How Tim Curry Really Felt About The Rocky Horror Picture Show's Fans

Tim Curry has died. What a f***ing bummer. Curry was deeply beloved by several generations of loving, excitable weirdos, as his outsize acting style and multiple historic roles left him deeply entrenched in the pop consciousness. None may be better remembered than his performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Jim Sharman's 1975 musical "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a film I have personally seen many hundreds of times. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" has remained a weekly installment at the Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles, and it boasts regular late-night performances from local shadowcast Sins O' the Flesh. A shadowcast, for the newbs, is a cast of live actors who dress as the "Rocky Horror" characters and reenact the movie live, all while the film is projected on a screen behind them. I started seeing "Rocky" at the Nuart in high school, and continued to watch the movie as a Nuart employee for many years. 

The Nuart, however, wasn't the only theater to boast a "Rocky" shadowcast. Indeed, "Rocky" is a global phenomenon, with shadowcasts still operating in many cities. "Rocky" wasn't the first midnight movie (that honor belongs to Alejandro Jodorowsky's "El Topo"), but it remains one of the most important. "Rocky" is a standout moment in queer history. Not only is the movie wonderfully, openly, unabashedly queer, but the repeated midnight shows provided a safe place for queer kids, trans kids, and anyone with any kind of kink could let their freak flags fly. There have been "Rocky" conventions, "Rocky" concerts, "Rocky" anniversary shows, etc. 

Tim Curry was interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter back in 2025, and he expressed pride in the effect "Rocky Horror" has had on the world, and loves how it has been openly embraced by a queer audience, even to this day. 

Curry said that the LGBTQIA+ celebration of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show":

"...means a lot because I think the message of the film — Don't dream it, be it — is very important. One of the things that the movie does, I think, is give anyone permission to behave as badly as they really want, in whatever way and with whom. And I'm proud of that." 

The phrase "Don't dream it, be it" is a lyric from one of the film's closing musical numbers, and Curry sings it wistfully over and over. Dr. Frank-N-Furter is a wild bisexual hedonist who creates his own muscle-bound plaything in the form of Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood), seduces Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon), and kills and eats his former lover Eddie (Meat Loaf). On paper, Frank is technically the villain of the film, and many of his actions are monstrous. Curry's performance, however, leaves a positive impression of Frank in our minds. Frank is a cheerful, charismatic, joyously sexual being who cross-dresses and copulates with glee. 

So when Dr. Frank says, "Don't dream it, be it," it's a message of encouragement. Follow your sexuality, embrace your passions, be your true self. When Curry says that "Rocky Horror" encourages people to behave badly, he's not talking about the cannibalism, of course. He's talking about queer kids breaking out of a repressive society that tells them their queerness is somehow bad. Well, if the bigots and squares tell you that queerness is bad, then you have permission to behave as badly as you want. Come to the movies and make out with whoever you like in the back row. "Rocky Horror" is a liberating experience. 

As all fans of the movie can tell you, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" wasn't an instant hit when it was first released, and took a little time to build up its cult-driven head of steam. Read /Film's first-impression article from Nick Staniforth. Once it was popular, though, Tim Curry became instantly recognizable as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Curry recognized that playing such a striking character can often hurt an actor when they enter a casting director's office. It was especially notorious for Curry, as he had already played Frank-N-Furter on stage in "The Rocky Horror Show," the musical on which the film was based. Luckily, Frank was such a wild role, that it ended up helping Curry's career, not hurting it. 

Curry recalls having a meeting with director Stephen Frears about the 1975 BBC TV movie "Three Men in a Boat," and Frears mentioned Frank by name. "Three Men in a Boat" starred Curry as a bank clerk named Jerome, and he starred opposite Michael Palin from Monty Python and Stephen Moore from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In Curry's words:

"I don't think it helped casting at all. I was really quite worried that it was going to be difficult, but it wasn't. [... In my meeting with Stephen Frears] I said, 'What makes you think that I can play a Victorian bank clerk?' and he said, 'If you can play Frank-N-Furter, you can play anything.'"

And indeed, he did play anything. Curry's career has been enviably rich and diverse, with heavies, weirdos, murderers, pirates, vampires, and even talking steamer trunks on his resume. He will be missed. Rest in glitter, you glorious, mad genius.