20 Questions: Kurt Russell

Looking tough and comfortable in jeans, T-shirt and boots, a chain-smoking Kurt Russell sprawled on a small chair in the office of an L.A. publicity firm that once represented his girlfriend, Goldie Hawn. Although then onscreen in "Silkwood" and now appearing in "Swing Shift" (co-starring Hawn), Russell does not like to overdo his press exposure. But according to Contributing Editor David Rensin, who sat opposite him, "He quickly began to enjoy himself, firing off opinions on everything from the foibles of his generation to the designated-hitter controversy. He also seems very much in love."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Many actors have gotten political mileage out of the nuclear controversy. After your role in Silkwood, is it an issue on which you take a stand?

[A] Russell: Not really. I've learned some technical things from Silkwood that have slightly altered my opinion on the subject. But I'm still a great believer in nuclear power plants. It's a perfect sort of energy, only there are two problems. The first--to make the plants technically correct and safe by following all the rules and regulations--can be solved. The other problem is not immediately solvable. Nuclear waste is put into plastic bags and stuff and is buried and is alive and radioactive for 250,000 years! We just don't know if we have anything that can contain it for that long. So what we have is something with great potential on which we haven't yet closed the book. We don't know how to put this monster to sleep. Until we do, we shouldn't play with it. However, I have tremendous faith that we can find a way.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Compare real life and the movies.

[A] Russell: There is no comparison. The fun in films is when every so often you can hit that magical spot of being so real as to create the illusion that it's real. That's what is to be admired, not the reality of what is being watched. It's a fine line. The idea is to tread that line, and any movie that can is most satisfying to me. Whether or not Silkwood dealt with real life--whether or not we tried to do it as close to real life as possible--is irrelevant. It's still only a movie. But the appreciation level changes according to how real you can be, and I try to be as goddamn real as I can. I want to suspend the audience's reality.

3.

[Q] Playboy: You did that with your critically acclaimed portrayal of Elvis. Where did it all go wrong for him?

[A] Russell: I'd worked with him and knew him, but I won't pretend to understand Elvis' life or to know how much of the various biographies are true. I really don't care. His story is long and complicated, but one thing is explainable: At a certain point in life, he realized there was nothing he could do wrong. People were not going to let him not be Elvis. He was Elvis no matter what. And that's probably the most horrible thing to realize. Whatever void that leads to is probably impossible to fill.

4.

[Q] Playboy: How do you handle your high-pressure job?

[A] Russell: I disagree with the assumption. There's no pressure at all in this business. Pressure is the winning run on third base and you at the plate and 40,000 people screaming and then you getting jammed by the pitch and grounding out weakly to third and everyone groaning and booing. The Olympics is pressure. Politics at the high-stakes level is pressure. Medicine, where you've got a guy on the operating table who's going to live or die by what you do, is pressure. Standing in front of a camera and getting deeply involved in exposing another person is not pressure. It's interesting and fun and sometimes disappointing. But not pressure.

5.

[Q] Playboy: When did you finally get an honest day's pay for an honest day's work?

[A] Russell: On a paper route I had when I was nine. I got up at four A.M. and finished at 6:30. I must have gone to 60 or 70 houses. After a month, when I went around and collected my money, I knew why. I had the paper route because I wanted ten-speed bikes for me and my sister. After six months, I realized that it would take me two years of delivering papers. That's how I got into acting. My dad [former baseball player and actor Bing Russell] was up for a picture that Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were going to be in. It had a part for a ten-year-old. I thought, This is it! I could meet Mantle and Maris and make enough to buy both bikes with only about six weeks' work. I called my dad's agent and went on the interview but didn't get the job. But I discovered that I enjoyed the interview--which I hadn't expected. Eventually, I did get some work on a TV show called Our Man Higgins. I liked it and I figured that I'd just keep going, make a few bucks and see what happened.

6.

[Q] Playboy: You also ended up playing years of minor-league baseball. Where do you stand on the designated-hitter controversy?

[A] Russell: As much as I think it's been fantastic to extend the careers of record makers, I disagree with the concept of putting in a hitter. It's trying to solve the problem of run production for a television audience. Pitchers are 11 percent of a team's hitting power, but the teams don't make them hit. I say make the mother-fuckers take batting practice. Letting the pitcher hit adds variables to a game that's made up of variables. It makes the manager have to deal with the situation. Having played so much baseball, I've come to the conclusion that after a certain point, most guys are basically of the same physical ability. But what's truly interesting about the game is the mental aspect: They've got Joe Blow in the bull pen and it's the seventh inning and they're only two runs down. What should they do? I'm interested in what can be done with moves, in giving the American baseball audience something to second-guess. The more you take away from the fans the ability to second-guess, the more you hurt the game.

7.

[Q] Playboy: Jocks are notorious practical jokers. What's your most memorable prank?

