Donald Sutherland | 60 Minutes Archive

60 Minutes rewind Donald Southernland has been called one of the best actors never to be nominated for an Oscar. He has appeared in more than 150 films and television shows. Mash Clute Ordinary People The Hunger Games, just to name a few, you may recognize the name from him. I've definitely seen his face, but you probably don't know much about Donald Southernland, the 82-year-old, still one of the hardest working actors around, still agonizing over every character he plays, and still plagued with self-consciousness about his appearance than ever before. has forgotten. What happened after his first movie audition more than 50 years ago, when the writer, director and producer of the movie he tried out for called him on the phone?

The writer said you did a fantastic job and the producers said we thought you were really wonderful. and we all wanted to call you to explain why we didn't pick you and they said no, no, no, I mean, we have to the reason we didn't pick you is because we've always thought that this fell like some kind of boy next door and to be perfectly honest, we never think you look like Liv, next to anyone, no one, that's the story of my life, you know, um, that's the story of your life, yeah, who is it? Donald Sutherland may not look like the guy next door I'm a researcher.

I'd like to ask him a few questions, but that hasn't stopped him from carving out one of the most enduring and unconventional careers in the film business that he has played. Men, I guess all life is just an accident, is that what happens to you and all kinds of misfits who have shown up in army field hospitals? Scratch my nose, but don't worry, little one, please. English Country Estates I couldn't have separated myself from you. It's annoying to anyone less worthy and from the more fashionable money corners of Upper Manhattan. This is the 75th year of The Hunger Games.

He's had a particular soft spot for bad guys. Did your mother make these? And over the years she has played many of them. No? Lie, you promised a lot of the roles you take on, although they are not always understanding, they are not understanding of you, but they are understanding of me, but yes, sometimes they don't feel very good about what they have done, even if it is an arsonist. in Backdraft your eyes light up like paramania right now I'm sorry, but I mean I was so excited, you know, the whole place was going like hell, my hair was on fire, my hands, everything, I was dead to get ready for these roles in which he spends months immersing himself. the script flows over the parts as he brings the characters to life, you try to find something in the paper that I don't find, it finds me, I mean, I'll read it and suddenly it starts to spin inside me and then it's gone. it becomes violent and then it becomes loving and then it's something extraordinary it becomes more and more exciting it's delicious it's what it is when we met Southernland he was filming a scene in Italy For an upcoming FX it's called confidence over oil magnet J Paul GTI, When he's filming Southerland, he says he needs an intimate, creative relationship with his director more than anything.

He describes his experience working with legendary Italian director Federico Felini as a love story. Why does he see it in romantic terms? Because there is that intimacy, yes, and sometimes it is rejected and sometimes it is accepted and embraced, and when the film was made, the fair was over. Do you smoke a cigarette afterwards? No, but do you regret it? If there is a slight sadness for the south, it could be because your childhood in Canada was not easy. He survived polio as a child and spent the entire fourth grade at home with rheumatic fever. He was a clumsy, tall boy with big ears.

At school they called him Dumbo when he was 16 years old. He had a question for his mother and me. I went to her and I said mother, I'm pretty and my mother looked at me and said: your face has character Donald and I went and hid in my room for at least a day I did what she said I stayed with you uh, not really alone for 65 66 years it's not easy Anderson it's not easy knowing that you're an ugly man in a business like mine do you consider yourself an unattractive ugly man the nicest way to put it your insecurities right?

That didn't stop him from acting in plays in college in the early '60s. He began working on television and appearing in films like Castle of the Living Dead. You would be forgiven if you had never heard of it. That is Southernland's role. a soldier and a witch in the same scene, okay, the first few years were a struggle. Sutherland had twins, including his son Kefir, then three more children with his wife of 45 years, actress Francine Rette, his big break came in The Dirty Dozen and it happened. Completely by chance Southerland only had a small role until one of the lead actors told the film's director Bob Alridge that he didn't want to appear in this scene and Bob Alridge looked at him like that and then said "You with the big ears, do it." .

