David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck.DAVID STRATHAIRN WISHES YOU GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally ran in the October 2005 issue of Venice Magazine.
David Strathairn has become one of America’s most recognizable character actors since making his debut in John Sayles’ debut film Return of the Secaucus Seven, in 1980. Born in San Francisco January 29, 1949, Straithairn was educated at Williams College (where he first met classmate Sayles). 71 films later, just a few of his credits include Silkwood (1983), At Close Range (1986), A League of Their Own (1992), Bob Roberts (1992), Sneakers (1992), The Firm (1993), The River Wild (1994), Dolores Claiborne (1995), and L.A. Confidential (1997). In addition, Strathairn has appeared in seven of director John Sayles’ fifteen films, more than any other actor.
David Strathairn gives his best performance to date in what is the best film of 2005 to date: George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck. Co-written (with Grant Heslov) and directed by Clooney (who also plays television broadcasting pioneer Fred Friendly), Good Night tells the story of television news icon Edward R. Murrow (Strathairn) and his stand against tyrannical United States Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose “witch hunts” against suspected Communists in the early 1950s are still regarded as one of America’s darkest hours. Backed by a dream cast that includes Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey, Jr., Ray Wise, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, Tate Donovan and, in a heartbreaking turn, the vastly underrated Ray Wise, Good Night, and Good Luck will surely be remembered at Oscar time and should be seen by every American, both as an invaluable history lesson, and as an unsettling portrait of how that history repeats itself. It also establishes George Clooney as a major artist. The Warner Independent Pictures release hits screens on October 7 in limited release, and goes wide the following week.
David Strathairn sat down with Venice poolside at a Beverly Hills hotel, to talk about his latest work.
I think this is a very important film.
David Strathairn: It’s really beautiful, isn’t it? It’s also very resonant, I think. The politics of that particular moment were very alive at that moment, as they are again.
Growing up, my parents spoke to me often about what it was like during McCarthy’s witch hunts in the 50s. I never thought I would see its like again in my lifetime, just as I never thought we’d have another Vietnam in my lifetime.
It seems like every generation or two has to learn a lesson. We can be told, but only hands-on experience seems to be the way we learn. Each step in our awareness of what the world is and where we are in the world, it seems that we’re teaching ourselves the same lessons over and over again.
Yeah, isn’t it ironic that it’s your generation, who fought the Vietnam war, who now find their kids being sent to fight in Iraq.
Yeah, in fact in our short time as a nation and as a species, there always seem to be these landmark events and people who try to pass on some insights. Maybe this isn’t conscious, but just by the dint of their own experience, how they encapsulate their time.
Like Edward R. Murrow.
Exactly, and Fred Friendly and William Paley and Joseph McCarthy. Those people become our teachers, and it seems like we have to apply their lessons over and over again in order to learn them.
McCarthy’s witch hunts were really a continuation of America’s first great culture war of the 20th century which began in the 1920s and was interrupted by WW II. I always saw it as a war between blue blood WASPs who were going after Jews and other groups outside their own who were rising up in prominence and power. If you look at most of the people the HUAC went after, they were Jews, blacks, Poles, homosexuals, and people who’d recently emigrated to the U.S., say since the turn of the century. But all these groups were starting to gain footholds not only in industry and popular culture, but also in politics. And I think this really scared the bourgeois status quo at the time, hence the witch hunts.
Yeah, there’s many ways to cut it: economic, social hierarchy, territorial, and opinion. When a man’s got a different way of walking and talking, why is that perceived as a threat? When extrapolated, something can become a threat, and McCarthy thought that there was really a threat to his way of life. And Ed Murrow felt that McCarthy’s methodology, in protecting his perceived way of life, was a threat to someone else’s perceived way of life, or cultural imperative. It came down to quite a pivotal battle, as history has told us. That was a real turning point in just the individual right to face your accuser, and not give power to the kangaroo court that could ride you out on the rail, based on suspicion. The principals that Murrow stood for, and that he Fred Friendly went out on a limb for, was a very significant moment in what then was a much smaller world.
Tell us about Mr. Murrow. Did you feel you got to know him at all, after wearing his shoes for a bit?
It’s interesting the film is by no means a bio-pic, which I think would have been a very different way of looking at that world if you had dealt with just him. We really look at all the players in that particular chapter of history. For my research, I read a lot about him, and took George’s brilliant advice to keep in mind that it was not a bio-pic, but there was a great deal of information about Murrow and his life, aside from what we portrayed in the film. I did get to meet his son, Casey Murrow, who showed up on the set. He gave a few insights, but was very discreet, and I think he kind of knew the lay of the land, too, that this film wasn’t about what his father ate for breakfast. It was about what happened within the walls of the studio. What I did learn about him from reading about him and speaking his words over and over, was that he had an amazing equanimity as a person who was respectful of other opinions. It was palpable that he was a professional at such a high level as a journalist, that the standards he brought to bear were so exemplary that he really set the bar for all the journalists that came after him. He was a very principled man.
Let’s talk about George Clooney. I can’t think of another performer in recent memory, except maybe Tom Hanks, who’s had the kind of genesis that Clooney’s had. To go from a sort of pretty boy actor that nobody took seriously, to a good actor people respected, to a TV and movie star, to an all-around gifted artist who seems like he can do almost anything: act, write, direct, produce. It’s quite extraordinary.
