BT: Were you ever a fan of any of the horror and sci-fi movies that Rocky Horror is based on, like Richard O'Brien was when he wrote the play?

TC: No, not really, not so much. I was much more of a sort of theatre buff, I guess. But obviously I was familiar with some of the actors and actresses that he was referring to. In fact, when I first did the show, one of the games that the critics played was trying to decide what Frank N Furter was a combination of. The favorite one was Joan Crawford and Vincent Price. But I certainly had grown up with movie musicals, and that was a great source of inspiration. But it was such a new kind of thing to be doing. It was an extraordinary thing for Richard O'brien to pull off, and I think, you know, a sort of perfect capturing of what was in the air in the early seventies, which was fifties Rock-N-Roll, comic books, and pop art, and a new kind of reverence for old Hollywood. It was a very rich mixture.

YM: Tell me a bit about the rehearsals for the movie. I guess it was easier after two years of playing the role on the stage.

TC: Yes, we didn't really rehearse very much for the movie, because, all of us except for Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick had done the play, either in London or in Los Angeles and New York, and they had of course seen the show endlessly in Los-Angeles. So, most of the rehearsal was new choreography really.

BT: Tim, after the movie opened, did you ever get to personally see the cult following at a cinema? Did you show up at a theatre?

TC: I did, actually, yeah. When it first started to happen in New York, by a really absurd coincidence I was living right behind the Waverly Theatre where it first happened, in New York. So after it had been happening for a few months, I called the theatre and asked if I can sort of sneak in and see it. And they said "Who is this?" and I said "It's Tim Curry" and they said [imitating annoying voice] "Oh you're the third Tim Curry this week!".

[All laugh]

So, in the end I showed up after it had started, and they snuck me in, and I guess word got around and it was almost like a riot. So after that I only saw it once in LA, and they closed off the balcony so I could see it. And it was amazing!

BT: Well, I can tell you that the cult following has continued here in Israel over the past thirty or so years, ever since the seventies -

TC: Well you know the first person to actually talk back to the cast, happened in the theatre, and it was Angie Bowie, it was David Bowie's wife.

BT: Oh!

TC: When I was about to be killed [she] said, shouted "No, don't do it!".

[All laugh]

TC: So I guess, you know, it was always interactive.

BT: Tim, many of the fans testify that Rocky has had a great impact on their lives. How do you feel the role has affected you other than professionally?

TC: I think one of the things it has done to audiences, particularly early in the game, and actually still now, is that it's been very kind of liberating sexually for them, and I guess it was very liberating for me too because it was a huge step to make. And certainly my agents were worried that it would kind of ruin my career, and of course it hasn't. For me it was, I think, the most joyous time of my life. You know, I was still very young, it took me to Hollywood and to Broadway and into a kind of very peculiar immortality, and I'm very grateful for that.

Tim Curry - The interview was taped on Thursday, December 16th 2003 in the Galey Tzahal radio studios (Israeli Army Radio) in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, the day before Hanukah. The interviewers are Yaniv Morozovsky (YM), a lead anchor-man in the station and host of the Radio Special, and Boaz Trinker (BT), manager of this website and Drama student.