Matunas, an emotionally unstable Vietnam War US Marine Corps veteran who witnesses the duel between the Kurgan and Kastagir, machine guns the Kurgan, and is then impaled on the villain's sword. Peter Diamond as Iman Fasil, a French immortal. He attacks Connor before the Highlander can have a chance to draw his own sword. Despite this, Connor defeats and beheads him. Diamond was also the film's stunt coordinator. Celia Imrie as Kate MacLeod, Connor's lover in 1536, before he met Heather. Convinced Connor's immortality means he is "in league with Lucifer", Kate leads an unsuccessful effort to have him burned at the stake. Billy Hartman and James Cosmo as Dougal and Angus MacLeod, Connor's cousins and leaders of the MacLeod Clan. Other actors in the film include Edward Wiley as Garfield, a slightly unhinged NYPD officer; Corinne Russell as Candy, a prostitute hired by the Kurgan; Jimmy McKenna as Father Rainey, Alistair Findlay as NYPD Chief Murdoch, Ian Reddington as Bassett and Damien Leake as Tony. Professional wrestlers Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell, Sam Fatu, Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts appear as themselves in the film's opening sequence at a tag-team match. The event in the film is supposedly held at Madison Square Garden, but was actually shot at Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey. Production and development Conception Gregory Widen wrote the script for Highlander, as a class assignment while he was an undergraduate in the screenwriting program at UCLA. Widen also used Ridley Scott's 1977 film The Duellists as inspiration for his story. After reading the script, Widen's instructor advised him to send it to an agent. Widen sold the script for US$200,000. It became the first draft of what would eventually be the screenplay for the film. According to Widen, "The idea of the story was basically a combination of a riff on The Duellists – guy wants to finish a duel over years– and a visit I made both to Scotland and the Tower of London armour display, where I thought, 'What if you owned all this? What if you'd worn it all through history and were giving someone a tour of your life through it?' That scene is basically in the movie." According to William Panzer, producer of Highlander: The Series, "And that's where everything fell into place — the idea that there are Immortals and they were in conflict with each other, leading