How the movie "Highlander" was filmed (14 photos)

Stills from the filming and some interesting facts about the movie "Highlander".





Remember the iconic phrase "There can only be one"? This phrase is from the movie "Highlander", which told the story of the immortal Scottish warrior Connor MacLeod, played by Christopher Lambert. The audience was delighted with this film, which allowed them to start producing sequels, a TV series and even an animated series.

1. The script for the movie "Highlander" was a term paper by student Gregory Widen. At that time, his script was called "Shadow Clan". Weidman's teacher liked the script so much that he advised the student to send his work to his agent.



Gregory Weidman

Weidman took the advice of the teacher and sent the script to that very agent. After some time, Gregory received a call from the studio "Warner Brothers" and was informed that a film would be made based on his script. For this, by the way, Weidman received a huge fee of 200 thousand dollars.

2. According to Weidman himself, the plot was born in his head after watching the film "The Duellists", which told the story of a man who was able to finish the duel he started only many years later. In addition, he was greatly impressed by the armor he saw at an exhibition during his visit to Scotland.





3. Despite the fact that the script was accepted for work, it was still completely reworked. Two more screenwriters were hired specifically for this - Peter Bellwood and Larry Felposson. For example, according to the original plan, Connor MacLeod was supposed to live with his parents, not with his wife. According to the original script, he didn't have a wife at all. There was only a fiancée who renounced him when she found out that he was immortal.



Also, Ramirez was originally supposed to be Egyptian, but in the end he was made Spanish.

4. Russell Mulcahy, who had previously directed only a couple of unknown films, such as "Boar Cleaver" and "Derek and Clive Got a Pipe", was appointed director.



5. For the role of Connor MacLeod, the director considered such famous actors as Kurt Russell and Mickey Rourke. But one day he saw a photo of Christopher Lambert from the film "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" in a magazine. As it turned out, none of the crew knew this guy, but the director liked the actor's appearance so much that he decided to get more information about him and invite him to audition. Christopher Lambert showed himself excellently at the audition. The only problem was that he spoke poor English. But for the role, he really improved his language skills.



6. Lambert had to prepare for the role for 8 hours a day. Of these, he devoted 4 hours to English and dialect lessons, and another 4 hours were devoted to fencing. 7. Incidentally, Lambert was taught fencing by Bob Anderson, who staged lightsaber fights in the Star Wars trilogy and was also a stunt double for Darth Vader.



8. The role of the main villain Kurgan went to actor Clancy Brown, who was known for his villainous roles. In order to make the antagonist more evil, they put skin and skulls on him, making him a kind of metalhead. However, the screenwriter did not like this image, because he put a completely different idea into the antagonist. He was a man who had lost everything, and not just a psychopath who only screamed and giggled angrily.



Clancy Brown himself agreed with the scriptwriter and even added that the most vile people do not wear leather clothes. But the bosses decided otherwise.

9. A world-class actor, Sean Connery, was invited to play Ramirez. Thanks to his fame, Sean Connery received the highest fee. And this despite the fact that he was present on the set for only one week. And he recorded his voice not even in the studio, but at his villa in Spain, which is why the voice acting was not very high quality. Nevertheless, it was accepted for work.



Moreover, on the set he also told the actors and director how they should work correctly.

10. Initially, the filming of the opening scene of the movie was planned to be filmed during one of the NHL hockey games, but the filmmakers were refused, since the NHL did not want the filmmakers to focus on the violence during the game.



11. Initially, the final battle scene was going to be filmed at the Statue of Liberty, then it was decided to move the location of the battle to an amusement park. But this idea was also abandoned. In the end, the location was moved to the roof of the Silvercup studio building.



12. In real life, Christopher Lambert suffers from myopia, so he is constantly forced to wear glasses. Sometimes, during the filming of another scene, he forgot to take off his glasses, which is why the scene had to be re-shot. After all, we all know that the Scottish warriors of that time did not wear glasses, since they did not exist yet. Although, we can recall the series "Game of Thrones", where a cup from "Starbucks" got into it.

13. The filming of the film took place mainly in New York, but some scenes were filmed in Scotland, Wales and Great Britain.



For example, the underwater scenes were filmed in a lake in Scotland. Christopher Lambert recalled that the water there was simply icy. And if the first take went more or less normally, then after filming the third take, he firmly decided that he would not climb into that icy water anymore. Fortunately, no more takes were required.

14. During the sword fight scenes, we see spectacular sparks, which, of course, would not happen in real life. But how was this effect achieved? The sword blades were attached to car batteries, and when metal touched metal, those very sparks appeared.



15. During one of the filming days, extras rebelled against the producers, and even demonstratively burned an effigy of Margaret Thatcher. As it turned out, the whole thing was about the fact that the producers, in order to save money, decided to stop serving breakfast to the extras.



This infuriated not only the extras, but also the members of the film crew. As a result, the producers were threatened that Sean Connery would come to sort things out. And after that, the producers backed down, leaving everything as it was.

16. The American version of the film is 8 minutes shorter than the European one. Some scenes contained purely European humor, and the producers decided that Americans would not understand it anyway, so there was no point in including them in the film.

17. The film "Highlander" was a flop at the domestic box office, collecting only 5.9 million dollars with a budget of 16 million. In Europe, the film did much better. But overall, the film still became a cult classic, especially thanks to video media.

18. Thanks to the success of the film, we saw many sequels and spin-offs:

4 sequels to the film;

A series with Adrian Paul;

A French-Canadian animated series;

Anime.