Robert Duvall on Get Low, Young Directors and Why Resistance is Good

People always talk about the "valedictory role" -- that one big role that an actor takes on before retiring. And some actors don't even recognize the concept. Have you thought about that?

Lonesome Dove. I said, "Now I can retire. Let the English have Hamlet and King Lear; I'll play Augustus McCray." A great, great character. And we had time to develop it. I had an interview with a guy from France or somewhere, and he didn't want to worry about TV -- just movies. I said, "Well, it's all 'Action' and 'Cut' anyway!" I mean, come on!

Did you contemplate retiring?

No. No, I just made that statement to myself; I felt I'd done something that made me feel complete -- that you don't feel very often.

Is that criterion one you've revisited when choosing subsequent roles?

[Pauses] Maybe.

What about Get Low?

Well, this is my wife's favorite film since The Apostle. She loves this film more than any of them. She's really bright; she makes her own documentaries. She made one on Horton Foote, one on Billy Joe Shaver -- the country singer?

Of course. He was in The Apostle.

I was just down in Texas to keep him from going to jail for 20 years for shooting a guy! What a courtroom scene! What a lawyer he had! Pro bono!

Wait, hold on. How did you get involved in that?

Well, to try to help him. Willie Nelson was there. It was just tremendous. What was the question again?

The valedictory film?

Oh, yeah. I like the film a lot. The writing, the components, the people who are in it. And my wife just takes to it more than most.

Noted. Some of your most most memorable film roles have come out of working with younger directors -- going all the way back to Robert Mulligan, who was 35 when he directed To Kill a Mockingbird.

Was Mulligan younger? Wow. Well, he had done television. Yeah, well... It's so hard to raise money. The same guy who wrote the adaptation of Lonesome Dove had written a part 25 years ago of a character who is very much like the guy in Lonesome Dove. It's a great, great part. And now this top young French director is obsessed with it.

Who?

He did a movie called In the Beginning...? He did The Singer with Gérard Depardieu... His name's Xavier [Giannoli]... I can't pronounce his last name. Very nice guy, and he loves America. A lot of people in Europe don't. We had him in Texas; we got barbecue in the lobby of the hotel, and he brought the wine. My friend told him about the whorehouses, and he said, "I'll take you down." We're driving along, and when he sat down someone shoved a pistol next him. He said [adopts French accent], "He's a gangster! He's a gangster!" So he loves Texas, this guy! He's a special guy. And so he's trying to raise the money for this movie. He's obsessed with this Texas story.

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