Alcor Member Profile: Anthony Waller
From Cryonics Summer 2006
By Deborah Johnson
There aren’t too many people who would think of Beirut fondly for its golf courses and beaches. But then there aren’t too many people who grew up in the Middle East, went to boarding school in England, have received a personal phone call from Steven Spielberg, and call Monaco home.
Anthony overlooking his home town of Monaco.
Anthony Waller is—to say the least—an interesting and unconventional person. “I am definitely British for many generations back,” says Anthony in his proper British accent. “But 80 percent of my life I’ve lived outside of England, including Beirut; Kuwait; Germany; Venice Beach, California; Holland; and South Africa. For the past 17 years I’ve lived in Monaco.”
Anthony considers himself a citizen of the world, rather than just of England. After many years of living abroad, he feels he has a different view of the world than many people. “I feel like the whole world belongs to me, not just one country, and if everybody felt like that, we would all be richer.” Because he understands first-hand what it’s like to be the foreigner, he is extremely tolerant of all races and cultures. “The only thing I can’t tolerate, is intolerance itself.” He adds: “I dislike borders, yet I like differences.”
It is probably this unconventional upbringing, along with an early passion for filmmaking that eventually led him full speed into his career as a writer and director. Among Anthony’s credits are An American Werewolf in Paris starring Tom Everett Scott, The Guilty starring Bill Pullman, and Mute Witness with a guest appearance by Sir Alec Guinness. His current project is in production in Namibia and Hungary, starring Adrian Paul (of the Highlander series), Melissa George, and Nick Nolte.
At age 11, Anthony knew he wanted to make movies. His first effort was a 3-minute cartoon that took him 10 months to create. “I was tenacious, even then,” he comments. “Imagine an 11-year old boy working on something for 10 months.” His novice movie making continued in boarding school in England.
His first break came from a classmate’s father, renowned producer David Puttnam. At a school event, Lord Puttnam saw one of Anthony’s films and was captivated by its quality. “He came up to me and told me that he would be proud to have made that film. It wasn’t until later that I learned he was a famous producer, soon to become head of Columbia Pictures.”
Lord Puttnam was also chairman of the National Film School and suggested that Anthony attend—as the youngest student ever. During his studies there, he was picked by John Schlesinger to receive the Shakespeare Scholarship in 1981 for a further year of study at the Munich Film School in Germany. There he went on to work as a celebrated editor of TV movies and commercials.
Anthony shooting in Munich’s Arriflex studios, 1987.
But his heart was in directing and he was determined to make it happen. So, he saved up enough money to finance the production of two music videos for two unknown bands (who both subsequently received record contracts). Anthony exploded onto the scene and became one of the most sought-after directors of commercials in Germany.
In 1984, he began realizing his goal of working in feature films by financing, writing, producing and directing Mute Witness, about a young, mute make-up artist who witnesses the making of a “snuff” movie. “I met Sir Alec Guinness one evening in Hamburg, Germany, and somehow talked him into a brief cameo role in this film and he agreed to shoot the scene the next day before his return flight to the UK,” says Anthony remembering that pivotal moment. “I didn’t have a crew or even the script, and didn’t even live in Hamburg myself, but somehow overnight I pulled it together and we filmed with Sir Alec the next morning.”
Anthony and Sir Alec Guinness.
Although it took eight years before Anthony had saved up enough to resume shooting—subsequently setting the story in Russia—he says it paid off—and Sir Alec related the experience in his memoirs, Diary of a Retired Actor, after the movie was released. Interest from Hollywood immediately followed. “I didn’t believe it at first when I heard ‘Steven Spielberg is on the line.’ It’s what every first-time director in the world yearns to hear.”
Two years later, he was directing An American Werewolf in Paris. And three years after that The Guilty with Bill Pullman. Although he was a hot property at that point, Anthony wasn’t interested in settling for just anything that came along. “I had all kinds of offers to do slasher and gore films, but frankly I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed.”
So, the Hollywood roller-coaster ride cooled down. But his youthful tenacity continued to serve him well. The next five years he spent developing movies that are close to his heart, including a dramatization of the space race of the 60’s told from the Russian perspective. Anthony describes his current film Nine Miles Down as a spine-chilling journey into the psyche of a man struggling to escape his tortured past. He comments, “It pits science versus superstition, where, for a change, the popular yet irrational demonizing of science is shown to have tragic consequences.”
It’s really not much of a stretch to imagine that someone with Anthony’s expanded world-view would find the idea of cryonics instantly appealing. In 2002, an ex-girlfriend who was making a TV documentary on cryonics took him to the Alcor conference in Newport Beach. “Amongst others, I met and listened to Ray Kurzweil and Greg Fahy and was completely fascinated.” He started the membership process right away and completed it the following year. In his future movie projects he would like to find ways of incorporating his newfound interests in cryonics and related subjects into his movies in a more positive light than they are currently treated in mainstream cinema.
Anthony in front of the rocket that would carry Dennis Tito into the history books as the first space tourist. April 26th 2001, Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
“I see Alcor and cryonics as a last resort; a ‘life-boat’ that I hope I will never have to need.” Anthony comments, “I want to stay alive and healthy for as long as possible.” Like many cryonicists, he’s hoping that science and medicine will solve the challenges of aging while he’s still vital, making cryopreservation unnecessary.
Right now, he wants to live life to the fullest. “There really is no point in living if you’re only going to vegetate in front of the TV,” says Anthony. As he looks into the future, he hopes to see the further exploration of outer space as well as the oceans on Earth. “There’s so much possible in the future. I’d like to experience the interface between the human brain and computer technology,” he says. “Imagine if we could link telepathically with something like a bird and actually experience flight from the bird’s perspective.”
With Anthony’s creative drive, this may be his next movie idea and, with a little luck, a part of the future for all of us.