I agree with everything you say. Not only is he an extraordinary artist, but when you look at the body of his work, he’s always done risky projects like Three Kings, Fail Safe which attempted to sort of give re-birth to a live theatrical event on television as they did in the 1950s, K Street, Unscripted, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, those are all choices, and you get judged by your choices and lauded for your choices. The fact that he chose to make a film as particular as this, as potentially removed from general public awareness, is brave but it’s also very generous to do something like this, to open a window on a moment in our history that is resonant and reflective and applicable is great. And to do it with such deftness and cleanliness…I often say that he and Grant Heslov are the Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly of the film, based on the choices they made and the fact that they were out on a limb. The choices they made were the right ones throughout. You just didn’t want to stop making the film during the entire process.
The film has a wonderful leanness to it.
An amazing leanness, particularly considering the amount of improvisation that was done. It was prepared improvisation, by which I mean we rehearsed with improvisation and then shot what bits George decided were best. It was startling to see what resulted from it all. I felt like I had been hit in the solar plexus, not in a painful way, but I just felt like something had really landed when I saw the film for the first time in its complete form. I’m so proud to have been part of all of it.
Tell us about some of your co-stars, who are all the best actors working today. I’ve been a fan of Patricia Clarkson since I saw her in The Untouchables.
Isn’t she beautiful in this? It’s like she’s a 40s or 50s star with this glamorous, sparkling quality she has. Langella was amazing as Paley. You could just feel that he was the boss. But he’s also likable. That’s another great thing about the film, both literally and metaphorically: it’s all gray. The whole situation was gray. That’s why I thought it was such a smart decision to film in black & white. Robert Downey is one of the best actors around. He was a real pleasure to work with, Ray Wise…it was just a dream.
Along with the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II, I think this is the darkest chapter of modern American history, yet there have only been two feature films done on this subject prior to this one: Martin Ritt’s The Front (1976) and Irwin Winkler’s Guilty By Suspicion (1991). Both were great films, and nobody went to see them!
Well, this is sort of indicative of the fact that people don’t want bad news, or difficult news.
I would even take it further and say people don’t want the truth, especially now. In the 70s it seemed as though it was still okay to be politically and socially aware, and okay to question things.
I agree. Now it’s like if the truth hurts, then let’s not say it. We’ve been kind of anesthetized by our creature comforts. It’ll be fascinating to see how this film is received. It will stir some debate, but there’s not much to debate about it, because it’s documented. It’s history.
Let’s talk about your background. You were born and raised in the Bay Area?
Yeah, born in San Francisco and then bounced around the Bay Area. I’ve been living on the East Coast for a little more than half my life now. My dad was a general surgeon. My mom worked later in her life with handicapped kids and set up a program in the mid 60s called the L.E.P. (Life Experience Program) in California, which was devoted to teaching physically handicapped kids how to be self-reliant. These were the days before handicap access was a reality. I have an older brother who’s a junior high teacher and a younger sister who works in periodical distribution.
When did you know you were an actor?
Oh gosh…that’s a good question, because you always carry around a little guy on your shoulder who says “What do you think you’re doing?” (laughs) I’m waiting to be found out. No, you really rediscover it each time you do it: two steps forward, one step back. With this one in particular, it was quite…I knew that George wasn’t leaving me on my own, but it had that feeling. George has that kind of generosity. He imparted this trust to everyone, cast and crew, that what you were doing was okay, and even better than okay. It gave the shoot this sort of propulsion and excitement. So, I never knew I wanted to be an actor really, but making this film reminded me why I like being an actor.
You’ve been in virtually every film John Sayles has done. Tell us how you met John and what the collaborative process with him has been like.
John was in a couple plays at Williams with me. He was two years behind me in school. It wasn’t until the mid-70s up in New Hampshire at a summer theater program that where this company developed that we really got to know each other. We all cut our teeth together up there. John was on board there for several years acting and directing. Then in ’79 he did Secaucus Seven at the end of the season, using all the company members in the film. That’s how it began, and many of us have stayed with him for the duration. John is so comprehensive in his creation of his pieces, and he includes you in that tapestry. Since he was the first director I worked with, that standard has sort of stayed with me: this communal weave of character ensemble. It’s great working with John because you know from the get-go what he wants, who he sees the character as, and I’ve come to learn that the way he works through the story is, like all the great directors, all the strings are attached to his fingers. That gives you kind a kind of confidence because John knows so clearly what he wants the piece to be.
Sorry to backtrack, but I read that after Williams, you went to Ringling Bros. Clown College! What was that like and why was that something you did?
It was just one of those things you fall into, and it turned out to be something you remember as this amazing hallucination that happened in your life. (laughs) ‘What was that?!’ The circus was quite a world, really quite a world. I think it was the second year of the seven week clown college, as compared to Russian circus training which is seven years. I got on board with them and got hired as one half of a Siamese twin outfit. I remember that time as nine months of amazing moments in a world so tightly itself.
How did it help you grow as an actor?
How to fall down, get up again, fall down. I don’t know how else it helped me. It wasn’t much acting. It was mostly how fast can you change your costume and get back out there on the track. How long can you live without taking your make-up off. One thing it gave you a taste of is bare bones conditions, from a train car to sort of being able to do your so-called craft while you were sitting in mud and exhausted. To sort of put your face in it and ask yourself ‘Do you really want to do this?’ Each day it was like get up, put your boots on, get to work.
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