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CHARACTERS
: A CONVERSATION WITH ROBERT DUVALL
by
Neil Young
A mask of silent
concentration and patience, bracketed by a pair of outsize headphones,
the face once described as one “that wouldn’t look out of place on Mount
Rushmore” looks more like a face that wouldn’t look out of place on Mr
& Mrs. This is the San Sebastian Film Festival official press
conference for Kevin Costner’s new western Open Range, and Duvall
is sharing the stage – just as he shares the screen in the movie – with
Costner, and youthful Mexican star Diego (Y tu Mama Tambien) Luna.
The assembled
Spanish press, however, seem oblivious to everyone except Costner, resplendent
in white cowboy hat, black shades (“I’ve got an eye injury, I’m not trying
to look cool, honestly!”) and those outsize translation headphones. Eventually
even the genial Mr C starts to get a little embarrassed. “Look, guys,
I’m sure some of you have some questions for the guys up here with me
– Mr Luna and Mr Duvall, who I don’t have to tell you is a living legend.”
Duvall continues to squint impassively into the middle-distance, until
the next journalist raises his hand and blithely begins, “Senor Cost-nair…”
Everyone cracks up, and the Rushmore granite cracks into a broad, wry
grin.
A few hours
later Duvall finds himself in the more relaxed, intimate and opulent confines
of a suite in the Hotel Maria Cristina, the fanciest address in this most
fancy and bijou of Spanish (or rather Basque Country) cities – the accommodations
where, everyone in town never tires of repeating, the Spanish royal family
used to stay during their summer vacations. These days, the place is more
associated with Hollywood royalty, as the film festival regularly lures
the biggest names with its ‘Premio Donostia’ lifetime achievement award.
Duvall, who
only last week was honoured with a gold star on the Hollywood ‘Walk of
Fame,’ could probably spend his whole year shuttling between film festivals
receiving such plaudits. “Yeah,” he says, “I was supposed to go to Sweden,
and Belgium too – but it all conflicts, it’s hard, you know. But
I’m gonna be around for a few years, I hope. I’m not gonna quit for a
while…”
Like all movie
stars (except John Cusack), Duvall is shorter and slighter than you’d
expect from his screen appearances. He doesn’t get up from his chair throughout
the interview – he did, after all, reportedly break six ribs when thrown
from a horse during rehearsals for Open
Range - but he’s a surprisingly compact, slightly hunched figure
with a pot-belly beneath his grey short-sleeve shirt: not so much a ‘grand
old man’ of the movies as a ‘grand old grand-dad’. It’s as hard to imagine
Duvall looking young as it is to imagine him with a full thatch of hair,
but he’s visibly every minute of his 72 and a half years – he’d make a
much more plausible movie OAP than his seniors Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood.
But the eyes
are still the same intense, cobalt blue (they remind me of the Ted Hughes
line about ‘hard circles of animal clarity’) and Duvall in real life is
very much the calm, watchful, alert presence familiar from roles like
The Godfather’s Irish consigliere Tom Hagen. Talking about
a subject – or, rather a person – that interests him, however,
he’s suddenly “on”. As when I happen to mention that I’m from Sunderland,
the former team of Ally McCoist – Duvall’s co-star in the little-seen
2001 Scots soccer drama, A Shot at Glory.
“Where is he!
Where is that guy?!” yelps Duvall, pretending to scour the room in search
of the man he once described as “eighty times better for this part than
[original choice] Russell Crowe, and more charismatic… Olivier could never
kick a ball, but McCoist is a very natural actor.” The film’s lack of
success hasn’t changed Duvall’s opinion one jot: “McCoisty – what a character!
I said to Albert Finney, I’m working with this guy McCoist, the footballer,
I’m gonna make an actor out of him,” and Finney said [puts on gravelly-posh
Finney accent] ‘Shahp as a tack!’ He was right.
