Jemaine Clement has revealed how he and co-star Bret McKenzie tried to get David Bowie to play himself in an episode of the Flight of the Conchords TV series in 2007.
In the episode, entitled Bowie, the rock star visits Bret in various dream sequences and offers him advice. In one scene he advises him to wear an eyepatch. The show famously includes the duo’s musical tribute Bowie’s In Space, in which they reference various Bowie musical styles.
Writing on the New Zealand website The Spin Off Clement recalled how the duo had been Bowie obsessives long before they were famous and had recorded a version of the song in their early days as performers.
When it came to filming the HBO episode, however, they had to cast someone as Bowie. Initially they tried to get Bowie himself, but this was soon after he had appeared in Extras and they received a response that he did not want to do another comedy version of himself so quickly.
They then thought of Noel Fielding but he couldn't do it. They also tried John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch but he couldn’t do it either. They eventually filmed it with comedian Dan Antopolski as Bowie, shooting his scenes in London. But although they loved his performance it didn’t work, wrote Clement: “The episode was a minor disaster: having been filmed separately, the performances wouldn’t edit together smoothly. The green screen, rather than looking magical as we hoped, just looked cheap and fake.”
Eventually they reshot it with Clement himself playing David Bowie: “What a comedown. From the part being played by Bowie, to a friend who happened to be English and liked jumpsuits, to ol’ muggins. I was fitted for several tight and uncomfortable costumes. Whose dumb idea was it to fill the episode with all these personas?”
For Clement the legacy of David Bowie lives on: “I’m still asked to do my impression, as poor as it is, close to two decades after writing that song. My first thought is always, “Oh, you couldn’t get him to play himself either?” I’ve played two Bowie-inspired characters in cartoons in the past year. I’m still, in some way, tied to him, in the wake caused by his passing spacecraft. He died on my 42nd birthday, so I can’t escape it.”
Watch Bowie's In Space here.
