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This story originally ran in 2020.
We are republishing it in honor ofVultures Sequels Week.
The fun of theBill & Tedmovies comes from juxtaposition.
I read that you started off as a stand-up.Yeah, back in high school.
I called myself Banjo Bill Sadler.
I enjoyed it, but when I discovered acting, that seemed far more satisfying.
Why was that?Well, I was better at it.
And I was reading the words of people much wiser and more experienced than me.
And an awful lot of that was comedy.
I spent a year and a half doingBiloxi Blueswith Matthew Broderick on Broadway.
It was all these despicable humans.
But I was just breaking in, so I wasnt going to turn my nose up at villain roles.
And to be honest, theyre wonderful.
If you cant be the hero, its great to be the villain.
Lets give this a shot.
You fought really hard for the role.
Was that unusual for you?I guess I did.
I had seenExcellent Adventureand thought it was terrific.
Hes Death, the most frightening image you’re free to imagine.
And in the unraveling he becomes more human and more likable.
I thought that was pretty wonderful, so I went for it.
Did Jan ever find out you were doing his voice?I dont think so.
He could read the phone book.
It was just funny: The accent was always on the wrong syllable and so on.
So I did the audition with the accent and then I didnt hear anything for several weeks.
I mean, hes Death; hes thousands of years old.
Finally, one day, I got a phone call from Karen Rea.
She said, Can you come in tomorrow and do the audition again?
He said, Come over to my apartment.
He made me look like a believable 80-year-old man.
I was old enough.
Age wasnt really going to be an issue anyway.
Because it wasnt all that funny on the page or not obviously funny, anyway.
I think that was the edge: that I found a way to make him silly.
What was Death like in the script?The game sequence was always there.
I didnt really bring anything to it except that silly Czechoslovakian character.
I made him more vulnerable.
I love that hes got such a wounded ego.Exactly.
He goes on this really wonderful journey.
That was all in the script; I just embodied it for them.
Once I got in this character, I couldnt turn him off.
He liked the idea, but they hadnt cast someone to play the smoker.
So he [played] the smoker.
He said, Bring the camera over here, and two minutes later it was on film.
It went like that: a really wonderful collaborative effort.
I think I may have seenThe Seventh Seal.
When I was a younger actor, I made it a point to watch the Bergman movies.
I felt that was part of my training.
That was their humor hes not playing chess; hes going to playBattleshipandTwisterandClue.
The other interesting thing about that sequence was that it was my first day of filming.
I remember everybody gathering around the set as we shot the game sequences.
Then, the next day, when they had seen the dailies, there was a noticeable relaxation.
Everybody went, Oh yeah, thats going to work.
I could finally relax.
Im curious: What were your impressions of Alex and Keanu?They were lovely to work with.
We didnt really socialize much.
They were bigger stars at the time, even beforeThe Matrix.
I looked up to them.
So there was the endless picking and wiping and rubbing and then we would break for lunch.
Everybody else would go and eat.
Was that lonely?Yeah.
I would love to have sat with the rest of the cast and the crew and eat.
You know what I mean?
You had to drink from a straw, and you had to be careful.
They had never seen me without the bald cap and the boots that made me six-foot-two.
Tell me about those boots.They were probably six or seven inches.
Very big but well designed.
There was a bit of a rounded bottom so you could walk.
You could roll through your steps.
I practiced with them and got pretty good at it.
It was harder the second time around, 30 years later.
I wasnt quite as athletic when the time came to do it again.
Oh, why am I forgetting this?
We would joke, talk about our families.
I had beenwriting songsand performing them in coffeehouses around Los Angeles.
I made a cassette tape with 12 of my songs on it, and I gave it to George.
We finished filming and we said good-bye, and everybody went off and did other things.
He said, Bill, you remember that cassette you gave me of your songs?
I barely remembered, but I said, Yeah, yeah.
He said, I wore it out.
Can you send me another one?
And then we lost him shortly thereafter.
That was a wonderful memory fromBogus Journey.
What was Carlin like off-camera?He wasnt on.
He had a performance mode.
If youre just sitting around in chairs waiting for your scene, hes relaxed.
Hes having as much fun doing this as you are.
We hit it off well, I thought.
I dont think he did a lot of filmwork, so it was all a little strange to him.
I think he enjoyed having someone to talk to.
Did that have any impact on your career?I guess the reviews helped.
I remember one compared me to the best of Peter Sellers, and I thought,Wow.
But as far as it affecting my career, I dont know that reviews actually do, you know?
I mean, they help.
It doesnt hurt for people to be saying, Oh my gosh, he was wonderful in that.
But careers are long and funny things.
I went fromBogus JourneytoThe Shawshank RedemptionandThe Green Mileand so on.
I didnt get pigeonholed playing Death over and over, which was good.
They never came to me and said, Do you want to doReaper Madness?
Its a serious film, but I feel like Im the comic relief in that.
Otherwise, Im not sure why that is.
Its a funny thing.
I never got typecast as a comedic actor.
Thirty years later, the original films have held up.
They still have a fan base; theyre getting a sequel.
Youve got to love somebody who stays as buoyant as that in the face of a calamity.
They just embody a hopefulness that we could use right now.
