Robert Duvall
Interview By: Michael Dance
michaelmdance@gmail.com
What's most striking about Robert Duvall is that he seems like such an unaffected guy. Here's the legend from the Godfather movies, with over one hundred acting credits to his name, sitting at a table being questioned by five or six reporters, and he keeps interrupting himself to ask us questions. "You all live in New York' Where you from'" And when our time's up and he's about to be whisked away by a publicist, he stops to ask us where a good place to eat lunch would be.
But then, upon closer inspection, Duvall has never followed the normal celebrity path. He's always been a character actor, not a leading man. He doesn't live in L.A., or even New York -- he lives in Buenos Aires. He likes doing TV even better than doing movies. And yet the guy's a legend. He starred in Lonesome Dove. He won an Oscar for Tender Mercies. And in Apocalypse Now, he uttered, according to the AFI, the twelfth best quote to ever be heard in a movie: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
"People will usually say that line like only they know it and only I know it, and they're the only ones that know it," Duvall says, amused. "Course, when I was getting ready to do The Apostle, I met with preachers all across America, and they all claimed they didn't go to movies. And one said, 'Oh, I think I know who Mr. Duvall is,' and he called back after doing some research and said, 'Yeah, you had a famous line in a movie where you said, I love the smell of gasoline in the morning!'" Duvall cracks up. "He had it all wrong."
Duvall is officially here to talk about his role in We Own the Night, the new crime thriller out now that co-stars Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, and Eva Mendes. The conversation, however, flows freely between the movie and a variety of his favorite topics: his love of Westerns, dancing the tango (a passion which resulted in his 2002 movie Assassination Tango, which he directed and starred in), living in Buenos Aires, and assorted upcoming projects he's excited about.
On the movie: "My character was interesting, a guy that's a widower, who's trying to balance two sons that are so different, not that they're directly with him, but that aspect of a family, trying to keep the semblance of a family after the wife is gone...and I was called in as a replacement. I came in after they had started, but James [Gray, the director] is good at explaining things. He's a terrific director. He's an actor's director, more than most. A lot of them have their fingers crossed, and [do takes] again and again and again, and they don't know what they're looking for. Jimmy Caan, when he worked with James in New York, told me how much he liked him. He's his favorite young director since Coppola. He says, 'Jimmy Gray's the kind of guy who gets so excited, if the take goes good, he has to stuff a towel in his mouth to stop from laughing to spoil the take.' It was a fun set to work with."
On recently winning an Emmy for his role in the AMC miniseries Broken Trail: "I was a little nervous, to tell you the truth, usually I'm not. But the point is, it's a different crowd -- some of the people got up there and did something and everybody laughs, and I don't know what they're laughing at. But it was good, because many years ago, we never won an Emmy for Lonesome Dove, which was bewilderment to me, I mean, if you're going to go for awards, that would be it. But I love Westerns. I really love Westerns...it was nice to win something for something you like."
On Assassination Tango: "Some people didn't like it, but I guess it's like anything some people did, some people didn't. I guess more people went for The Apostle [the other film he directed], but I liked Assassination Tango, too. To use the real people, the real tango dancers, they know how to sit in the club with a cigarette, as opposed to what a real actor would do. And somebody said, 'Well why didn't you just do a documentary,' and well, that's kind of a strange thing to say, because it's not that easy to get that kind of behavior within real time. But I enjoyed making that movie.
"Down [in South America], it's a very quiet thing, the tango. It's not all this stuff. In the clubs you go and you just watch the old guys walk. At the beginning and ending of the dance is the walk. And now, since the '50s, it's gotten into tango for export, it's much more energetic for the young people. They do it very well. But still, based on the old guys, it was a different thing. I know one little girl down there, I used her in the movie, she danced over the end credits...Geraldine Roja, she's great. And I used to go behind the door and practice, I'd be embarrassed [to tango in front of her]. And she learned from the clubs.
On his future projects with his Butcher's Run Films production company: "We're working on something now, maybe as a movie, maybe as a two-part miniseries, on this whole border thing. We went down to the border, I mean, it's so complex, mind-boggling. Nobody has a solution and everybody's guilty of everything, both political parties, everybody. I don't know what the answer is, but we went down there, and we would drive one sherriff 300 miles, American, but with Latin blood in them. Terrific guys, I mean terrific. We'd drive one 300 miles, put him up for the night, send him away, another guy would come for the night -- so we got a lot of information. The script is finished, now we're looking for the backing and everything. Maybe a two-night miniseries, just so you can see more, and more people can see it. I mean, a movie, six people go see it and then it goes to DVD. When we did Broken Trail, over 30 million people saw it, which is amazing.
"We sold two miniseries, one is really exciting, it's an AMC miniseries on the Pony Express, 150 years ago. It was very fascinating -- they put up signs, 'Riders wanted. Under 21. Orphans preferred.' Mark Twain was [from] then, Buffalo Bill was fourteen years old, he rode. It was a really interesting part of our history that only lasted eighteen months, because the telegraph knocked it out. And you know, then they took Lincoln's inaugural address all the way across country in ten days. It was a pretty interesting time."
On living in Buenos Aires: "My wife and I, we have a little hotel up in the country. It has a world ranking. One of the best small romantic hotels in the world. Seven suites, up near the Andes...and you can go to watch the polo matches. They haven't lost in like ninety years, nobody's beaten them. Or you can go to a soccer match. Everything's in the city. Big wide avenues, with a race track here and two polo field here. Restaurants are open all the time, so sometimes you don't eat till late."
Duvall pauses, and a familiar excited grin emerges. "I like our steaks up here better," he says. "I didn't want to tell them that. There's fifty million heads of cattle there. They don't age it, they don't corn feed it, and they eat it too well done for me. I mean, they're barbeques are great. My sister cooks right on the ground with nothing but sea salt. The meat can be great, but it's just the way they cook steaks."
The impression you get from spending only a half-hour with Duvall is that the man leads a very full life. As someone in a position to actually pursue all of his passions, he knows how lucky he is and tackles as much as possible; from one conversation it's clear the man has about eight things on his mind at all times. He even still has some measure of anonymity: "I was in Dallas, way back, years ago," he says before he leaves. "I was at a bar standing against a wall, and it was so crowded, and some guy walked by and looked at me in that [familiar] way, as if only he recognized me. And he points right at me, and he says, 'Terry Bradshaw.'" He breaks out laughing. "He was so sure and he just got it totally wrong."
