Interstellar's Bill Irwin Was Terrified He Almost Lost Christopher Nolan's Script
Christopher Nolan's 2014 science fiction film "Interstellar" is something of a mixed bag. Set in the near future, when the planet Earth is on the brink of extinction, a group of astronauts pilot a shuttle through a wormhole seeking a viable planet on which to perpetuate the human species. Nolan's vision of the cosmos was striking enough to influence many spacebound dramas thereafter, and black holes have looked different in movies ever since the film's release. Additionally, the technology, the spacesuits, and the spacecraft all look appropriately utilitarian. The tech looks appropriately useable in "Interstellar."
There is, however, a lot of highfalutin talk about the human need to remain connected to a larger, cosmic force, with one astronaut positing that love itself may be the God-like energy that scientifically binds everything together. Nolan — more often concerned with elaborate sci-fi screenwriting architecture than humanity — is the wrong kind of filmmaker to communicate that kind of passion. The film's finale, set in a strange interdimensional nexus, is at least as awkward as it is moving.
Perhaps ironically, the most human character in "Interstellar" is TARS, the boxy, metallic robot that assists the astronauts. Possessed of something like artificial intelligence, TARS (Bill Irwin) has been programmed to aid the astronauts, but also to provide them with intellectual stimulation in the form of jokes and even sarcasm. In an adorable scene late in the film, one robot is being repaired, and cracks that the repairman tripped its explosive self destruct. The repairman immediately commands the robot's sense of humor to be reduced by 40%.
AvaTARS
Irwin, who played TARS — the AvaTARS, if you will — bantered well with the film's cast, and brought a great deal of humanity to a robot that is essentially a stack of folding cubes. TARS has no physical human characteristics, resembling one of the less popular Rubik's puzzles than a traditional humanoid android. In a 2014 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Irwin revealed that Nolan kept him on set throughout the shooting of "Interstellar," an unusual practice indeed. On a more traditional set, TARS' dialogue would have been spoken off camera by a P.A. or assistant director, giving the on-camera actors something to respond to. Then, later, the voice actor would come in and dub their dialogue in a recording booth. For Irwin, he gave TARS' performance live, and then dubbed over his own voice later.
Irwin also had a scare when preparing for the role of TARS. Irwin would carry his script everywhere, reading it and memorizing his dialogue, trying to get the character right. This meant taking the script — a high-profile, top-secret script written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan — into public places. There was even a moment when a grocery store worker could very well have absconded with Irwin's copy. Irwin said, "I set my script down once at Ralphs grocery store in L.A., and I walked away from it for maybe all of three minutes. I've never been so scared in my life." Luckily, Irwin was able to run back and grab it before anyone else caught a glimpse.
Orphaned screenplays
Irwin is a veteran actor who made his film debut in 1980 in Robert Altman's "Popeye." He appeared in comedies like "Hot Shots!," "Scenes from a Mall," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" wherein he played Snout, the Tinker. He might be known to children of the 2000s as Mr. Noodle on "Elmo's World. Irwin has appeared on hundreds of TV episodes and dozens of movies besides. As such, he knew what was at stake with protecting the script for "Interstellar."
Had Irwin actually lost his script, it wouldn't have been the first notable act of screenplay abandonment. One might recall a story from 2012 wherein Neil Gaiman, writing for the sci-fi series "Doctor Who," left a high-profile script in the back of a taxi. "Doctor Who" was and is massively popular, and the secrets of the episode in question were highly sensitive. Luckily, the people who found it were kind enough to return it unread.
One might also remember the time in 2018 when a script for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" somehow found its way onto eBay, prior to the film's release. In 2019, actor John Boyega admitted that he left his copy of the script in a hotel room by mistake, and that one of the hotel's staff salvaged it. A friend of the staff member put it up for auction online. Disney found the script and bought it back. The seller got about $80 for it. As far as internet research was able to reveal, no legal action was taken against the eBay seller. Disney wasn't so upset, as the script was incomplete; the top-secret ending was not included, while alternate scenes were.
In the above cases, everything seems to have worked out.