Charlton Heston: The Alpha and Omega Man

Q: Is there any truth to the story that you got the part of Moses in The Ten Commandments because DeMille thought you looked like Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses?

A: Yes. The year before he cast the film, DeMille was over there looking for places where they might shoot and they stopped in Rome. His number-two guy, Henry Wilcoxon, said to him as they were looking at the marble sculpture of Moses, "You know, Mr. DeMille, that looks exactly like Chuck Heston." DeMille never forgot it. And I do look like that statue.

Q: It's part of film legend that someone asked an A.D. during that shoot, "Who do I have to fuck to get off this picture?" Is it a true story or apocryphal?

A: That's a great story. And true. It was during the orgy scene, which at first was great fun. But it got a little old, and this girl asked that of the first A.D.

Q: What did you think of Earthquake?

A: It was very well done. I had script approval, so I persuaded them that I should die.

Q: You've noted that you've probably been killed in more films than any leading actor in movie history. Do you have any favorite ways you've died?

A: It's nice if you have a few things to say in the end. My best death scenes have been in Antony and Cleopatra and Gordon of Khartoum. And El Cid--he's mortally wounded in battle, but then he gets to die in his wife's arms.

Q: And your wife was Sophia Loren.

A: Right, that's pretty good.

Q: You aged during the second part of El Cid, but she didn't. Was there any discussion about that?

A: Of course not. If I'd been directing there wouldn't have been any discussion, either. When you've got someone who looks like Sophia, you don't alter that.

Q: What are some of your favorite moments?

A: Off the top of my head, the most important moment--in El Cid, in the scene where his troops take Valencia. We were shooting outside a real 11th-century castle. I led a troop of mounted armored horsemen up the beach. There were at least a thousand people inside and outside the gates. They were all screaming "Cid, Cid, Cid!" I rode through the gate in armor, got off the horse, walked up a 40-foot circular staircase to the top of the wall and turned and watched as they screamed, "Cid, Cid, Cid!" So I know what it's like to take a city. I really know what it feels like. Better than sex. That's the best example I can give you.

Q: You're critical of Oliver Stone for spending his career attacking core elements in our society, but you did appear in his last film.

A: He gave me a nice part in Any Given Sunday. I had one of my favorite lines--when I'm pissed off at the owner of the team, Cameron Diaz, and I say to one of my entourage, "I honestly believe that woman would eat her young."

Q: Was the reason James Cameron wanted you as the head of the CIA in True Lies that he felt you could plausibly intimidate Arnold Schwarzenegger?

A: Yes, because I played parts like that all the time.

Q: YOU can intimidate Schwarzenegger, yet you have a fear of spiders, don't you?

A: I was once bitten by a brown recluse spider, which is one of the most dangerous spiders in North America. I got a shot and after a week I was fine, but I really do not like spiders.

Q: YOU directed a young Kim Basinger in Mother Lode--and she had problems with another actor, Nick Mancuso. How did you straighten her out?

A: I told him to go sit in his trailer. This was Kim's first film. I took her arm and said, "Kim, this is not really about acting. You run into him and you're frightened and he hugs you. I know you don't like him, but that's what we get paid for as actors. You don't always get to do things you like. Do you think you could let him hug you?" She was a nice girl and was good in the film; I would have worked with her again.

Q: What's the hardest thing about acting?

A: Getting the parts.

Q: Why do so many high-caliber actors put down their profession?

A: I don't know. I love acting.

Q: More than being governor?

A: Right. I'd rather play a senator than be one.

Q: Which of your films are you most personally proud of?

A: Of course The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur. The two Marc Antonys, in Julius Caesar and in Antony and Cleopatra--there's no better writing. Then I've done eight Macbeths, two on television. I like Treasure Island--Long John Silver is a great part. And Sherlock Holmes.

Q: You've said that Robert Ardrey's script of Khartoum is one of the three best scripts you've read. Not counting Shakespeare, what are the other two?

A: Planet of the Apes, largely done by Rod Serling, is a wonderful script. And Soylent Green was an extraordinary and unusual film.

Q: Your own candidate for the worst movie you ever made was Call of the Wild, which was never released in the States. What made it so bad?

A: We made it in Norway, and whoever put up the money [required that there be] a reasonably good part for a German actor, a Norwegian actor, an Italian actor and a Spanish actor. The result of that was not very good. My daughter was then about eight and she was with me. There's a scene where I break through the ice and the dog pulls me out. We did the shot and the crew brought towels and glasses of wine to warm me. My daughter was crying and I said, "Honey, I'm OK. It's all right." And she said, "What about the doggie? He doesn't have any towels."

Q: What movies influenced you as a boy?

A: The Gable Mutiny on the Bounty and Morocco, where Gary Cooper is in the Foreign Legion. I was a great fan of Cooper's.

Q: Were you always called Chuck, or did you have other nicknames as a child?

A: When I was a little kid, I was called Charlton. It wasn't until I got to high school that people started calling me Chuck. Everybody calls me Chuck now except my wife, who calls me Charlie. The only person who called me Charlton was Mr. DeMille.

Q: Who was the most significant person in your past?

A: I guess my father. Then my wife, who changed my life when I met her.

Q: You've been married more than 50 years. What's the secret?

A: You've got to pick the right person in the first place. And I did, entirely by accident. I sat behind her the first day of a required freshman class at Northwestern called Fundamentals of Theater Practice A40. She had a mane of black hair and I didn't see her face for two days, but I didn't take any notes, either.

Q: Has she been influential in the parts you've chosen?

A: I trust her judgment very strongly. She is a more mentally equipped person than I am. I know how to give speeches, but she just has a better brain. She is the architect of my life.

Q: What was the most traumatic experience of your life?

A: When I was 10 and my parents divorced.

Q: After they split, you didn't see your dad again for 10 years.

A: That's right, until just before I went overseas during the war. When I came back from the war, until he died, we had a nice relationship.

Q: Who are your heroes?

A: Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington.

Q: Why do you so dislike the word start?

A: It seems overweening.

Q: How do you want to be remembered?

A: As a good man, a good father, a good American and a good actor. I'm working at it.

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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Tea Leoni for the December/January issue of Movieline.

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