Ep47 - Donald Sutherland / Honorary Oscar Recipient

Governor's Awards this weekend. He's also the star of the new film The Leisure Seeker, which will dive into as well. Donald, thanks for coming on the show, sir. You appreciate it. Uh. You know, I put out a feeler to my Twitter followers a couple of weeks back before they had decided the rare Oscar recipients, and I was just like, you know, who should be honored, who deserves it, And your name

came up more than anyone else. So I hope you know there's a very strong sentiment that you've been overdue for this recognition for a long time. So that's lovely, That's really lovely. Um, I don't think I'm overdue, but I certainly were running out of time at two. Um, you know it was it was a huge surprise I had, but I didn't. I wasn't really aware of honorary oscars,

and I've seen them on the Oscar Show itself. But I was stunned, you know, stunned when they told me, and and did you have any kind of a reaction, like, you know, Peteral Tool. I don't know if you remember that, like fifteen years ago, they were going to honor him in two thousand three, I think, and he declined it. He said, you know, I'm still in the game. I might win it outright, let's wait. Did you have any kind of reaction like that? No, no, no, no, but

Peter had been nominated. Peter, but a part of that I've I've I've not been in any way a part of you know, except once I gave one away. Um no, no, no, no, I didn't think anything like that. And Peter was younger than I am too, I'm I'm ady two. So yeah, I think he actually at the time said let's wait until I'm eighty at least Yeah, well it's it's well deserved. And so you've never been to the Governor's Awards, then it's a lovely night. I think you'll enjoy it. And

that's what I've been told. They it's just, you know, it's so relaxed and it's so easy, and it's not not not disciplined by time constraints, and you know, and it's not televised either, so you don't have to feel like you're putting on a show for somebody and you're giving your speech or anything like that. And you're in such a great company this year too, obviously, with Charles Burnett and Agnes Varda and Owen Roisman. Yeah, uh, you know, are you fans of their work? Are you? What do

you think about being in this? I never worked with with Roisman at all. I looked, Yeah, I know, because I've shot so many, so many movies, but you know, and Charles Burnette's work, I am from jar more with his interviews actually thin in his movies. And Agnes Varda I've had met a couple of times, uh in Europe years ago. Yeah, well, I think you'll enjoy it. So again, congratulations on that, and uh, you know, let's let's dive into your career a little bit here, if you don't mind,

And I'd like to start a little bit off kilter. Actually, you worked with Michael Crichton on The Great Train Robbert. That's really off yeah, and uh later starting the adaptation of Disclosure. I was just such a fan of his work and I'm just curious what he was like as a person to work with on that film as a director. What what comes to mind about my correct, cold, ruthless um.

He's a he was a medical doctor. Michael and I contracted double pneumonia just before we or maybe we'd already started shooting, and Michael wanted to replace me because I was going to be in the hospital for a week or two, and and he was he was educated as a as a doctor at Harvard um and but the producers said no, they didn't they wanted me to play that character. So I was sick. I got out of

hospital and I came back to work. But the day I came back to work, what they how they had scheduled it was to shoot a night in the Dublin Station, the abandoned old Dublin station. It was colder than you could believe unbelievably cold. And what Michael had me doing was run from one end of the station to the other all night long. And I had just come out of hospital, and I said to Michael, why did you do that? Um? And and he said, well, I wanted

to see if you could make it. In other words, I wanted to know if your health was going to survive that, and if it didn't, then we would be rid of you and onto somewhere else. Um. And I am personally I didn't appreciate that risk being taken. Um. But I complied with it, and I did the running, and I did it well. But but it left a taste in my mouth, and there there are so few tastes in my mouth. Whatever it is a hundred and eighties something films I have, I can name maybe three,

and Michael's there big time. I started off with a sour note. Then no, no, no, it's not a surd note. It's it's the it's true, you know, and he wrote, uh, disclosure. Barry was the key to that, the directors the key, and Barry Levinson was wonderful, Michael Douglas was wonderful, DEMI was wonderful. So I didn't have anything to do with Michael Crotton there, but but everybody else is wonderful. It Uh, Mash is probably where most people start. Let's go back

to Mash. That's obviously a huge moment in your career working with Robert Altman. And the fascinating thing about that is, uh, you know, the movie is wonderful, one of the great war films. But then the material went on to have such a life beyond the movie as one of the most successful TV shows of all time. What was it like to see that happened after your work on the film was completing, to see it take on that life. I didn't see it, but I was aware of it.

