Few could forget Tim Curry’s career-making turn as the cross-dressing mad scientist Dr Frank-N-Furter in 1975’s barmy musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The actor has gone on to appear in a vast amount of other productions including Legend, Clue, It and The Shadow. We caught up with Curry to discuss his latest role as the scheming wizard Trymon in the new adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic. Words: Matt McAllister

How did you find The Colour of Magic shoot?

It was really intense but enormous fun…They shot all my stuff in three-and-a-half weeks – they’d booked me for four. When I looked at the script…well, you could bench-press the script, it’s huge. I thought, ‘They’re never going to shoot this in four weeks, this is insane.’ And then I discovered why – it’s because I didn’t draw breath for three-and-a-half weeks!

How has fantasy filmmaking progressed since you appeared in Legend over 20 years ago?

Well, of course the technology has taken such huge leaps. I mean, it’s so interesting that even in television now a director can say, “Oh, don’t worry about that, we can paint it out. And this section will be all CGI.” You think, ‘Wow!’ Because, certainly on Legend, it was nothing like that. It was all pretty much for real.

Do you prefer working with computer effects to the pre-CGI days?

I don’t think it makes that much difference really. But one of the things it does mean is that apparitions and extraordinary creatures are just wonderfully sophisticated now. I mean, I did Stephen King’s It. Which I think is really very good. We worked on it in on Vancouver and we finally got to the end where It, who has been this sort of insane clown from outer space, metamorphoses into the monster of your dreams. And they’d really sort of run out of money by then so they built this rather crappy spider and the bathos of it was really chilling! (laughs) It was so grimly disappointing! So the advances in technology are useful in that way.

They also seem to be able to give CGI creatures personalities now and really do extraordinary things. I’ve always been fascinated by it because I do cartoon voices, and I’ve watched cartoons change so much – so many of them now are computerised now, and some work better than others. I think you always need real artists, as in painters at the board…I used to go into places like Hanna-Barbera and they had rooms full of artists doing one cell at a time, and I used to stand there completely fascinated. I had a big collection of cells for a while. Then I discovered that Twiggy’s daughter Carly was going to Edinburgh University because she wants to be an animator, so I gave her my collection!

Were you a big Terry Pratchett fan before you were offered the part?

I wasn’t aware of Terry Pratchett until I was sent the script. But, although I’m told that he sells very well in America, I haven’t been aware of him at all.

So what were your first impressions?

I thought they were wonderfully funny. I think he’s a funny guy. He’s big on satire and he’s big on drawing conclusions from his worlds that you can take into this one. It’s all very dry. But also I think all of the footnotes and things in the novels are part of the fun…And this character, Tryman, is such a wonderfully double-dealing slimeball! (laughs) He’s definitely a man with an agenda. He’s like a bureaucrat – he’d be totally at home in Brussels!

Do you see any parallels between Tryman and anyone in real life?

Oh, I think he’s an absolutely [Dick] Cheney-like figure. He has Cheney’s vanity and [Donald] Rumsfeld’s vanity. It’s interesting how, when you look at the powers behind the Washington throne, how increasingly vain they’ve got with the growing mandate. And now to see Karl Rove, who really is Tryman I think, to see him bowing out…Well, they’re all scuttling away as the ship sinks!

What other contemporary echoes are in the story?

There are obvious class parallels – I don’t think that class has passed Terry by. And there’s the advances of technology and the good old fight between Good and Evil, which has probably been the basis of literature since the earliest time…But he also writes a rollicking good tale too.

How would you describe the relationship between Tryman and Rincewind?

You actually don’t see too much of us together – I wish there had been more. It’s quite clear that they loathe each other. And Tryman is never slow to demonstrate his powers when Rincewind is around. Actually, somebody took a paparazzo shot of David [Jason] on location at Guildhall – I think it was the Daily Mail. And they called him ‘Wincewind’! (laughs) So [Tryman thinks] of him as ‘Wincewind’ in a sense!

How easy was it to pretend to loathe David Jason?

It’s really hard! Because he’s such a great guy, I love him! He’s so kind, and he’s so generous and he’s so funny. I wish we had more to do together frankly. We have, like, two or three quite key scenes…I’m not at all surprised if he’s England’s most popular actor, because he should be.

What was it like working with Vadim Jean?

I think he genuinely loves the material and he’s enormously faithful to Terry. And the books are so incredibly detailed. I said to him, “I don’t know how you collapsed all this material into this clean narrative – it must have been really hard!”

He has extraordinary energy, which I guess you need to have as a director. Sean Astin, who is very fit, has been going for a three mile run at lunchtime – which is so American! I would just stare at him as he would come back sweating into make-up. One day he asked Vadim if he wanted to come and Vadim said, “Oh yeah, fine” – and then ran him into the ground! This is someone who’s been working 14-hour days for a month, and that’s just on the set. He’s very fit, very smart and he loves actors. He finds – and actors truly appreciate this – a way to tell you what he’s looking for without either giving you a line reading or banging on.

When were you last at Pinewood Studios before The Colour of Magic?

The last time was Muppet Treasure Island. But we shot Legend here – and famously burnt down the James Bond stage! (laughs)

How did that fire happen?

Look, I really don’t know. But it was the very last day that we were going to shoot there. We had polystyrene snow up to about 20 feet – so, you know, if you even dropped a match in there…It burnt down to the ground in about an hour! There was this poor guy who’d come over from somewhere like Holland or Belgium with the biggest crane in Europe. He’d shipped it over and it was on set. And he had to be physically restrained from running into this inferno and trying to drive it out!

Actually after this one burnt down I was in LA doing a film called Oscar, which was Sylvester Stallone’s attempt at comedy – that was a tad short-lived! We were filming on a backlot at Universal and that burnt down, taking our costume truck with it. I remember my mother, who’d known about Pinewood, saw it on the news in England. She called me up and she said, “Darling, I’ve just seen the backlot at Universal has burnt down and you were there.” And I said, “Yes…”. There was this long pause, and she said, “You weren’t smoking were you?”

The Colour of Magic will air on Sky One over Easter weekend 2008.