Things You Probably Didn't Know About Legendary Actor Tim Curry

The list of acting roles on Tim Curry's CV is certainly extensive, but you might be surprised to learn that his favorite role wasn't Wadsworth, Pennywise, or Dr. Frank-N-Furter - it was Long John Silver in Muppets Treasure Island. For a man who's played some of the most iconic characters in the past half-century, it's a surprising reveal, but that was, by far, his favorite role.

Looking back on his time filming the movie, he's described it, saying, "It was one of the happiest sets I've ever been on," and further explained, "There's a conspicuous lack of ego among the Muppets." Curry changed things around a bit during the filming process by singing all of his music live on set. Typically, films dub in recordings made in proper studios, but Curry's preference ended up passing on to the rest of the cast. Brian Henson changed the format so everyone could sing their songs on set.

Tim Curry's most famous film role was his first when he played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 1975's The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Watching the movie, it doesn't seem possible that anyone else could have played the character, but the whole thing happened by chance. Curry had heard of the film but hadn't thought to audition for a particular role. 

Curry had previously met Richard O'Brien while appearing in Hair, but he hadn't spoken to him about a particular role when he was casting Rocky Horror. One day, Curry went down to the gym, and at the same time, O'Brien was there looking for a muscular man who could sing. Curry asked him why he needed him to sing, "And he told me that the musical was going to be done, and I should talk to [director] Jim Sharman. He gave me the script, and I thought, 'Boy, this is going to be a smash.'"

The rest is history! Curry took the role, he made the transition from theater to film, and his breakout performance helped him gain more work in front of cameras. Had he not gone to the gym that day, who knows how his career might have turned out.

Tim Curry's first major role was in the theater, where he played Woof in the London production of Hair. Interestingly, he had to lie to get the part. He ran into one of the biggest issues anyone with a theater degree finds themselves dealing with after graduating: you need to have theater experience to get a job, but you need to get the job to build that experience. It's a perfect catch-22, and Curry was stuck right in the middle of it.

So, he did what many people do when they apply for a job; he lied. While he was being considered for the role, the production wanted to make sure he had experience and was a member of the Actors' Equity Association. He had neither, so he lied about it. They cast him in the role, but his ruse was eventually found out by the producers. At that point, they were so impressed with his performance; they decided to keep him in the role. They even sponsored his union membership, so it all worked out for him in the end.

Tim Curry's love of singing never went away, and he's released numerous albums over the years. His discography tackles numerous covers of popular songs and some originals, and he's charted multiple times for his work. His third album, Simplicity, was released in 1981, and it stood as his last album outside of a Greatest Hits collection in 1989. Still, there was one more album out there...

He recorded another album in 1976, but after he moved from Lou Adler's Ode Records, it sat unpublished for years. It was believed to have been lost during the 2008 Universal Studios fire, which wiped out a library of original pressings of songs from various artists. Fortunately, the lost LP was finally discovered, and another company managed to publish it as a digital download in 2010, 34 years after it was originally recorded. The album was appropriately titled "... from the vaults."

Tim Curry was never shy about getting in front of the camera, but for some time in the 1990s, he switched his focus from live-action roles to voice animated characters. Part of his interest came from the success Rocky Horror had in the United States, and with that, he wanted to play American characters. Unfortunately, like many people from the UK, mastering an American accent can be difficult, so he solved this through animation voice acting.

One of the reasons I started doing cartoons is I really wanted to play American characters, and they let me play American characters in cartoons. So it's been a way for me to work on my American accents.

During this time, he voiced numerous American characters, including Mr. Curry in Paddington Bear, Captain Hook in Peter Pan and the Pirates, Dermot D. McDermott in Fantastic Max, and while it wasn't an American accent, he brought Nigel Thornberry to life on The Wild Thornberrys.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a cult classic, but like most cult classics, it wasn't a huge success when it was first released. In the United Kingdom, the play was a hit, but when Curry and company brought it across the pond to Broadway, it was universally panned. American audiences didn't get it, and when it failed to achieve success, Tim Curry took it pretty hard.

He turned to a coping mechanism many have resorted to in similar situations: alcohol. "I just went home and took out a bottle of vodka for about a month, actually. I sent out for submarine sandwiches and drank and got hugely patched." Fortunately, he didn't remain in such a state and saw the experience as a teachable moment.

Curry recounted his experience with failure, saying, "I think once you've had a really serious failure, nothing can ever be as bad as that again. So you might as well just go for it because they can't make you feel any worse than they did before."