And years later I was in a lineup for the Queen Mother and Prince Philip. They were going to screen a film that I was not involved with, but I was there, um, you know, and and the man standing beside me kind of elbowed me and the ribs as we were lined up in front of the Queenland and he said, my name is Allen Holder, and I would like to thank you for my life. And I thought that's about as charming and as lovely and as generous as you can be. I just you know it was.

It was, It was brilliant, It was wonderful though, so I have the fondest memories of that series, even though I'm not very familiar with it. How about working when st Altman obviously one of the great filmmakers of all time, and such a tour and how he uh made films and in his stamp was such a personal one and no one made films like Robert Altman. Now they didn't know that's true. What was it? What was it like

working with him? For you? Ingle Primatur cast me in that he was the man who bought the book and created the project, and and then he cast Eliott, and then he went looking for a director and finally he found one who had made a television series called Worthy Birds, and he I think, probably mistakenly, I would have been better off not knowing, but he he did tell me, uh that when Robert Altman and he sat down to negotiate whatever, the first thing he said was, I don't

want that fellow sabol in the movie. And Ingle said, no, he was my first choice. And then apparently Bob said to the boat and I don't want him to have top billing. And Bob said, and Ingo said no, he has stop billing. So um that kind of So you've hit Michael Prison, you've hit my book riding. There's only one more and his name is Richard Mark Bond. That the eye needle, I uh in the eye the needle. I had to punch my hand through my glass right at sugar glass. You just punched your hand through and

nothing happens. I punched my hand through the window and suddenly my hand started bursting, blood literally spurting out of it, and I had this huge scar and they couldn't stop the blood. And finally they got a stop. I said, let's go going on that. That wasn't sugar last and the prompt man said, uh no, that was real glass. I said it was real glass. And you didn't tell me. He said, no, we weren't allowed to tell me. Richard

didn't like the look of the sugar glass. He put the real glass in there, and he told us if we told you, we would be fired. So that you got that out of it. Okay, we can talk about Federico and Lucci and Nick Rogue and and uh Robert Redford. Anybody. Everybody thought Oliver Stone might be one of those. Oh no, all of her. She was He was a pure delight. He was just is one of my favorite films and

that scene, he's brilliant, Oliver brilliant. That scene is just you know, I had Kevin cost In here last year. I was grilling him about it as well, that that scene you chaired together. It's such a It's like one of the great hair raised sequences in cinema. It's like a fifteen minute just like amazing feed of editing and

cinematography and and just the construction. But in the performance you're giving and Kevin, I remember in the director's commentary, Oliver said that Kevin is one of the great listening actors and it's crucial in that scene obviously. But yeah, talk about working on that scene and without I didn't work on that scene with Oliver. I worked in that scene with my wife. We were in France, and we spent probably three months walking up and down in the in the bodybood where I would be saying the text

and she would be hearing it. And because it was essential from me that it wasn't memorized material, that it was stuff coming out of the gut of Fletcher Prouty, who was the the real life source of that material um and that if if I needed to, I could have picked up a telephone and spoken to somebody and said okay, and then gone right back to where I had been, speaking like you, like you do in real life, you know, unless you're eighty two and you forgot where

you were. But and it's uh. And so when I came to New Orleans because Oliver had I can't remember exactly the circumstances, but he wanted to speak to me about it. And we were sitting at a bar, not a you know, just a situation kind of like this, but higher. I think they must have used it as a bar um. And Oliver said, well, let me talk about it. And I said, but why don't I just do it? And I did it, and Kevin was sitting beside me, and I did it for Oliver and he

he said, wow, that's acting. And he turned to Kevin and Kevin said, that's what we all do. That's what it's called. It's called acting. I loved him. He was just great, he was terrific. And then we uh, I came in for one night to Washington and we did it the stuff, the preassassination stuff the night before and then we did that speech in the morning. They shot

