PLUMMERTIME
The Scrooge actor spills on bar brawls with George C. Scott and playing a Klingon
H E’S played captains and kings, a kaiser and a Klingon — so it was just a matter of time before Christopher Plummer got around to playing Scrooge. In “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” out Wednesday, Plummer’s “Humbug!”muttering curmudgeon haunts Charles Dickens, inspiring one of his most beloved books. That Dickens is played here by Dan Stevens, the late Matthew Crawley of “Downton Abbey,” was a perk: “I’m a ‘Downton Abbey’ groupie,” Plummer tells The Post. “I wanted it to go on and on!” Before heading to Europe to reshoot Kevin Spacey’s scenes in “All the Money in the World,” the 87-yearold Oscar, Tony and Emmy winner — and author of the dishy 2008 memoir “In Spite of Myself,” dedicated to his wife, Elaine, and their late dogs — spoke about films and friends, past and present.
Your book name-checks one fabulous female co-star after another. Did they ever talk about sexual harassment? It wasn’t spoken of, but I’m sure it went on — it’s gone on since the ancient Greeks, but it was suppressed. No one came forward. Julie Andrews says that, based on your smooch in “The Sound of Music,” you’re a wonderful kisser. I think I’ll come forward and report her! [Laughter] Oh, Julie, God bless her! That’s very nice of her. She thought you mocked the movie — I believe you coined the phrases “Sound of Mucus” and “S&M” — because you were uneasy about making a musical.
The reason I did the movie was that I was planning to do “Cyrano de Bergerac” as a musical, and I wanted to get my oar in, as a kind of exercise . . . But [Capt. von Trapp] was a pretty uptight creature. I didn’t have fun playing him. I do love music. I studied piano quite hard when I was young and I play still, mostly by ear. I can give you snippets of some Rachmaninoff and the odd Beethoven, but I have to be quite drunk to have the confidence to do it. You must have had a lot of confidence in your West Village days. Jason Robards, George C. Scott and I had a little drinking club. We’d barhop. Scott always got in trouble at bars, because he had that sinister face of his. He was always inviting people to step outside and have a fight, but he always lost! It’s funny to think that William Shatner was once your understudy.
It was in “Henry V,” which got me star billing on Broadway. We did it in Stratford [Ontario, in 1956] and I had one night off with kidney stones and Bill went on for me. We all knew he’d become a star because he was totally original: He didn’t do any of my moves. If I sat, he stood . . . He was a star for one night!
Did he give you any tips for playing Gen. Chang in “Star Trek VI”?
He didn’t dare give me instructions! I was quite firm about that and quite firm about not wearing that ghastly makeup the Klingons wore. I wanted to look like [Israel’s eye-patched military leader] Moshe Dayan, and I succeeded. What’s the most fun you had making a movie?
The worse the movie, the more fun you have. If it’s a great script, you’re into it and motivated to make it even better. When it’s a bad script, you can have fun on the set and get nicely oiled at night. Were there any good roles that got away?
Oh God, I can’t complain! I’ve played all the great roles there are, sometimes twice, in England and on Broadway. I have no complaints at all . . . But I do miss my dogs.