Lacey Chabert and Stanley Kubrick - The Truth At Last
https://lebeauleblog.com/2013/11/09/what-the-hell-happened-to-lacey-chabert/
“Lacey Chabert was classically trained at Juilliard. She has worked with all of the great American directors; Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, and even Kubrick.”
The fact that Lacey Chabert once worked with the late Stanley Kubrick is not well known, and has, until now, been relegated to the “neither confirm nor deny” category. However, since the site lebeauleblog.com (in the article linked and quoted above) has let the cat out of the bag, perhaps a few details are in order.
During production of the 1998 Lost in Space feature film, Ms. Chabert accidently fell into a poorly secured wormhole and emerged at Shepperton Studios, Surrey, England in 1966, in the middle of the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Ms. Chabert’s surprised exclamation of “Where the heck am I?” was overheard by a passing Mr. Kubrick, who immediately recognized a unique quality and timbre in the young actress’ voice.
Suffice to say, Ms. Chabert provided the vocal characterizations for the HAL9000 computer, (affectionately known as “HAL”), in the film. The brilliance of this performance has been recognized for decades: “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that” and “Daisy, daisy,” are the stuff of cinematic legend. Alert viewers will have noticed however, that the role is credited to the actor Douglas Rain. There were two main reasons for this subterfuge:
1. Untrained ears assume HAL’s voice to be exclusively male.
2. MGM and Stanley Kubrick Productions were concerned that their use of a sixteen year old actress fourteen years prior to her birth on another continent might raise some eyebrows if it became public knowledge.
Neither of the above considerations dampened Mr. Kubrick’s enthusiasm for the relative newcomer, and it is known that he offered her at least two other parts. First, he wanted her to climb into the nearest wormhole, head back to 1961 and replace Sue Lyon in the title role in Lolita (1962). (Mr. Kubrick planned on sending a note to himself with Ms. Chabert to introduce her to him.) Second, he offered her Gillian Hills’ part as Sonietta, one of the two girls Alex (Malcolm McDowell) picks up in the music shop, in A Clockwork Orange (1971). (In this case no note would need to be sent – Mr. Kubrick would know who she was.)
Even though the part in Lolita provided an opportunity to work with James Mason, Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers, Ms. Chabert declined both roles as her participation would have been contrary to her beliefs. In particular, deliberate use of the wormhole violated her faith in Determinism and the second law of thermodynamics. Also, the part in A Clockwork Orange came with a “some nudity required” proviso, and violated a rather vaguely defined principle about film and sexuality.
Despite the lack of a subsequent collaboration, Mr. Kubrick and Ms. Chabert remained good friends, even after she went back to the future. In fact, just prior to the release of Lost in Space, Mr. Kubrick offered Ms. Chabert a small part written just for her in Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Again Ms. Chabert declined, but it seems that this time part of the reason was disappointment in the great director’s casting choices for the leads.
Thus, in addition to having a great voice, superior acting talent, a profound knowledge of speculative philosophy, deep understanding of classical and quantum physics and cinematic moral boundaries, Ms. Chabert also clearly has good taste.
Those still doubtful about her abilities to trod the boards should see the scenes in Thirst (2010), where her character Noelle, a premed student, not only performs brain surgery using a rock and screwdriver, but later saves her own life by making a saline IV drip with a pin for inflating a tire, some plastic tubing and a breast implant (not her own). Honestly, folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
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