Sam Elliott: 'My security comes from the fact I've never done a job for money'
Sam Elliott has always been very careful about choosing roles. The 72-year-old, a California-born performer with a celebrated drawl, has never made movies that served purely to further his career. His career has included roles in Road House, The Big Lebowski, Tombstone and, more recently, I’ll See You in My Dreams, but he’s never quite become the household name he should be.
Sam Elliott on working with Lily Tomlin: 'We went through this catharsis'
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He’s experiencing something of a renaissance, though, with roles in two Netflix sitcoms (The Ranch and Grace and Frankie), a forthcoming part in Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-starring remake of A Star is Born and a lead as an over-the-hill actor in the romantic drama The Hero.
At the beginning of The Hero, you do voiceover work for a commercial. You’ve done ads for stuff like beef and Coors Banquet. You say “beef fajitas” with an extraordinary inflection in the ad where you list all the meals you can make with beef. How do you keep yourself emotionally engaged with material like that?
[laughs] I did beef ads for about eight years because I love the people in that industry, and there are a lot of people who make their living in the beef world. Ranchers, primarily. Those ads pushed the numbers in the marketplace for beef up considerably ... but when it got to the point where they kept asking for different takes, different cuts, different deals you can get involved with ... I started to bristle at it, just talking to these guys. I think I talked myself out of a job, ultimately. Because it became something that I didn’t want to deal with every time out.
Artists draw on so many previous experiences that people cannot know about when they watch their work. Is there a line that actors cross when they use their loved ones for their work? Or is it all just part of the process?
I think the people that most often cross a line are comedians. I think they relish that, and take pride in that on some level – at least, from what little I’ve seen and understand about people that do stand-up. They’re really the most outlandish of all of us in the entertainment world. I guess the people who are the most off-putting on one level can also be the most entertaining as well.
What kind of conversations do you have with your agent to ensure that you’re doing worthwhile work without sacrificing more commercial opportunities that might later give you enough security to do the kind of work you most want to do?
My security comes from the fact that I’ve never done a job for money. A certain level of security comes out of the commercial world – that allows me to turn down the dramatic stuff, or the theatrical stuff ... the acting work. But I’ve always basically made my own decisions. And I think I’ve done reasonably well. I have people that I get feedback from, get opinions from, keep me on the track, so to speak. But to me, it’s all about what’s on the page. It’s not about working for money. It’s just something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid.
How do you think the changes that are being made to the way people see movies is changing not just the roles you get offered, but the industry you work in?
The game has totally changed. Changes that have been made in the technological world have revolutionized the movie business on almost every level. There are some constants that are never going to change. But from a technical standpoint, it’s a whole other world.
Are there more opportunities to do movies to make movies like The Hero?
I think there are, because there are more platforms to play this stuff on.
Your voice must make it hard not to be typecast. What have been the biggest challenges that you’ve had to face in your career given people’s expectations of who you are based on how you sound?
I don’t think I’ve ever had problems with my voice in terms of what people have wanted out of me as an actor. But I did do a movie called Lifeguard back in 1976 with a director named Dan Petrie, who did a lot of incredible work. Every once in a while, he would tell me: “Let’s do it again, and this time, let’s be a little less south in the mouth.” That’s always amused me.
You’ve said in earlier interviews that you like westerns, and especially liked John Wayne films when you grew up. Which westerns have been your favorites?
The Searchers would be up there. Red River. Shane. There was a particular time in Hollywood where the western was the bread and butter for everybody in town. In the early days, there was a bunch of really good western actors that were all you needed to make a good western. There were horses all around town. And wagons. And now all that stuff has moved on. Most of that stuff can only be found today in Texas, or New Mexico. It’s just a whole industry that’s disappeared. There’s a simplicity to that form that has always spoken to me. There’s a pretty well-defined morality to the characters: the good, the bad ... not a lot of gray area. It’s either one or the other in the stuff that’s spoken to me.
Is there a movie you’ve starred in that you wished more people knew you for?
No. I’ve done films over the years that basically no one saw. And I’m thankful that some of them haven’t been seen. But I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been in a lot of films that a lot of people saw. It’s not about legacy for me. It’s about the people I’m working with at the time, and just going in and enjoying the process. It’s hard work, but it’s a creative, artistic process. And if you can’t enjoy that, then you’re going about it wrong.
The Quad cinema in New York is showing a retrospective, Sam Elliott x 4, from 7 to 8 June. The Hero will be released in US cinemas on 9 June with a UK date yet to be announced