The great Kurt Russell talks The Hateful Eight, Bone Tomahawk, Escape from New York and more!
Kurt Russell is at the stage of his 50-year career where hes become a living legend.
Kurt Russell: Yeah.
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What do you remember about that and what impressions you had of this script?
What I remember about it was Quentin wanted to do a rehearsal of it.
I said, Yeah, Id love to do that.
I love to read.
Itd be fun to meet other actors and see what you are going to do.
Once I heard that, I thought, Oh, OK.
He just wants to see it played one time.
So I read the script.
I thought John Ruth was great.
I thought, Too bad hes not doing this.
Its a fun movie.
And its really great.
And John Ruth would be a great character to play.
At least I get to do it once.
After kind of blending all that in there, you have your John Ruth.
It was not an easy thing.
It was not an easy thing creating what I wanted to be a memorable character.
You are going to get the information, but lets just go along.
Let this play out.
Let this take its time.
But dont think that this doesnt matter, that sort of thing.
Those are the things I was thinking about with John Ruth as I was working.
I heard the John Wayne cadence in a few of the lines.
First of all, hes bombastic.
Hes a big Yank.
He doesnt really care what other people think.
But then theres other times when hes not at all like that.
Like at the table.
At the table hes just so betrayed by the one person he doesnt want to be betrayed by.
But thats entirely different.
Thats just a real person sitting there.
He chooses to go easy and choose his words carefully.
He knows this is a real player, so, OK. Well do this differently.
But hes already worked out what hes going to do there.
So you realize hes pretty clever at his job.
Hes really good at it, actually.
Yeah, he did.
He just knew those things.
He should have listened to himself more than he did.
Youve been in two Westerns this year.
[laughs] Got two good writers!
Everybody knows Quentins dialogue, but the dialogue inBone Tomahawkis fantastic too.
Im glad to hear you say that.
That was why I did it.
I thought he was a great writer.
I like Zahlers Western style writing as good as anybody.
I thought that Kevin Jarre inTombstone, his writing was pretty tough to beat.
Thats about as good a dialogue as Westerns have ever had.
This is very different than Zahler did, but its very authentic.
It has that good authentic feel to it.
But the movie has gotten great reviews.
And it sort of belongs in its own category.
And then theres Quentin, who is unique in and of himself, which is a completely different style.
Its a broad style.
Its like going from a reality-based time period to Broadway-based.
Finally, that particular group of actors could get together at that particular time and do it.
And I had to let it grow some for this movie.
So I thought, Well, I just have to cheat that a little bit.
I dont get to quite cover that character the way I would like to.
But it still wasnt wrong.
There was nothing wrong with it.
It was right for the period and whatnot.
But this look is what…it wasnt just the mustache; his hair is all over the place.
This guys a wild, wild looking beast.
You know, Holy shit.
Thats a lot of man.
[laughs] Everything.
His bombastic nature is just thrown around the room.
Or as Quentin said one day, Its not like you are a bull in a china shop.
You are the bull and the entire movie is a china shop.
Ive never played a character like that.
Hes full of himself in a funny way.
Hes doing his best.
John Carpenter and I used to talk about it.
Hes not stupid, but hes not bright, and kind of brash and whatnot.
Anyway, the whole movie is printed with takes where hes not that good.
But the Chinese guy is really good.
[laughs] So hes going to go to the premiere and just be shocked, like, God.
How did that happen?
That was sort of Jack Burton to us.
But in his heart he was good.
And he was going to come through for you.
He was going to fight for you.
Somebody said thatThe Hateful Eightalmost plays like if John Ford had madeThe Thing.
And you get that sense of the closed room and nobody really knows who anybody is.
And he had Ennio (Morricone) doing the music, and he did the music forThe Thing.
A lot of music here has got that feel to it, right?
It gives it a sense of gravitas that I really think is cool.
I love the fact that I got to be in both those films.
I love the fact that those two directors directed those films.
I love the fact that I got to play the characters that I got to play in those films.
That was the case here.
And I feel that way about myself.
And I felt that way about the character, that John Ruth is in his prime.
Hes an old bull.
Then when its going full speed, All right.
You take it now.
It was a fun experience.
We were talking aboutStar Warsjust before the interview.
Harrison is playing Han Solo 30 years later in the movie.
Under the right circumstances, would you want to revisit Snake Plissken 30 years later?
Its not why you make movies.
I think you make them to have that unique experience.
But I get it.
And there were different personal reasons that I did that for.
And I just was on the edge.
But you’re free to watch those two movies back to back and Snake is still Snake.
He still looks like Snake.
He acts like Snake.
If wed have done it then, Id say yes.
Do it then and save it.
Put it in the bank for 15 years.
But theres no reason for it.
Look, Snake Plissken at the time was referred to as the dark side of James Bond.
It was in 1980.
Thats what he is.
I dont want to see James Bond at 65 years old.
I dont want to watch that.
Im not so sure I want to watch Han Solo at 75.
If its done right though, theres a real character.
Han Solo in that regard is more of a real guy.
I dont see Snake as aging.
I seek Snake as being a one-age person.
So if they want to do that, great.
Go find another Snake.
But its going to be hard because youve got to find another John Carpenter, too.
He and I pretty much understood that world.
We look at the world a little differently.
And theyre talking about making that.
So, OK. Good.
Show me something good.
Find a reason for why you did that.
Thats not very pretty.
But my hope would be that they could.
I wish them good luck in doing that.
We didWho Goes There?This is about paranoia.
And its a completely different atmosphere.
Maybe somebody has a take onEscape from New Yorklike that.
And Ill be the first one to sit there and go, This is awesome!
But I hope they do something like that, not just to sort of take the title.
Thats not going to do anything.
