‘Holy crap! That’s Malcolm McDowell!’ How the acting legend ended up on CBC’s ‘Son of a Critch’

Malcolm McDowell made fairly an entrance when the brand new CBC sitcom “Son of a Critch” premiered earlier this month.

His character “Pops” shares a room together with his 11-year-old grandson Mark (performed by Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). The outdated man will get up first, rinses the sleep out of his eyes and, as he does each morning, moons the child.

There was no butt double, confirms the 78-year-old on a Zoom name from his house in Los Angeles. “I’m afraid that's all me.”

McDowell, in fact, has been caught together with his pants down earlier than. Most notably in his breakthrough characteristic movie, Lindsay Anderson’s “If….” (1968) but additionally within the infamous Roman orgy epic “Caligula” (1979). He teamed with Anderson on two different movies, together with “O Fortunate Man!” (1973), and have become a mascara- sporting icon in director Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 characteristic “A Clockwork Orange.”

His performing profession has spanned over 50 years. Which ends up in the query “Son of a Critch” co-creator Mark Critch says he will get requested on a regular basis: how did you get Malcolm McDowell to be in your sitcom?

The easy reply is he reached out and requested. Critch, who has mocked the excessive and mighty on “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” for 18 seasons, wrote and printed “Son of a Critch” as a memoir in 2018. He then original a sequence out of it with buddy and showrunner Tim McAuliffe (“The Workplace,” “MacGruber”). A pilot script and a replica of the e book had been despatched to McDowell’s representatives.

McDowell learn each, known as his supervisor and stated, “Make it work.”

“I simply love the writing; it’s humorous and it’s heartfelt too and that’s a tough line to stroll,” stated McDowell, who had no prior consciousness of Critch or “22 Minutes.”

“He’s kind of a Canadian secret, just a little bit, however he received’t be after this,” declared the actor.

The sequence was an on the spot hit for CBC, opening earlier this month with 948,000 viewers. Shot completely in St. John’s, N.L., it's set within the mid-’80s as younger Mark Critch enters his marvel years as a center college misfit.

McDowell took an on the spot shine to his younger co-star and fellow Englishman Ainsworth. Requested if he has been mentoring the child, McDowell insists it has been the opposite means round.

“There are not any higher actors than youngsters,” he stated. “Plus he is aware of his traces and all people else’s traces too as a result of he’s obtained a superb reminiscence — in contrast to sure actors he’ll be working with.”

Critch, who performs his personal father on the sequence, says he was in awe of McDowell and Ainsworth. “One 12 and the opposite 78. Each friends, chatting concerning the Liverpool Soccer Membership between takes after which after they hit the set: magic.”

As McDowell identified, this isn’t the child’s “first rodeo.” Ainsworth starred in Netflix’s “The Haunting of Bly Manor” (2020) and might be heard reverse Tom Hanks in Disney’s upcoming animated remake of “Pinocchio.”

McDowell is a fairly good choose of actors, having performed on stage and display with among the greatest stars of the twentieth century, together with three “Sirs,” Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. He partied, onerous, with a number of different actors, together with Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers and Robert Mitchum.

“I had the identical agent as Peter Sellers, Michael Caine and Sean Connery,” begins one story set in swingin’ London.

They had been all invited to a birthday dinner. McDowell, who introduced actress-model Lynne Frederick as his date, discovered himself seated subsequent to Sellers.

For many of the meal, McDowell stated, Sellers would “sit there together with his head on the desk, not consuming, not reacting, simply out of it. You hoped that by the point the dessert got here round, he would too.”

Sellers did inform McDowell one factor: “You realize Malcolm, there are 40 beautiful ladies at this celebration, and one among them can be poison for me and I’ll stroll straight up and ask her to marry me.”

That particular person turned out to be Frederick, who turned Sellers’ widow in 1980.

The celebration was upended when a visitor on the different finish of the desk screamed that her diamond earring was lacking. “Abruptly,” stated McDowell, “Peter got here to and did 20 minutes as Clouseau (the inspector from the ‘Pink Panther’ motion pictures).

“I appeared over at Michael Caine and he was actually crying he was laughing so onerous. I assumed to myself, ‘Good God, this was most likely what it was like watching Charlie Chaplin.’”

As McDowell says, “an actor’s life is hills and valleys” and his has been no exception. He admits there have been occasions he and his friends had been “very naughty boys.”

He names names, together with one nice buddy within the early ’70s, “M*A*S*H” director Robert Altman.

They had been “doing plenty of dope and plenty of nice booze and going to nice eating places in London,” he says. “We simply laughed and laughed and the following minute the daybreak is arising and also you’ve obtained to search out your means house.”

McDowell says he doesn’t miss these days, however “I’m thrilled that I had the expertise. You may’t hold dwelling like that, finest simply to recollect the occasions.”

The actor has been married thrice. He has two grownup youngsters, together with director Charlie McDowell, 40, with second spouse Mary Steenburgen. McDowell’s daughter-in-law Lily Collins is the star of Emily in Paris. He and third spouse Kelley, an architectural designer, have been married for over 30 years and have three youngsters, ages 17, 14 and 12.

In recent times, McDowell has performed an getting older symphony conductor within the Amazon Prime Video sequence Mozart within the Jungle in addition to Rupert Murdoch within the 2019 film “Bombshell.”

“I’m extraordinarily lucky to be working at my age, you realize, I’m nonetheless being requested most likely to do extra now than even in my 20s.”

That isn't an idle boast; McDowell has a dozen initiatives listed on IMDb for 2022 and past. One is “Shifting On” a film he simply shot with two actresses he adores, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. He's the child in that solid with the “Grace and Frankie” stars each of their 80s.

McDowell and Fonda by no means acted collectively earlier than. Each made a big effect in 1968, he in “If….” and she or he in “Barbarella.”

Fifty-four years later, he’s making a splash in Canada. He was in Newfoundland taking course from Jay Baruchel on the set of “Son of a Critch.” Baruchel requested for another tackle a scene. McDowell gently pushed again with, “OK, Stanley” — a pointed reference to take-happy film legend Kubrick.

“Simply that title reminded us of the burden of the person,” stated Critch. “Jay and I began laughing like youngsters. ‘Holy crap! That’s Malcolm McDowell!’”

Correction — Jan. 24, 2022:This text was edited to right that “The Haunting of Bly Manor” was a sequence that appeared on Netflix, not HBO. As properly, Malcolm McDowell performs the function of Mark Critches’ grandfather, not uncle, within the sequence “Son of a Critch.”