it with six hundred three hundred millimeter lenses. It was the last day Oliver and Kevin were on their way on a trip to the Far East or the Mideast or somewhere, and and we shot it in the morning, you know. And then there was then the focus pullers were the most nervous people I've ever seen in my life. Looked like potential for Parkinson's Bob Richardson's a friend. He sorry Robert Richardson the DP of that amazing VP and some of the best work I've seen in a film. Frankly, Um,

what did that film feel like? Like? You know the the did it strike he was just fantasy or you know, just what it's about in the premise that it's putting forth, or you know, did you kind of bog down in that at all? Because your scene is such a dense information scene in those terms. So just curious how that struck you. I'd a't really made a film about it. I had my commissioned the writers. It was called Executive Action. I was supposed to play in it, but I couldn't.

Burnt Lancaster did, Dalton Trumbull rewrote the script, and Dalton was so so damaged by Bye Bye The by the Blacklist, that his rewriting softened it. The original script by Mark Lane and Donald Freed was tough and hard, and I believed every minute of it, you know, and I still do. I always ask actors who have worked with Anthony mcnguela for some observations you were in. I had very little

to do. I mean, the most charming, lovely man and the and Tim brittnal The, the producer of of Danny Boyle's project trust Um was working for him and so we speak about him a lot um, but I was. I was devastated by the loss of him, and it was incomprehensible to me. He he was such a meditative, so you, so deliberate, so generous, so um. It was like working with James Gray. James Gray is It's just

plain delicious, you know. You know, he's fantastic. Something he said to me because one of the actors was going to get shot and I was sitting beside him, and he said, I think you should as soon as shot happens, you should react. I said, let me tell you something. U goosecon stage was throwing a baseball and it hit Ron say it was the third basement of the duchess. Ron, say, who's the right handed batter? It hit him on his

left temple and knocked him straight down. So the ball is coming in, the ball hits him, he falls to the ground, and the umpire heels watch out. I said, nothing happens now quickly, you know, you know, even when you get shot yourself, you say, what was that? The so? And then the point about this is that as soon as I said it, he went through. James did every inning, every player of that game. I always took my breath way all the time. I just love him. Are you

a Dodgers fan? By the way, by which way, by the way, are you a Dodgers fan? Rick Monday ruined my life? I was a Montreal Expos fan. Got it. Rick Monday hit a ball over the Steve Rodgers. No no, no, no, no, no, no, no no no no. Steve Rodgers was the picture. And they had, oh, Jim Fanning. They'd fired Dick Williams, who was a wonderful manager, and they'd fired him. That the hit off asit fired him because they didn't think he was nice enough to the players. I'm sorry, who cares

about nice enough? How about winning a ball game? Anyway? And they brought Jim Fanning up from from the minor leagues because he was a scout, him in a brilliant scout, but he was not a manager. And but for me, I kept saying, how can you have a manager whose name is synonymous was swinging at a pitch and mitting missing, you know. Uh. But anyway, Steve Rogers, who was he was, he was our lead race pitcher, but he had he had psychological problems. He just it was difficult for him.

And he threw a ball. I'm sam sitting right there. He threw a ball to Rick Monday because what Fanning had done. Ray Burrows was was our pitcher, and Ray was a terrific batter. And it was the bottom of the eight, tied at home, and we were playing in Montreal. It was the last game of the league championship series. And and he pinched hit for Ray Burrows and we didn't have a reliever all. The only person in the bullpen was Steve Rodgers, and uh and he pinched hit

and he um, oh gosh, yeah, anyway, he did. He brought in a player whose name Shelby I'm not going to name him, who swung of the first three pitches and was out. Uh. And then Rick Monday came up uh, and Steve Rogers was pitching, and Steve Rogers pitched the ball right across his chest. I mean it was. It was the sweetest ball you've ever seen for anybody to hit over the fence. And and Rick Monday didn't swing

at it. I thought, oh my God, thank Heavens. And then he pitched the same ball again and Rick Mondy put it over the right field fence and I had a minor heart attack or whatever it is, or a brain tumor everything. I mean, I just but in the interview afterwards, Jim Fanning and h and Steve Rogers are there together and the the interviewers saying, but, um, Steve is not a relief picture. And Jim Fanning mumbled something and Steve Rogers said to him, but I have told

