Name: Norm Macdonald Interviews Robert Duvall - Dennis Miller Show (2011) The Greatest Actor in the World
Uploaded: 2019-08-29T20:33:41.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Interviews Robert Duvall - Dennis Miller Show (2011) The Greatest Actor in the World' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-08-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Interviews Robert Duvall - Dennis Miller Show (2011) The Greatest Actor in the World' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-08-29. Transcript available.

Norm Macdonald Interviews Robert Duvall - Dennis Miller Show (2011) The Greatest Actor in the World

Joining us now, Robert Duvall, whose new movie, Seven Days in Utopia, is now in
theaters.
Mr. Duvall, welcome.
Yes, sir. How you doing?
I'm doing all right, baby.
I was telling Kevin earlier, this is how I go to movies.
I go, people go, you want to go to a movie?
I go, is Robert Duvall in it?
They go, yes, I go.
Well, all right, Dave.
That's okay.
If that's what you really mean, that's fine.
I really mean it.
And I consider you the greatest actor in the world.
Well, thank you very much.
And I wonder, because I always think if somebody is the best, they know it at
some level.
And also, I know that you're a man of faith and false modesty is a sin.
And I was wondering, do you consider yourself the greatest actor in the world?
I think I can hold my own with a lot of people.
So I don't know if there's one person that's the greatest.
Some people say Daniel Day-Lewis is the best.
He's improved.
I didn't used to like him.
I like him a lot now.
But there, you know, there's a group that are very good.
So I don't know if anybody's the best.
Well, here's how I am with acting.
I have a lot of problems with acting because I have trouble suspending my
disbelief.
You know what I'm saying?
And so a lot of times when I'm watching an actor, I can see him acting.
Like I'm going, oh, that guy's acting.
Right.
I don't see that with you.
Well, you try.
You try to keep it invisible.
You try to take it back to just the basic premise of I talk, you listen, you
listen, I talk.
You try to keep it that simple between the words action and cut if you're doing
film, you know.
So you try to keep it as simple as possible.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now, an actor, well, let's say a guy is always himself, you know what I mean?
Like a guy like John Wayne or something like that.
He could be very good.
Him, I believe, because there's no disconnect between what I see when he's
interviewed and what I see.
But you, on the other hand, are different in every role.
Well, you've still got to bring yourself underneath.
There's only one you, right?
Right, that's true, yeah.
So you can't really become something that you're not.
You create the illusion of something else.
But it's you underneath.
You've got one set of emotions, one psyche, one everything.
So you have to know how to use yourself to bend it or whatever to make it seem
like it's something else.
Now, I've noticed in your body of work, obviously talking to you, you're an
incredibly literate person and a very thinking person.
And I met you one time.
I'll tell you this.
I met you one time at Saturday Night Live.
Garth Brooks was the host and you came in.
Oh, yeah, right, right.
And I was very excited because you were going to do, I don't know if you
remember this, you were going to do a song.
Yeah.
And you didn't do it and I was very sad about that.
But I was so, I wanted to meet you so bad.
And then I met you and I talked to you and I had all these questions for you.
And then you started talking to me and asking me questions.
And you were very, looking at me very deeply and asking me, because I come from
a rural farm area in Canada.
You were asking me about ranchers and stuff like that.
And I was, I don't know if you did that to deflect my questions or if you do
that to study people and steal their soul.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
What part, where are you from?
From what part of Canada?
So you're doing it right now.
I'm from, I'm from rural Alberta.
Oh, I love Alberta.
That's the only part of Canada I really like.
Oh, really?
I love Alberta.
The ranch people up there, the Bewes family.
Oh, it's good people up there.
Great people, yeah.
And that's, and that brings me to you.
You often portray the common man.
Is that something that, you're not Southern, but you've played a lot of
Southern characters.
Well, my dad's from Virginia.
That's the beginning of the South.
So I feel comfortable, you know.
I like the Southeast Conference Football League.
And I feel okay in the South, even though, you know, in Texas, too, some of my
mother's
people are from Texas, which is below the Mason-Dixon line, so to speak, you
know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I like to portray the common man, except, you know, when I played, one of
my favorite
parts was when I played Joseph Stalin.
He wasn't so common.
He was common, but not so common, you know.
So you don't mind playing a guy that you have to figure out the good part of
him or something?
No, no, each part's a challenge, so, you know, you go with what you have to do,
you know,
research or whatever, you know, and just jump in and do it, you know.
Now, Kevin Farley has a question for you.
Yeah.
Have you ever been, like, you know, you've done some big movies with big actors.
Was it ever hard?
Like, do you get nervous, and how do you deal with your nerves, you know, when
you have
to really bring your game, your A-game, and that, like, say, The Godfather with
the,
you know, scenes with Brando or anything like that.
Were you ever really nervous where you had trouble, like, controlling your
nerves?
Were you like, oh, gosh.
Yeah, well, the last job I did was the most nervous I've ever got in my career.
I work with Billy Bob Thornton.
I call him the hillbilly of Orson Welles.
The guy's brilliant.
And we did an interesting movie, and the night before, I had to do a scene, and
it worked.
But I was so frightened, I had to do a guy that, his grandson slips LSD in his
iced tea.
Wow.
And I had to, like, unbeknownst, I had to, so I did, I think that intense fear
helped
propel me into the scene and make it work in a strange way.
Yeah.
Because it was a very demanding scene, but it worked.
It worked.
And Billy, Billy doesn't care if you change things, change.
Some of these directors, you can't change Ur to Art of Air.
Yeah.
But a guy like Billy, he leaves it open, even though the writing is brilliant,
what he's
done.
