Malcolm Stern: 0:46

Welcome to Say your Dragons podcast and a very special episode today. Of course, this is made in conjunction with online events. We're doing some wonderful work in putting out some great material for therapists. We've broadened this with the podcast and we're looking at creating podcasts that involve a whole range of exploration into spirituality, into psychological intelligence, into emotional intelligence.

Malcolm Stern: 1:15

And today I'm very pleased to introduce an interview that I did some time ago with the wonderful actor Terence Stamp. Terence was a Hollywood star, played General Zog in Superman, was in Far From the Madding Crowd, lots of amazing films and was a very powerful actor in the 1960s and 70s and actually went all the way through and played lots of characters, even up until fairly recently as well. So I'm very, very pleased to have interviewed Terence. He's an extremely interesting man. We've shared a lot of spiritual teachers along the way. He went from being very famous, cool, handsome man into a very powerful spiritual explorer and he wrote a book called the ocean falls into the drop, which was published by watkins publishing and uh. In that book he talks about a lot of his experiences with people like krishnamurti and a lot of powerful spiritual teachers.

Malcolm Stern: 2:19

Terence has been on a journey of discovery of himself for many, many decades and I'm really delighted to bring you this interview that we recorded way back a few years ago at St James's Piccadilly.

Malcolm Stern: 2:35

So it's a great pleasure to interview Terence tonight.

Malcolm Stern: 2:40

We met about nine months ago at the Churchill Hotel to have a chat and his life is absolutely extraordinary and I think tonight what's probably of interest to our audience as much as his absolutely stellar film career is his spiritual journey, which has been one that's taken him from the early 1970s I think, through a number of different teachers, many of whom we share as spiritual teachers.

Malcolm Stern: 3:06

So it's quite an interesting dialogue that we that we can have. So, terence, you went from this sort of extraordinary film career, where you were seen as one of the most handsome men ever, to grace the hollywood sort of stage and uh and, and you then followed quite a strong spiritual path and I know as we spoke outside he said well, his publisher had said to him or his agent said to him remember, you're not the wise man, but but actually I think that with experience and with the learnings that come, I think that we gather wisdom. So he's not setting himself up as a guru, but he's had some very interesting teachers and I wonder if you can tell me what led you into that direction.

Terence Stamp: 3:45

The thing that kind of changed my life, although I didn't really consider it changing until I met Krishnamurti when I was about 28, 29. But what?

Terence Stamp: 4:16

happened to me was that I, when I was about three, we were bombed out of Canal Road in Bow and there were no more houses left in Canal Road. So the family moved eastwards to Plasto to get more away from the docks and my mother took me to see my first ever movie, and it was a movie called Beau Geste with Gary Cooper, and the effect of him on me was so profound that I can't remember ever speaking to any. I didn't speak about it to anybody for years. But somewhere deep inside me as a little boy I wanted to be like a foreign legion, like him. And then as I got older, I thought I want to be like him. And then, as I got even older, I thought I want to be an actor, I want to be like Cooper. And the thing that moved me about Cooper was that he somehow communicated with me what he felt and made me feel it, and that was the thing that was kind of lasting for me.

Terence Stamp: 5:38

And when I got my first movie, which was Billy Budd, there was a direction in the script that I found unnerving was a direction in the script that I found unnerving. And just before I started the movie I was introduced to Anthony Newley, who was a great idol of mine because he was like working class and he'd become a great performer and a creative artist. And I asked him, I looked into his eyes and I said what to do and he thought for a long moment and then he said, if in doubt, do nothing. And what happened to me on Billy Bob was that I could never arrive at a solution to the last scene in the movie, which was where the character that I was playing is absolutely peaceful and he's about to be hanged. But he has this overwhelming sense of peace about him.

