THE MAN WHO SUED GOD Continued from page 1

Have you ever had a situation where you’ve had dealings with an insurance company for a claim? BILLY CONNOLLY: On many occasions but they’ve all been really small. There was a time when a bit of coal jumped out my fire onto the carpet, it only ever happened once in my life but they thought that was absolutely normal [laughter]. How did you feel playing a romantic lead at sixty? BILLY CONNOLLY: I was much younger when I did it [laughter]. I had no problem with it at all. I mean Judy’s a very attractive woman, it’s easy peasy - but, well…sixty’s weird. It affects everybody round you. People start saying “at your age” when you do things but you still feel 35. I still feel sexy, not as a sexy man, like Sean Connery, but I still feel sex-driven. Did you have a big sixtieth birthday party? BILLY CONNOLLY: Oh, monstrous. Squandered the children’s inheritance. [Laughter] I was doing some commercials for the National Lottery and in one of them I was at the Forth Bridge, you know the rail bridge; the big thing, Scotland’s Eiffel Tower and they had a big statue of me, granite-looking with a big spanner and it said Sir William Connolly and, of course, it was made of polystyrene but after we shot the commercial and I asked the guy, “What are you going to do with this thing?”, he said, “Would you like it?” and I said, “Yeah”, so he says, “Well, if you pay for the truck, it’s yours.” So I took it up to my house in Scotland and I had it in the garden for my party and one of the bagpipers who was there met a friend of mine and he says, “I was at Billy’s party, it was very enjoyable, but he’s a bit of a big-headed wretch, isn’t he? He’s got this massive statue of himself in his garden…” [Laughter]. So I’ve got it in a much more prominent position this year to irritate everybody. You’re obviously comfortable being in Australia, did you notice any differences working there? BILLY CONNOLLY: I think if you’re not comfortable in Australia, you’re not comfortable on the planet. It’s impossible to be uncomfortable in Australia. Apart from the climate being delightful, like America there’s an optimism about the people that I am completely hooked on. The film industry in Australia, which is older than the film industry in Hollywood actually, is in great shape. For some reason it keeps taking people by surprise but the success has taken a long time; there’s a wonderful line of films that came out from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s but it goes way, way back. And although they don’t really have big sound studios, most of the great stuff has been made without that. But people talk about Australian film as if they started making films last Wednesday. And Australians are very easy to work with, you don’t get that snobbish, “Well, normally I’m at the Royal Shakespeare…” kind of people, the actors there will do anything. Continued on page 3

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