It’s hard to pin-down the iconic Sam Elliott performance. Between the good-natured biker of Mask to Swayze’s bestie in Road House to, of course, The Stranger in The Big Lebowski, Elliott has elevated each of these supporting roles into fully fleshed characters, suggesting more with a simple drawl and smile than most actors could in an eight-page scene. Elliott, at one point typecast only in Westerns, has steadily built up a storied career – popping up in big-budget tent-poles like The Hulk & The Golden Compass or critical darlings like The Contender & Up in the Air; but despite all these terrific performances, the actor’s rarely been front and center of a picture. Which is probably why The Hero is such a welcome surprise, a film that finally allows Elliott the spotlight he so richly deserves.

The Hero plays off Elliott’s persona – as Lee Hayden, a ‘Western’ actor who never got his due, Elliott taps into the frustrations of an actor who can do so much more than don a cowboy hat. After being diagnosed with cancer, Lee begins to question his life choices, striking up a relationship with a much younger woman (Laura Prepon) and attempting to rekindle his dormant acting career. Elliot, unsurprisingly, is terrific in the role, resisting the urge to ever overplay into the melodrama of the script. There’s a show-stopping scene about midway through the picture, wherein Lee practices the audition sides for some particularly awful sounding YA-film, yet in Elliott’s hands, this meta-joke scene becomes the emotional lynchpin for the character and the film as a whole.

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Image via The Orchard

In the following interview with Sam Elliott, the actor discusses how similar he is/isn’t to Lee Hayden, working with The Coens on The Big Lebowski and being pigeonholed as a ‘Western’ actor. For the full interview, read below.

When did [co-writer/director] Brett Haley first approach you about The Hero? I'm assuming after I'll See You in My Dreams? [Haley had previously directed Elliott in the aforementioned film]

Sam Elliott: When we did I'll See You in My Dreams together, Brett and I ended up spending a lot of time on the road promoting the film. Lots of miles on airlines. Lots of meals. Had a few drinks. Lots of talking. So we got to know each other, got to like each other a lot, got close to each other. And for whatever reason at the end of that whole run, Brett said I'm going to write something for you.

What is that like – when someone tells you 'Oh - I'm going to write a movie specifically for you’?

Elliott: I've actually heard that before and it's never happened. I'm always very skeptical.

Who else has said ‘I'm going to write a movie for you’?

Elliott: I don't even remember. I think I probably put them out of my mind. A lot of people have said 'Oh I'm going to write something for you someday.’ And it's like 'Really?' I've had parts written for me, but never something where I'm on every page like this thing.

So you didn't believe Brett at first…

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Image via The Orchard

Elliott: I didn't believe him but then a couple months later, here comes this treatment. Back then it was called 'Iceberg'. I thought 'Wow - that's a provocative title.' [The treatment] really rang true to me in comparing an actor's career and his one success to an iceberg. That what you see is not necessarily the most important stuff that holds it all up... Not long after that the title changed to ‘The Hero’. I think it was because the money people didn't think that ‘Iceberg’ was a marketable title.

People would probably think it was about Titanic for some reason.

Elliott: You know -- that's probably exactly why.

How did that original treatment compare to the finished script? What was in place then versus later on?

Elliott: It was pretty much all in place. The one thing that really changed after I got involved was the character lived on the beach rather than up in Topanga. There were all of these scenes where he was sandbagging [the beach], trying to stop the water. It was always about stopping the flow, which represented time and things that are out of your control. But [we were shooting the film] during a not very rainy season. So I just asked Brett, ‘What's your budget on this movie? Because number one - good luck finding a house in Malibu that’ll allow you to shoot there. And number two - if you're going to have sandbags and rain, you're going to have to bring in equipment.’ I've worked in a lot of fake rain sequences in my career -- and it takes a lot. So that all went out the window and then it became Topanga Canyon for the home and visits to the beach.

How closely do you feel like Lee reflects yourself?

