With “Liz & Dick” now available on DVD, Russell kindly set about doing a bit of press for the production, and in chatting with Bullz-Eye, she discussed how working alongside Lohan caused her maternal instincts to kick in, revealed how serious funnyman Bill Murray can be, and detailed the good and the bad about her short-lived stint as a series regular on The WB’s “Glory Days.”

Bullz-Eye: I feel like I’m the only TV critic who didn’t get a chance to watch “Liz & Dick” when it originally aired, so I’m glad they sent me a copy of the DVD release in time to watch it before you and I talked.

Theresa Russell: And…? [Laughs.] What did you think?

BE: I enjoyed it well enough.

TR: It’s entertaining, I think.

BE: Well, I tend to enjoy bio-pics in general, if only just to see how a cast and crew decide to tackle the challenge of bringing someone’s life story to the screen.

TR: Yeah. I think Lindsay did a good job. And I didn’t realize that (Elizabeth Taylor’s) mom was so involved her life, either, until doing that, so I thought it was interesting. I actually met Liz. My former husband, Nicolas Roeg, did…I think it was for CBS, but it was Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth” with her. She was just a wonderful woman. I even tried on that damned diamond. [Laughs.] She goes, “Here, try it on!” I was, like, “Oh, my God…” We were standing around her pool. I put it on, and the thing was…I’m not a big jewelry person, so I thought it would look like a hunk of glass, but it didn’t. It was beautiful. I mean, looking into it was like looking into infinity. It was unbelievably beautiful. She was a trip, though. She was an amazing woman. She really was special. A special creature.

BE: Presumably you were at least somewhat aware of the way her relationship with Richard Burton was trumpeted to the heavens by the press. Do you have any particular recollections of that coverage?

TR: Well, I was still very, very young when most of it was going on. I remember my mom talking about it a little bit, though. And then when I got a little older, I asked her, “Why did she marry so much?” And she goes, “Well, you know, that’s what happened then: if you went to bed with a guy, you married them.”  I said, “Oh, okay! I guess you’ve got to get married lots of times, then!” [Laughs.] But she was great. One time, I was able to have a long conversation with her—she was actually with Larry Fortensky at the time—and she said that Richard was the love of her life. And that’s sad, really. Sad that they couldn’t figure that out and make it work between them.

BE: In playing Liz’s mother, did you do any research in regards to what Sara Taylor was really like?

TR: Well, I did what I could find. There wasn’t a heck of a lot on her, though. I basically looked online and found the things I could. She was an actress in her own right, for one thing. And she was born in Kansas, believe it or not. I always thought she was English. But, no, she moved to England and married an Englishman, and that’s why Elizabeth was born in England. And having had her own aspirations of being an actress, I guess that’s why she kind of guided Elizabeth into that area. Or it seems like it, anyway. She was a bit of a stage mom, but it doesn’t seem like there was any animosity between them. Not like poor Lindsay having a stage mom. It never seemed like that with Sara and Elizabeth.

BE: And on that note, how was it working with Ms. Lohan? “Liz & Dick” was obviously an attempt at a comeback for her.

TR: Yeah! Y’know what? She is so talented and so smart, and… [Hesitates.] It’s kind of scary and sad, really. She just did not have the tools. Nobody gave her the tools to figure this out. But I was playing her mom, and I also really am a mom, so maybe that’s why I felt even more maternal towards her…? I don’t know, but I was just, like, “Please…” I prayed for her to get it together. I want her to be my age. I want to see what she does in her life. But, y’know, there are times when it’s like being ruled by King Joffrey. [Laughs.] It’s, like, “C’mon, people, tell her what’s happening! Somebody around here be the grown-up!” I thought she did a good job. But sometimes it’s like she works off the drama. Nobody’s ever taught her otherwise, I guess.

BE: You were in your teens when you started acting. Was there every any point where you might’ve gone down a similar road yourself?

TR: Oh, no. [Laughs.] I’m just not that kind of girl. Not that kind of person. But also, I’m sure it makes a difference that I had my mother, and if my mother wasn’t around, then I had my grandmother. We were all very loved and very grounded in that way and knew how to behave. So I had a completely different upbringing. It was totally different.

BE: When you started your film career, it was with no small number of big names around you. Your first film, “The Last Tycoon,” where you co-starred with Robert DeNiro, Tony Curtis, and Robert Mitchum.

TR: Mitchum! I used to love old movies. When I came home from school, I was the oldest of five and had to look after my younger siblings, and…we only had four channels back then, y’know. [Laughs.] But one of them was…I think it was Channel 11 in those days, and it was just nothing but old movies, so that’s what I used to watch. So when (Elia) Kazan brought in DeNiro, I was, like, “Oh, hi,” and blah blah blah or whatever, and when DeNiro left the room, Kazan said, “Do you know who that is?” I said, “Oh, yeah, he’s great, I saw him in ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Taxi Driver.’” He said, “Well, you just seem very relaxed.” I said, “That’s ‘cause I’m more excited about working with Robert Mitchum!” I mean, he was amazing, Robert Mitchum. What a guy. He was such a man. He was great.

