinct camera views] and you don't see what everybody else is doing. But this one I wanted to see what everybody else is doing and bring them into the scene and, you know, and they were all very good. They were all great actors.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[Flash of desolate forest in black and white.]
[Mary lies on a bed, gasping as she dreams.]
[Same forest. Camera pans around to dark silhouette of a man in the distance among the trees.]
[Mary, on the bed, tosses her head, still dreaming.]
[In the forest, dream Mary looks down at her white shift caught on a tree branch. The man is closer to her.]

The idea of having her visualize this nightmare, and having Frankenstein be this image, this thing that she kept seeing, because the idea is that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein after seeing a Quickening, and she saw this image, but she won't show what the image meant and what it was. And so the laudanum perhaps helped her do that.

And taking her into the bedroom was this sexual thing, this whole thing between Methos and, um, Byron himself. And how far would they go? How far would you take somebody that is weak? And Byron would take it to the edge, whereas Methos doesn't, which is interesting because it showed that Methos had a conscience.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - ...death. [sits on bed opposite Methos, leans over Mary] Yet look! She stirs. Is she not beautiful? [runs his hand down her body]
Methos - That she is. [plucks his hand away] Now let her rest.
Byron - Ah, but does she want to rest? I say we take her, and push the bounds of our passion to heaven itself.
Methos - And I say we leave before we push the bounds of decency.
Byron - Decency means nothing.

Yeah, it was, it was perverse. And I said, "What do you guys feel?" And they had the same inkling as I did. And I remember Peter saying to me, he said, you know what? I'll tell you something." He said, "You know, I knew you could direct, but I was very impressed when you did this." Because he understood the ramifications of what I was trying to achieve here. Seeing the child at the window, when the child turns at the window and it's her daughter that has been killed and she's like a demon, you know. And it was like this [makes a whooshing noise]. you see this thing. And then what I liked in post was, when I discussed this with Don, was the fact that-- the changing the light and how we actually made the zooming of the lens and coming back with {forest} to create that look of her dream, because it was like a non-reality. But they were all very into this, and they kind of got the idea of what I was trying to put forward, if you like.

I actually thought he was suicidal. I thought he was giving up everything, suicidal, and he was just wanting to bring-- The other thing I told him, I said to Jonathan, I said, you know, what I feel he is, is he's lost. He's a man that's lost and he's trying to grab on to anything he sees with life, with talent, because talent is something that he had and talent is something he still has to a degree, but he's lost the joy of his talent. And so he's trying to suck it dry from everybody else, which, you know, in the end is destructive.

The Quickening at the end was one that... I wanted to do something different that we'd never done before. And I always remember seeing Highlander I, where the force of it levitated us off the ground, which is what we did in that. I actually levitated off the ground and it was kind of tricky to do because actually in that particular one was where I actually got a bad accident across my face with a sword across the eye.

The other thing I saw that fight being is a poetry, it was the end of poetry, the end of Byron's life. So I actually took real pieces of Byron's poetry and made Jonathan recite it while he was fighting me, you know.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - [quoting as they fight] "Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand." [Fight continues.]

"Into the breach, dear friends," I mean, it was such a-- and the poetry he read was about, if I remember correctly, was about a bull fight. And that's how I saw the fight, was a bullfight. So again, I took the ideas of what the fight was, comparative to another type of fight. I had him believe that it was, it was this-- where he knew that MacLeod was probably going to beat him. So the idea was that he was going to basically just, you know, try and grab anything he could out of life at this very last moment.

The funny thing is that there were the other scenes too. You know, we also had the other scenes with him on the crane, where he's dangling the kid off the crane. I mean, we had to do that shot, so we had to move the crane, we had the girl, but that worked so well. It was bizarre. That scene we shot the night of right after the fight. So we had a long time to go.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - Suck it in, man! Savor the fear!
[Byron's two groupie girls cavort below them.]
Groupie Girl - Jump!
Byron - You can do this. Look deep. Let it fly. [Mike shifts forward on the truss.] That's it! Life! Death!

In one day, we shot the fight, the Quickening, and the scene with the crane, where the kid is hanging off the crane, where he falls off, were shot all in one day. And so it was a big day.

