Biografia

4 maggio 1947 · DeKalb, Illinois, Stati Uniti

1,85 m

[In response to his first starring film role in L'ospite inatteso (2007)] I would say 'I'll go back to my trailer now', and they'd say, 'No, no, you're in the next scene. It's one of those things that I didn't know if I would ever get an opportunity to try. I've been waiting my entire professional life for this experience.

[on filming The Witches of Eastwick] My first really nice part after Silverado. And my first day of shooting, they wouldn't let me on the set, cause they didn't believe I was in it. We were shooting in Massachusetts, and I drove up from my house, and I didn't have any ID on me or anything. I just drove up to the gate, and said "I'm here to shoot the movie." The guy said "Who are you?" I said "I'm an actor," and he said "Yeah, you and everyone else in town." I said "No, no, I'm an actor." And one of the grips or crew guys was walking by, and the guard asked "Hey, do you know who this guy is?" And the guy looked at me and said "Never seen 'em before." Finally I got an assistant to say "Yeah, yeah, he's in the movie." You think it's hard getting into movie sets? It is.

[on working with the Coens brothers] Well, I audition for them, for every movie. Raising Arizona was the first one. I auditioned for Miller's Crossing, and my agent called me up and said "I've got great news, it's between you and Albert Finney." I said "Oh really, that's great. Who would you choose?" And of course, Albert Finney was wonderful. I wanted Fargo, that's the one I wanted so badly. And when I saw it, and I saw William Macy in the part, I said "Oh, no wonder. He's incredible." But I stopped going in to audition. I'd say "No, they're not going to cast me anyway." And then they called me up and asked me to do The Man Who Wasn't There. And I said "So the only way to get a part in your movie is not to come in and audition?"

I was at a real funeral once, around the time I was doing Six Feet Under, when a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked "Are they filming this?" It was one of those things where you're thinking "Is she kidding, is she not kidding?" She wasn't. That was jaw-dropping.

[on his role in the 1985 film Silverado] I auditioned for this really great part, and I remember my manager called me up and said "You got it! You're Kelly." And I said "Who?" "Kelly." I searched through the script, and I was in two scenes. I said "Howdy" in the first scene, and in the second scene, I said "You can't do that," and they shot me. And I was on the set for seven weeks. It was a cover set, which means if they couldn't work outside with it snowing or bad weather, they would move inside and do that scene they were saving for bad weather, so I couldn't go anywhere. I was hanging out in the Hilton Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and everybody else was working on the movie.