BE: You also worked with Bill Murray on “The Razor’s Edge,” before anyone knew he had it in him to be a dramatic actor.

TR: Yeah, that was his first dramatic part. That’s why he wanted to do it, I guess. I adore Bill. I wish I could work with him more. Because then I worked with him years later on “Wild Things.” I love him. I really do! Bill, if you’re out there, I want to work with you again! [Laughs.]

BE: How was he on the film? Did he seem at all out of his comfort zone, given that it was his first dramatic part?

TR: Well, no, but I think that’s because he’s the one who wanted to do it, y’know? That was one of the things he said to the studio. It was, like, “If you want me to do ‘Ghostbusters 2,’” or whatever it was, “then I want to do this!” It was a passion of his. In fact, after that movie, he ended up living in Paris for a long time, kind of going on odd treks of his own around the world. It seemed to change him somehow. But he’s a lovely man, and…well, y’know, it’s what they say, and it’s true, that most comedians really aren’t laughing and making jokes all the time. Not that he’s depressed, but he’s serious. He’s a serious guy. Comedy really is a serious business! But he was really serious about doing “The Razor’s Edge,” too. Not that we didn’t still have fun on the set, of course. But he’s a serious guy.

BE: Even putting “Liz & Dick” into the mix, you still really haven’t done a huge amount of TV work, but you tackled a regular series role in 2002 with “Glory Days” (also known as “Demontown”). It was short-lived, but how was the experience of the weekly-series grind? Did you enjoy it?

TR: Well, y’know, I did and I didn’t. (Executive producer) Kevin Williamson is a wonderful writer, but it got kind of… [Hesitates.] Something happened with the storyline, and he had to change it around because of the…well, I don’t want to go into the details, but, anyway, it was a little bit unfortunate, because it was supposed to have a different tone than it ended up having. So that was kind of a disappointment. For everyone, but mostly for him, I would think. But I loved Vancouver. We were up in Vancouver for the series, and I liked that. So, yeah I did enjoy it, but I also thought that…y’know, they just kill the crews on those things. I just thought, “Why do they do it?” And they’re, like, “Because this how we’ve always done it.” But why do you have to have a different director every week? This takes so much time to break them in and do this thing and that, and the hours just get longer and longer. Why not just have, like, three directors and rotate? I dunno, if I was gonna produce a TV series, I’d do it a lot differently than they do. [Laughs.] I mean, you talk to so many of these crews where these shows go on a long time, and people start getting sick, their marriages break up, they never see their kids…I just think that’s wrong. It’s so hard, y’know? Those kinds of hours are really just crazy hard. And it just seems like you don’t have to do it that way. I mean, I dunno, but it seems like a “save a dime to spend a dollar” situation to me. But other than that, I enjoyed it a lot. It was fun.

BE: Would you venture back to the small screen for a series again?

TR: Oh, sure. I’d love to be in an ensemble. That’d suit me very well. I wouldn’t want to be the lead. [Laughs.] But it’d be fun to be in an ensemble. I’d enjoy that very much.

BE: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

TR: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I loved the films I did with Nic Roeg, y’know? My husband. But those are kind of cultish, and…well, I believe they were ahead of their time. People do bother to go back and look at “Bad Timing” and “Insignificance” and some of the other ones that we did together. Before MTV, that kind of cutting…it was, like, “Oh, it’s so strange! I don’t understand!” Now everybody’s used to that kind of non-linear sort of cutting things. But he was a real…he was an amazing, one-of-a-kind trendsetter. He really was. Is. I mean, he’s still alive! [Laughs.]

BE: I know you’re not in it, but I’ve got a seven-year-old daughter, and I’m just about to introduce her to his film “The Witches.” Not quite, but just about.

TR: Well, yeah, and that’s a terrific film. It really is. But I remember him being in fights with Jim Henson, arguing about the amount of farting. [Laughs.] I was, like, “Are you really? You’re gonna cause a real big problem with the producers and make Jim Henson mad at you because you want the mice, the boys, to fart more?” I mean, come on! That’s the kind of passion you get into when you’re filming, though, I guess. I do, too. But arguing about farting? How many farts and how long they can be, and what’s acceptable and what isn’t…? Okay…

BE: Just to wrap up, in looking at your filmography, there’s one movie that seems very out of your usual wheelhouse: “A Young Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” How did you come to be a part of that production?

