Kurt Russell joins me for the latest episode of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side to talk about his roles in The Madison, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and an overall career he says was once described by someone as being handled by a drunken driver. “Well, I was the driver,” he wryly says.
However you talk about Russell’s near seven-decade career in front of the cameras, it looks like someone handled it right because it is one of the most long-lasting in Hollywood, right from his first movie as the kid kicking Elvis in 1963’s It Happened at the World’s Fair to winning an Emmy nomination years later for actually playing Elvis. Along the way he became the Disney studios’ No. 1 star all through the 1970, and the star of such notable movies as Used Cars, Escape From New York, The Thing, Silkwood, Swing Shift, Overboard, Tequila Sunrise, Big Trouble In Little China, Tombstone, Miracle, the Furious franchise, The Hateful 8 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood among countless others.
Now he is starring in the Paramount+ series for Taylor Sheridan in which he says he was killed off in the first 20 minutes, with the bulk of his role in the show already shot for Season 2, in flashback, reuniting with his Tequila Sunrise co-star Michelle Pfeiffer. In that film he didn’t get the girl; in The Madison, he does. We talk about how Sheridan booked him for the role even if his schedule shooting his Apple TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters made it logistically impossible until they figured it all out. We also talk about the highlights of his stellar career, his life with Goldie Hawn, some of this favorite movies, his run of films with John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino, kicking and playing Elvis, his opinion of a planned remake of Escape From New York and much more.
To watch our conversation and get the “actor’s side” of things from Kurt Russell, watch the video above. Join me this season every Tuesday and Thursday for another episode of The Actor’s Side, and every Monday and Friday for a new edition of Behind the Lens.
