Page 61

20299SS

JULY 2017 | SCENE 61 on the town Some years ago at the Sarasota Film Festival, Sam Elliott was in town to promote his very good film, Off the Map, starring Joan Allen. In an effort to throw the actor a fresh question on the red carpet, and armed with bad intelligence from the Internet, I asked him, “Mr. Elliott, tell me about your songwriting.” He looked at me and in that voice, you know the one — that iconic voice said, “Brother, you’ve been misinformed.” While embarrassed, I soldiered on with a retort, “Kind of like Bogie in Casablanca, I came here for the waters.” He smiled and made the interaction easy. That’s what a star, who also happens to be a good guy, does. And that’s what Sam Elliott did. I continued to ask the actor who some of his heroes were when he was a kid growing up, and he fed me the names “Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne…those kind of guys.” Cowboys and all-American good guys. Those are the kind of guys he has portrayed in his long and illustrious career, which started way back in 1969, when he played a card player in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In between that role and his latest role in The Hero, he’s jumped into many memorable parts in movies such as The Big Lebowski, Mask, Thank You for Not Smoking, Grandma, Gettysburg, Tombstone, I’ll See You in my Dreams, to name just a few. Like Cooper, Stewart and Wayne, he’s hopped on his share of horses along the way. Sam Elliott looks like an all- American cowboy. And that’s why his casting in Brett Haley’s The Hero is such a perfect fit — kind of like an old saddle on your favorite horse. He stars Scenes from AN INTERVIEW ACTOR & GOOD GUY Sam Elliott  by Gus Mollasis


20299SS
To see the actual publication please follow the link above