THINKING PINK HOW ACTOR GEOFFREY RUSH GOT INSIDE THE HEAD OF PETER SELLERS FOR HBO BIOPIC.

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

In HBO's ``The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,'' viewers will witness the comic actor, as portrayed by Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, destroy his son's toys in a rampage, rage that his wife and infant must leave the set of one of his films and later pummel his actress bride (Oscar winner Charlize Theron), cruelly humiliate director Blake Edwards at the premiere of one of their cinematic successes and decline to visit his mother on her deathbed.

Nonetheless, executive producer Freddy DeMann says, ``When we showed the movie to his children, they said, 'We expected worse.' ''

In the '60s, Sellers was once the highest-paid actor working - ``He was like a Beatle,'' notes ``Life and Death'' director Stephen Hopkins - and in addition to his wildly successful ``Pink Panther'' movies, he was nominated for two Oscars, for ``Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'' and ``Being There,'' in which he played the idiot tabula rasa Chauncey Gardiner, with whom he felt a bizarre spiritual kinship.

He famously announced, ``I do not know who or what I am,'' and also once declared, ``To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience.'' Rush's performance - aided by expert prosthetics and a battery of no less than 38 wigs that detained the actor in the makeup trailer for hours each day of the production - decidedly disproves the latter comment. It's a turn that seems destined to be discussed for years to come.

But Sellers' comment begs an intriguing aesthetic question: How do you explain a man who had no insight into himself?

``We guys don't want to figure ourselves out,'' suggests Hopkins, who also served as an executive producer and directed episodes of the first season of ``24.'' ``His film work revealed him to himself, but that only served to make him unhappy. I've worked with great actors who don't feel alive if they're not playing a role - when they come back to themselves, they're disappointed; people expect them to be as brilliant as the characters they portray, but they don't feel that way. The more they imbibe the drug of fame, the more they start to loathe themselves. I don't think power or wealth or fame ever made anyone a better person.

``No one wants to believe their icons live in such pain,'' Hopkins adds. ``I'm glad I'm not him.''

So, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, working from a biography by Roger Lewis and armed with the existence of hours of Sellers' home movies, crafted their script as a theoretical film Sellers made about himself. And, aping films in which Sellers played multiple characters (``Dr. Strangelove,'' for one, as well as the ``Pink Panther'' movies), Rush likewise plays a variety of roles - not only Sellers and the myriad characters he essayed, but in fantasy sequences, those closest to him - his first wife, his parents, his collaborators.

Naturally, Rush - no stranger to playing real-life individuals, winning an Oscar for portraying troubled classical pianist David Helfgott in ``Shine'' and receiving another Oscar nomination for his performance as the Marquis de Sade in ``Quills'' - was initially intimidated by the avalanche of challenges the role offered and turned down the film.

``I felt I was an actor more than an endomorph,'' Rush explains. ``I'm not of the right temperament to fulfill all the requirements of his capability - I'm not hairy enough, I'm too tall, I'm too Australian.

``But when I first read the script, it was absolutely amazing, a wholly original document that kicked the biographic genre to another level. They came back to me a year later, when I was filming 'Pirates of the Caribbean' at the time. It was a lot of fun, and I was enjoying working with Johnny Depp, but it was not rocket science. I thought, I'm being offered a chance to play one of the great character actors of all time. So I got confrontational with myself, which is an interesting place to be with myself.''

Hopkins knew Rush was his man. ``I've seen all his films and I'm convinced he's taken these roles Peter Sellers would be playing if he were alive now - David Helfgott, the Marquis de Sade, Philip Henslow in 'Shakespeare in Love,' parts that seem unbelievable or intimidating. ... He's an actor with all his gifts working together well at the same time.''

Rush prepared to play Sellers during the large periods of downtime he had while working on ``Pirates.''

``There were 10 years of 'Goon Shows' (the legendary BBC radio series that was a precursor to ``Monty Python's Flying Circus''), four or five major biographies and hours and hours of home-movie footage to take in,'' Rush says. ``It was an overwhelming banquet - you didn't know what course to eat first.''

``The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'' comes at a time when the biopic has evolved from hagiography - think of such chestnuts as ``The Story of Louis Pasteur'' or ``The Spirit of St. Louis'' - to films that knock their subjects off their pedestals - think ``Raging Bull,'' ``Cobb'' or ``Kinsey.''

``If biopics try to ennoble too much, they're not interesting,'' Hopkins says. ``But if they're character assassination, audiences won't buy that, either. Subjects have to be relatable to us and tell us something about the human condition. 'Peter Sellers' told me about what drives artists.''

Rush adds, ``I didn't want to stamp him a villain even though his behavior could be quite villainous. It was the inner story of the male mind - the father, the son and the husband - that became the focal point of it for me.

``It's interesting, isn't it?'' Rush reflects on the biopic's evolution. ``In the old Hollywood genre, they used to be melodramatic, sentimental, weepy and heroic. You have 'The Glenn Miller Story' or 'The (Al) Jolson Story,' compared with 'The Doors' or 'Man on the Moon' (about comic Andy Kaufman). In 'Words and Music,' Lorenz Hart wasn't gay, he was just short.''

So what would ``The Geoffrey Rush Story'' look like?

``I don't know,'' the actor says with a laugh. ``It's a modern notion - people think they live in a movie about themselves, and reality TV exacerbates that. It's blurring the rules between therapeutic drama and the idea of life as a game. Look at all the biopics out right now - 'Ray,' 'Kinsey,' Bobby Darin ('Beyond the Sea'). Even SpongeBob SquarePants has a film about him out now.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS

What: Biopic on the famous British comic actor, starring Geoffrey Rush as Sellers, with Charlize Theron, Emily Watson, John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci.

Where: HBO.

When: 9 p.m. Sunday; also noon and 8 p.m. Dec. 8, 2 p.m. and midnight Dec. 11, 1 and 9 p.m. Dec. 13, 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Dec. 19, 10 a.m. Dec. 23, 10 p.m. Dec. 25, 4 p.m. and midnight Dec. 28.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) ``I didn't want to stamp him a villain even though his behavior could be quite villainous,'' says Geoffrey Rush of playing Peter Sellers in HBO's ``The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.'' Charlize Theron plays Britt Ekland, Sellers' second wife.

(2 -- cover -- color) Being Peter Sellers

How Geoffrey Rush learned to stop worrying and love playing the troubled comic genius