TR: Oh, I was living in London—I lived in London for almost 20 years—and it was just something that came up, that came down the pike. But I remember we were were shooting in Prague not very long after the Berlin Wall came down, and it was really amazing.

By the way, before we go, I’ve got two other films coming up. One’s called “Moving Mountains,” which is actually about mountain-top removal, and then there’s “A Winter Rose,” which is sort of an “A Star is Born” kind of thing.

BE: Do you have release dates on either them yet?

TR: No, no release dates yet. But they’re wrapped, so they’ll be out there someday! [Laughs.]

Bullz-Eye: “The Lieutenant” wasn’t the last time you worked with Gene Roddenberry, but was it the first time you crossed paths with him?

Gary Lockwood: Yes, it was. They talked to me about doing this show, and Roddenberry was sitting there with the head of television at MGM, and that’s how I met him.

BE: That was your first time headlining a series, although, you’d at least had a little experience as a recurring character on “Follow the Sun.”

GL: Yeah, well, I was the third banana on “Follow the Sun,” but I ended up doing the most shows. It’s hard to talk about yourself, but…it’s not that difficult. [Laughs.] What I mean to say is that the audience ended up liking my character, so I did most of the episodes of the show.

BE: There’s a quote attributed to you about how being the star of a series is like being a jet pilot: you’ve got a lot of experts working behind the scenes to get the jet running, and then the pilot sits in the cockpit and makes it work.

GL: Yeah, at which point you either live or die. [Laughs.] You get the spoils, but you also get the losses. The reason I kind of make a joke about jet pilots is that you go to work and you don’t do anything, you just sit there in a chair and drink coffee and look at girls. And then they call you, and go over and fly in front of a camera for awhile, and then you sit down for awhile while everyone else does all the work. So I kind of thought it was a little bit like being a jet pilot.

BE: When you think back to the character of Lt. Bill Rice, what’s the first thing that leaps to mind?

GL: Well, I just played him. I mean, I was just an actor. Bill Rice is not somebody I would ever be or… [Trails off.] They did ask me once if I wanted to go to Annapolis, but I was a bit too much of a rogue for that kind of life. One of my best friends did go to Annapolis, but he resigned after about a year. He didn’t like the regiment. So it takes a certain kind of guy. It was very difficult for me to consider. I wouldn’t say I wanted to be like Bill Rice, but acting is all making believe, so you create a character and you just go there and play him. I think I’ve done that with every job I’ve ever had.

BE: You obviously had some good writers to work with, led by Mr. Roddenberry, but what would you say that you yourself brought to the part that wasn’t there when you arrived?

GL: Well, here’s basically what I think, and I think this is not some epiphany on my part. [Laughs.] But I’ve worked with some very talented directors, as in (Elia) Kazan and (Stanley) Kubrick and people like that, and what one tries to do is…I think one should try to get as close to type as you can. And the reason I feel this way is that if you cast a certain look, a certain face, a certain body type, a certain person, and you put them in that part, most of the time when you’re making a film or a television show, you’re not really talking or something. You’re just doing reactions. And the reason that typecasting works, in my opinion, is that I did look like a Marine, I was athletic like a Marine…in fact, I beat a Marine through the obstacle course for a case of beer from our technical director once. [Laughs.] But the point that I’m trying to make is that when you put the camera on a person for a reaction, your story moves forward, not backward. And…I’m not a skinny guy. I look like I could’ve been a Marine. So if there’s anything I brought to it, it’s my physical stature. Also, I’ve got an aggressive attitude. I was a quarterback as a football player, so I had that kind of attitude, the guy who comes into the huddle and tells everybody to shut up and listen to what he has to tell them. [Laughs.]

BE: Roddenberry indicated at one point that “The Lieutenant” was, in a sense, another casualty of the Vietnam War, that viewers were already getting enough non-fiction war drama on their television sets. Did you get that impression as well?

GL: Well, no, actually. Here’s the thing that I’ve often thought: we did rather well considering that we were opposite Jackie Gleason, who was the lynchpin of television. Saturday night at 7:30 PM opposite Jackie Gleason, that’s a rough spot. [Laughs.] I kind of felt, based on how we were received, that had we been in another timeslot, we probably might’ve been in the top 10 or 15. So I can’t really say that the Vietnam War was credited to our going off the air, but maybe to some extent. There’s politics involved in life, and as an actor, I’m not a politician.

BE: You continued to work with Roddenberry after “The Lieutenant” went off the air. What are your recollections of playing Gary Mitchell on “Star Trek”?

GL: Well… [Starts to laugh.] It’s turned out to be very beneficial to me in the afterlife of that particular time, but I can say this: it was the most difficult, horrible job I ever had.

BE: Really?

