Terry Gilliam has dismissed the notion that he is a filmmaker plagued by bad luck.

His latest film The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus was unfinished at the time of Heath Ledger’s death. Prior to that, his movie The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was shelved after a serious injury to star Jean Rochefort and flash floods on location.

Gilliam told says of his reputation as an unlucky filmmaker:

“Maybe the forces are working for me, it depends how you look at it! Those kinds of things make better press. Life is full of things happening – you can choose to have a boring life or you can have a very exciting life, which usually means lots of ups and lots of downs. I choose the second!”

The director admitted that in the weeks after Ledger’s death he felt like he couldn’t complete Parnassus:

“The first week, maybe even the second week, I was convinced there was no way to finish this film after he died. I didn’t know how to deal with it on an emotional level. Then there was the problem of how, physically, do you replace, half-way through the film, the lead actor? That hasn’t really been done too often in films, if ever.”

Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell eventually stepped in to play different versions of Ledger’s character Tony and the movie was completed.

“We were blessed, that’s why I think we’re lucky we had a magic mirror in the story,” Gilliam said. “The magic mirror allowed, with a little twist or two, the idea that people’s faces might change on the other side of the mirror depending on whose imagination you’re in.”

Gilliam also told The Daily Telegraph that he struggled to secure funding for his latest film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

He said:

“You would think that there’s intelligent life in Hollywood. But then you discover that there’s just fear.

“People are frightened of making decisions or even having – I hate to use the word ‘vision’, but they lack all of that. Hollywood is run by Goldman Sachs and not by entrepreneurs or studio people.”

He added:

“I won’t be getting an Academy Award – I’ll predict that – ever. And somehow, my life will be no less for that!

“For me, the only reason to try and make my films successful is that it will be more likely that I’ll get the next project off the ground.”