With his new film The Apostle, Robert Duvall has created one of his richest and most memorable characters to date: Sonny, a loquacious Pentecostal preacher who is far from perfect, but filled with complexity, humanity, humor, and pathos. Duvall, who also wrote, directed, and produced the film, has surrounded himself with a stellar cast that includes Billy Bob Thornton, Miranda Richardson, Farrah Fawcett, and a slew of lesser known actors and non-professional actors who deserve equal recognition for their remarkable work.
Born in San Diego, Calif. in 1931 and later raised in Annapolis, Maryland, Duvall attending Principia College in Illinois, where he switched his major from history and government to drama. Following a two-year tour of duty with the U.S. Army, he moved to New York in 1955 and enrolled in the acting program of the renowned Neighborhood Playhouse, where he studied under the legendary Sanford Meisner.
While living as a fledging actor in New York, Duvall shared an apartment with two fellow unknowns, Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. Duvall landed his break when the playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote recommended him for his 1963 screen debut as Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird. In 1965, he won an Obie for his performance in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, and later starred in the Broadway production of Wait Until Dark. In the late 1970s, Duvall returned to the New York stage in David Mamet's American Buffalo.
He's been honored three times with Academy Award nominations for his supporting roles in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and Apocalypse Now and for his starring role in The Great Santini. In 1984, he earned a best actor Oscar for his role in Tender Mercies.
There are few actors who have played such a vast range of characters in American film. Other credits include True Grit, The Rain People, M*A*S*H, George Lucas' directorial debut THX 1138, The Conversation, Network, The Eagle Has Landed, The Natural, Colors, Rambling Rose, Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, The Stars Fell on Henrietta, Something to Talk About, The Scarlet Letter, Phenomenon, A Family Thing, and the forthcoming Deep Impact and Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man.
His television work is equally impressive and includes the TNT movie The Man Who Captured Eichmann, the HBO film Stalin, for which he won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the Russian dictator, and the acclaimed miniseries Lonesome Dove, earning him an Emmy.
Indeed, Duvall is a certifiable icon of the American screen. Back Stage West had the honor of speaking with the acclaimed performer/director about The Apostle and how he established his roots in acting.
Back Stage West: I'm Jewish, and the only time I've been inside a church is either as a tourist or as a wedding guest. But after watching The Apostle I feel like I've been to a church service. I really got a better sense of the fervor that a congregation must feel in the presence of a really charismatic preacher. Have you heard that reaction from other people who have seen the film?
Robert Duvall: Yeah. Richard Pearce, the film director (Heartland, Country) was saying that what he liked about the movie was that you didn't know what was next. There was an unpredictability in it. When we shot that first church service in the film, we almost didn't know what was going to happen next--the little things, like the guy who played the trumpet. We tried to get that spontaneity. I tried to turn the whole process around and let it come from the people, a lot of whom were non-actors, like in the congregations. I always tried to keep it on their terms so that it would come out fresh.
BSW: I understand that you came up the idea for this film when visiting a church in Arkansas 13 years ago. What about this subject matter compelled you?
Duvall: It was from going into one of these little churches, like in the movie, and suddenly being some place that you've never been before. Being an actor, I thought, "Someday I'd like to play one of these guys," because I'd never seen it on film. It always fascinated me, and I figured some day I'd find a way to play one of these guys in a given set of fictional circumstances. So often in film they tend to patronize or caricature these people, which I didn't want to do. I've heard it since been called one of the true American art forms, the American preacher.
BSW: Did you do additional research when writing the script?
Duvall: Oh yeah. Through the years I bet I've been to a hundred churches all across the United States--black, white, Pentecostal, Baptist--plus I watched videotapes and listened to tapes from old radio preachers. It's really been a very interesting pursuit.
BSW: It took a decade for this film to become a reality. Was it the religious subject matter that made it a difficult sell?
Duvall: That could have been part of it. I think it's hard for any actor, unless they're big, big, big names, to get any independent or personal project off the ground. And because this film deals with religion, people couldn't see an easy and obvious way to get money back as a commercial venture.
BSW: And your name didn't help to get investors?
Duvall: Not really. It would help to a point. You would think that once you have a track record, there would be some form of a trade-off. But maybe I didn't pursue it as intensely as I could have. There was a part of me that was hesitant to do this. I put it on the back burner, wanting to do it some day, but I'd keep putting it off--especially at the point when I decided that I would direct it, as well. There was no fear to act in it, but there was a fear to direct it.
BSW: What led you to sign on as a director?
Duvall: I felt that's the way it needed to be done, as a full package--writing, directing, and acting. Other directors I talked to, folks like Francis Coppola, Ulu Grosbard, and Richard Pearce, thought that I should direct it because maybe I understood it better than others. Finally, when the time did come, I had to finance it myself. My CPA, Joel Jacobson, was the one who greenlit the project. He said, "I think you have enough money." Being the conservative and honest guy that he is, I said, "If you say that, then let's do it." And once we started, I was much less fearful of the whole process of directing.
BSW: You've directed two other films--the 1977 documentary We're Not the Jet Set, about a Nebraska rodeo family, and Angelo, My Love, about street gypsies, which I understand incorporated a lot of improvised dialogue and non-actors. Do you find that there's something that binds your work together--a certain level of reality?
