LOS ANGELES — Adapting a cult classic into a television series is a tall order, but for Lisa Kudrow and her collaborators on “Time Bandits,” that challenge only meant more room for exploration.
“The series version of a movie means you get to expand and really delve into some more details about that world, and I was excited about that,” Kudrow said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It was very nice.”
“Time Bandits,” an Apple TV+ series streaming July 24, is based on the 1981 film of the same name, directed by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam and co-written by him and frequent collaborator Michael Palin. Both the film and the series follow a gang of time-traveling thieves, led by Kudrow as Penelope, who join forces with their newest recruit – an 11-year-old history buff named Kevin – as they travel through time on a quest to save the parents of the boy of evil forces.
While the series stays true to some key details and bits from the source material, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who created the series with Iain Morris, said it was important to them that the show didn’t feel like an imitation of the film.
“We had to be different and not just steal or go after what they had,” Clement said.
In the biggest difference from the original film, the bandits are not played by actors with dwarfism – a move that the duo says was quickly criticized by the dwarfism community when the casting was announced early in the show’s development. Abbie Purvis, the granddaughter of original film actor Jack Purvis, took to TikTok to condemn the casting choice, saying: “For a generation that is so big on talking about inclusivity and diversity and making sure everyone is heard, this whole casting choice seems just absurd.”
Waititi said he and his co-writers initially wrote the script with some of the main cast as people with dwarfism, but he doesn’t think the film “should be defined because of the presence of short people in it.”
They ended up going with different actors. Clement said the creative team struggled with the casting decision, referring to “two big sides of this debate”: “Whether it’s right to stereotype little people as magical beings, and then also whether, by not doing so, you’re eliminating jobs for smaller actors.”
Following the casting announcement, Clement said that they had “responded to those complaints and added roles for a number of smaller actors”, saying that if the series were renewed for a second season, these roles would be featured more prominently.
Waititi and Clement both appear on the series in recurring roles. The duo is known for their work on ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ – a film and FX series – and Waititi also directed and appeared in major films, including ‘Jojo Rabbit’ and two ‘Thor’ films.
The child actor holding the show together as Kevin is Kal-El Tuck, who had appeared in a handful of short films before being cast as the series’ lead character. He said he had not seen the original film because he did not want it to color his performance.
“I wanted to be my Kevin, no one else’s Kevin,” Tuck said. “I wanted to be my way of doing Kevin.”
Kudrow praised her young co-star, calling him a “giving actor” and noting that many of the jokes and much of the banter among the bandits was improvised. The ‘Friends’ alum also said she was initially nervous about working on the project.
“I was afraid, of course, like, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to think they’ve made a mistake,’ because you can’t do anything about it, you have that uncertainty, and ‘Do I have the right tone for this?’ and all that, but it was just fun,” Kudrow said, noting that she felt like she was “playing” while on set.
While a departure from the beloved film, “Time Bandits” brings the story to a new generation and strives to honor the humor and heart of the original.
“There’s always pressure to make something, but of course we don’t want to upset fans of the original film,” Clement said, before Waititi joked: “We’re scared of fans.”