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Image via The Orchard

Elliott: I think there are a lot of common things. It came out from a lot of those early discussions [Brett and I had]. So a lot of it certainly parallels me. But I've been married [to] Katherine [Ross] for thirty-three years and we've been together for thirty-nine years. I love my daughter more than anything. I see her all the time, always have. I don't smoke pot. And I don't have cancer. But apart from that, it's pretty close. I do voiceovers. I've done a few westerns in my career. I think the real difference is that Lee just fucked his life up. He fucked it up. He fucked his life up in pursuit of this career. He's not married to his wife anymore. He doesn't have a relationship with his daughter anymore because he wasn't there for her. And he doesn't have a career. He's not very smart. He's certainly not very heroic on any level.

Did you help give Brett any guidance on how certain situations would actually play out? Obviously you have experience doing voice-over and auditioning. Did you give him a take on what that's actually like as an actor?

Elliott: I didn't have any input in the writing of the script. My input was in the beginning. And then after we got onto set if there was something... Brett's very collaborative and if there were something that to my ear didn't ring true, I'd tell him I think there's a better way to say that. But it wasn't really about changing the text.

Like your character Lee, was there ever a time you yourself felt pigeonholed by a type of role?

Elliott: Yeah - I got pigeonholed in the western role. There's no doubt about that. I used to bristle at that on some level, like I was sold short as a one-note actor. Like I could only do the cowboy thing and that's it. But then I got out of that. I got cast in The Contender and a couple things I was proud of and totally different. Then the Westerns swung back around again. The Big Lebowski and The Golden Compass –those things came to me because of my backstory in westerns. So I didn't growl about it anymore. Nowadays I'm more thankful that I had it. Probably the truth of it is that if the Western thing hadn't have happened, I wouldn't have much of a career.

I really love the scene where you're practicing the audition sides with Nick [Offerman]. That scene starts off rather ridiculous but then ends on such a poignant moment…

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Image via The Orchard

Elliott: That [scene] came almost out of nowhere. Brett will admit [those sides within the film] are probably the worst piece of shit he and [co-writer] Marc Basch have ever written...The only thing that I knew when I got to set that day was that I wanted [Lee] to be good in the scene because the next time you saw him, he fell apart. I think it was important for the audience to think that Lee still had it as an actor and to understand what he's losing. If he had been just a shitty actor, then so what? No big deal. I think the better he was in that scene, the more poignant and powerful the audition scene [later] becomes. We started out that day and we did a few takes, but for the first couple – we kind of thought ‘Well, what the fuck is going on here.’ And then we just nailed it to the wall. Nick and I were both zeroed in. There were tears all over the set.

Do you often feel like your best performance is in later takes?

Elliott: No not necessarily. When I did The Big Lebowski, the piece at the end when I'm looking into the camera and saying, ‘That was a pretty good story, don't you think?’ – I did like fifteen takes of that. More takes than I've done on anything. And The Coen Brothers are sitting right next to the camera as they're working. Finally, I just look at them and go ‘what the fuck? I don't know what else to do. You guys have to tell me what you want me to do.’ Because they're just sitting there watching. They don't say shit. I think it was Ethan who said - "Oh, we had it on the third take. We just like watching you do it." And I was like "what the..."

Was that the inspiration for the constant repeating of the voice-over line? [In The Hero, Lee is forced to repeat a line over and over again in a recording booth.]

That's actually a reality. I talked to Brett about that during our gabfests on the press tour. That's just the reality of that voice-over world. Everybody needs to justify their job or something. You've either got a phone patch going to a bunch of creative people and a bunch of advertising peoples or a bunch of them are sitting outside the glass. They all want to hear something different and they all have ‘input’. It is what it is. They book those sessions in two-hour [chunks]. Sometimes I come out of there in an hour. But most of the time they want to get their money's worth and that means one more. My job is just like in the movie - just to give the director what he wants. I'm happy to do one more. It's part of the deal.

The Hero opens in select theaters today.

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