Terence Stamp: 6:52

And on the day it was the last day of location, I remember thinking, well, I haven't come up with anything, so I'm going to have to do, I'm going to have to take Nuala's advice, which is a very frightening thing for an actor. It sounds easy, but it's a very frightening thing not to do anything at all. And I just remember waiting there on the mark and I realized they were going to go and my mind was still kind of racing. And when they said, ok, stand by, everything went quiet and I remember feeling the sun on my face and a kind of slight breeze, and I remember the noose rubbing against my head and then a little song started to come into my head and initially I thought, no, no, I, I want to be empty-headed, I want to be empty-headed, I want to be empty-headed.

Terence Stamp: 7:50

And then I realized that the song was something my gran would sing to me just after I'd passed the 11 plus and I used to go to her house to do my homework because it was quiet, and she'd go out into her scullery and she'd make me a marmalade sandwich and she would sing this song Little Dolly Daydreams, pride of Idaho. Wouldn't you know, wouldn't you care? And I just went with that song and as the song kind of unfurled in my mind, and I just went with that song, and as the song kind of unfurled in my mind, I was filled with this wonderful sense. It was kind of peace, but it was kind of joyful as well.

Terence Stamp: 8:50

And I remember turning my head towards the crew and that was the take and I off printed that and when we came to the premiere I had never seen any of the rushes, because Houston have asked me not to go to see rushes. So when it came to that scene and everybody in the audience was in tears, I realized that something wonderful had happened to me and that, in truth, was my first sort of transcendental experience. And they happened afterwards, but they only ever happened between action and cut and it wasn't until I met.

Terence Stamp: 9:33

Krishnamurti in Rome that I began to realize that he actually had become one with something which I didn't understand, but I had a kind of an association of it with the feelings that I had had earlier in my life. Sorry, bang on so much.

Malcolm Stern: 10:03

No, I think it's really lovely. It just reminds me we hosted Eckhart Tolle at the Royal Festival Hall earlier this month and one of the things I realized as we sat and had tea with him before that and I realized that this man was awake, and I've experienced very few people who are awake. We've had some of the greatest speakers on this subject in the world here at Alternatives, and a lot of them have got fantastic charisma, they're full of ideas, they've had amazing experiences, but they're not awakened. I think what you're describing with Krishnamurti was that you met a man who was awake, and I think what you're describing with Krishnamurti was that you met a man who was awake, and I think what we were talking about before in the foyer was that in some ways, he took you under his wing as well, and that's quite a profound thing to be with a man like Krishnamurti, and I wonder if you can tell us what happened there.

Terence Stamp: 10:53

Well, Fellini had written a screenplay called the Voyage of Mastona and he'd never actually showed it to me and he made it clear to me that I was not old enough to play the part, but he obviously liked talking about it.

Terence Stamp: 11:13

It and what happened was that he, when we could no longer hang out together in other words, when the film was getting too close and he'd moved me into his house so I could stay with him and his wife he moved me back into the Hotel in Glatera and he gave me an interpreter, and that interpreter was an astrologer and she was actually Felina's astrologer and she was the girl who invited me to this lunch with Krishnamurti. That was all I knew and she was very insistent about me coming to this lunch. And finally I said what's so special about this guy? And she said, well, he's a sage. Now the only sage I knew went in my mum's Christmas turkey with onions, you know. So when I got to this lunch and I was sat opposite this kind of diminutive little guy, I was fascinated because I didn't really know what all the song and dance was about. There were stringers from Time and Newsweek and they were all asking him really kind of profound questions, you know.

Terence Stamp: 12:45

But, he didn't speak to me, but there was something about him. He seemed to come sort of lit from within somehow, and whenever he caught me sort of staring at him, he just lowered his eyes and I wrote in the book that I remember him having unusually long lashes for a man, you know.

Malcolm Stern: 13:10

So we didn't speak.

Terence Stamp: 13:12

But after the lunch his secretary it was a man called Alan Noday came up to me and said would you like to go for a walk with Krishnaji? And I said, yeah, that would be great. So met him outside the Vanda's house, we went walking in the suburbs of Rome and, from not having been able to say anything, I couldn't sort of stop chattering, you know. And after about 5 or 10 minutes he stopped me and he put his hand on my arm and he looked me in the face and he said look at that tree. I remember it. It was a little sapling and I thought it's a tree. I looked back at him he smiled.