“McCoist was
a good footballer, of course, but not as good as Michael Owen – I love
Michael Owen, he’s great.” Alive with enthusiasm Duvall recalls, “He almost
beat Argentina single-handed – I got on the phone to people, I was saying,
‘You should see this kid – he’s brilliant.’ I looked into his record,
and I found that in your version of ‘little league’ when he was 12 years
old he scored 13 goals in 18 minutes one game. Incredible!”
Duvall’s praise
of Owen is entirely in character with a man who seems to delight in embodying
the ‘frontier spirit’ that prizes individual effort – tellingly, the only
bad word he has to say for anyone during the whole interview is reserved
for a union representative with whom he crossed swords on the set of his
self-directed 1997 deep-south drama The Apostle: “Some arrogant
guy came down with loafers and no socks from Baltimore, from the cameramen’s
union.” Duvall, himself neatly turned out in black jeans and brown suede
cowboy boots, is dismissive: “He wasn’t gonna give an inch, and eventually
I made peace with this guy, even though he was very arrogant.”
With a career
studded with authority figures, and having been, since his arrival in
town, so notably keen to distance himself politically from fellow Donostia-recipient
Sean Penn (his co-star in 1988’s Colors), it’s clear that Duvall
is a long way from the caricature of the Hollywood actor as bleeding-heart
liberal. Born in San Diego – the capital of the American Navy – into what
he calls a “military family” (he’s a direct descendent of Robert E Lee,
no less), Duvall moved around “all different parts of the country” according
to his father’s postings.
While himself
a decorated soldier, Duvall only served in the army for a year before
drifting into acting. “My parents kinda pushed me into it because I was…
floundering… they figured maybe I could do that, because I’d do
skits around the house – I sang, because my brothers all sang a lot. I
was pretty petrified at first, but I got to like it. In the beginning
I went to New York to be a theatre actor, then I ended up in films, which
I prefer. I’d rather do that than eight performances a week on stage.
“For a while
it was hit and miss – I was looking to make a living, I’d gotten married,
I had two step-daughters… it was hard. Until I did M*A*S*H with
Altman, and then I made a few good movies with Horton Foote – he’s one
of our great writers, from Texas. He provided me with some great roles,
like Tender Mercies [for which the six-times Oscar-nominated Duvall
won 1983’s Best Actor award].
Though he rejects
the suggestion that he’s offered “Robert Duvall” type roles (“I’ve played
a Cuban barber, cowboys, Stalin…”) the actor does admit to being drawn
to the role where he can put to use aspects of the vivid characters he’s
met down the years – even such an apparently unlikely figure as legendary
Celtic footballer Jimmy “Wee Jinky” Johnston: “I met a lot of characters
in my time, Texas, here, there, all over – the biggest I ever met was
Jimmy Johnston. We spent about two hours talking – what an entertaining
guy, just to sit and talk for two hours. People say the Scots are dour,
but they’re not: they’re like the Italians, they throw things, they curse!”
He delights
in recalling a Scottish cowhand who worked on his uncle’s Montana ranch:
“Morrison… I actually saw him once run up on a quarter-horse – a speed-horse,
good for a quarter of a mile – and touch it on the neck. He roped a baby
coyote once. A natural veterinarian, amateur – all the professionals wanted
to know his secrets, but he wouldn’t tell em. A terrific guy, used to
pitch horse-shoes, was the champion of Montana. So all that builds up,
to play these parts, like Boss Spearman in Open Range.. It all
gives me the… the security to play that kind of part.
It’s a security
that Duvall has built up very patiently over the years: “All the time
in the sixties and early seventies,” he recalls, “I always figured that
I was a sort of a ‘late bloomer’ – I felt my time was later than guys
like Jimmy Caan, De Niro, Pacino. It’s later now… I guess I’m still around!
In fact, I’m getting more offers than ever – that’s fine with me. They
want me to do Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea.” The Internet
Movie Database reveals a slightly less-exalted future project that sees
the star return to familiar (astro)turf: ‘Untitled Will Ferrell Soccer
Movie (2004)’. The perfect vehicle for a Duvall-McCoist reunion, perhaps?
For the full
transcript of the interview click
here
by Neil
Young
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