The marriage would seem likely. Take a landmark book, written by a drug-crazed journalist called Hunter S. Thompson, and place the film adaptation in the hands of auteur Terry Gilliam, irreverent animator and trailblazing filmmaker. The result: a bizarre, dream-like movie about what Thompson referred to as "The Foul Year of Our Lord, 1971." With the book, Thompson pushed the limits of the new strain of personal journalism, one which rejected the archaic traditions of objectivity and privileged the notion that if a journalist really wanted to report what was going on, they should become part of the story.

In fact, Gilliam wasn't the first filmmaker considered for the task. Alex Cox (Sid and Nancy) was signed on, but was bumped from the project, Gilliam says, after alienating Thompson, star Johnny Depp and virtually everyone else involved with the film. Gilliam, who'd been flirting with the idea of turning Fear and Loathing into a film for a decade, was called in.

Gilliam's amazing career first gained notoriety in the late '60s, when he served as animator for the hugely successful BBC series Monty Python's Flying Circus. His directorial debut (with Terry Jones) in 1975 was Monty Python and the Holy Grail; he went solo in '77 with Jabberwocky, his own bizarre interpretation of the Lewis Carroll poem. His other fantastical fare included Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Fisher King, but undoubtedly his greatest achievement has been Brazil, a intensely dark take on a future world that was part Orwell and part Kafka.

Gilliam spoke with the Mirror from Chicago, and apart from a manic giggle, he sounded quite sane.

Mirror: A lot of people associate your work, which is very hallucinatory, with drugs--I'm wondering how much of a role hallucinogens have played in the development of your style?

Terry Gilliam: None. I've never taken acid, never taken mescaline, mushrooms--none of the hallucinogens. When I was doing Python in the late '60s and early '70s, the underground press was always interviewing me and wanting to know what drugs I was on. I don't take drugs. But I do experience hallucinogenic moments and, I suppose, various drug states: paranoia, depression, speediness. There's enough bad chemicals running through my own body that I don't need any other stimuli. Pot I don't like because it actually makes me implode. The drugs that I like are Scotch and single malt whiskeys, fine wines. Coffee is a great drug. A good Italian espresso, the strong stuff, beats any amount of speed. Cocaine in the late '70s and early '80s was at its height: you fly in from London to L.A. for business meetings, and you've got the whole night ahead of you, there's a point where cocaine is very easy to get ahold of, and so--bing!--you pop a bit and it works, there's no doubt about it. You fly through that night. But I find the hangover from cocaine really horrid.

M: I always throw up the day after cocaine. I can't handle it either.

TG: It's just an ugly drug.

M: Hunter S. Thompson's work is so closely associated with drugs though. What drew you to this work then?

TG: When the book and Rolling Stone articles first came out in the early '70s, I totally identified with those characters, and this loss of what we thought was going to be a great change in the nation. We were deeper and deeper into the war, and Nixon was in charge--the world was just going to rat shit. You respond to it in one way or another, and they did in their own way. It's a really funny book, but what I've always loved is its combination of outrageous humour and the fact that it's a very reflective book about the hopes of the '60s.

M: When did you finally decide to do it?

TG: Ralph Steadman [who illustrated the book] is a friend of mine, and he's always thought that I should do it. But the various scripts that arrived were never very good, nor has the timing been right. It just so happened that a year ago the project I was working on collapsed. A script came to me, I was reminded how funny the book was, and Johnny [Depp] was already attached to the thing. I went out to L.A., and I thought, 'Why not? Let's have a go at it.' It was a chance to work at a low budget again. It ended up costing about $18.5 million. I've gotten so used to working with huge special effects that having to be fast on my feet again was very appealing.

M: Are you worried that since this book is so specific to a period, that people will find the whole concept too dated? There seems to be a new optimism in the air.

TG: That's why I think the time is just right for this film. I'm putting optimism along with the ability to think freely again. I didn't really care, in a sense. Everyone said this was an unfilmable book and it's a message that I think is appropriate now. At least it reminds us of a time when people really cared, when people were passionate and crazed, a time when there were things to be angry about. This is something we really need. When I was offered the script in the early '90s, I thought it would be a perfect way to inaugurate a new decade. But that might have been too soon. What we're getting from screenings of the thing is that people feel it really is about now.

