In Thelma, out now, Malcolm McDowell does not play one of the dazzling antiheroes which either made his name – in If…., O Lucky Man! and A Clockwork Orange – or helped propel his turn-of-the-century career revival, with Gangster No 1 and 2003’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.
Instead, he plays the pitiful owner of a suburban bric-a-brac shop who, to keep the lights on, has a side hustle in swindling vulnerable pensioners out of large sums by pretending to be a lawyer who needs paying now for errant grandchildren’s counsel.
This is what happens to Thelma (June Squibb), who vows to track down the perpetrators of the crime on Ben’s (Richard Roundtree) mobility scooter, leading to a tense and wheezy standoff, with high-stakes moments concerning a pop-up ad on a banking website.
To mark the release of this touching and funny heist thriller, McDowell is answering your questions about that film and his life and career to date. Maybe you’d like to quiz him about his collaborations with Lindsay Anderson (the subject of his 2007 documentary, Never Apologise) – or Stanley Kubrick. Maybe you’d be keen to know more about his work on Tank Girl, Voyage of the Damned, a couple of Halloween remakes, The Player or The Artist?
Not forgetting, of course, Mr Magoo, Cat People, erotic historical epic Caligula, which is being rereleased soon, and the time he received death threats after playing “the man who killed Captain Kirk” in 1994’s Star Trek Generations.
Then there’s his TV work: meaty serials in the 70s with the likes of Laurence Olivier, voiceover work on the late Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, and a seminal episode of South Park.
A supporter of Liverpool FC, McDowell is now 81 and also worked in his dad’s pub, as a coffee salesman and in a nut factory. We need your questions by 6pm BST on 22 July. Answers will be published in early August.
