‘I borrowed from the films of Leni Riefenstahl to show that these soldiers were like something out of Nazi propaganda. I even put one in an SS uniform. But no one noticed’

Paul Verhoeven, director

Robert Heinlein’s original 1959 science-fiction novel was militaristic, if not fascistic. So I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism. Robocop was just urban politics – this was about American politics. As a European it seemed to me that certain aspects of US society could become fascistic: the refusal to limit the amount of arms; the number of executions in Texas when George W Bush was governor.

It’s an idiotic story: young people go to fight bugs. So I felt the human characters should have a comic-book look. Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon auditioned, but I was looking for the prototype of blond, white and arrogant, and Casper Van Dien was so close to the images I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s films. I borrowed from Triumph of the Will in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too. I was using Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda. No one saw it at the time. I don’t know whether or not the actors realised – we never discussed it. I thought Neil Patrick Harris arriving on the set in an SS uniform might clear it up.



The studio executives said: 'Their flag – it’s a Nazi flag!' I said: 'No – it’s different colours'

I drew on the Normandy landings, too: there’s a certain retrograde aspect to the spaceships. Phil Tippett – the genius who made ED209, Robocop’s rogue robot – took care of the special effects. He’s extremely clever with movement: he made these arachnids so well-done and animalistic. Nobody else I knew could do something so difficult, with hundreds of insects in one shot.

There was so much regime change at Columbia Pictures at the time that we slipped through the net. When the executives finally saw it, they said: “Their flag – it’s a Nazi flag!” I said, “No … it’s completely different colours.”

But they moved it from a July release to September, because they thought Air Force One was more commercial. [Producer] Jon Davison said: “It will never make its money back.” He saw there was a problem with the American audience better than I had.

A Washington Post editorial warned Americans about the movie because, it said, it was made by two neo-Nazis: me and [screenwriter] Ed Neumeier. It helped destroy it, along with the word of mouth. It dropped 50% in the second week, which was unheard of at the time. With a title like Starship Troopers, people were expecting a new Star Wars. They got that, but not really: it stuck in your throat. It said: “Here are your heroes and your heroines, but by the way – they’re fascists.”

Denise Richards, actor

I didn’t think about the politics – I was just hoping not to get fired from my first big movie. My character wasn’t part of the infantry, so I didn’t have to go on the actors’ boot camp, but I asked to. Casper, Jake [Busey] and I really bonded. On the first night, there was a blizzard and I ended up in their tent in the middle of the night, snuggled together to keep warm.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I refused to do the topless scene’ … Denise Richards in Starship Troopers. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

I love my character, and the fans seem to appreciate she’s a strong woman. If there were negative audience reactions to her swapping between two men, I didn’t hear about it. At some point or other, everyone gets dumped and does the dumping – that’s young love! But for the most part I think she’s a badass, a great role model. Paul added a topless scene that wasn’t in the original script but I refused to do it – I didn’t see the point of it.

I had to learn how to act in front of green screens, and Paul was a great teacher. We only had an idea of what the bugs might look like from pictures and animatronic clips. He would be there jumping up and down with a broom in the air so we would have a sense of how big they were. If we weren’t giving enough, he would do even more.

Watch Starship Troopers now: it’s reality, not sci-fi Read more

They saved the most dangerous thing for last. Casper, Jake and I had to run out of a tunnel with an explosion rushing up behind us – a real one. We had to keep moving because there was a ball of flame. We had one take, so we had a lot of adrenaline going on. We said to each other: if someone falls, pick ’em up and drag ’em out. I was stunned seeing it for the first time with all the special effects. I’d love to work with Paul again. He was a crazy person – in a good way.

• The subheading of this article was amended on 23 January 2018 to remove a reference to US soldiers.