Terence Stamp: 14:08

I smiled. We carried on walking. I carried on talking and then, after about another 10-15 minutes, he stopped me again and he said look at that cloud was a cloud, wasn't pink, I mean, you know, it was a cloud. I looked back at him. He smiled. I smiled. We carried on walking, however. He smiled, I smiled, we carried on walking.

Terence Stamp: 14:42

However, I was never the same after that and and and so I started kind of like going to his lectures and reading the books. Couldn't understand a word. The observer is the observed. When the eagle flies, it leaves no mark. However, it kept an eye on me, which I was unaware of.

Terence Stamp: 15:39

But occasionally I would get a call from the headmistress at the school here at Brockwood Park. Or, if I was in California, I'd get a call from the school in Ojai and I'd be invited to lunch and he would be there and I would be sat near him and we would have these short but very profound conversations. So it wasn't until many, many years later, when Krishnamurti had actually passed away. I believe that I heard that the screenplay written, the canvas of which was after the character is dead, but his mind doesn't realize it yet. You can imagine what Fellini would do with that, you know. Anyway, as it was obviously like an inspired work and I guess he started getting a bit nervous when he started getting the money together, he called this woman, vanda Scaravelli, who was a great friend of Krishnamurti, and said could you introduce?

Terence Stamp: 16:50

me to Krishnamurti next time he comes to Rome. She said, of course. So then she called him and said Krishnamurti's in Rome. Where shall I tell him? When shall I tell him to meet you and Fellini?

Malcolm Stern: 17:05

said what's he like?

Terence Stamp: 17:08

And Vanda said well, he loves film, and this is what I never really heard about until years later. He put together about 15 minutes of rushes of the film that he and I were shooting and when Krishnamurti arrived, by way of introduction he showed him these rushes and apparently, when the rushes finished, Krishnamurti said I'd like to meet that boy. Fellini was astonished, but obviously Krishnamurti saw something in me that I was unaware of then.

Terence Stamp: 17:53

And what I realized, what I come to realize many years later, was that when he asked me to look at the tree, he'd actually used his awareness, his presence to pause my own thought, and in that moment I was at one with his being, because when the movement of thought is stopped then there's just awareness. And with Krishnaji I think I'm safe to say that his mind was always still yet aware, and that's, I think, when my kind of search became known to me really, and it kind of coincided with the increase, in the moments always between action and cut, of my own kind of transcendental feelings that occasionally happen to me.

Malcolm Stern: 19:04

I think there's something very blessed about being with a master who is actually able to take you under their wing and I know in the Hindu tradition it's giving darshan and the master sees into your soul and he sees a beautiful young man and of course, you were physically a very beautiful young man but also what he would have been seeing would have been the, the potential, the place inside you. That's much of which is described in this lovely book that's just come out, and I'm really glad we're doing the book launch here with you around that. But actually you've been under the wing of some great beings and, by the way, vanda Scaravelli was one of the greatest yoga teachers of all times.

Terence Stamp: 19:43

Yeah, yeah, and she. Yeah, I mean my life changed, not because they told me to do anything, but they were kind of examples that I hadn't come across before. They were kind of examples that I hadn't come across before. So when Vanda offered to teach me yoga and teach me breathing, I just naturally became a vegetarian because I thought if she's doing it and he's doing it, it must be okay for me. You know, and so that way, I guess the way things are, I kind of started early, you know, and so that way, I guess, the way things are, I kind of started early, you know, changing my body from a, a Volkswagen, into a Tesla funnily enough, when I um, I had dinner with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once when she came here and she was eating meat and I thought, okay, I'd better start eating meat, because I got influenced in the other direction as well.

Malcolm Stern: 20:48

And there are a number of other spiritual teachers, many of whom, again, we shared quite an interesting parallel to our spiritual journeys, because one of the great teachers for me was Pirvel Ayat Khan, who was the son, of course, of Hazrat Ayat Khan, the Sufi leader, and I was amazed to see in your book that actually Hazrat Ayat Khan was also an influence on you and I wonder if you can say something about that.

