Julian Sands Hangs Up His Halo for the Horror-Fantasy ‘Warlock’

Julian Sands describes his latest movie, “Warlock,” as “sort of bubble, bubble, toil and trouble caldron of humor and horror and spectacular and effects.”

The blond, blue-eyed Briton plays the title role in the fantasy film, a pony-tailed disciple of Satan who time-travels from 17th-Century New England to contemporary Los Angeles.

Sands doesn’t take “Warlock” very seriously. “I feel it inhabits the same mythology as the TV series ‘Bewitched,’ with large slices of ‘The Exorcist’ carved off and thrown in,” he says, laughing.

“I think my character’s principal occupation is creating havoc in a very pure and almost beautiful way. I think there’s something rather seductive about the singular purpose he has, which is to practice malevolence among those who came onto his way.”

Since making a splash six years ago as the young romantic in “A Room With a View,” Sands hasn’t stopped working. He truly has an international career, making movies in Europe, the Far East and South America. “The longest period I have ever slept in one bed is five weeks,” he remarks.

Sands compares his vagabond existence to that of medieval troubadour. “It’s a way of life I enjoy, though it’s tiring and disorienting,” he says. “But it’s a great adventure and I regard it has a great privilege. Next, I do a film in Rome and then one in North Africa.”

He admits he’s lucky that his wife accompanies him: “So there is an emotional center to this way of life which prevents it from becoming a void--a kind of existential float.”

Home base for Sands is now Los Angeles. “It is the most marvelous town!” he exclaims. “It’s a wonderful place to have a garden. I was brought up in the north of England. It was fairly bland and not far from (resembling) ‘Wuthering Heights.’ So I can’t tell you how glamorous and exotic it is to pick a grapefruit at 7 in the morning and juice it up. It is a very reviving and refreshing place.”