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Danson tackles lead role in TV version of `Gulliver's Travels'

The Washington Post

Don't bother pulling out a copy of Jonathan Swift's 1726 satirical novel until after the final credits roll on NBC's four-hour adaptation of "Gulliver's Travels." Trying to match Swift's bitter commentary with the mini-series might drive fastidious scholars to a mental asylum.

And -- literary scholars are hereby forewarned -- that's exactly what's been done to poor ship's surgeon Lemuel Gulliver. Why, of course this man must be mad, returning after an eight-year journey to his wife and a son he's never seen and ranting about adventures in lands where the people are 6 inches tall, or 60 feet tall; where intellectuals live on a floating island; or where horses are the masters and humans are detestable, ape-like creatures.

Whereas Swift conjured images of fantastic places and people, this $28 million production (Sunday and Monday nights) may be able to make them seem real. But "Gulliver's Travels" without Swift's overriding loathing of humankind.

Ted Danson had questions after he was cast as the wayfaring Gulliver. He had no doubts about the ability of the film-makers. However, the two-time Emmy winner worried about how an American, without affecting an accent, could pull off this English character.

"It was a month into shooting," Danson said, "before I said, `Yes, they were right to cast me, and this was the right thing for me to be doing.'"

The epic tale starts quickly and furiously, with Gulliver's troubled mind being tossed between past and present. In the opening minutes his thoughts switch often -- and seamlessly -- from England to Lilliput, where the warring little people press him into service against the Big Enders.

The exceptional quality of the 400 computer-assisted special effects are immediately obvious, but that's not the intent, said Duncan Kenworthy, an executive director with Robert Halmi Jr. and Brian Henson.

"What we didn't want to do is watch this and be constantly saying, `Wow, that's an amazing effect,'" Kenworthy said. "What we want instead is to use the special effect to make the impossible look ordinary."

Not even Jim Henson Productions can create an equal to the talents of Peter O'Toole, Mary Steenburgen, Sir John Gielgud, Omar Sharif, Alfre Woodard, Ned Beatty, Edward Woodward, James Fox and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Danson said, "It was a little scary to watch everyone act, especially Peter O'Toole; the guy is absolutely remarkable. The one comfort I had, watching him work and being intimidated, was realizing that when it came time for him to be on screen, he would be 6 inches tall. I felt that would give me the needed edge, about a 10-to-1 ratio."

Computers and actors blend with greatest effect during the first two hours, in the retelling of Gulliver's most familiar adventures.

Danson said, "They mixed typical blue screen -- where they take a picture of a real castle and later on take a picture of me and put the two together -- (with) models and tricks of perspective. ... They keep you off balance so you really end up accepting the images as real."

Blue-screen photography figured prominently in the filming of Gulliver's adventures in the next land, Brob-dingnag, where the now-tiny Gulliver is a freak-show attraction. He then is taken to the Royal Palace and presented to the Queen (Woodard) on a silver tray. He later is served up less fashionably, with a coating of honey, to three giant wasps.

Like most of Gulliver's adventures, the Brob-dingnag scenes were filmed in Lisbon, with Woodard talking to a doll representing Gulliver. Then, "two months later," Danson said, "I'm in London, Alfre's gone home and I'm sitting on a stage that's completely bare and painted blue -- everything's blue -- sitting on a little blue box, totally surrounded by blue, looking up in the air talking with Alfre. ... Definitely blue-screen acting is not my favorite. Everybody's gone home, and you're talking to the rafters."

In fact, the enormity of the project exacted a toll on Danson. "This was really the hardest thing I've ever done," he said. "There'd be days I'd almost weep, I'd be so exhausted." During a two-day break, Danson regained his perspective while assessing why he dreaded each day's filming.

"The first day back I was thrown down stairs, dragged from here to there, trampled on. Gulliver truly gets his rear end handed to him. It was a tough kind of journey to go on as an actor."

The on-screen Gulliver has it no better. Interspersed with the Everyman adventures are the Englishman's emotional struggles to have his story accepted as fact. Complicating matters are the efforts of Dr. Bates (Fox), who has taken over Gulliver's home and medical practice -- and has designs on his wife (Steenburgen), whom he employs as a housekeeper.

Gulliver's mental state in script writer Simon Moore's new plotline is particularly explored in the final two hours, when Gulliver's recollections of Laputa and the land of Houyhnhnms rely more on drama than flashy effects.

The second night also includes elements of a love story as Gulliver is granted a hearing on his sanity.

Mary's love for Lemuel Gulliver helps soften Swift's "almost misogynistic" views, Steenburgen said.

Most of the stories are largely unchanged from the novel, further dramatizing the timeless points Swift expressed: the futility of war, man's cruelty to man and the central conceit of mankind.