He was an international man of mystery, an enigma who was as towering on the big screen of fiction as he was on the very real canvas of life and now a new BFI/Sky Arts documentary will delve into the story of the late Sir Christopher Lee with contributions from Peter Jackson, John Landis, Joe Dante and his niece (and The Force Awakens Doctor Harter Kalonia) Harriet Walter.
“Because he could speak fluently a range of different languages he got pulled into the secret service doing missions of which the facts have never fully come out,” Spira explains. His cousin was Ian Fleming and a lot of people think the character of James Bond was based on him. He certainly didn’t do anything to disavow people of that.
You could almost do this as two films. That’s why we called it The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee, because his life is one story and his career is another.”
“Peter Jackson was very prepared to talk about the emotional side, about how amazed he was as a film fan, in awe of Christopher Lee, and couldn’t believe he got to work with him. He discovered his unique insecurities, like many actors have. He was a really complex person who was very emotional, and had this austere image. He had a lot of frustrations in his life – we explore that.”
