American actor Sam Elliott sat down for an interview in the last year to talk about where he learned to be a man, and the answer will warm your heart. The now 73-year-old gets real on where his perception of being a real man came from, and it actually came from his dad and his dad’s friends.
Elliott also says that despite his father passing away, he still wanted to work as hard as he could to make his father proud. He revealed that his father was never really big into the theater arts and ‘came a couple of times’ to see Elliott perform. Despite that, his dad was the biggest role model in his life and wanted to prove him wrong about the arts by making him proud.
“I can only speak of the men that were in my life and that was my dad and his friends,” Elliott begins as he recalls his true role model(s), “Those are the men that I grew up going fishing and, you know, spending time with.” Elliott continues on by saying that they were all pretty ‘hardcore’ in the sense that they weren’t rude or mean, but rather super hard-working and inspired Elliott to be the same.
Elliott additionally recalled what his father did for a living. He said that he worked in the Fish and Wildlife Service so he was outside all the time. He also took Elliott to tons of places in the Sacramento, CA area where he grew up. Elliott was able to experience these things and be a part of his dad’s life until he, unfortunately, died at the young age of 54. Elliott was 18.
“My dad died thinking I was a total idiot for wanting to be an actor,” Elliott recalled with a bit of laughter, “He said ‘you got a snowball’s chance in hell having a f*cking career in that tomb.’” Elliott states that he didn’t really want to prove his father wrong exactly, but just make him proud and change his mind about his son’s determination and will for acting.