Acting Legend Terence Stamp Laments Losing His ‘Hot Streak’

British acting legend Terence Stamp has lamented the downturn in his career, when his ‘hot streak’ ended somewhat abruptly at the end of the 1960s.

In a candid interview with The Guardian, Stamp says that he’s still none the wiser as to why he was leading the pack of young actors one minute, and the phone stopped ringing the next.

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“It’s a mystery to me. I was in my prime,” he says.

“When the 1960s ended, I just ended with it. I remember my agent telling me: ‘They are all looking for a youngTerence Stamp.’ And I thought: ‘I am young.’ I was 31, 32. I couldn’t believe it.

“It was tough to wake up in the morning, and the phone not ringing. I thought: this can’t be happening now, it’s only just started.

“The day-to-day thing was awful, and I couldn’t live with it. So I bought a round-the-world ticket and left.”

Stamp spent a long time in India, before he was then offered the small role of General Zod in Richard Donner’s first ‘Superman’ movie.

He received the offer in the form of a telegram, addressed to ‘Clarence Stamp’, and says that he was ‘on the plane the next evening’.

“During that time away from the screen, I had transmuted myself. I no longer saw myself as a leading man. What had happened inside of me enabled me to take the role, and not feel embarrassed or depressed about playing the villain. I just decided I was a character actor now and I can do anything.”

Stamp also talks about his relationship with Michael Caine, with whom he shared a flat when both actors were searching for their big break.

Though once friends, Stamp says they haven’t spoken for 40 years.

“We just went different ways. I can understand it: in many ways he was much more mature than me,” he says.

“Caine gave me all my early values, like making sure you were doing good stuff, waiting for the right things – then as soon as he got away he did exactly the opposite. Went from one movie to another.”

Stamp is currently appearing in a re-issue ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’, the iconic adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s novel which made him a star in 1967.

He added that he didn’t get on with director John Schlesinger while making the movie, however.

“He didn’t strike me as a guy who was particularly interested in film. Plus I wasn’t his first choice: he really wanted Jon Voight. He wasn’t exactly hostile, but he really didn’t help me. I was working on my own, really,” he says.

“I’ll say this for Schlesinger, when he got in the cutting room and realised he had all this extra footage, he used it. He understood it then. But I didn’t have a lot of time for him.”

A new version of the movie, starring Carey Mulligan and Tom Sturridge is also out today.

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image credits: PA/Rex Features