And, you know, the other thing I wanted to get was the debauchery of Byron, and to try and find that debauchery in the room with the kid, when he was around with the kid. So, you know, the girls, the drugs... And the girls were funny, because they went for it. I mean, they were just like, all over. She started to dance. I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no. Just really go for it. No, don't just dance. I want you to be like, all over the place. I want you to fall over. I want you to..." you know, and she did. And that kind of showed where the level of drugs was at that particular time. And I used hand-held in there, which made it a little bit more frenetic.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - ...tracks, meet some people?
Mike - You know it, man.
Byron - [holds small tray up] Nightcap, anyone?
Mike - No, I'm okay. I'm okay. I've gotta get going.
Byron - That's cool.

I want to talk about two scenes that I did. One was the transition into the past, into the face of the goat. I thought, that to me was like the debauchery of debaucheries, because the idea of having a goat in the room was like, very-- and it went from Byron's face in the mirror to the face of the goat being dragged away, which I thought was probably one of the most interesting transitions I ever made as a director.

And then going to the next room and having the wine poured from the leg into the guy's mouth who was lying on the ground. Those things I found because they were playing. I said, okay, kind of just do some stuff and let me have a look. And I went, oh, that's interesting. Pour it off-- Can we get the shot on the leg? And so some stuff I was coming up with on the spot. And some things I wasn't.

When we shot the actual fights... The fight was kind of fun because the fight was-- again, I'd never really worked with green screen a lot. And in this show, we actually did work with green screen. At the time-- I mean, this was seven years ago, something like that. And the idea, to actually make sure, I had to find out from post-production exactly what they needed. They're back in Vancouver. {??} exactly what they needed to make the shot work of making his body levitate off the ground while the Quickening was going off. And I kind of saw that's where Mary Shelley sees this Quickening for the first time. So I wanted it to be the idea of the resurrection of a body, to see the body come off the ground so that she sees this.

Well, the Quickening wasn't that elaborate. It was fairly simple. I mean, I decided to make sure I started on certain things. I knew what I wanted. I had two cameras. I knew what I wanted to start on and where I wanted to finish it, because I knew already what the end result was, which is the important thing was the body, the electricity going towards the body. I had already set up stuff of the hand on the ground, how the electricity went into the hand and how the hand moved, and it went to the other hand and that eventually made the whole body levitate off the ground, which allowed Mary Shelley to go, 'oh my god, that's the thing -- Frankenstein.'

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - ...there's a fire inside, and stories to tell... if you have one.
Mary - I do. Mine will be about the anguish of immortality.
Methos - And what will you call your story, Mary Shelley?
Mary - "Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus"... [looks over to Byron walking back to the villa. Flash of man in dream forest. Flash of black-and-white 'Frankenstein' face.] A man born of fire.

Well, again, I think the thing I learned was to try and figure out the things I really wanted to shoot and the things that weren't necessarily to be languished on. And this fight wasn't necessary to be languished upon. It was enough to actually see the fight happen. You know, what you wanted to languish on was the Quickening, the hands coming in, so that you're telling the story of what Mary Shelley's seeing. The actual fight itself was not something I wanted to spend a huge amount of time on because it wasn't that important in-- it was a means to getting to the end.

The other transition I kind of liked was when Byron comes out after resurrecting and stands there and then we cut into him standing there and then it dissolves into the picture, into the present. That worked well, I thought.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[Byron,facing the villa, looks over his shoulder, transitions to framed picture of a man standing on a rocky coast, facing the ocean surf.]
Byron - [reading from book] "Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness." [looks up at 'Frankenstein' poster on wall] "Frankenstein," gentlemen. Mary Shelley's greatest work.

The scene between Methos and MacLeod arguing was kind of fun, and I, again, I did the scene very simply.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Methos - How do you think like that, how do you write like that, and not be a little... larger than life? You know, Charlie Parker, van Gogh, Mozart. Messed up guys.
DM - Yeah. DaVinci. Bach.

Whereas the next scene, which is Byron standing on the roof saying, you know, "the world, screw the world," needed to be covered in two different ways. One wide to see where he was at.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - [holding onto lightning rod during a thunderstorm] [Lightning flashes.] Come on, old man! Come and get me!

One to see the kid and him. It was just slightly different. It was a much more intense moment.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - What do you want, Mike? Are you ready to grab onto life with both hands and squeeze it 'til it screams for mercy?
Mike - I'm ready.
Byron - I don't think so.

