On Friday night at the 2010 San Francisco International Film Festival, Robert Duvall was presented the Pete J. Owens Award for acting, before the West Coast Premiere of Duvall’s most recent role in “Get Low.”
While much of the evening was spent on a retrospective of Duvall’s impressive career, he also took time to look ahead. Duvall reiterated his excitement about the crawling-towards-a-greenlight production of Terry Gilliam’s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” yet at the same time, the actor sounded a mix of doubt and optimism.
“I may be working with Terry Gilliam where I play Don Quixote de la Mancha. Hopefully that will work out, but once again they got to get the cash to do it. I’d like to work with him very much. I have to practice up again and get in shape to ride [horseback] … It’s so difficult to get anything off the ground. How anybody does it is beyond me.”
Throughout the interview with critic David D’Arcy, Duvall leaned back comfortably into his chair with his worn leather boots crossed at the ankles. At 79, he’s still so sharp and up to date on the current state of cinema that it felt almost inappropriate the few times that D’Arcy had to repeat a question in the kind of loud flat voice that one reserves for awkward conversations with grandparents. However Duvall was playful about his age and its drawbacks; at one point, losing his train of thought, he turned to the audience and tapped a finger to his temple saying, “the older you get, it’s always Christmas.”
He’s proud of his body of work but remains astonishingly humble despite the praise he receives. Looking back to the time when he was still a struggling actor in New York, he recalls “One night I woke up and literally flicked a cockroach off my teeth.” The way he chuckles at the story hints at a nostalgia for those stretches of struggle rather than pity for his younger self.
Always down to earth, the art of acting isn’t something that Duvall believes should be over-mystified. While explaining how he prepared for his role as Stalin in the 1992 HBO production by the same name he admits, “Well, I used to have a Russian landlord. I kind of emulated him. It was kind of ballsy to go over to Russia and do that over there. We shot in the Kremlin. There was a lot of strange vibes there. The personal poet of Stalin did see the final product and he said I touched the soul of Stalin.” Where an actor with a weaker resume might be cheapened by such revelations, Duvall’s honest stories only make him seem grander.
“THX 1138” became an engaging topic for the San Francisco audience and Duvall described his first encounter with George Lucas. “When I met George Lucas on the set of [Francis Ford Coppola’s] ‘The Rain People,’ he was a skinny little guy who had a Nikon camera and a sound thing and was making a documentary. And when he asked me to be in THX 1138, you know George can be quiet and private, and it was hard for me to believe that he’d been doing it for 25 years in the right way, his first film. It was great work, just great.” On shaving his head for the role in the film, Duvall laughs, “This was when everybody had long hair and George required that everybody got shaved heads for the film. A bunch of hippies with a bunch of baldies was what it was. It was painful for some, especially the young lady, Maggie McOmie. It was very difficult for her, but it was part of the deal.”
Putting “THX 1138” into context with his career at the time Duvall says, “You know, you have to do a bunch of parts, you got to pay the rent. It didn’t hurt my career, but it didn’t propel me to any obviously higher levels, so to speak. But it was a wonderful experience working with George Lucas. He was a true filmmaker at a young age.”
Keeping the San Francisco connection running, Duvall spoke about his role as Tom Hagen in Coppola’s “Godfather” and “Godfather II.” He recalls going through screen tests for his role saying, “We did these informal screen tests here in San Francisco on videotape for our parts in the Godfather. We just did what Coppola had in mind. They ended up doing $80,000 worth of screen tests that Paramount wanted. He ended up with the cast that he pretty much wanted anyway. They didn’t have to go through all that expense. It was a terrific role. So I got to know Francis first and then George Lucas and we all started working together. Those two people were very helpful to my career and I’m grateful to them.”
Duvall isn’t afraid to speak his mind when it comes to the politics of the film world. Discussing his role last year in John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” Duvall says “The Weinsteins trashed it. They didn’t do anything with that movie!” (The film has grossed just above $8 million to date). And while Duvall had nice things to say about the film’s star, Viggo Mortensen, he didn’t hold his feelings back when it came to the director: “I liked my character, but something seemed flat. So I said to Viggo Mortensen, who is maybe the best guy to work with, a wonderful young man, I said, ‘be ready Viggo, I’m going to do something.’ So with the camera rolling I made a decision; I didn’t ask permission because when you ask permission you get turned down a lot of the time, especially if the guy directing is from Australia.”
In a career where he’s portrayed dictators, preachers, and Mafiosos, Duvall does have a favorite part. For him, his career highlight was “Lonesome Dove,” the 1989 TV mini-series. “Some people would say Patton, Hamlet or King Lear, but I played Augustus McCrae. But Larry McMurtry still says we should have switched parts. The author of the book, he’s wrong! But that was my part: Augustus McCrae, that was my part, I really loved it. When I finished, I really felt like I did something complete and good at that exact moment.”