'Rocky Horror' star: 'We have generated a lot of money for tattoo artists'

Is it really Halloween if a certain transsexual from Transylvania doesn't get adequate attention?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show will be mounted in various forms - Fox has a TV remake starring Orange is the New Black's Laverne Cox, the Bucks County Playhouse will put on its semiannual production starting this weekend, the beloved cult classic will play at midnight next Friday at the Ritz at the Bourse - but only one event features an original star of the movie. And he still probably looks great in fishnets.

[Read more:  'Rocky Horror's' Tim Curry does the time warp (again)]

Barry Bostwick, who played Brad Majors in the 1975 film, will be at the Keswick Theatre on Friday to screen the movie, answer questions, and, perhaps, do the time warp again.

This one is my first. I'm sort of curious to see what comes out of my head about something I did 42 years ago. Everyone has an opinion about why it's lasted so long, and I'm trying to figure that out for myself. It's fun and it's rock-and-roll. It's kitschy, but beyond that, it's sort of the loss-of-innocence journey that my character and Susan's [Sarandon] character take. It's similar to the early filmgoers that went and saw it. In a way, it changed their lives to be who they really wanted to be, accepting themselves and others.

People use the word misfits, but they aren't misfits, they just belong to no group at all. People say it's a cult, but it's not a cult. It's a tribe, a community of like-thinking and -acting individuals who go to church every Friday and Saturday night and twice on Halloween.

I'm fascinated by it, and I will be till the day I die. Rocky Horror is an island of acceptance in a world of judgment. All shapes and sizes of people engage in this ritual who don't judge.

I think perhaps Rocky Horror was one of the beginnings of the cosplay world. And we have generated an awful lot of money for tattoo artists.

Some people will have images of all of us, and have us sign their bodies. They'll come back to another con or later that day, and our signature will be on them permanently.

I personally think that's going a little too far. But I'm not big on tattoos that show. I like private tattoos. But when you have down your thigh a picture of Tim Curry, I'm wondering what you do when you're in an insurance office. I've never figured that one out.

I really have no need to go on stage again, to do a full stage play. I got that out of my system back in the '90s, a musical on Broadway, based on The Thin Man. We were in rehearsal for so long, our preview period went on for two months. When it finally opened, it closed after a week. It sucked the life out of me. It's a real loss of time and money. On the other hand, I just did a new play reading for the Ojai Playwrights Festival. I like doing the beginning works. I like getting them to the point where they're really producible, but I don't want to stand up on stage and say the same words, and hope I remember them.

They work hard at that. But they're judged based on how authentic they are based on what we're doing. If you're so far off, you won't last, baby. They'll kick you out in the alley behind the theater.

Usually when you do movies, you're turning life into art, but the Rocky Horror Picture Show has turned art into life. It's changed the lives of people and created a certain amount of social change, and I'm very proud of that. How many times can you say that with all the crap out there that's in show business? I don't mind that when I die and when they're doing my obit that it starts out with '[A-] died today.' I'm proud of being everybody's a------. And my father was proud of being the father of an a------.

We shot that all over Philadelphia and in Valley Forge. I think we put more dirt over your cobblestones in the old parts of town. We were fortunate enough to be able to go into homes and estates that were around at the time.

I don't know how they cast me as George Washington after Rocky Horror. If they saw me in high heels and stockings and a bustier, they wouldn't have cast me as George Washington. The people at PBS hadn't caught on yet.

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"Rocky Horror Picture Show" screening party with Barry Bostwick, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside. $39.50-$125.00, 215-572-7650.