So that's how I saw it. So that's why it was simplified. And we found a great location for the cathedral that he was supposed to be holding onto the spire so that a lightning would hit it, so he'd feel some sort of life, some sort of-- because he's dead inside.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - Come on! What are you waiting for? Yahhhhhhhh! [Lightning flashes again.]

And, you know, that to me was really symbolic of who he was.

When Methos comes to Byron and says to him, you know, that this is enough. You've got to stop this, and he says, no, you don't understand. It's not. And the stock shots of all the crowd and that, really gave that-- because I hadn't seen that yet. I didn't see what the stock shots were. Post-production really helped me in that, in that way. Because they added-- you could hear the crowd in the background and you knew where he was going to go next. I mean, because he's just so out there.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Crowd - [chanting] Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron!
Byron - [looks up as Methos enters] Hey, Doc. It's gonna be a killer show tonight.
Methos - I'm not here for the show.
Byron - Well, uh, the party doesn't start 'til later, but, uh, hey, make yourself at home.
Methos - Leave town.
Byron - Say what?
Methos - MacLeod's going to be coming here. I'm telling you as an old friend, that it would be a good time to go on tour...

I mean, I chose these locations specifically because of the look they had, you know, the, uh, some of it was poetic and some of it was, had this rock-and-roll debauched type of feel to it. And I think they gave it that-- the tunnels going underneath. I wanted these tunnels with arches to, like, the backstage tunnel of going in and out of the rooms.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[M.E.L.T. - "Follow My Voice"
and if your god forgets all about your sins
you'll go straight to--]

And I like the washed-out look that was given to that because it felt more like a documentary rather than, you know, a TV show.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - I have no hope, no dreams, no poetry left. All I feel is this raging hunger. And all I hear is my own voice, screaming my failure.

The shot that I actually thought worked really nicely was the steady-cam shot with Methos and MacLeod at the end in the tunnel. And I wanted it to feel like there was people going behind, and they had to talk for a minute and then it was, it was imperative-- rather than it just be a talking scene, because it was a fair amount of dialogue before MacLeod went off to do what he had to do. It was in this tunnel with people going by and that, I was happy with them. And Peter and I kind of did a little dance there and, you know, it worked.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Stagehand - Move it, buddy! Comin' through, bud. [DM & Methos move out of the way.]
[M.E.L.T. - "Follow My Voice"
[--believe your god's priests
If you wanna save your soul]
DM - The kid idolized him. Maybe he didn't pull the trigger, but he sure as hell put the gun in his hand.

I mean, I wanted the camera to move, because I wanted it to be like, we've got to talk to each other, but we can't because somebody's around, and the camera moving around them and then they've got to move, and then it-- Because I just wanted the flow of that scene to just continue, because the next thing that was going to happen was the standoff with Byron. So that was important. And when Byron finally sees MacLeod, he's like, "Okay, this is it. I might get some joy out of life now, because I'm going to fight this guy."

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Bodyguard - Want me to take care of him?
Byron - [waves them away] Leave me. Go on.
Band member - All right, let's get outta here. Let's go. Give him some room. Come on. [They continue down tunnel.]
Byron - [approaches DM] Let me guess. You want an autograph. [Crowd can be heard cheering in background.] You hear that?
Crowd - [chanting, in background] Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron! Byron!
Byron - They love me.

I kind of like the end of this where it, you know, where I had him. And I decided his poetry back to him, I think I said. I ended the poetry, because I knew what it was, you know.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - [quoting as they fight] "Once more through all he bursts his thundering way-- / Vain rage!"
DM - [grabs Byron's sword arm, katana against Byron's neck] "The mantle quits the conynge hand, / Wraps his fierce eye -- 'tis past -- he sinks upon the sand." [whirls, beheads Byron.]

And what I really liked about the Quickening was it was like a video. The Quickening was like a video. And that was again very different than what we've done before.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
[Rock song continues throughout Quickening.]
[Dead but undead I'll be
Osiris is my name
And our love
And our love
I can see your light in the distance
And our love
I can see you shine in the distance
And our love
And our love
Conquers all]
[Quickening ends. DM stands up.]
[I can see your light in the distance
I can see you shine in the distance
I can see your light in the distance
I can see you shine in the distance]
[DM starts to walk away.]

And the very last shot, I wanted to make very simple. Just pull away, pull away, tell the story and just go away and fade away.

Clip from "The Modern Prometheus":
Byron - [voice-over] "My task is done. My song has ceased. My theme has died into an echo. It is fit."

What else is there to say?