M: What do you think of the comparisons between Nixon's presidency and Clinton's?

TG: I really don't put them together at all. The difference is Nixon was involved in some really heavy shit and Clinton is involved in very trivial stuff. I think this is part of the problem of where we are now: trivia seems to dominate our world view. The things we were dealing with then, they had real substance. I think it's a real problem if you're a young kid now, in college, and you think, 'Who are the real enemies? What are we fighting against?' because it's harder to put your finger on it. I do know that we're living in a Lewis Carroll time now, because it seems the tabloids get to dictate the subjects we get all up about. They're not important subjects.

M: How was collaborating with Hunter S. Thompson?

TG: I didn't really collaborate with Hunter. I met him to start the whole process; I showed him the finished script, which he gave me his comments on. Some I agreed with, some I didn't. Hunter is a lot of pressure. Because I want to get the book on film in the right way, and be true to it. On the other hand, Hunter is a strange force of nature. I just had only so much time to do this thing. I've also got to be able to feel that I'm not going to be too earnest about it--I don't want to be pedantic about it. It's like Hunter wrote a symphony, and I'm composing it. If I want to take the tempo up, or bring the piccolos up, that's what I've got to be able to do. But the feeling of not wanting to disappoint Hunter was overwhelming, even though he was only on the set for one day. There was quite the buildup, everyone was terrified because he was coming. Armies of people were preparing for the great moment [the scene where he would have a cameo]. And then he decided he didn't want to do it. Johnny, myself and the producer were like three sheep dogs trying to get him into the corral. And eventually he did it. There's a wonderful perverse side to Hunter, which I share with him, so I understand it. It both intrigues me and infuriates me.

M: A lot of people with singular visions who work within the studio system complain that it's confining and oppressive. You appear to be one of those directors who retains your independence while working within big-budget studio projects. Is the studio system ever a problem for you?

TG: I think I've built up enough momentum over the years. They know what they're getting into when they talk to me. Brazil was the turning point--taking on the studio and winning. Everyone now knows that I don't give a shit. I care about the film, I don't care about a career. So each film is the only film I'm ever going to make. And don't mess with me. Luckily there's enough people out there who seem to like what I do who are going along with this. And my films have been making money, which is the ultimate test. If Twelve Monkeys hadn't made so much money, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now. I keep being told I'm a cult filmmaker, but I'm a commercial filmmaker actually, my films make money. That's why I can do what I want.

M: So you're still living in London?

T.G.: There's a tremendous benefit to living 6,000 miles away from Hollywood--it keeps me from becoming too contaminated. I don't know how you can maintain any kind of world view or perspective on anything in Hollywood, it's such a small, self-absorbed community. Nothing's long term there, it's about the immediate brush fire around them. It's about quotidian events. Quotidian--I wanted to use that word at some point.

M: You've influenced a lot of people with your work. I wonder who you cite as your major influences?

TG: Animation, it was always Disney. Pinocchio, Snow White, I love those movies. They're the highest craftsmanship around, still. There was a period in college when it was Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Buñuel, those were the guys. From comedy, I think Buster Keaton more than anyone else.

M: I can see how all that shows up in your work, but I'm surprised about Disney. I would have pegged you as a Warner Brothers man, seeing as those animated shorts were more irreverent.

TG: They were. Chuck Jones and Tex Avery, for sure, but I never took them in quite the same way as Disney. They were sort of always around me. They weren't impressing me quite as much, but no doubt they were effecting me. I'd look at Pinocchio or Snow White and they would transport me into another world. So they were the ones I was really thinking about. But when I look at Tex Avery, I realize a lot of my comic timing comes from that stuff. I've got laser discs of Avery's work, and my son is just besotted with it. I sit down and watch them with him, and then I realize how much they've influenced me. I was at the Sundance Institute a few years ago and they were presenting a retrospect of the work of Stanley Donan [Singin' in the Rain, Damn Yankees, Charade]. So they showed all these wonderful clips of his dance sequences. And after, I said to him, 'Stanley, if I'd seen that before I finished The Fisher King, I would have dedicated the film to you.' Because I'd forgotten the effect and the influence those films had on me. They were things I'd taken for granted. I can talk about the influences that are conscious, but the other ones I keep stumbling upon--'Oh yeah, it was actually Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis who influenced me.'

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas opens May 22