Of all the actors, one of our favorites to report on is the legendary, Sam Elliott. He’s tall and thin and the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. As fans, there are a lot of questions we’d love to ask Sam Elliott. We put together a list of the best interview questions and answers we could find. From his voice to Cher and his favorite movies Sam Elliott answers all the questions a fan would want to know.
Question: What led you down the path of being an actor in the first place?
Answer: Going to too many movies when I was growing up, basically. I just got fascinated by it early on. And it wasn’t like I wanted to be a legitimate actor, a real actor. I wanted to make movies. Consequently, I didn’t study, really. I did some. I did a lot of stuff all the way through school. But I just got bit by wanting to do films, and I had tunnel vision about it. But I had a lot of encouragement from different drama coaches along the way, and my mom was a big supporter. My dad thought I was fucking crazy. [Laughs.]
Question: Is there a movie you’ve starred in that you wished more people knew you for?
Answer: 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.
Question: Which westerns have been your favorites?
Answer: 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.
Question: Do you have any favorite films or roles?
Answer: Of my own? No, no, no. The one thing I remember more than parts or more than roles in film are the people I’ve worked with on films. The work’s one thing. But the work with the people you’re working with, that’s the thing in the long haul that makes one particular film more special than another. We’re like a band of gypsies out there. Sometimes you’ll go and you’ll work with people and you’ll never cross paths with them again. But for the time that you’re there, you’re all thrown together. It’s this serendipitous journey you all take. It’s incredible.
Question: Can You Name A Highlight from the movie ‘Mask’
Answer: Definitely a highlight. It came at a time when I’d done a year on Mission: Impossible, I’d done a few movies for TV at that point, I’d done a film called Lifeguard, and I’d just finished a year on an episodic television series called The Yellow Rose. So I’d been around, and I was pretty well established. But it just came at a great time, and it’s always gonna be a special one for me. To be honest with you, I think that was one of the highlights of the experience for me, working with her, having been a Cher fan from the beginning. And Eric Stoltz was amazing. Eric literally was that character. I never saw Eric out of that. I think that was intentional on his part. He was really well invested in that part.
He was in deep. He was eating his meals out of a straw. He dropped 10 pounds, I think, when we were working on that film, and he’s a pretty slight kid, anyway. He suffered through it in the summertime in Universal City and never complained once. He just was that character. It was an amazing experience. Not to mention László Kovács, the director of photography, and Peter Bogdanovich directing. It just was a wonderful experience.
Question: 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?
Answer: 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.