“They work with Stanley and go through hells that nothing in their careers could have prepared them for, they think they must have been mad to get involved, they think that they’d die before they would ever work with him again, that fixated maniac; and when it’s all behind them and the profound fatigue of so much intensity has worn off, they’d do anything in the world to work for him again. For the rest of their professional lives they long to work with someone who cared the way Stanley did, someone they could learn from. They look for someone to respect the way they’d come to respect him, but they can never find anybody … I’ve heard this story so many times.” – Michael Herr, screenwriter of Full Metal Jacket

There’s something extra fascinating about having an actor as a guest on the show, as it’s very easy to infer that their choice of filmmaker is someone they would love to have worked with. Despite the stories of endless takes and production schedules that stretch into years, would Rhys Muldoon have still wanted to work with cinema’s acknowledged master? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Stanley Kubrick is the Hell Is For Hyphenates white whale (we have about seventy white whales, btw) and it was exciting to finally cover his groundbreaking, influential works. And only a month after we talked Hitchcock, it’s making 2016 a concentration of cinema’s great architects.

But before Rhys joins us, we look at a selection of the past month’s new releases, including the superpowered kids of Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, the 1930s Hollywood of Café Society and the strangely communicative aliens of Arrival.

If that doesn’t satisfy you, please enjoy this further reading:

• The goofy Full Metal Jacket audition tape made by actor Brian Atene as mentioned in this month’s episode can be viewed in its toe-curling glory here.
• The Kubrick Site is a non-profit and comprehensive archive devoted to the works of Stanley Kubrick.
• There were not many interviews with Kubrick, but this from 1987 conducted by Rolling Stone is worth a read.
• Few filmmakers have been as heavily-mythologised as Kubrick, and this fantastic article from Taste of Cinema examines the ten greatest in seductive detail.
• This must-read piece from the BFI and Sight and Sound looks at Stanley Kubrick as cinephile, and includes the only known list Kubrick ever made of his ten favourite films. The list was written back in 1963, and there’s some informed guesswork as to how it may have changed in the following decades. Feel free to speculate, as we have been, which filmmaker Stanley might have chosen to talk about had we ever enticed him to appear on Hyphenates.
• Sophie made the journey to the actual Overlook Hotel from The Shining, and says it’s one fo the coolest places she’s ever been to. Check out this article from Fact Mag about the upcoming horror-themed Overlook Film Festival.
• Finally, if you’ve never seen Lee’s TV show The Bazura Project, then congratulations on missing his questionable impressions of James Mason in Lolita, Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket.

Outro music: “We’ll Meet Again”, written by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles, and performed by Vera Lynn, from Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Rhys Muldoon talking Stanley Kubrick, can be subscribed to on iTunes, listened to on Stitcher Smart Radio, or downloaded/streamed directly from our website.

Rhys Muldoon is the very definition of a multi-hyphenate.

As an actor, he’s appeared in films such as Danny Deckchair (2003), The Crop (2004), The Extra (2005), Valentine’s Day (2007) and Bitter & Twisted (2008), in television shows such as Bastard Boys, House Husbands, Blackjack, Grass Roots and Play School, and on stage in Don’s Party, Amadeus, Romeo + Juliet, Stuff Happens, and Steven Soderbergh’s production of Tot Mom.

He has released two albums of children’s music, both of which were nominated for ARIA Awards: I’m Not Singing (2012) and Perfect is the Enemy of Good (2015). He also co-wrote the children’s book Jasper & Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle with then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Now, one line on the CV is about to eclipse all the others: Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host!

We are delighted Rhys will be joining us in this month’s episode, and very excited at his choice of filmmaker…

Stanley Kubrick!

Kubrick, the filmmaker still spoken of in hushed, reverent tones by cinephiles and filmmakers alike, hardly needs an introduction. Which is usually the thing you say before you introduce them anyway.

The obsessive and detailed Kubrick only made 13 films, but few would argue against the idea that his works changed cinema forever: Fear and Desire (1953), Killer’s Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

We’re just gonna leave that list there. Not much else needs to be said. Although we will be saying a lot more, so make sure you come back on the morning of October 31 as we chat Stanley Kubrick with Rhys Muldoon!