Images of Peter: Finding Peter Godwin

Eyes Wide Shut, 1999

Peter Godwin: While all this was going on, you’re right to say that I did make a “foray” (appropriate word!) into acting. And yes, if you look carefully at the credits at the end of Stanley Kubrick’s last movie Eyes Wide Shut, you will see Peter Godwin there, credited as “Principal Dancer.” For some reason on IMDB.com the credit is changed to “Masked Party Principal.” So you have a clue to my role. To paraphrase the old stripper’s street-crier: I was naked and I did dance. However, I was masked, so you would have to know me pretty well to recognize me. The only other clue is that Tom Cruise got pretty close to me while I was dancing to “Strangers in the Night”. . .

As I said before, I’m a huge fan of cinema, including geniuses like Kubrick, of course. So the opportunity to work for months on one of his movies (not knowing it would be his last) and get well-paid for dancing naked with beautiful women every night in Highclere Castle, directed by Dr. Strangelove himself, that wasn’t a really difficult career choice. It was actually fascinating to watch him work with an actor like Cruise, so opposite in his energy to Kubrick, then Kubrick’s approach to filming, his meticulous lighting, hundreds of takes on video first, then on film. Memorable.

But that wasn’t how I got started in acting. I was introduced to Kevin Huvane who was at the William Morris Agency in New York at the time. I was considering them as touring agents and expressed an interest in acting. Kevin is now at CAA and handles Tom Cruise, among others. Kevin had only seen me in music videos. I told him I’d studied drama along with literature at university. But that was it. No acting CV at all. Still, he had a feeling that he could get me work, that I had “something.” But I would have to move to New York. For lots of reasons, mostly personal and concerning my mother who was extremely ill at the time, I decided this wasn’t the moment. I never regretted that, even though I have had the odd ghost-of-a-parallel-life feeling, watching Tom Cruise and others thank Kevin Huvane at the Oscars. . . sitting in my garret. . .

Another twist of fate found me at a dinner party with casting director Jeremy Zimmerman a couple of years later, who knew me in music and we had mutual friends. He asked if I’d ever thought of acting, said he had something I could read for that he thought I’d be good for. It was the lead in a Peter Yates (Bullit) movie. It was called Steal the Sky. So, I thought, opportunity has knocked twice, time to answer. So I went for it. I don’t think I had a hope in hell: the guy funding the movie (from HBO) took one look at me and it was in his eyes. . . “Peter who? This guy is gonna put bums on seats?” So it didn’t fly, but Jeremy encouraged me, thought it had gone well.

Click here to read more from Peter Godwin on. . .

Setting The Scene
Influences
Cult Following and Italo-Disco
Benitez, Bowie, and Electronic Music
French and Spanish Inspirations
Producing and Writing
The English and European Aesthetic
Working with Steve Winwood
Off The Map
Working with Others
Forays Into Acting
More On Acting

Introduction:

Cherchez la femme: “Images of Heaven”
Discovering Peter Godwin
Rediscovering Peter Godwin

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