He lets you, he lets you come up with stuff at the moment, which is very, very
admirable,
I think.
It is interesting that you bring up Billy Bob Thornton, because I agree with
you, when
I saw Sling Blade, I was like, this guy is exactly what you said, I said, this
guy is
Orson Welles, how did he do this?
Oh, absolutely, he's up there with Coppola or Altman or any of them for me.
But then he stopped.
Well, he stopped, and he has a country band, he goes around, so I sent a
message to him,
do you sing as good as Lefty Verzel, knowing the answer, you know.
I guess he sings, you know, I don't know, but he's got to get back to this.
He's A game, because the guy, he wrote, direct, and acted, and he's on a high
level in all
those aspects.
Well, can I ask you a question, because you were in Sling Blade, you played his
dad.
Yeah.
Was, I don't know, this may be a, I don't know if you want to answer this
question or
not, but you're an honest guy, right?
Sometimes.
You go on Sling Blade.
Yeah.
You're watching that.
Does that character he did in Sling Blade remind you of a character you may
have done
30 years ago?
Well, yeah, that's what Horton Foote thought, maybe.
You know, you're talking about tomorrow?
Yes, sir.
Well, that's what Horton Foote thought maybe he was doing me, but I don't think
so.
I don't know if he ever even saw that.
But not really, maybe a little bit.
They could have been cousins, so to speak.
You know, yeah.
But you know, when I did it with Billy Bob, there was no script.
We just, he just rolled the camera and we improvised.
Is that right?
Wow.
So, you know, he's great to work with and he's got some more things he's going
to do,
you know, and he's got to, he's great.
You have an incredible taste in the choices you make, right?
Yeah.
You must put thought into this.
Do what now?
Are you a literary person?
Well, somewhat.
You know, I read, you know, what I want to read, you know, I, you know, I, I
mean, I'm reading a lot of stuff on the, on the, on the Comanche Indians now,
because the friend of mine may direct Empire of the Summer Moon, that terrific
script on it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm, you know, I, I guess, you know, I, I may be wrong, but everybody, Horton
Foote once said,
people don't know what goes on beyond the South Jersey shore from New York
necessarily.
And I think that, I don't know, what I saw of The Searchers, there's, it may be
a great movie by John Ford,
but what I saw, I got to watch the whole thing.
I found some of it corny, melodramatic.
You found some of The Searchers corny?
Yes, absolutely.
Which parts?
Absolutely.
Please come home.
Please come back, you know, you know.
And this, this, this book deals with the real thing of, of that woman that was
captured by, you know, by the, by the Comanches.
But, I mean, if you, if you criticize, a friend of mine once said, if you
criticize John Ford,
and, you know, like, I got this great icon from Hollywood, it's like attacking
motherhood.
Yeah, yeah.
But, but there's some, some of those old guys, like when I did True Grit,
that was one of the worst directors I ever worked with in my life, Henry Hathaway.
Yeah, really.
One of the worst.
Some of those old guys were like tyrants, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The opposite of Billy Bob.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
And I remember you saying one time that, that I found interesting,
that you either like the new kind of acting or the old kind of acting, and you
don't like the old kind of acting.
Well, some, no.
A guy like, a guy like Spencer Tracy, for the most part, was terrific.
Of course, when he did Old Man and the Sea, the Communist Daily newspaper in Havana,
Cuba,
blasted him, saying that, you know, here's a, here's a Anglo-Saxon trying to
play a Cuban.
But, you know, actually, you know, when he was right, like Bad Dad, Black Rock,
he was wonderful.
But I think that the young actors today are better than ever.
You do?
Absolutely.
You go, in each country, look at the, look at the, look at the African-American,
the black actors we have now.
They never could act before.
Before it was like Uncle Tom time.
Yeah.
Wonderful black actors, Spanish actors, guys in Argentina I know, wonderful
actors, Spain, England.
You know, it's open to all now.
It's an in-medium that's open to all.
So I think, you know, I mean, there's good and bad still, but there's, I think
overall, the young actors, the bar's been raised.
Maybe those who went before, we helped them find that, that aspect of it all.
But, no, I really think that it's open for all, and there's still bad work,
obviously, and bad movies.
But some of the young actors are wonderful.
Well, tell us about this young actor that you're working with in seven days.
He's as good as they get.
You know, he's terrific.
Lucas Black, he's a scratch golfer.
Wow.
It's the only movie ever that, where, you know, where the lead actor can hit
the ball, really.
Yeah, that's true.
In between takes, he said, I will, he said, I will challenge the world champion
turkey caller and beat him.
He does these phenomenal animal calls, because he grew up with nature fishing
in the backwoods of Alabama, you know.
But he's a terrific kid, and when we did the movie, it was wonderful to go work
in Texas with,
with just great people down in that hill country, and Lou Waters and his family,
and Ken Herford and the golf pro stand.
All these wonderful people welcomed us, and it was, it was great working with,
with, that's the reason,
one of the reasons I took it to work with Lucas.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to love it, because I love, I don't, I don't think you love
golf, but I love golf.
Well, I like it okay, it just takes too much time.
Yeah, it's a lot of time.
Yeah, it does.
And my good friend Jimmy Conn, my good friend Jimmy Conn's always out playing,
but I'm, I'm afraid to ask him his handicap,
because I know he'll, like, exaggerate.
Yeah, a lot of golfers lie.
I read a thing once in Golf Digest, they went out, because it's very, you know,
a lot of integrity of real golfers, you know?
Yeah, well, I, I've heard of guys picking up the ball when you're not looking
at throwing another hundred feet.
Yeah.
Or, you k