Douglas Rain, Voice of HAL 9000 In '2001: A Space Odyssey,' Dies At 90 (hollywoodreporter.com)

schwit1 shares a report from The Hollywood Reporter: Douglas Rain, the veteran Canadian stage actor who provided the soft and gentle voice of the rogue HAL 9000 computer for Stanley Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel, has died. He was 90. The first drafts of the 2001 script had HAL being voiced by a woman and was called Athena; afterward, it was decided that the computer should sound more like a man. Nigel Davenport, Martin Balsam and others were tried out -- and ruled out -- before and during filming of the 1968 sci-fi thriller.

"Well, we had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, and Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American, whereas Rain had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part,' Kubrick told Newsday film critic Joseph Gelmis in an interview for the 1970 book The Film Director as Superstar. Kubrick told Rain that he had made the computer "too emotional and too human." So, in late 1967, the actor flew to New York City and spent a day and a half -- about 9 1/2 hours in all -- to voice HAL. As reported on the blog 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Rain "did the recordings with his bare feet resting on a pillow, in order to maintain the required relaxed tone."

Comments

HAL

[MrKaos]

I think one of the underrated aspects of this movie is how it was dealing with Human and Machine evolution at the same time. HAL was the only one on the mission with the security clearance to know what the mission was really about. Secret's aren't really good for anyone.

R.I.P Mr Rain.

Bit of trivia

[kaizendojo]

Douglas Rain's parts were all done in post because Kubrick, being the perfectionist he was, hadn't yet decided what HAL should sound like. So he had one of the VERY English AD's read the lines. Keir Dullea often tells the story at conventions that throughout the film he felt like he was acting with Michael Caine as the AD sounded just like him. Kubrick originally cast fellow Bronx native Martin Balsam as the voice of HAL, who had won the best supporting actor Oscar for “A Thousand Clowns.” But he wasn't happy with the results.

Adam Balsam, the actor’s son, told me that “Kubrick had him record it very realistically and humanly, complete with crying during the scene when HAL’s memory is being removed.” Then the director changed his mind. “We had some difficulty deciding exactly what HAL should sound like, and Marty just sounded a little bit too colloquially American,” Kubrick said in the 1969 interview. Mr. Rain recalls Kubrick telling him, “I’m having trouble with what I’ve got in the can. Would you play the computer?” Kubrick had heard Mr. Rain’s voice in the 1960 documentary “Universe,” a film he watched at least 95 times, according to the actor. “I think he’s perfect,” Kubrick wrote to a colleague in a letter preserved in the director’s archive. “The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting.”

In December 1967, Kubrick and Mr. Rain met at a recording studio at the MGM lot in Borehamwood, outside London. The rest is movie history.