Tim Curry Tried (And Failed) To Slip This Suggestive Line Into His Favorite Movie

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Actor Tim Curry has had an illustrious career playing (mostly) bad guys: Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," sewer-dwelling, child-eating clown Pennywise in the 1990 "Stephen King's IT" mini-series, and dozens of cartoon villains (but, despite his other famous evil clown role, not the Joker).

Curry has written a new memoir, "Vagabond," about his life and recently sat down with The Guardian to discuss the book and himself. When discussing his favorite role, he picked 1996's "Muppet Treasure Island," a puppet-laden adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate adventure book. Curry is the central human star of the movie, playing Long John Silver, the ruthless one-legged pirate who pretends to be a friend to young hero Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop). 

"The great thing is that the Muppeteers themselves, if they have their puppet on their hand, they only talk to you as the character. I love that," Curry recalled fondly to The Guardian, adding he'd "love to work with the Muppets again."

Aside from Hawkins, Silver, and the doomed Billy Bones (Billy Connolly), "Muppet Treasure Island" recasts many of the major roles in "Treasure Island" with Muppets. Captain Smollett of the central ship Hispaniola is played by Kermit the Frog, while Kermit's girlfriend Miss Piggy plays Benjamina Gunn, revised from the male Ben Gunn in Stevenson's novel. 

Miss Piggy is Curry's favorite Muppet and, as he told The Guardian, he tried to ad-lib a dirty double entendre involving her character. Benjamina alludes to her and Long John sharing a romantic history, so Silver would've remarked to Jim: "Once you've had pork, you never go back!" The line suggests not just eating pork literally but eating in ... another sense of the word.

The line didn't make it into the movie, but Curry's performance as Silver remains a highlight.

"Treasure Island" is the archetypal pirate story, making Long John Silver the archetypal pirate. He's charming and can act like your friend, but he won't hesitate a second to stab you in the back. Charm-coated menace is something Curry has never lacked as an actor, and the film is largely faithful to Long John Silver as Stevenson first wrote the character. (Although the movie gives him a talking pet lobster, not a parrot.)

Curry makes as-always good use of his bug eyes and toothy grin. He uses a salty sailor variant of his own British accent and gets to show off his singing skills with the number "A Professional Pirate," when Long John tries to convince Jim to join his crew.

Compare Curry's central performance to Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge in "The Muppet Christmas Carol." There's an often-cited point (via SYFY) that Caine acts like there are no Muppets in his movie while Curry acts like he himself is a Muppet. Curry, though, disagreed with that assertion about his performance in his Guardian interview. He plays Long John Silver with conviction — a conviction of having fun. Take when Silver's crew mutinies and gives him a black spot marking him for death. He then shames them back into obeying him by pointing out they drew a spot on a torn Bible page. Curry gives a half-comic, half-dramatic sermon about how the gates of Hell await his (mostly Muppet) crew, bloviating each syllable.

Within the humor of his Long John Silver performance, you can see the scary side of Curry who played Pennywise, Darth Sidious in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," etc. Put him in a non-Muppet rendition of "Treasure Island," and he'd play Long John Silver just as well.