Elliott Cowboys Up
Veteran Actor on Westerns, Working with Kids and Making The Golden Compass

You might not always know the face, but the voice is instantly recognizable, Sam Elliott’s twangy western drawl as familiar and comforting as a loaf of mom’s fresh-baked banana bread. There is just something about the man that can’t help but put a person at ease, and whether he’s talkin’ about The Dude or reminding you that beef is what’s for dinner this quintessentially American character actor is close to a legend as yet he’s still as neighborly a performer as any you’re ever likely to find.

Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby in New Line Cinemas' The Golden Compass

That quality was immediately apparent when I talked to the actor via phone about his latest venture, New Line’s big budget adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, the first entry in the author’s massive – if controversial – His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy. Recently no stranger to large Hollywood enterprises what with The Hulk and this year’s comic book smash Ghost Rider, one still has to wonder what it was that brought him to this project.

“Oh, gawd, I don’t know,” says Elliott with his trademark twang. “I think being wanted by the director [Chris Weitz] and the fact it was a good piece of material. It’s always the material that speaks to me first and I kind of make my decision on if I’m going to do something based on [that].”

“I wasn’t familiar with [Pullman’s] novels beforehand, but I got into them quick. I remember I started reading them before they’d even made my deal on this thing, and I remember calling my agent one Sunday afternoon when I was about half way through the second book saying not to let this one get away.”

Sam Elliott in New Line Cinemas' The Golden Compass

Starting with a small roll as a poker playing extra in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and with signature rolls in Westerns as varied as The Sacketts, Tombstone and The Hi-Lo Country Elliot is known for his cowboys, even being inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Hall of Great Western Performers earlier this year. His character in The Golden Compass Lee Scoresby continues that tradition, taking to the air as a gun-slinging aeronaut. So is there any difference between this flying cowpoke and the ones he’s played in earlier features?

“I think their all kind of the same character in some ways,” says the actor matter-of-factly. “I think those kinds of guys, whether they’re some guy riding a horse, whether they’re some guy in a military uniform, whether they’re some guy on a Harley Davison, I think on some level those characters are all the same kind of guy.”

But what is about the cowboy and the Western that keeps audiences so enthralled? “Number one I think is the simplicity of the form,” says Elliott without hesitation. “I think it is the independence of those characters. I think there is some sort of moral code, some sort of values that are real solid. There’s a real delineation between good and bad. I think a lot of people would think that’s all corny and passé by now, but it is instead something I think is really missing from the American frontier these days.”

“And I mean that in the truest sense of the word. I don’t mean the frontier out west, I mean in very general terms from the American plain anywhere. There are several generations of kids who could benefit by those some of the qualities that were brought forth out of that old Western philosophical point of view.”

Sam Elliott as The Stranger in Polygram Pictures' The Big Lebowski

Does that mean Elliott believes that, by and large, the United States has lost touch with these Western mores and values? “There’s no question we have,” he responds immediately. “Don’t you think we have? Absolutely we have. Hollywood’s lost touch with it. They don’t even think there’s a viable market out there for the American Western today. I mean, that Western market has been worldwide and it’s been there forever.”

“[3:10 to Yuma] is a good example of how badly people still want to see those American Westerns. And that movie is kind of a bloodbath, but it still has a couple of those key elements. That whole relationship between those two men and that boy, and that whole thing with the bad guy allowing the young kid to witness his father being the man he hoped he was before he was killed. That’s just great stuff.”

His talking about the relationship between Christian Bale and Russell Crowe in James Mangold’s surprise September hit can’t help but get me thinking about the one between Elliott’s Golden Compass character Scoresby and newcomer Dakota Blue Richards’ pintsized heroine Lyra Belacqua. These two are a bit of an odd couple, yet the young girl ends up discovering a grizzled father figure in Texas aeronaut and he in turn something of a daughter which could help calm some of his more mercenary tendencies.

“Scoresby is kind of a man of the world,” says the actor. “He’s spent a lot of his life circumnavigating the globe and think he’s always been looking for trouble of some sorts. But, he’s a good guy, and I think when he comes across this girl he falls for her like a stone. I think she’s almost like the daughter he’s never had and he’s determined to help her on this mission she is on.”

Director Chris Weitz, Dakota Blue Richards and Sam Elliott on the set of New Line Cinemas' The Golden Compass

Speaking of young Richards, I ask Elliott if he changed the way he focused and worked on the set of the film considering the tender age of his costar. “No,” he answers instantly. “Not for me. These children are just like anybody else, they’re human beings and if you talk down to them like they’re kids then that may end up being what you get back, a kid. This game is too tough to do that.”

“And it’s not to say these kids aren’t well insulated today. They’ve got limited hours that they work, they have to go to school while they’re working on the set. They can only have them for a short period of time. But like with Dakota, she’s just so far above where she is age wise. So far along the road, I should say. She’s an incredible [talent] and she’s just an incredible kid in terms of her character. She’s carries this thing and she carries it well.”

