Malcolm McDowell says sudden fame after 'A Clockwork Orange' frightened him

Malcolm McDowell, 82, said his instant rise after starring in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange was a difficult period. “I don’t think I handled it particularly well, actually,” he said. “It actually frightened me somewhat.” He added that the attention stopped him from enjoying the success.

“Everybody’s pulling on you. They don’t allow you really just to enjoy it,” he said, and he described being inundated with offers and pressured into roles for the money or the people involved. When he objected that “The script’s very bad,” he recalled being told, “Well, who cares?” McDowell said he still regrets turning down Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, Frenzy, despite calling the script “absolute rubbish.” He acknowledged being the “flavor of the month” and later shifted into character and supporting parts, appearing in projects including Star Trek Generations, Entourage, Mozart in the Jungle and as Dr.

Samuel Loomis in the 2007 remake of Halloween and its 2009 sequel.

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