A Minute With: Robert Duvall on Westerns and avoiding stereotypes

By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - With a career spanning seven decades, actor Robert Duvall has played roles ranging from Joseph Stalin to Dwight D. Eisenhower, and he still looks for ways to diversify his choices. Duvall, 82, will next be seen as a stoic war veteran patriarch in "Jayne Mansfield's Car," written and directed by and starring Billy Bob Thornton, which will be released in U.S. theaters on Friday. The film, a drama set in 1960s Alabama, explores the cultural impact of a British family in a small Southern town. Duvall spoke to Reuters about his love of working in Westerns, how Hollywood has evolved and his dream role. Q: What drew you to work with Billy Bob Thornton on "Jayne Mansfield's Car"? A: Billy Bob, I call him the hillbilly Orson Welles! Seriously though, in some cases he puts Tennessee Williams in the back seat. The guy understands the Southern idiom. He understands where he comes from. He's a brilliant guy, not just as an actor, but he's a triple threat guy - a writer, director and actor. The material was so unique to what he knows and what he grew up with that it attracted me very much, because his family was like that. His own father used to take the boys to car wrecks, to examine it and wonder why it happened, so he came from this world that he writes about. He understands the world he writes about. Q: Do you find that the South can be misconstrued in film? A: Absolutely. If (Thornton) goes broad or into another realm that seems not real, it is real because he comes from that. His mother was a clairvoyant, she took his readings. It's his own niche in the southern culture. Very definitely Hollywood, they miss it because they put quotations around it and they condescend to it. But he speaks from within out, because he understands it. So whatever he portrays is accurate to what he comes from, which may be different from other parts of the South. But he doesn't misconstrue it, he understands it where most Hollywood movies do not. Q: How have you avoided being stereotyped into a certain genre or character? A: I've always considered myself a character actor. And if there were no movies, I'd still be doing theater. I don't do theater now because I like doing films and many parts that I do on film I could do on stage if there were no films. But I've always tried to be a character actor and I think in my career that I've done that. We all do things that are better than others. I've played Stalin (1992's "Stalin"). I've played in "Lonesome Dove," my favorite part of a Texas ranger. I've played a Cuban barber with Richard Harris (1993's "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway"). I've played Adolf Eichmann (1996's "The Man Who Captured Eichmann"). I've always liked Westerns. I like working in Texas and I'm going to work on a project coming up in Texas, but I've always tried to be as diverse as possible without being stereotyped, and many times it has come my way. Q: The earlier Western movies were Hollywood's bread and butter, and captured the attention of a very international audience. Why do you think such an American genre of film has such wide global appeal? A: I think it's a sense of pushing west, of the expansion and so forth ... I think people are fascinated with the West. Q: What's the biggest change you've seen in Hollywood over your career? A: I don't know if it's really changed. It's easier to raise $100 million than $5 (million). Doing an independent film is very difficult and they still do good work. But they do these big movies like "The Lone Ranger." I mean, I just thought it was a bad movie. Q: There have been some takes on the western genre recently, with Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" and "The Lone Ranger." How do you think Westerns have evolved in film? A: Well, if that's what it's evolved into, I don't know what to say (laughs). That's all I'll comment on at this point. Q: Is there still a dream role that you want to play or wish you had played? A: Terry Gilliam had approached me to play Don Quixote, and it's still way on the back burner because he can't get funding, but he saw me play the Cuban barber and ever since then he thought I could play Don Quixote in a certain way ... It would be nice to play that part. (Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Vicki Allen)