Still, looking back on it all does working on a film with as massive a scale as this one make Elliott hunger for some the smaller, more intimate productions he’s done in his past? “On some levels doing this CGI stuff makes you long for that,” he immediately answers. “Doing big spectacular movies, that’s one thing, but doing movies that are so effects laden, as these are, is tough. You’re often relating to something that’s not even there. That makes you yearn for four walls and another actor with a brain to relate to.”

Sam Elliott as General "Thunderbolt" Ross in Universal Pictures' The Hulk

“This will be the third of these I’ve done, The Hulk, Ghost Rider and The Golden Compass. And, in each one I seem to get a little deeper in the CGI part of it. But, no complaints. I’d rather be working than not working. I’m picky about the work I do and if a good script comes my way I feel then that I’m a lucky man.”

Considering the size of this production and how long it takes to do the effects, it would seem the shoots on films like this would probably take quite a bit of time. Elliott chuckles heartily in affirmation. “I was there off and on for over a year,” he answers. “But they weren’t in production all of that time. Just because production ended they didn’t stop, the post-production was as busy as the production schedule was because of all the CGI work. But, even then I went back and shot an added scene about seven weeks ago for this film and that was a year after I had started on the movie. I [shot] one of the scenes in the air ship with the bear [Iorek Byrnison].”

Now that the picture is finally hitting theaters and audiences get to make up their minds about the finished product at the box office, the actor can’t help but be excited about the prospects of finishing the trilogy. “I’m hoping,” states Elliott proudly. “If anything I wish this first one would have been a little longer. I was crying for that. The book is so good and so tough and so convoluted and so kind of hard to understand. I kind of felt when this one ended it was like the intermission. I wanted it to continue on.”

“But, it’s real simple. It’s like why they don’t do Westerns. If this thing does well at the box office then we’ll get to go again and do the rest of them and I really hope we do because we’re just scratching the surface here. Pullman’s books are so good. It would be a shame to not get to do them all.”

This talk about the books brings up the mini controversy surrounding them and their author. Christian conservatives have raised the alarm that Pullman’s series atheistic in tone, even going so far as to calling them anti-religious. And what does Elliott think of this hubbub?

“I just think it’s unfortunate,” he says plainly. “Whatever these books have been all this stuff and these big controversies around them they still remain very compelling and provocative. I think that Philip Pullman is a literary genius. This is more than just the current hit out there on the newsstand. I think it is unfortunate that people have fixated on [the controversies]. It’s like Pullman is the devil and he’s advocating the downfall of Christianity and that’s not the case. These books could stand the test of time. I think they will. I really think they will.”

Sam Elliott in New Line Cinemas' The Golden Compass

And what about the films? Could Chris Weitz craft a cinematic trilogy which could also stand that very same test? “I hope so,” responds Elliott. “I really hope so. We’ve got a good shot at it. I hope when people walk out they feel like they have had a good time, a real good time. It’s not about a message. It’s not about what was the controversy about. It’s like, wow. That’s what I want them to feel. We’re in the entertainment business not the brain surgery business, you know what I mean? When they walk out of [the theater] they are going to feel like they’ve gotten their monies worth.”

Looking back on his career, I ask the actor if he ever thought he’d have been able to leave such an indelible and varied mark after his first brief moment back in 1969 with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. “Butch Cassidy doesn’t even enter into it for me,” he answers with typical modesty. “I knew I wanted to be an actor since I was a nine years old. Butch Cassidy was a blip on the radar screen.”

“I feel that I’m very, very lucky to have had this career but it’s everything I had every intention of having because it’s what I wanted to do from when I was a young kid. I was single-minded about it, I was totally focused on it, I took a lot of grief from a lot of people about it growing up. I worked hard at it and I’ve been lucky for the work that’s come my way. And I’ve also been picky. I think if you’re picky in what you do – and I am real picky – you have a chance to have a decent career, people won’t get sick of you.”

Wrapping up, I can’t help but let Elliott know what my personal favorite of his performances was, and it wasn’t his work in The Big Lebowski or Lifeguard or Road House or We Were Soldiers or Thank You for Smoking, but instead in the tiny Christmas picture Prancer he made in 1989. His work in that film reminds me so much of my own relationship with my father that each time I see it I can’t help but break into tears, each holiday season not complete until I take the time to watch it again.

Sam Elliott and Rebecca Harrell in Orion Pictures' Prancer

“Oh, thank you, Sara,” he says with genuine warmth. “I appreciate that. That touches me. Prancer was one of my favorites and there was a real big deal in the LA Times recently about Christmas movies showing all the times these great Christmas movies were going to play. Prancer wasn’t one of them and it just pissed me off. But I’m glad you saw it. I get it out every year to watch it. Thank you. That really does touch me for you to say that.”

Additional Links:

-  The Golden Compass Theatrical Trailer