Star Wars Was "Boring," Says Superman's Terence Stamp

Celebrated actor Terence Stamp, who played General Zod in the Richard Donner-directed Superman films, told Empire Magazine that he found George Lucas to be too obsessed with effects and not interested in his actors, and said that working on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was boring. "We didn't get on at all," Stamp said (via CBM) of director and Star Wars creator George Lucas. "I didn't rate him that much as a director, really. I didn't feel like he was a director of actors; he was more interested in stuff and effects. He didn't interest me and I wouldn't think I interested him." Of course, Lucas has long had that reputation, and so what could have motivated someone like Stamp, who's used to working with filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh, to give Star Wars a try to begin with? "I came all the way back from Australia to do it," the English actor explained. "I didn't want to but my agent leaned on me and I wanted to meet Natalie Portman because I'd seen her in The Professional. And I did meet her and she was absolutely enchanting. But on the day I'm supposed to do my scene with her, for which I'd traveled halfway around the world, I said, 'Where's Natalie?' And George says, 'That's Natalie,' and points to a bit of paper on the wall. It was just boring." Interestingly, that's more or less how Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is being shot right now, with Jaimie King recently revealing that she had completed shooting her scenes on a green screen, to be digitally inserted into the film with other actors later. Sin City's Robert Rodriguez, though, is a noted "actor's director" and so far, nobody's complaining.