Terence Stamp: 21:14

Yeah, it was the strangest thing. A guy called Herbert Kretzmer, who worked for the Daily Express in the 60s, came to interview me in 1962. And we just kind of stayed friends. Much later he became a multimillionaire because he wrote the lyrics of Les Mis.

Terence Stamp: 21:38

So I mean he's no longer in Fleet Street, but he took me to meet a great friend of his, called Frederick, who was in a singing act, called Nina and Frederick, and he took me to Frederick's apartment, or the apartments where Frederick lived with Nina, which on the embank, embankment. And as I was leaving and I was very impressed with Frederick, he was an extraordinary guy, just the way he moved was a kind of grace I had never seen before. But as I was leaving that chat, as I stood up, but as I was leaving that chat, as I stood up, I saw a whole shelf of different shades of yellow covers on biographies and they were all entitled the.

Terence Stamp: 22:31

Sufi Message and I said what's that? And he said, oh, it's like my dad's guru. And he pulled down a copy and as I recall it was volume six. It was called the Alchemy of Happiness. So that was my introduction and then later on, as I got to know him better, he became one of my great friends. He introduced me to his dad, who was called Baron Florores van Pallant, and Baron Flores had been with Hazrat as soon as he came to Paris from India and he slavishly collected all of everything that Hazrat said Flores had notated and he'd made them into those 13 volumes. But when he, I never thought of him as like teaching me. It wasn't like that.

Terence Stamp: 23:28

But I would go to the Hague to see him and when he would come to London he would see me and we would talk about Hazrat and he would tell me things that Hazrat said that he thought would be pertinent to my own development you know, so I did feel that I had a real amazing contact with Hazrat, and in the book not in this copy, unfortunately, because he gave me a picture of Hazrat quite late in his life that Hazrat didn't allow to be printed while he was still alive and the reason he didn't want it printed was that visible in the photograph is the Sufi sign, which is kind of a winged heart, and it was like illuminated in his forehead. And after the first printing I came upon this photograph so I put it in the second printing, but that was something that you know. I never met Hazrat, but I studied him for so long that I felt I knew him.

Malcolm Stern: 24:41

But actually what I'm really it's not envious, but it's like what I'm really touched by is that actually you've been in contact with many great people and actually you've been influenced by that and it feels like our souls get called towards what it is that we need to nourish us.

Malcolm Stern: 24:59

And I come back to what I was saying right at the beginning about that. Your agent said to you well, remember, you're not the wise man, you're this. But actually I think that the nature of being touched by all these wise men and in a minute I'd like to talk about your accident, if that's okay, because I think there's something about the nature of suffering that brings us to wisdom, and I remember, in the dialogue we had some months back, really realizing that you'd been transformed in the process of suffering as well as in the process of being around all these great people. But for now, let's have a quick look at some of the others who were around. So there's Osho, and I remember reading Michael Caine and saying my mate Terence has gone bonkers. He's wandering all around the place and thinking he's found God. But you were obviously drawn to some very potent beings and I wonder if you even recognized the call that came to you.

Terence Stamp: 26:04

Because I found it so difficult to understand Krishnamurti initially, but the fact was that his presence was so extraordinary that I didn't need to be reassured about him. I thought like he wouldn't be saying these things if it wasn't profound. It was just that my denseness stopped me understanding and around that time my success. I hit a kind of a lull. That would have been around 69 and there was no work happening at all and I remember thinking I'll get around the world ticket and I'll go off and I'll look, I'll start in India and maybe I can find somebody who can start me kind of lower down on the ladder, you know. And that's what I did. I went to India and and I met Bhagwan, as we called him, and I never felt that you don't have like personal contact with Bhagwan, or you didn't.

