Jason Flemyng made a "friend for life" in Sir Sean Connery when the pair filmed ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ together.
The 50-year-old actor appeared with the James Bond legend in the 2003 adaptation of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s comic book series which unexpectedly performed poorly at the box office and was panned by many critics, despite bringing together great literary characters such as Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer, The Invisible Man and Captain Nemo.
Flemyng – who portrayed Dr. Henry Jekyll and his monstrous alter ego Edward Hyde – admits the movie suffered due to Connery’s poor working relationship with the director Stephen Norrington but he personally had a great time making the movie and became great pals with the now 86-year-old screen icon.
Speaking to the Metro newspaper, Flemyng said: "Like anything, it has its day. Why wasn’t it successful at the time? It think it was surrounded by controversy. Sean Connery and the director famously didn’t get on. Connery didn’t really want to promote it. But for me, I made a friend for life and I’ve got some great Sean Connery stories and I’ve got some that are too rude to repeat. Any day you go on set and find Sean Connery there is a success. It’s like going diving and seeing a dolphin."
The ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ star is also grateful to the movie for making him the go-to guy for prosthetic work as his portrayal of Mr. Hyde earned him roles in movies such as ‘X-Men: First Class’ and ‘Clash of the Titans’.
Talking about his work in rubber and makeup, he said: "My first one was probably ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’. After that the studios would look at a film, look at the cost of it and go ‘that’s a bloody nightmare, who will do that with a smile on their face?’
"Then they go ‘Flemyng!’ Actually, they don’t even know I’m called Flemyng. They go ‘that block who was in Lock, Stock!’
"And for about four or five years I was so flattered they’d asked, I was doing ‘X-Men’, ‘Clash of the Titans’… I was never out of full-body prosthetic make-up."
Joking about the physical and mental toll that type of acting takes on a performer, he added: "There’s a group of actors who have prosthetic depression – it’s a thing. We go to Prosthetics Anonymous meetings and talk about it."
Jason Flemyng opens up about Sean Connery friendship
