Malcolm McDowell Recalls Stanley Kubrick as "Too Brutal" to Bond With

Add one more actor to the very long “Stanley Kubrick was difficult” list.

In a recent interview in The Guardian to promote his new film The Big Ugly, actor Malcolm McDowell noted that his director on the seminal dystopian flick A Clockwork Orange was controlling and “too brutal” to bond with.

“The Kubrick movie was overbearing,” McDowell says, noting that making that difficult film also cast a huge shadow on his career. “Everything was measured against A Clockwork Orange, which gets a little old. But that’s what happens when you work with giants.”

It’s not surprising at this point: Just last year McDowell, who played the sadistic Alex DeLarge in the film adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novel, had written about his agonizing experiences on the Kubrick flick.

I spent nine months with Stanley before we started shooting, watching violent movies every day. They were the most horrendous films: concentration camps, bodies stacked up. He was thinking of using them in the treatment sequence, where Alex is given aversion therapy.

McDowell remembers getting spit on, having his corneas scratched during the lid-lock scene and even having his 2.5% contractual cut of the box office indirectly swindled by the director. And even after filming scenes that caused injuries, “Stanley was mainly concerned about when he would be able to get his next shot,” McDowell wrote.

Director Stanley Kubrick, circa 1971

Bettmann / Getty

Thankfully, the newer Guardian interview shows an actor at peace with his career, even if some of his later, post-Kubrick work doesn’t show off his talent. Says McDowell: “I sometimes think: ‘My God, I’ve just acted in a real piece of shit and I managed to produce a credible performance. I managed to turn that piece of shit into something watchable.’ That’s what’s worthy of an acting award.”

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