Terence Stamp: 27:24

Then you kind of went to his lectures, you know, and so I never had any personal contact with him, but I was very interested in what he called Tantra, which, as far as a man is concerned, is separating the orgasm from ejaculation, you know, which makes recovery quicker. So I was fascinated.

Malcolm Stern: 27:59

Essential material for you.

Terence Stamp: 28:01

I would say Came at a good time and the thing about Bhagwan was he was I mean, he was a public speaker.

Terence Stamp: 28:16

he was up there with Orson Welles he was an amazing speaker, so every morning and I was there for a year and I would check in every morning and listen to his talks. However, at the end of my sojourn with Bhagwan, I was back in Bombay just waiting for my flight to come home to make the Superman movies which had come up while I, the Superman movies as Evan, which had come up while I was in the ashram, and I got told about this other guy called Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and I went to this kind of a slum, the slum area of Bombay. Now a slum in Bombay is not like anything I'd ever come across before and Maharaj wasn't like anything I'd come across before. He was absolutely poverty stricken and his daughter had built him a house, a room halfway up her living room.

Terence Stamp: 29:33

So to see him you had to go up a ladder through a hole in the ceiling, which in fact was a hole in his floor, you know. And there was this guy who was chain smoking beedies, you know those little Indian fags, and he was just totally overwhelming. He was kind of more obviously powerful than Krishnaji. He wasn't kind of Krishnaji was essentially modest, but he was also than Krishnaji. He wasn't kind of Krishnaji was essentially modest, but he was also. He was careful he wasn't looking to become Elvis, you know. And I remember my first meeting with Maharaj. He stared at me and he said who are you? And I said oh, I'm Terence.

Malcolm Stern: 30:39

He said who's Terence?

Terence Stamp: 30:43

Well, I'm an actor, Well, who's an actor? And this went on for the whole of the first meeting. You know what I mean. So it didn't kind of I can't say wasted time.

Malcolm Stern: 30:58

I mean, I think it's fascinating that you've been in the presence of so many interesting and varied speakers, and obviously some who are in the process of becoming many interesting and varied speakers, and obviously some who are in the process of becoming awake, which I think is something that we have looked at at Alternatives, that once in a while, these people come along and you go. There's something so special in them. But I think it's also very important to look at the edges as well. So Bhagwan, or Osho as he's now known, is a very edgy teacher.

Malcolm Stern: 31:26

What I'd like to do is just to ask you a little bit, because I think I was very, very touched when we met about the accident you had.

Malcolm Stern: 31:33

So we're fast-forwarding quite a bit. What touched me is that actually you have been through, at the latest stage in your life, something that was unbelievably devastating, and I was touched with the dignity with which you told the story. And I'm also touched that, some eight months hence from when we last met, there's a sense that you've recovered, but you could have died, and my understanding in a lot of the work that I've been exploring, especially as a psychotherapist, is that it's that great suffering and being able to penetrate the meaning of the suffering that brings us to wisdom. And I wonder if you could share the story and I checked with Terence beforehand that it was okay because I think this is obviously quite painful to tell this story but I wonder if you could tell the story of the incident that happened for you on the film set a few years back. Yeah, but I wonder if you could tell the story of the incident that happened for you on the film set a few years back.

Terence Stamp: 32:33

Yeah, the last few years I guess, like the limey was the last like real leading part that I've played. So I've been doing films that you know I think are fun for me to do and they're not necessarily like leading roles. But I was asked to go and play this movie, playing the leader of the Cossacks, and the producer had asked my manager in LA, can Terrence ride? And because she'd asked me that, I said well, look, I've got to be really honest, say yeah, terence can ride, but he hasn't ridden since, far From the Madding Crowd. So I don't think I've forgotten. But I want you to be honest because I don't want to take the money and give them the wrong impression.

