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Heath Ledger’s last role before his untimely death last year was in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The director tells DONALD CLARKEhow he dealt with the loss of his leading man while shooting and how the inspiration for Ledger’s character was Tony Blair

I MEET Terry Gilliam late in the afternoon of October 5th, 2009. How appropriate. On this day, exactly 40 years ago, the BBC broadcast the first ever episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Gilliam, an American cartoonist, who provided animations for the show, was, at the time, often regarded as “the sixth Python”. He was, that is to say, seen as more of a George Martin than a George Harrison. Yet, as the years progressed, and he forged his reputation as one of Britain’s greatest film-makers, the unrepentant surrealist’s vital contribution to Python has become ever clearer. Nobody thinks of him as George Martin now.