I don't think he knew my name, but I know that he changed my life since you, since his son, Madison City, Missouri, sir, never heard of it. Hollywood producers saw star power in that brief role. He was offered a lead role in Mash and later played a hippie tank. commander in Kelly's hero, hurry up to earn a place in Hollywood as a weird icon of the early 70s counterculture, there you go more negative vibes, have some faith baby, as his career took off, something happened that Southernland still doesn't quite believe the guy who grew up thinking he was ugly became a sex symbol now tell me about Frank Luran in 1971 he played the enigmatic private detective in the hit Clute when did you break up with his then girlfriend Jane Fonda?

Would you mind not doing it? Fonda won an Oscar for her performance Southernland was not nominated. Well, we were surprised to learn that Sutherlands never saw Clute from start to finish and says that he rarely watches any of the movies he stars in. His main interest, he says, is his performance, how the film ends up being put together. he's out of his hands. One of the nice things about the work I'm doing is having a lot of control over the finished product. Yeah, and that's not something that as an actor you have a lot of control over.

Sorry, you used the wrong word. you use the word a lot, the key word is whatever, you have no control over it, no, except in the performance, which may be a polite way of saying that if the movie is a disaster, don't blame Southernland, said one critic about a television show you appeared on. The question isn't just what a class actor like Southernland is doing in garbage like this, but whether Southernland is actually on a completely different show. What was the Dirty Sexy Money show? Oh, excuse me, that's not rubbish, that was a really, really good show, oh.

I'm offended that it's such an outlandish accusation is that something you ended up watching, huh? you saw it? I know, but do you mean you didn't see it? No, so how do you know it was good? I was in it, I don't want to say it was good because I was in it, I mean because in doing it you knew it was good and you knew from the receptive people on the street that we were talking to Southernland at his Lakeside estate down south. that when he steals time between shoots in an old pump house by the water, I have vertigo and I'm climbing the damn thing, he set up a makeshift screening room to watch some of his most iconic performances, it quickly became clear to us that decades after finish a movie, the character he created stays with him in this scene from the 1973 Thriller, don't look now his character discovers his daughter's body in a pond oh, this is going to be a difficult day for me, so even now the the character comes back to you the character is still there yes, yes, it's interesting.

I never thought about how everyone must have their little niche somewhere in my person or my soul or something, yeah, yeah. Southernland insists he has never given much thought to the trajectory of his own career or saw it as a rise from the beginning. Many actors want to take on roles because they are organized vertically. What does that mean? It's the actors who say, "Okay, I've done it. This is the right character." play to do this to do this to have a kind of career ladder I have done a dramatic role now I am going to play a comedic role in this or a romantic lead yes and mine is like a big wooden plate with fruits and pasta and salad chicken and soup and a banana, you know, it's a lot of different things, you may not like everything in it, but you can go and have something, peel it, eat it and like it, that may partly explain why Southerland has never earned an Oscar nomination for that and his acting style, which is subtle and restrained, never flashy.

The 1980 film Ordinary People won best picture, best director, and the Oscar for screenplay because I don't know if I love you anymore or not. I don't know what I'm going to do without it, come on, give me the camera, dad, give me the camera. I want a really good photo of you two. Okay, Mary Tyler Moore was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Ordinary People until she gets a photo of Timothy hudon one, give him the damn camera Southernland was ignored the story will continue after this now in a stage of life where his peers half his age are slowing down Southerland seems to be speeding up after filming a week in Italy we met him again on a sound stage in Los Angeles where he was filming scenes for an upcoming sci-fi movie he has a new movie next month about to be released, Leisure Seeker, let me make you a cup of coffee in which he plays an elderly professor opposite Helen Mirin, who embarks on a road trip while dealing with old age and dementia John, what's going on?

Where we are? He may even be the kindest man I've ever played, who was losing his mind and was completely and utterly in love with his wife. It's very bittersweet for him to have things slip away. about love and aging he resonated what do you think? Anderson, just look at me, uh, you sure know everything, down to the last detail. We are there? However, we will hardly know until January whether Donald Souin will earn an Oscar nomination for Leisure. Searcher, but last month he finally got that little golden statuette that had eluded him for so long, a lifetime achievement award presented to him by his Hunger Games co-star Jennifer Lawrence at a special ceremony in Hollywood.

His family, almost all of them in the movie business. She was there to cheer him up. I finally found peace in the words of the great Benjamin Keli, also known as Jack Benny, when he said, as I tell you now, I don't deserve this, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve it. that's not thanks either