Christopher Lambert: in love with love

At 52, legendary actor Christopher Lambert has just one true love — to try and never be afraid to fail.

Having already spoken at length about finding fairytale happiness with that one special person and the purpose of saying those three little words, it took me by surprise to hear the answer with such conviction.

Naively expecting to hear tales of ghosts of girlfriends past, I cosied into my armchair at the Al Qasr's Koubba only to be left more starry-eyed than I'd ever imagined.

"Love knows no boundaries," he said.

"There are no physical borders, no racist borders and no religious borders. After that you might have to deal with it but in the beginning love is love. You either feel it or you don't and I think it's one thing that will never change."

Love is on his mind — his latest role is in Cartagena, a touching story of a man who falls deeply in love with a paraplegic woman in spite of all the difficulties the affair brings — so the gushing is potentially justified.

Surely the topic of Highlander, a role Lambert is most famous for, will fuel the more common testosterone-like conversation. Cue meaty, sword-slinging macho lines:

"Before anything else, Highlander is a movie about love."

Maybe not.

"Highlander is not far away from love. Before anything it's a romantic movie. It's a movie about the weight you have to carry by being immortal. By having to see the people before you die. After that it's an action, science fiction, whatever you want to call it movie."

Spanning three generations the Highlander film series starred Lambert as Connor Macleod and cemented his career in the industry.

"This movie has power," he said. "People from my generation showed it to their kids, who showed it to their kids. It's not because it's an action movie but because it's about love. Mortality is probably one of the favourite subjects of today's world. After all who wants to age? It was a movie before its time."

Big Bond role

Speaking of age, Lambert whisked us back 25 years to when Bond producer Barbara Broccoli considered him for a role as 007.

"I met Barbara in 1984 and she was questioning whether I could be Bond or the bad guy," Lambert said, adding that it never would have worked.

"Bond has to be British. Classy British at that," he said. "He is above the common mortal and he has to project that. You can't just pick a guy from the street. That just wouldn't be very Bond."

More than 25 years on, Lambert says he's still chasing his dream and will never give up, proving, case in point, his one true love.

"I would love to play the bad guy and I'm still hoping," he said.

"The villain gets all the toys, all the fun. The other guy has to do all the running and chasing, but the bad guy gets the good stuff.

"My only love in life is to try for everything. We should never be afraid of trying and never afraid of failing. As long as you try, you can fail, but you will eventually succeed."

The French actor was not willing to be drawn on his country's ban of the Islamic headscarf earlier this year, saying he wasn't in a position to comment but said his views are clear in this latest film.

"My own response is an idea and concept of tolerance," he said. "The character I play against in Cartagena is handicapped to such an extent it's as if she is from another world. This film is about tolerance for all, which I think makes my view clear when it comes to issues such as this.

"Cartagena is a film with no borders," he said. "As long as there is love and hearts then colour, religion and physical differences don't matter. A Cinderella story which seems so difficult to reach. But it's possible and I would like the world to strive for it.

"The power of the fairytale is immense," he added.

"They make you dream, escape. Love makes you believe."