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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Neil Jordan

‘If the devil did exist, he’d be just such a gentleman’: Neil Jordan remembers Terence Stamp

‘That dangerous, indefinable quality, absolute charm’ … Terence Stamp in The Company of Wolves (1984).
‘That dangerous, indefinable quality, absolute charm’ … Terence Stamp in The Company of Wolves (1984). Photograph: ITV/Shutterstock

We were making The Company of Wolves. And we had a problem. With Angela Carter, I had written a scene where the devil drives a cream-coloured Rolls-Royce through an imaginary forest, chauffeured by the young dreamer Rosaleen, played by Sarah Patterson.

My initial thought was for Andy Warhol to play the devil. Those pale-blue eyes and that blank expression framed by the blond wig. Andy read the script and liked it. Stephen Woolley, the producer, flew to New York to talk to him, but he was recovering from being shot by Valerie Solanas, who seemed to think he was the actual devil. He said he would play the part, if we shot his scenes in New York.

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