45 Facts About Terry Gilliam

Terence Vance Gilliam is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.

Terry Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including Time Bandits, Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Brothers Grimm, Tideland, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Terry Gilliam was born in Minnesota, but spent his high school and college years in Los Angeles.

Terry Gilliam started his career as an animator and strip cartoonist.

Terry Gilliam joined Monty Python as the animator of their works, but eventually became a full member and was given acting roles.

Terry Gilliam became a feature film director in the 1970s.

In 2009, Terry Gilliam received the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement.

Terry Gilliam was born on 22 November 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Beatrice and James Hall Gilliam.

Terry Gilliam's father was a travelling salesman for Folgers before becoming a carpenter.

Terry Gilliam attended Birmingham High School, where he was the president of his class and senior prom king, and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" having achieved straight A grades.

Terry Gilliam graduated from Occidental College in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science.

Terry Gilliam began his career as an animator and strip cartoonist.

Terry Gilliam was a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus from its outset, credited at first as an animator and later as a full member.

Terry Gilliam's cartoons linked the show's sketches together and defined the group's visual language in other media, such as LP and book covers and the title sequences of their films.

Terry Gilliam appeared in several sketches, though he rarely had main roles and did considerably less acting in the sketches.

Terry Gilliam designed the covers of most of the Monty Python albums, including Another Monty Python Record, The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, Monty Python Live at Drury Lane, and all of their later film soundtrack albums.

Terry Gilliam was responsible for photography and appeared as both Patsy and the Old Man from Scene 24, while Jones guided the actors' performances.

Gilliam served as art director on Monty Python's Life of Brian, Terry Jones having taken on sole directing duties.

Terry Gilliam says he used to think of his films in terms of trilogies, starting with Time Bandits.

In 2002, Terry Gilliam directed a series of television advertisements called "Secret Tournament".

In 2005, Terry Gilliam released The Brothers Grimm, followed later in the year by Tideland.

In 2006, Terry Gilliam made his debut as theatre director by directing the stage show Slava's Diabolo, created and staged by the Russian clown artist Slava Polunin.

In January 2007, Terry Gilliam announced that he had been working on a new project with his writing partner Charles McKeown.

Terry Gilliam made his opera debut at London's English National Opera in May 2011, directing The Damnation of Faust, by Hector Berlioz.

In July 2012, Terry Gilliam revealed plans for a film which would be shot in Bucharest, Romania.

Terry Gilliam denied that it would be Don Quixote but refused to give any further details.

In June 2014, Terry Gilliam followed up on his success with Faust with a new ENO production of another opera by Berlioz, the rarely performed Benvenuto Cellini.

Michael Palin reportedly entered into talks with Terry Gilliam about stepping in for Rochefort and playing Don Quixote.

However, Terry Gilliam revealed on the Canadian talk show The Hour on 17 December 2009, that Robert Duvall had been cast to play Quixote, before the film was postponed .

In January 2014, Terry Gilliam wrote on Facebook that "Dreams of Don Quixote have begun again".

On 4 June 2017, Terry Gilliam announced that the shooting of the film was complete.

Terry Gilliam has been involved off-and-on for years with an adaptation of The Defective Detective, which Gilliam wrote with Richard LaGravenese.

In June 2018, Terry Gilliam announced at the Brussels International Film Festival that he was working again on Mr Vertigo, and that it might be his next film, and that he had Ralph Fiennes attached to star in it.

On 16 December 2010, Variety reported that Terry Gilliam was to "godfather" a film called 1884, described as an animated steampunk parody of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, with several former Pythons lending their voices to the project; Terry Gilliam was to be credited as "creative advisor".

In October 2015, in a webchat hosted by The Guardian, Terry Gilliam announced that he was working on "a TV series based on Time Bandits" and "another based on a script by Richard LaGravanese and I wrote after Fisher King, called The Defective Detective".

Terry Gilliam is fascinated with the Baroque period because of the pronounced struggle between spirituality and rationality in that era.

Terry Gilliam is given to incongruous juxtapositions of beauty and ugliness or antique and modern.

Terry Gilliam's films have a distinctive look, not only in mise-en-scene but even more so in photography, often recognisable from just a short clip; to create a surreal atmosphere of psychological unrest and a world out of balance, he frequently uses unusual camera angles, particularly low-angle shots, high-angle shots, and Dutch angles.

Terry Gilliam has explained his preference for using wide-angle lenses in his films:.

Terry Gilliam has been married to British makeup artist Maggie Weston since 1973.

Terry Gilliam worked on Monty Python's Flying Circus, many of the Python films, and Gilliam's films up to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

Terry Gilliam held dual American and British citizenship for the next 38 years, until he renounced his American citizenship in January 2006.

Terry Gilliam has been instrumental in establishing the annual Umbria Film Festival, held in the nearby town of Montone.

In May 2018, Terry Gilliam suffered a perforated medullary artery that was characterized in the media as a stroke.

Terry Gilliam has been involved with a number of charitable and humanitarian causes.