62 SCENE | JULY 2017 on the town I agree with you. I knew a bunch of them, and I lost a couple of them this year. I remember asking you this question before in Sarasota, but who are some of your movie heroes that you looked up to when you were growing up? Gary Cooper was probably at the top of that list. That’s another tough one. You’re coming up with some tough ones for me this morning. What do you hope people get from The Hero, and what most attracted you to doing the film in the first place? Well I never had anyone write an entire screenplay for me. And I’m an actor. It’s pretty simple, I think on that level. It was a chance to do something that I had never done before. To me, there are a lot of similarities in that part, there’s no question about that. But there’s also a lot of things that are absolutely not like me. First, off the top, I’m still married to my wife (Katharine Ross) after 33 years and we’ve been together for 39 years. I love my daughter more than anything in the world and I’m closer to her than I can even tell you at the moment. And I don’t smoke pot and I don’t have cancer. There are some acting things going on there. That’s that. I’m an actor. And I understand where this guy Lee Hayden was (the character he plays in The Hero), and is in a failed pursuit of life and a failed pursuit of a career — really. I was thinking that in his career, he paid the ultimate sacrifice. He went after it and gave it everything in pursuit of it and fell short. He’s definitely not a heroic character — that’s the irony of it (given the movie title The Hero). He’s not meant to be thought of as a hero on any level. as an aging actor whose best roles are seemingly behind him until he gets both a boost from two things — winning an award at a small–time western film appreciation gathering, and his young date who accompanies him to the event and lifts his spirits. The Hero allows Sam Elliott to show all the colors that were under his acting hat for years. His coolness. Straightforward nature. His tough guy persona, with a “good guy” softness underneath. And of course that vulnerability and compassion. You saw it in Mask and in other roles. But in The Hero, you see so much more. You see a man grappling with his past, present and his future. It is role that he was born to play. And no one could play it like Sam. Sorry, not even his good guy screen heroes Coop, Duke or Jimmy. Now I know I’m not supposed to root for one actor over another, but still I hope that at Oscar time, the man with that unforgettable voice is finally given the award he so justly deserves. As I prepared to speak with Sam Elliott, I couldn’t wait to talk about his on- an off-screen life, and maybe even learn about some other heroes he’s known as we took a look at some scenes from an interview of his life. How are you sir? Nice to see you over the phone waves. I met you years ago on the red carpet in Sarasota, when you were doing the publicity for the beautiful film Off the Map. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. This being the 73rd Anniversary of D-Day, what does the word hero mean to you? Wow, that’s a tough one for me. If I’m not mistaken from what I’ve read, you have family that fought in the Alamo? Let me tell you, it was really the Battle of San Jacinto. I had a great-great grandfather…I think his last name was Pope and I think he was a surgeon. That’s what I recall. I’ll tell you, the word hero to me is so overused. You know? The heroic people to me are clearly the ones that have made the sacrifice for their country I think more than others. Laura Prepon and Sam Elliott in The Hero
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