you my first inning is always the worst inning. And Jim Fanning said, but this was the ninth. I'm gonna try to find a fifth one. No no, no, no, no no no no no no no no. That's but you know about Rick Monday. Rick Monday They had a book on on baseball superstitions, and they went to Rick Monday and they said, what is your superstition? And he said, I don't have one. And they said, you don't have one. Every baseball player as they have as a superstition. Why

don't you have one? He said, I think they're bad luck. Oh my gosh, do you have one? Do I have one? I have so many. My hat was buried under the mound at at Expo Stadium, So yes, the answer is yes. Um not at tour. I was expecting not not the detour. I was expecting talking to you today. Well, why would you expect anything? I guess you're right. I should come in here open and not expect that. I didn't expect you to wear on phones, for instance, but it's radio

it is. You're right, concentrate shoe. I should probably do it. Actually I would have thought so. Maybe I look I'm professional. Now, gosh, you got me on edge. Let's talk about some of the other filmmakers. Yeah, it's kind of like a lightning round at this point. But Robert Redford, let's start their ordinary people. His big debut, such a huge hit at the Academy Awards. What was it like working with Robert Referent as a director? Perfect, wonderful objective, a brilliant vision,

very pure um. Great respect for Alvin Sargent's script. The the There's a scene in the movie where Um, the character that I play, was downstairs and Mary came down, my wife, uh, and said, Calvin, WoT what's going on? And I said, I don't know whether I love you anymore? And I was weeping. And she turned around and walked up and we looked at Russia's because we looked at Russia's and I'll tell you story about John Shuck and Bob alten Um, but we looked at Russia's. And I said,

I've really missed you. I've really screwed you. I've done the worst possible thing. I've done this actor's thing of weeping. And I should not have been weeping. I should have been finished with my remorse and my grief. And now I was just sitting there, vacant and empty and with a bowl of salt water, swilling tears in my in my belly. And everybody said, no, no, no, no, no, this is perfect, this is so dramatic, it's lovely. Three months after we wrapped Robert Redford phoned me and said, listen,

I think you were right. I think we should reshoot that. But I don't have the set. John Bailey is not available. Mary Toner Moore is in New York doing Whose Life Is It? Anyway? And so I would have to play Mary, and we just have a window with a curtain. Will you redo it? So that's what you see in the movie. That's all you needed. That's all you needed anyway, right,

you didn't need to bring the set back together. And but but can you imagine the cuts that man, the brilliance of him being able to see through all of that so precisely and pulling it back and knowing what he needed and getting it. And it's his first film, I mean, I mean, I imagine his career as an actor informed so much of that. And for you, you know, when actors are directors, they tend to anticipate the needs

of their cast. I guess a little bit better. So did you get any feeling just the empathy, anticipate the needs of the just empathy, knowing what you're going through, knowing what you might need to get through a scene. I mean, I'm speaking as I'm speaking as a Layman. So you tell me, I don't. I don't think so.

I think like the best thing in the world was was James Gray sitting beside the camera, you know, like it used to be in the old days, because you're working for the director and it doesn't have so much to do with your needs as your ability to communicate the essential truth of the character with with that director. Um, and so the closer he can be, you know, video village is not my favorite thing, uh My, was the

intimate relationship with the director, you know. Yeah. Uh And by the way, just so I can mention the film that you're talking about with James Gray, that's at astro what you're working on. Now, let's talk about Tommy Lee Jones and but but it stars Brad Pitt. I was wonderful. Gosh, he's great. And Tommy Lee I had dinner with him. He's gosh. He hasn't changed a bit because we flew into space together, yes, the Space Cowboys. Robert Towns a great,

great scene writer, script writer, um. And he was wonderful and in his ability to to move that subjective process which is writing, into the objective process that was directing. And I thought his film was terrific, really terrific. It got sold incorrectly and that it was sold as a love story between the girl and Billy Crudup's character, when in fact it was really a love story between a mentor and the failure of that mentor and Billy Crudup's

character Steve free Fontaine. But it was really really well done, and it's it's a piece of work I'm really proud of. And you mentioned Felini yourself. Let's talk about Let's let you mentioned Felini yourself. Let's talk about Federico Felini, Felini's Casanova. That must have been a pleasure to work with a guy like that. I loved him. I miss him terribly.