[A] Russell: Jeez, we had some great ones, but this is the best. A guy I knew was pitching a no-hitter in the ninth inning and the batter hit a grounder to the shortstop, who threw to first and got the runner by two steps. But the ump at first called him safe and blew the no-hitter. Well, the pitcher hated the ump anyway, and after the game, he was thinking of how he could get the guy. About a week later, the pitcher caught the clap. And a week after that, we were scheduled to have the same ump. So the pitcher figured out a plan, and I, another guy and the pitcher carried it out. Actually, it wasn't funny. It was awful. But I felt sorry for the pitcher, because he would have (continued on page 159)Kurt Russell(continued from page 115) been in the record books--which meant a lot in minor-league ball--but the ump, whom the pitcher didn't like, had blown the play. Our plan was to butter up the ump completely; take him out and have a couple of drinks after the game. So the pitcher did. He apologized, said, "You didn't blow the call." We then got the ump really drunk. Meanwhile, the ump's wife, who knew the pitcher and was privy to all this, had gone along. Which was the whole point. The pitcher had been dying with the clap for a couple of weeks just on the off-chance that he could pull off his plan--which was to sleep with the ump's wife. He did. Cut to three weeks later. It was toward the end of the season. We ran into the ump and he was still in a good mood. Again, we went out with him for some beers and he bragged about this and that and all the girls he'd been with. Then he said, "Shit, I don't know where I got it, but I got a hell of a dose of the clap." The pitcher just looked at him and said, "You got it from your wife," and told him the whole story. Those two ended up going at it like two bulldogs under a blanket. I saw it all. It was brutal.

8.

[Q] Playboy: What's dangerous about you?

Russell: Just what I'm capable of imagining, because one is capable of doing anything he imagines. There is, however, an acceptability level. There is that line between all things, and it is of great concern to anyone who wants to get a lot out of life. I mean, what stops men from raping and pillaging? What stops a guy from walking down the street and just fucking any girl he wants to fuck? Not that it's unacceptable to society but that it's unacceptable to him. What stops a woman who's very much in love with her husband from having, on a whim, another guy in her bed when her husband comes home? It's unacceptable to her. What stops you from being mean and ruthless even though there is a level at which you will be both? It's where you draw the line. The same is true for sensitivity. You can be too sensitive, too loving, too understanding, too good. It's wrong to be too good. At least, it's too much for me.

9.

[Q] Playboy: You once said you hated your generation. How will history sum us up?

Russell: Our generation--the baby-boomers--is just like any other. And that's what I hate about them. They don't seem to understand that we're just another generation. We're just here to procreate the race. But if you think you're going to change the world forever, have the guts to carry it out. Be dedicated enough, rather than stop and say, "Oh, shit, I guess I have to make a living. Oh, God, now I've got a family. Oh, God, now I have to take this job." If you do that, you have no balls. This generation didn't change basic structures. It became other things. All of it was another view of youth going through its period of wanting change for apparently no reason other than being young. Every generation has that period. It's biological; otherwise, how could so many people buy the same bag of shit? It would be interesting to see something different.

10.

[Q] Playboy: When was the last time you were surprised?

[A] Russell: The last big surprise I had was Goldie Hawn. I was surprised by the way I felt about her and by the way she was and the way she looked--also, by the way she could make me feel. I'd begun to think that perhaps my lot in life wasn't to feel exactly how I wanted to feel with another person. I thought maybe it was something I just wasn't lucky with; it was turning out to be more of an effort than I'd ever thought it should be. But after meeting Goldie, I realized I was right in the first place. I could just be who I was and someone would take me for that and not hold it against me. I feel right. I feel like me. And I'm still surprised.

11.

[Q] Playboy: What more do women need to know about men than they already do?

[A] Russell: I wonder if they need to know any more at all. I wonder if perhaps the need now is to know less. Everything these days is so broken down and picked apart. Now there's this incredible movement toward understanding. But there are some things in nature that we are never going to understand. No matter how deeply you get into it, there are always more questions. And the answers don't apply to all men. Every one is an individual. I would prefer that men and women looked at each other as individuals and tried to understand more about themselves.

12.

[Q] Playboy: What fascinates the Hollywood press?

[A] Russell: For some reason, the press will always love an actor who has tremendous personal problems or apparent ones. They think that suggests creativity and ability. They're wrong. It's just personal problems. But as long as the person is tremendously tragic, with an emotionally charged, up-and-down life, we're told that's why he's so great. Half the thing with alcohol or drugs is that the great moment will come in an actor's life when he admits he's an alcoholic or a drug addict. Well, who the fuck cares? I don't buy that he had to experience that to be a great actor. I know very well some big stars, great actors and actresses, who are normal. But the press and the public like to find something mysterious about them. Meryl Streep is a good example. Meryl is a nice, simple, wonderful, great girl who is a great actress. She's got a tremendous array of technical things to use and she uses them. But mysterious? The public likes to think about the mystery, because otherwise, people would be saying, "Shit, I could do that." And the truth is that they could. And a reason many actors are out of work is that that's what some of them did. There are only so many jobs. I can't tell you how much I dislike that idea of building into a myth someone who is just standing on a mark and reading a line. Even Brando is not a myth. He's a man who does a job, and he's extremely good at it.

13.

