Terry Gilliam: How I was squished by cancel culture

Terry Gilliam mimes sewing his lips shut when I ask him what happened at the Old Vic. The London theatre cancelled his production of Into the Woods in November without explanation, but amid a staff uprising over comments Gilliam had made about the #MeToo movement and on transgender rights. This is the first time he has given an interview since his “cancellation”, and he initially pretends that he will keep shtoom, before he lets rip.

“I refer to them as Neo-Calvinists,” he says of the staff who lobbied the Old Vic bosses to scrap his show. “They are totally closed-minded. [To them] there is only one truth and one way of looking at the world. Well, ‘f*** you!’ is my answer to them.”

Gilliam’s wife, Maggie Weston, a make-up artist whom he married 49 years ago, keeps telling him to avoid controversy, but that’s not his nature. “I have a head so it goes above the parapet sometimes to see what’s up there” — he peers out, pretending he has been shot — “Ow! Ow! But we’re still standing.”

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What sparked the ire of Old Vic staff last year was Gilliam encouraging his Facebook followers to watch the comedian Dave Chappelle’s Netflix show, which had been criticised as transphobic. There was also his lampooning of identity politics by claiming that he was a black lesbian, and calling #MeToo a “witch-hunt”, including the claim that some of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged victims were “adults who made choices”.

Gilliam and Hausman say that they were never confronted by members of the Old Vic 12 — the organisation’s artistic development scheme, who were among those who raised concerns; instead all their conversations were with management. “I think it’s very sad,” Gilliam adds. “They allowed a small group of kids to dictate to them or to intimidate them. We know there’s a feeling of guilt — the [source of that] guilt just arrived back in the country.”