GL: Well, because I had to put on these full contact lenses when I became the god-like figure, and I had these silver eyes. It was very, very difficult. I had to choreograph everything blind. I couldn’t see. Everybody thought I could see them, but I couldn’t. So I would have them put me on a mark, and then I did everything based on what I knew of where things were in the rehearsal, like a blind person. And then my eyes began to hurt, so…it was not a fun time, no. But, I mean, it turned out to be a real bonanza for me, in that I do autograph shows sometimes, and Frank Poole (from “2001: A Space Odyssey”) and Gary Mitchell are the ones I do the most autographs for.

BE: Speaking of Frank Poole, how was the experience of working with Kubrick? He was a formidable figure, to say the least.  

GL: Oh, yeah, he was the greatest. I’m one of these guys that got along well with him, but, I mean, everybody has their own story with him. But, yeah, he was the greatest to me.

BE: Did you have any interaction with Arthur C. Clarke at all?

GL: Yes, I did. Many times. He was a very nice man. As a matter of fact, Arthur Clarke and myself…I think we did the first live interview and conversation on the internet. I was on a stage at the University of Illinois, and Arthur was at his home in Sri Lanka, and it was on the birthday of the HAL 9000 computer. [Laughs.] It was fun. I remember Arthur’s image came on a screen, and it was, like, at 500 frames per second, which was like slow motion. But the sound, the audio, was real-time.

BE: You also got to work with Elvis on a couple of occasions: “Wild in the Country” and “It Happened at the World’s Fair.”

GL: Yeah, Elvis, I liked him. He was a real gentleman. I ended up being the quarterback on his flag football team. [Laughs.]

BE: What were your thoughts of him as an actor?

GL: Well, here’s the thing about famous musicians: their persona as a musician is so important, and they basically rely on that. “Wild in the Country” was supposed to be his breakout film, the first without any music, but after they screened it, everybody wanted music, so they went back and put in some numbers which weren’t there in the original version. So, y’know, what I’m trying to say is that Elvis Presley was a musician, a singer, and…I’m not saying he was a good actor, great, or bad actor, I’m just saying that he basically played himself all of the time.

BE: You mentioned Elia Kazan in passing a moment ago, with whom you worked on “Splendor in the Grass.”

GL: Oh, yeah, Kazan. Oh, God, he was a character. I got along with him reasonably well. He was a bit competitive toward the women all the time…and I chased a lot of girls in my heyday. [Laughs.]

BE: Did you learn anything from him as a director?

GL: [Long pause.] No, not particularly. I think Kazan’s greatest strength was that he had been an actor, and quite a good one, apparently. So he was very good at getting people into positions where he could get a performance out of them because he understood acting. Visually, he was certainly not a Kubrick guy. I mean, he had a very good crew, he had fine cameramen, but I do not believe that he… I mean, I don’t think he took hours to look for the great shot. I think he just understood the mechanics and the language of cinema and moved accordingly.

BE: How did you enjoy the experience of doing the heist film “They Came to Rob Las Vegas”?

GL: Oh, that was a lot of fun. A great job. I really enjoyed myself. I traveled all over. I was on that movie for months and months and months. Las Vegas, Paris, Italy, Spain…it was a great job.

BE: It was also an impressive cast.

GL: Yeah, it was a lot of fun to do. I remember running in the desert with Elke Sommer, and, my God, she was in great shape. Like a man. [Laughs.] But, yeah, it was a very nice job. And Antonio Isasi, the man who directed it, is still a friend of mine, and I saw him in Spain about two years ago. I went to Ibiza, where he lives, and visited him for about a week. He’s a wonderful man.

BE: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

GL: Well, as far as a character and as far as just an adventure of doing a job and having a lot of fun, I would say that probably “Firecreek,” the movie I made with Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart and Jack Elam, was the most delightful job I ever had. I mean, it was great, great fun. I did enjoy living in England during the making of “2001.” I really enjoyed London. But “Firecreek” was an adventure every day, because we had a poker game that lasted for 14 weeks, and I won a hell of a lot of money. [Laughs.] And Jack Elam was, without a doubt, the most fun actor I ever worked with.

BE: Lastly, do you have any particular recollections about the experience of working on “The Magic Sword”?

GL: I do, although they’re not particularly great ones. [Laughs.] But, I mean, at that time, I got paid a small amount of money, but it paid my rent for a couple of months, so I wasn’t ungrateful about getting the part! But it was a very difficult movie to make. I mean, we shot very fast and…I think we shot it in three or four weeks.

BE: I can believe that, given that Bert Gordon was at the helm. I’ve heard that he was, uh, expedient with his productions.

GL: Yeah, well, he wasn’t Kubrick. [Laughs.] I remember in “2001” it took two or three days to get one shot once. In Bert Gordon’s movie, we would’ve been halfway through the film!