Note to readers: Nerdvana presents an interview with J.R. Killigrew, the actor who plays David Bowie in a brief but key scene in the upcoming feature film based on the graphic novel “Watchmen.”
Part of the Watchmen mystique is that it’s set in a world of superheroes, but also in the world as we know it — gritty, real and obsessed with celebrity. The existence of costumed crimefighters has changed the outcome of some events (like the Vietnam War), but by and large the Earth they inhabit is rather depressingly like our own.
Familiar faces you can expect to see mingling with the likes of superhero Ozymandias and crew when Watchmen debuts March 6 include the Village People, Mick Jagger and David Bowie in a scene set in 1977 at Studio 54. The party has no counterpart in the graphic novel, but it’s used in the opening of the film to mesh the real world with the Watchmen world, according to director Zack Snyder in an interview late last year with MTV Movie News.
Bowie (whose name was once attached to rumors of a Watchmen opera) is played here by J.R. Killigrew, who sums up the experience with one word:
J.R. Killigrew, left, as David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust in WATCHMEN
“SURREAL.”
“I had got a call from my manager on a Tuesday afternoon saying I had to be at Warner Bros. in Burbank by 4 p.m. and I was up for the role of Ziggy Stardust in the new film Watchmen. So I rushed home, checked my e-mail and saw the breakdown (casting notice) and it didn’t say much except for ‘Ziggy Stardust — please use picture as reference.’ I then found some old pics of David Bowie as Ziggy and watched the music video for Life on Mars and decided to go all out and dress up in a similar fashion. I hustled over to the thrift store and pieced together the best version I could find, along with some blue eye paint and blush and drove over to Warner’s. It was funny when I pulled up to the gate and the security guard did a double take then laughed and said ‘Watchmen.’ After that I walked into the casting office and the assistants got a kick out of my dedication and so did the casting director. They called my manager two days later and I was off to Vancouver in early December 2007 for about five days.”
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At 04:35, in the lower left corner of the background, you can check out J.R. Killigrew as David Bowie. Recently I interviewed Killigrew about the “surreal” experience of working on Watchmen. The actor also played Link in an April Fool’s Day 2008 trailer for a fictitious movie based on The Legend of Zelda.