[Q] Playboy: You were probably in more Disney pictures than Dean Jones and Joe Flynn combined. Assess Walt Disney's chances for survival as a studio head if he were alive today.

[A] Russell: He'd be the most successful film maker today, simply because he was a genius. He was able to stay ten, 15 years ahead of his time. Sure, they don't make Disney's kind of picture anymore. The problem is that they don't. Can you tell me that Mary Poppins wouldn't succeed today? It would probably be this year's best picture, because if he made Mary Poppins today, Disney would again be 20 years ahead of his time without losing that feeling. He was absolutely great at honest emotion. He had that knack. I don't know if that meant he was in touch with the public. I think he was just in touch with his own brain. That was all that mattered.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Which of Disney's cartoon characters would you like to be for a day?

[A] Russell: Peter Pan. I love his outlook on life. I love the world he lives in. It's one of tremendous adventure and excitement. I love that he's going to see it for as long as he can. He doesn't want to grow up, and he's never going to. [Laughs] My life is a lot different from Peter Pan's. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to fall in love and have a family, and I wanted to be the father of that family. I had to be big so I could hit the ball out of the park.

15.

[Q] Playboy: Which big-league manager would you rather have to dinner: Billy Martin or Tommy Lasorda?

Russell: Billy Martin. I am not enamored of false rah-rah. I like someone who will fight, cheat, scratch, do anything to win--without getting caught. And when you do get caught, own up. Martin personifies that, even if he's playing somewhat of a caricature of himself these days. He keeps coming back.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever wanted to portray a Kennedy?

[A] Russell: Jack Kennedy is a well-rounded character suitable for a movie, and I've been approached about playing him or Bobby a number of times. But on the whole, the Kennedys do not fascinate me. Let's face it, though: There is a fascination with them, because they are like our own royalty. I'm just not much for royalty. The Kennedys are just people, and one of them was President. And he was killed. America has a fascination with the people we kill. But maybe it's just a feeling of guilt around the country.

17.

[Q] Playboy: You've done a number of violent films, such as Escape from New York, The Thing and the Charles Whitman story, The Deadly Tower. Is America unnaturally fascinated with violence? Are critics of violence in film and on television just wasting their time?

[A] Russell: Not really. We're normally violent because the population is growing. If you put enough rats in a cage, things start getting tough. It's just that some of us are more violent than others. When I'm in the city for a long time, I get hyped up and take things more to the extreme than when I'm comfortable in Colorado.

[A] Critics are totally wasting their time. It should be explained to children early that films and TV are not real life. They're fakes, simply phonies. When I was seven, we played Robin Hood with a plank over an inflatable pool. When one of us fell into the water, we poured catsup over him. We played out our fantasies. We wanted it to look like blood, but we didn't think it was blood. We knew it was catsup. That's just what the movies are, and cartoons are an extension of that. If you want to censor that sort of thing in films and on TV, then you have to do the same for books, art, radio, plays... . The point is that this stuff belongs on TV and in the movies. That's where you can see fantasy before your eyes--someone else's fantasy--and understand that it's not real. In real life, Wile E. Coyote gets up, wanders off and dies. Most of the time, he doesn't even get up.

18.

[Q] Playboy: What should young boys learn from their fathers?

[A] Russell: They should learn the advantages, disadvantages and good and bad qualities of becoming a man, mixed in with all the situations in life one might have to handle. My father said some things that have stuck and that gave me an outlook on life that I appreciate--because I enjoy life. He said, "Don't respect your elders as much as somebody who deserves your respect." Also "Never walk in a door that you can't walk out of." And "If you're getting paid a man's salary, do a man's job." Finally, "If you don't do exactly what you want to do, you won't be happy." Most people probably think things are stacked against the last idea. But, amazingly, it's the easiest.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Most actors use an interview for publicity or as a soapbox for a favorite issue. Is there a reason beyond those two that you're here?

[A] Russell: [Smiles wickedly] I like to lie in interviews. Sometimes I'll just blatantly lie, because a lot of lies are going to appear anyway, so why not make some of them up myself? Two years later, I'll be talking with someone who will say, "You once said ..." and I'll say, "No, I didn't." Ten minutes later, he'll say, "Well, you said ..." and I'll say, "Yes, I did, but I lied." I don't mind giving the interview a feeling of untruth, of its sort of being a piece of flack that somebody will read in a minute and a half on the toilet, that doesn't make much difference. The media in large part deserve that kind of bullshit, because they dish it out. So why not have fun with them? If I take it seriously and then read things that are not true, it's going to hurt. The only thing I can do is fight back. I lie for it to be entertaining when I read it. And I hope that by the time I'm 50 years old, there will be such a conglomeration of impossible facts that it's impossible to put them together and the press just gives up. I don't really care to have people know me unless I meet them and I want them to get to know me.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Have you lied to us?

[A] Russell: [Shrugs] Probably. I probably have. I honestly don't remember. You'd have to go through it. [Pauses] I don't think I've lied to you. But it really doesn't make any difference.

"You can be too sensitive, too loving, too understanding, too good. It's wrong to be too good."