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

What is it about these guys -- from Lucas and Coppola to Aaron Schneider -- that drives you?

Oh, and...

[Crazy Heart director] Scott Cooper, I guess.

Scott Cooper. Well, I mean, if they're young and talented, why not get a break, you know? Or -- better a talented guy from Paris, France, than a hack from Dallas. You know? Because you get a different perspective. But young people -- and I hate to use the word "passion" -- but if they have passion or feeling for something they're connected with or that they've written, why not? Why not? It's like a young actor. A non-actor doesn't have a lot of bad habits. Maybe a young director isn't jaded as much. They're fresher.

As a director yourself, what's your relationship like with them? Are you a steward on the set? A mentor? Or do you stay away from that?

Yeah, not really. You should talk to Bill Murray; he's a character. He took Aaron aside and said, "There are a lot of people here you're not listening to, and you should listen more." I didn't do that. With the other actors, maybe I'll do that. I don't know if you saw Broken Trail. One of my favorites -- TV again. But there was AMC and all these different camps trying to take the writing a different way. So finally I said to the writer, "Every day, we have to practice quiet, continuous anarchy. We'll slip the writing under the door, we'll rewrite when we want to. We've got to, because they're ruining it." And in 16 days we re-edited it. We had to! And it was one of the best experiences of my life -- even though it was craziness. So you can work under duress, you can work under friction. Sometimes when things are perfect, they're too perfect. Resistance is good.

Do you want to direct again?

Yeah, I do. I had a border movie that I was working on, but AMC turned us down after we put them on the map with Broken Trail. I don't think we're going to be able to do it. It's about tick riders -- these guys on horses under the Department of Agriculture who ride the border watching Mexican cattle to keep ticks from getting on our cattle. But I don't think it's going to happen. And I'd like to direct something in Argentina around my wife's family. Interesting people and interesting situations. But she won't do it. Too much pain; she doesn't want to go through it. We'd do it small, with video cameras and a little crew and actors from the town. But she won't do it.

There's a very interesting story around there somewhere, based on one of those Catholic schools where the kids come out in white with the Mother Superior, and her father hang-glides with the condor -- the biggest bird in the world. I wanted to work that in. He flies over his mother's grave and waves down to her. I'd work that in. But... So I don't know if I'm going to direct again. I would like to. They say to direct is tough, to [act and direct] is tougher. When I did both, it was easier then if I was acting. You just do it; it's fun. I know it's good; I see it on the day, you don't have to keep poring over it until the time comes to edit. I did it twice, and I loved it.

The Apostle wouldn't even work had you not directed it.

I agree. I made a joke that I wanted to put up a full-length mirror so I could yell at the director anytime I wanted to.

The scenes just go on. You never cut!

You know, you work with a director and say, "OK, that was good. What do you think?" And he says, "That's good, OK." I don't need the guy there to check with to know that it's time to move on. You can try different things if you're directing. With another guy, it's like, "Oh, we don't have time." One guy said, "Well, the cameraman says [the actor's] running down." Don't tell me about it! Shoot it! He was coming down off the spirit. "Shoot it! Don't do those things!" So he did. It was probably better that I directed it. I had a guy who was going to come in, in case I felt like he needed to take over after the first week. At the end of the week, I said, "No, I'm fine."

There are so many roles of yours that slipped through the cracks. I mean, you played Josef Stalin. Are there--

Oh, yeah. That was very difficult -- shooting in the Kremlin? With some of the old political guard still around [circa 1991]? But I got one of the greatest reviews of my life -- not that I read them. Nikita Mikhalkov -- the great director -- his father had been Stalin's personal poet. He worked under him eight times, and he said I touched the soul of Stalin. So I felt good when he said that. And when I got over there, the research was bad. HBO was bad. I didn't know the guy was even still living!

The poet?

Yeah! He was 88 and had just married a 35-year-old woman! I never even knew he was alive! You'd think they would have had me meet him. I mean, come on.

Are there any other films of yours that you think were overlooked or might deserve reconsideration?

Not really. The one that didn't, kind of, was Tomorrow. It was Horton Foote, from a Faulkner short story. I don't know if you saw that.

I haven't.

Back from around Godfather I time. Horton Foote got the rights from Faulkner, and we'd done it as a play off-Broadway. But I wouldn't see it for a year because... I mean, these young actors who go into the editing room and take over, I don't know how they can do that, but in a way, I don't blame them. Back then, I should have known. I didn't know. Horton Foote was my friend. There's a scene where I see my son when he grows up -- and they cut it. I wouldn't see the movie for a year; it ticked me off that much. I felt betrayed. Ten years later -- it's a simple little film, black and white -- Depardieu bought the rights and distributed it in France, he liked it so much. But that was the second thing I did with Horton Foote after To Kill a Mockingbird.

In fact, the film, Convicts, that we did, there's a whole scene down here off-Broadway from that. It was originally written as a stage play. That was a nice little film we did that slipped through the cracks. [Bruce] Beresford, who directed Tender Mercies, liked it so much that he gave it as gifts for Christmas. Maybe that one a little bit. And way back I played Dr. Watson in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. But usually the ones I've done have been shown for at least a little while. They wouldn't get that much exposure anyway.

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