Hal Holbrook's Sunny Disposition

[Zoneboy]

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At 84 years young, actor Hal Holbrook has had drama coursing through his veins for over a half-century, going back to when Ed Sullivan had him on TV to perform a piece from his beloved one-man play, "Mark Twain Tonight." But Holbrook remains prolific in his twilight years, especially after receiving a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for "Into the Wild." He can most recently be seen headlining director Scott Teems' gorgeously atmospheric "That Evening Sun," in which he steals the show as an irritable Tennessee coot named Abner Meecham. After escaping a nursing home to find his land has been rented out by his lawyer son (Walton Goggins) to bad apple Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon) and his family, Abner decides to squat on the property anyway, and the southern-fried tensions soon rise. With an avuncular delivery reminiscent of his Twain characterization, Holbrook phoned from California to talk about the family member who inspired the character of Abner, why he rejects the idea of retirement, and how prescient ol' Samuel Clemens was about today's economic mess.

You've worked with so many acclaimed filmmakers, and Scott Teems is still a relatively unknown name. Why did you take a chance on a newcomer?

I just did the same thing a month or two ago with another film. The film business changes a lot, and for an actor who's interested in character work, I suppose you might say, I don't get offered these films where you have to jump out of an airplane with a machine gun, land on both feet and take out half the crowd. When a good script and character comes along, usually there's not much money in it either, but it's much more interesting for an actor. Most of us take a shot at that opportunity. It was a bit worrisome working with a new director, but it turned out to be a great idea. You do it because of the material.


I don't get offered these films where you have to jump out of an airplane with a machine gun, land on both feet and take out half the crowd.


Has that ever backfired, like when you pursued a great screenplay, but the director didn't have the same understanding of it as you?

That's something you have to arrive at. Sometimes with a director, it just seems like a perfect match, like with Sean Penn and "Into the Wild." Sean said very little to me. We just seemed to be on the same wavelength. No matter what you're doing as an actor, there's always a little strain of tension because you're not too sure whether what you're doing is okay. You hope it is. Scott had a very specific idea about how these characters should relate and behave. The character in this movie had to be dried out. That's the best way I can say it.

There's always an instinct in an actor to protect his character, to try to somehow get the audience to feel sympathetic. That's a fly in the ointment sometimes. I learned something very valuable by just doing another take, and another take, drying the character out and not asking for any sympathy. The thing that surprises me, frankly, is that this film has taken a hold of audiences the way it has because I thought it would be too dark and gloomy. When we went to Austin for [South by Southwest] where it premiered, the audience got the humor of the sarcastic insults my character and Lonzo Choat were throwing at each other, and I thought, "My god, that's wonderful. They're laughing!"

Your wife, Dixie Carter, who also has a small role in the film, is from Tennessee. What have you gleaned from your time in the South?

I've learned a great deal from my association with my Tennessee family. People down South have an extraordinary family component. They are very encompassing and defensive about the family. Coming from the no-family structure that I came from, this was a whole new world to me. My father-in-law passed away about three years ago. He lived with us for 20 years or more, and when he was in really bad shape, he said to Dixie one day, "Darling, I'm getting dyin' signals. I want to go back to Tennessee." So we moved there, it turns out to be for two years. My father-in-law was in my mind a lot when I played this character because he was a no-nonsense man, and when he said something, you could believe it. He didn't pussyfoot around. You would never get a word of advice from him. He would never say, "I think you should do this in this way." But if you asked him for his opinion, you got it. Bang!


At 84, your career isn't slowing down at all. Is there such thing as retirement for you?

No, I wouldn't know how. I'm writing a book now. I've written one and I'm writing another, a sequel, you might say. I'm forced to write a second one because the first one got too damn long and I had to stop it. I really enjoy it. I can write anywhere: on an airplane, in the terminal, in a restaurant, anywhere. Other than that, I wouldn't know what to do. I did a lot of ocean sailing in my life for quite a few years. Would you please explain to me why it is that 30 years ago, I was able to take a month off, get in my boat, sail across the ocean, then come back and work, and now I don't have time to do that? Because I'm old now, and we can't figure out yet how I seem to have gotten busier.

I'm sure the Oscar nomination helped with that, too. Have you been bombarded with new career opportunities since then?

Yeah, I have a couple films that I'm scheduling in right now. Being an actor, you get so many interesting avenues you can explore. In the film I just did ["Flying Lessons"], I played a man with Alzheimer's, so you say to yourself: "Okay, what the hell is it really like?" You start looking into it. I don't know if you've heard about that wonderful and touching DVD box that Maria Shriver put out about people with Alzheimer's. What I got out of it was three things: One, the terrific vulnerability that came over them without their realizing it, even though they were tough. The second was the tremendous anger that could spring up quickly out of the frustration of not being able to remember or do something. The third was the realization on my part that all of that is only an extension of the things that happen to you when you get to be 80 years old.

There are certain limitations that begin to close in on you. Like, I had to give my boat away. I don't think I could sail across the ocean alone anymore. I don't know if I'd have the strength to get the sails down in time when a storm came. Also, I can get up from this chair and walk across the room to get something, and when I get there, I'm goddamned if I can think what it was I went over there for. It doesn't sound right to say it, but playing this man with Alzheimer's was not hard for me. [laughs]

Do you have any dream roles you'd still like to take on, or old characters you hope to revisit?

I've never stopped doing Mark Twain. I do about 25 or 30 concerts a year with Twain. I never stop adding material, changing and reworking it, but it's even more shocking and powerful if you don't update it. You find material that's striking and relevant to what's going on today. Like, I just found a piece I'm going to put in the show next time about America's love affair with money, and the terrible corruption that went on and, of course, is going on now in high places, corporations. How the common folk get it in the ear, they get left. If I can remember some of it, he says: "This is a strange panic, like a blight that has fallen on us. It's as if a mighty machine has slipped its belt and is still running and accomplishing nothing. The phrase 'laying off' has become common. Laying off of two and three thousand men has become familiar. There is a widespread laying-off from one end of the country to the other, with the discharging of one out of every three employees in all the humble, small shops and industries across America." Isn't that something?

It is. Do you have any sense of optimism for future generations?

It's hard to be American and not be optimistic. We have that gene in our national character. But this, I believe, is a far more disastrous event in American history then we even realize today. It isn't only that we have allowed certain people to plunge this country -- and the world, in fact -- into a terrible economic disaster through chicanery and greed. This time, unfortunately, it comes at a point in history where we are no longer self-sufficient. We don't have two oceans protecting us anymore. We are dependent on other countries much more than we were before. We've become weakened by the rise of countries like China, which are going to produce much more in conflict with our own best interests. We have somehow allowed ourselves to shoulder our way around the world in an attempt to bring democracy or "the American way of life" to places so ancient that they don't want it.

The world has changed, and we're going to suffer deeply if we keep trying to do that instead of spending half the money we spend on a war on helping people to have a better life. Our country has been a pinnacle of hope for so many people. All around the world we've had the love and the admiration of so many people, and we've lost a lot of that through unwise thinking. Mark Twain said another extraordinary thing: "Shall we? That is to say, shall we go on extending the blessings of civilization to the people that sit in darkness, or should we give those poor things a rest? Should we bang right ahead in our old-time, pious way and commit the new century to the game, or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first?"

[catlover79]

Great article!! I still remember Hal Holbrook well for his role as Elizabeth Montgomery's husband in the pioneer miniseries The Awakening Land from 1978. Good for him for not letting age slow him down. God bless him!!