The I don't know how you start, Federicoh, it was we worked together for thirteen months and everything you could dream of in the process of working, from looking across and saying to you, um, who know who know? Doing three increase although otto uh, These were lines that he would give me and I would say what am I doing? And he would say, you were talking to someone who's speaking on the on the internet. And I would say, and I say, he said, yet you say you know? Um.

It was just Babs brilliant. It was a flight into the imagination of a genius, you know. And he didn't look at Russia's. I was going to talk to you about Bob, and Bob, I have to tell you I have I have a huge affection for him and and he he made my life, you know, or Ingle made my life really uh, and then you made Allen's and then you made Ellen Alders Yeah, and Bend Elliott, you know, because the relationship with Elliott was it's a love relationship. I don't think with any other man I have felt

that closeness, that collaboration, that joy, that delight. Uh, I just grabbed but anybody, Um, John shook because we looked at Rushes every day and the whole company, everybody went into the theater and sat there and looked at Rushes and applauded and laughed or whatever. And John Schuck said, listen, tomorrow, I have a scene, Bob where I have to say to this San Francisco football player, I'm going to knock

your block off. Can I, uh, just for the Rushes, say one take where I say I'm going to knock your fucking block off. And then I and so Bob said sure, so he did. And so it's shown in the rushes and it's hysterical and we all love it. And then Putney Smoke comes out Robert Downey's Seniors picture and that uses the word fucking it and uh so it was okay. It was suddenly okay, and John shots line, which was shot you know, months before it was legal,

was suddenly there. But that's Bob too. That was the way he thought. I mean, he he was open to everything and making that film and I've not been in any film ever since. That was like it where we we said one thing for the master and another thing for the medium shot and something altogether different for the close up. The the sound, I don't know whether the audio, I don't don't know what which he was, but the

audio audio edit, I'm not sure. But whoever it was for the sound, who put it all together received an Oscar for that and he deserved a Nobel Lapping dialogue. Yeah, it's an intense uh thing to accomplish, to say the least. And now, leisure Seekers, the film you have this year, I wanted to jump ahead to that, make sure we talk about it. This is you and the great Helen Mirren and I Winna Bago driving on a road trip from Boston down to the Keys Lovely Mansion. Anything better

I cannot honestly it was it? Uh filmed in such a way? I mean, or what did you kind of so you went? We didn't start in Boston, we started further out, but we went terrain. Oh boy did we ever? Yeah? Yeah? And I drove the whole way and and that succer didn't it breaks? But but nobody else could drive it.

It was just old days like in in Trust. I had to drive in nineteen six cattle convertible and nobody else can really drive it because they weren't familiar with steering wheels that had about half a wheel of play in them. And and and Paulo and what was he like to work with? Did you see his film Human Capital? H Stephen Amadon the writer wrote the novel and wrote

that script and wrote a script. Um. He's terrific, you know, and Paolo has It's very hard for someone who doesn't really speak English to do something like a road crip road trip in the United States, And I thought he did it beautifully. Working with him was a delight. Did you go to Venice for the idea. Yeah, I was in that week, which is why I fell asleep in the dentist office yesterday. He was drilling, drilling my tooth and I I said, I think I fell asleep. He said,

you were asleep for five minutes. You were snoring. My assistant had to hold your head so that I could continue drilling. And but I was. We were here doing that. We were in Quebec. And then we flew to Los Angeles. We as my wife and I. We flew to Los Angeles UH to do the week with James Graham Brad Pitt. I flew back to Canada to get my dress close together, flew to New York to get my hair cut, flew to London the next day to get it died um and and then flew to Aberdeen to shoot three days

on an oil rig. Then flew back to London and shot half a day there, then caught up an evening flight to Venice and had the two days in Venice for the festival. Then flew that Monday to Rome for four days shooting in Italia and um for Trust, all of this for Trust, and then flew to Toronto for three days. There they went home to get rid of the dress close and flew back to Rome to finish the shooting there, and then flew from Rome the day I was finished back here to Los Angeles to shoot