Duvall: That's exactly right--trying to get that level of reality in whatever the form. If you do a documentary, you shoot accidents as they happen. But if you do a fictional film, then you have to kind of work backwards to get that kind of behavior in an imaginary set of circumstances. It's a process you have to be very careful about.
Everything I do as a writer or a director really comes as an extension of myself as an actor, from that level of perception. What I try to bring to the table, other than just telling the story, is telling it with a certain level of reality--behavior that is as lifelike as possible, but in movie time and in fiction form. That's what I always try to go for. I try to stay back with the camera and not say, "OK, this is your close-up and you have to feel this."
BSW: One of the most exhilarating aspects of The Apostle is the successful juxtaposition of professional actors alongside non-actors. How did you discover some of these people?
Duvall: We went all around the country looking for people. The one-legged Bayou Man was a preacher from Dallas. He didn't even go to movies. When I sat him down to do the scene, I said, "We do it just the same way we went over the lines in the hotel in Dallas a month or so ago. It's just you and me, nobody but us."
And I stressed to the actors, "We don't have to get anywhere in the scene. Treat it like a line rehearsal. Just very easy. See where it goes." So many actors crank up the intensity and therefore lose their sense of energy. I'd rather be on the casual side and then let it fill up in a natural way. I directed the non-actors in the same way that I did the actors.
Then there's Rick Dial, who's really a furniture salesman, and who plays the role of Elmo, the radio station owner. He actually had to go back and forth between Lafayette, where we were shooting, and the furniture store. We had to work around his schedule! He had one part in Billy Bob's film Sling Blade, so he's still kind of a non-actor, but he's so naturally talented. Rick improvised a lot of his dialogue. At the end of The Apostle when they cart me off, his skin turned a certain color of grief. I don't know who told him to do that. He just did it.
BSW: What led you to become an actor?
Duvall: My parents kind of pushed me into acting. I was floundering around and I wasn't doing too well.
BSW: That surprises me. Acting doesn't seem to be a profession that most parents suggest for their children.
Duvall: I know, especially for a professional naval officer, like my father. But my mother had been an amateur actress, and there's a lot of music on my father's side. So there were certain ingredients on a secondary level. They did it as an expedient thing at the end of the Korean War to get me through college, so I wouldn't have to go off and serve, which I did eventually. But by then I already had the bug. Then I went to New York on my own and really got into it.
BSW: How did hook up with the Neighborhood Playhouse?
Duvall: Through Rick Morris, the actor who was Bobby Morris' brother. I was in the Army, thinking, "What's worse? To have to go to Korea and fight or go face Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse?" I had heard horror stories about him, and he could be a pretty tough guy on people. But I went to meet him and we talked and I got accepted. I wanted to test what I had with a guy like that from the Group Theatre. It was a nerve-racking thing, but it was a learning experience. I think that the most important aspects of that curriculum were the simple talking-and-listening, listening-and-talking improvisations.
I remember over Meisner's desk there was a sign that read, "There's no right or wrong. There's only truthful and untruthful." As long as you try to act as truthfully as possible--someone may disagree with your interpretation, but that doesn't necessarily make it right or wrong.
BSW: Can you tell when you're working with an actor if he or she has training or not?
Duvall: They could have training, but it may not necessarily pay off that well. In the best of the trained ones, it still seems as if they haven't been trained at all--like Miranda Richardson or Billy Bob. But it was the same working with them as it was with the Bayou Man or Rick Dial. Somebody asked me, "Where did you find that wonderful non-actor that played Preacher Blackwell?" That wonderful "non-actor," John Beasely, happened to play Othello at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
BSW: Is there any advice that you would give to a young actor?
Duvall: Somebody coming into the business should definitely either go to New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, and get into theatre work. If not theatre work, get into some acting class or an acting group where you can do scenes up on your feet. Get into a process of learning. Give and take a criticism without being too critical. Do scenes. Try things. Set up plays and have casting people come in and see things. Make your own way.
BSW: As an actor, what do you look for in projects that you want to be a part of?
Duvall: I try to always look at the character, to see if there's a little something different. Sometimes you repeat yourself. Sometimes you do things for money. Sometimes you make not-so-great choices. But I try to make choices on the basis of a good character. Hopefully it's a pretty good story. And then you look to see who the director is. When you get in a position where you can choose more, you want to try and work with good directors.
I've had a wonderful career as a hired hand, but now I want to do a little bit more. The Apostle will be with me probably more than any other project, and now that that's behind me, I want to direct and produce some more projects. I want to still be a hired hand, but maybe a little bit less.
BSW: Do you feel you continue to learn things as an actor?
Duvall: Oh, sure. The education process isn't always a conscious thing, but you're always gathering and storing up data. If you're refueling yourself emotionally, that will serve you later. You're always a self-contained reservoir. Underneath any character you're playing, it's always you turned a certain way. I can even learn from young actors. I see young actors that are really fresh and alive and I think, "Maybe I need to go back and reinforce certain things." I think you're always learning.
Also, you've got to have some heroes in order to grow. Even if jealousy takes over, you've got to say, "That person's good. I'll try to do better." You've got to give credit in order to grow. BSW