Terence Stamp: 33:30

You know, anyway, I flew out to Kiev, which was actually a war zone, although nobody told us, and there was like the square where the war started was at the back of the hotel where I was staying, and they got me a huge white horse which they didn't tell us they were stallions and they didn't tell us that they hadn't been trained for film. They were circus horses apparently. Anyway, the job was like 12 days, 10 days on horseback, 2 on foot, and on the first day I started on the horse and as soon as they saw me on the horse, it was fine. They knew I could do it. However, the horse had a habit when I brought him to a halt he would just lift his front legs up and I would have to bring him down. But it looked kind of like romantic. The rector loved it. So every time I was on the horse he'd rear up.

Terence Stamp: 34:46

I'd bring him down Now on my last day on horseback. In other words, I've only got two days left after this last day on the horse. I rode up this little hill. I see the actress playing my son.

Terence Stamp: 35:03

the horse reared up. I brought him down and then he re reared up. I brought him down and then he reared right up and I slid off the back of the horse and I did a very good fall. It was on grass. I fell on my shoulders but as I looked up I realized that the horse had lost his balance.

Terence Stamp: 35:28

And you know, I've always had a kind of faint belief that, like one's last thoughts are somehow pertinent. And I remember thinking, if the tabloids get a hold of this, they're going to say a middle-aged actor killed by horse's arse, you know. And then this horse, who weighed half a ton, crashed on me. But he crashed not on my head, and as my body moved this way to accommodate this amazing weight, he rolled off that way. So in truth he broke my pelvis in six places, tore my bladder, broke my ribs and tore my rotator cuff.

Terence Stamp: 36:36

But in the East End, where I was come from, if you get knocked down you get up, otherwise you get kicked to death. So as I went to get up, the actor who was playing my son just dived on me and said, like don't move. And he held me there to. The ambulance came from Kiev because we were in the surrounding countryside and they drove me to St Paul's Hospital, kiev, because I hadn't been in hospital for like 30 years. I thought, oh, it's fine, must be good, you know. And the surgeon and nobody spoke English. So they got a woman from the UN to come and translate.

Terence Stamp: 37:23

And the surgeon said you're all going to get, you're going to get better, but the bladder is torn and it's bleeding and, frankly, the producers want to fly you to Rome, to fly you to London for London surgeons. But the quicker we can sew up the bladder, the more chance it's got of healing completely, because the bladder is really delicate. And I just remember looking him in the eye and I said can you do this? And he said yeah, and I said do it. So they didn't realize that I'd been a vegetarian for 40 years or so. God knows how much dope they gave me. But when I got back to England they finally, after 10 days, they rented one of those Learjet ambulance planes for one person, right, and I flew into North Holt like with like the Queen, and there was the English ambulance drivers and they, they said how are you feeling, Toe?

Terence Stamp: 38:48

I said I haven't felt this good since the 60s. And they said and it's all legal, right? I said yeah, it's all legal. They said you all right with the siren? I said, yeah, why? They said, well, it's a bit of a block on the circular, you know, if we can have the siren on, we can have sat nav, we can get you there quick. Now, what they really wanted, they wanted me to know that they were like Lewis Hamilton, you know, and they got me from Northolt to the Princess Grace in 12 minutes, which was like the most thrilling part of the accident, you know. And they got me from Northolt to the Princess Grace in 12 minutes, which was like the most thrilling part of the accident, you know.

Terence Stamp: 39:36

However, what I was talking to my mate here about was that I've had to go to extreme lengths to fix my bladder, extreme lengths to fix my bladder, and this last fortnight I've had 10 days sleeping straight through for seven hours, like, in other words, not having to get up to piss at all, which was actually I was more healthy now than I was before. And, in reply to your question, one of the things has right again in I Hans says was like is a reminder of inquiry. So my main tool of recovery is my sleep. I've always been able to recover. If I could sleep properly I could recover. I have kind of recovery dreams. It just kind of helps me get better and so I really took this seriously.

Terence Stamp: 40:52

About this bladder thing, now I don't drink liquid after three in the afternoon, although I do drink two of these, sometimes three, during the day. But I am healthier. But the fact is this body knows it's been here going on 80 years, so I can't say I'm young. It knows how long I've been here, but I often give up my seat on the bus to guys younger than me.