Movies - TV
The Red Alert Line That Made Tim Curry A Meme Was A Moment Of Exhausted Inspiration
By SANDY SCHAEFER
In the very silly 2008 video game "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3," Tim Curry plays the Russian Soviet Colonel Anatoly Cherdenko and says the famous line, “I'm escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism: SPACE!" The line has turned the actor into a meme and is all the more memorable as Curry looks like he’s about to break character from laughing.
According to Vice’s oral history about the making of this meme, the actors on “Red Alert 3” worked 10 to 12 hours a day where they would wait around for their lines to come up on the teleprompter. When this line came up, assistant editor Joshua Basche said, “[Y]ou saw the smile pop onto [Curry’s] face when he read it through first. The first take was that take.”
Curry was tired after a long day, but the funny line nearly made him laugh, and that was the take the editors decided to put in the final game. Cinematic editor Stuart Allison recalled, “I think he was aware he was about to break but he finished the take because he knew it could be used [...] He knew he was doing it brilliantly.”