this week with James Gray. You get a vacation coming up. Well, I hope you found some downtime amid all of that on an airplane. Yeah, that that'll do it. I guess you get twelve hours on a flight or something. Uh. Once again, congratulations on the Academy on it. I do believe you're long overdue for that, and as others do as well, And I hope you enjoy yourself this weekend at the Done Governor's Awards. This is it man, thirty four minutes. We're a little bit over. Actually we could,

we could keep going. I mean I never got to Alan Picola and Berta Lucci. I mean, maybe you'll come back. I don't know if you had. You can listen names and like Alan was, they were all perfect. Uh. I mean, I'd love to talk about stuff like Kelly's hero Kelly Heroes was the one that Uh, Brian, Brian G. Hutton, he was, he was great. There was another film where I I had gone there to Yugoslavia and I had a I had a six week hiatus simply because they

didn't need my character in those six weeks. It was a six months shooting schedule, and I shot the first day, and then that night I had contracted because I had been swimming on the Danube. I contracted spinal energitis bacterial. Spent a minute we were playing poker. I kept going under the table to rest because I was so tired. And then my assistant picked me up and walked me

to the hospital UH, and I went into a coma. UM. I saw my body from over my right shoulder going down the blue tunnel to the light below, and I forced myself to stay alive. And but I was in a coma. And if you know anybody who's in a coma, talked to them, talk to them because they hear it.

I heard the producer and his associate UH dictating the telegram to a secretary in my room, in my room explaining to my wife that she shouldn't fly over to Yugoslavia, that they would send the body home because I was going to die. But I didn't die, and they sent me to Charing to Charing Cross Hospital and I had six weeks. The six weeks that I had for a

vacation I had in charing Cross Hospital. They brought me back when my six weeks was up, but it was still too soon, so my brain was fried and working with Brian. Brian came upstairs. It was Brian, Um Tara O'Connor, Tell, Li, Saibalice, Don Rickles and Clint and Brian came up my room and I was frantic with nerves. And Brian said, come on down. Everybody wants to welcome you. And I said, but I do, and he said, yes, you have to. And I said, okay, well should I wear a jacket

or not? He said, I don't care whether you what, do you do whatever you want. I said, I think I'll wear a jacket. He said okay. So I had the jacket on and I went downstairs and tell he shook my hand, and no, Clint shook my hand, and and tell he hit it a crooked little finger, ran it across my cheek with a great big grin, and Carol O'Connor started to cry. And Don Rickles looked at me and said, what are you wearing the jacket for? Classic? Don Rickles, Uh, make sure you wear a jacket to

the Governor's Awards. I wear a boat time might want to might want to do that? And again, congratulations and thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate. Okay, prose that is poetry? Is Hemingway secret? People have confused your simplicity us for any special sauces for your burger. No, no, we'll be fine, Thank you, Santa, thank you. Check it out India. I named it the leisure Seeker. We've had a lot of wonderful trips in this old rust bucket.

I'm finally taking down to see Hemingway's house in Key with kids. We won't be gone along, you know, the dad can't drive in this condition. Were not No this Pennsylvania, the dickens? Are we doing in Pennsylvania? It's just something I really need to do with your father? Who is that? That's a little this one. He's got a name and it's will William. Who are these people? Your nephews, nieces,

no new students. My husband's suffers from memory loss. And I'm afraid nam I just wander off and get hurt that well, what is ignoring all the motors like oh for dangerous? For god sex? I started a sentence by the time I get to the end of it, can't know it's strong. Where's I'm here? John? Is that really you? Who are you? John? My? John? Is charming? Educated? You stolen from me and I want you to give him back. There was stolen from you, stole from me to promise

you something. You don't leave him. I can't believe I'm married to somebody as beautiful as you. Folks need trouble. A will be here in just a minute. Give me first. It's in the camp, just like eight bucks here. Make sure this safety's off before you start shooting them, sweetheart, already done it, han Ore all trips whenever this adventurous were they? I am so glad to be back on the road again. Is this heaven? Maybe? Do you think a guy can get a burger up here? M