Tery Gilliam, American cartoonist, artist, python, filmmaker, former python, filmmaker

quite a few more times, opera buff, screenwriter, beard owner, former American, python once more.

And now, of course, a director again, this time of the Zero Theorem, his latest film

about a man called Cohen, played by Christoph Waltz, who is tasked with solving the Zero Theorem

by his boss, known as the management, and played by Matt Damon, with the help of his co-worker

Joby, David Thuelis, and a femme fatale called Melania Derry, who I've probably mispronounced

the name of.

Set in the future its utopian and dystopian, entirely off-beam and incredibly Gileam-esque.

If you love Tery, you'll love the film, and if you don't already love Tery, perhaps

this extended Empire podcast interview special will persuade you to love him, interviewing

the perennially unlucky movie maker, where myself, Ali Plum, and my colleague Phil DeSemlin.

Enjoy and see you this coming Friday for another regular issue of the Empire podcast.

Right.

Well, I guess we better get started.

My first question is, we actually spoke for during the huge Monty Python press bananza

that came out after you announced it, and it was a very enjoyable experience speaking

to all of you in one room.

And you said that you had been strong armed into becoming the naked organist that would

open the live show in July, sitting there naked, turning round, looking to the audience,

and now you open a film with a similarly featherless naked man at his desk, and I just

wanted if you saw the irony there.

I do now, I didn't then, but the fact is, I may not, in the end, be the nude organist.

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