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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

DP/30 – The Yellow Handkerchief actor William Hurt

wiliamhurt490.jpg
I love doing pretty much all of the DP/30s… but Hurt is a whole different ballgame. And to chat with him an Oliver Stone in the same week… mind blowing.
mp3 of the interview

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7 Responses to “DP/30 – The Yellow Handkerchief actor William Hurt”

  1. LexG says:

    David,
    SERIOUSLY, this is an AWWWWWWESOME listen. Excepting any DP/30 w a chick I find hypnotic, this might be your best ever. Hurt is SO fucking game and eccentric and quirky and AWESOME… Loved that he kept you on the ropes and you had to keep on your toes to keep up with his bizarre, amusing, sometimes profound, sometimes nutty flights of fancy. As a wannabe actor, this one in particular was fascinated. So many of these– too many of these– junket sit-downs run the risk of becoming patented, the likable and eager-to-please but inevitavly exhausted actors just wheeling out some stock responses. But Hurt was either just amusing himself or really IS this out-there. I’m inclined to believe the latter, and if NOTHING else this vindicate’s Kevin Spacey’s brilliant Hurt impression from that ’97 SNL opposite McDonald’s Letterman impression, where W.H. wants to go ON AND ON about his craft in portraying the second lead in MICHAEL. GOOD SKIT.
    GOOD INTERVIEW. ESPECIALLY loved how he stuck up for K-Stew, but really almost all of it was weird and off-kilter and entertaining.

  2. LexG says:

    Also, DP:
    The ONLY thing that would’ve made this better is if, mid-eccentric Hurt musings, when there was a slight pause, you would have asked:
    “Uh… ya got any gum?”
    Damn you SNL, why is that Hurt skit not online?

  3. berg says:

    I’m giving 51-percent and you’re giving 51-percent. We’re working with 102-percent here …. classic interview

  4. jose says:

    thanks DP, for my favourite interview of yours! good job!

  5. Tofu says:

    Once Tim Burton came on, I think that’s when I would call it a new ballgame. Soderbergh’s legs was nice. Now I’m awaiting to see if Stone can top them all.

  6. Joe Leydon says:

    I saw William Hurt in Hamlet nearly 30 years ago off-Broadway. And he was so goddamn good that — I’m not ashamed to admit this — for a few minutes, I literally forgot how the play ended, and fully expected him to kick everyone’s ass in the final scene, then walk off in triumph. Seriously: It was a rude shock to be reminded that, oh, yeah, this is a tragedy…

  7. EOTW says:

    DP: THis is one of the best you’ve done. Hur is actually one of the few actors I could watch just sit there and speak all day. Loved every minute of it and was proud of you for keeping up with him. Not that you don’t have your own merits but i think I’da been a basket case just trying to follow half of what he said.
    On a side note, my brother and i have ALWAYS thought, for over 2 decades now, that if we ever made a film about our Uncle, that Hurt is the ONLY actor who could portray him. An amazing life, for sure.

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So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon