Interview: David Strathairn

Interview by Clint Morris

Interview with David Strathairn
Stars in the movie Good Night, and Good Luck.

David Strathairn looking serious

Strathairn's major role in the movie Good Night, and Good Luck is startlingly impressive

He can also strike a 'pensive' pose

Having made a name for himself as a consistent support actor - appearing in such films as The River Wild, L.A Confidential, Limbo and The Firm - it’s a pleasant surprise to see the talented David Strathairn’s name listed foremost pre-credits in Good Night, and Good Luck.

He, for one, still can’t believe he’s graduated to such rank. It was quite an “Oh wow” moment says the cordial but soft-spoken actor.

“It just came out of the blue. I came home one day and suddenly there was a phone call from George Clooney. He said ‘Hi, is this David Strathairn? Well how are you David? I’ve got a story about Edward R.Murrow and Joseph McCartney that I want to make a film of. Would you consider being in it’? And that, there by, hangs the tale.”

According to Clooney, making his directorial debut on the film, Strathairn was someone he was interested in because he, like Murrow, “carried the weight of the world on my shoulders” but, says the actor, “I don’t think I could’ve carried the weight that Murrow carried.”

Edward R.Murrow was one of the pioneers of broadcast journalism. Mainstream historians consider him among journalism's greatest figures. Not only did Murrow rule both the radio and TV airwaves, but also he produced a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Clooney thought Strathairn looked a little like Murrow. “There’s a reasonable facsimile with the boot black in my hair and the right haircut,” admits Strathairn.

The actor didn’t have any “first hand-information” about Murrow before signing onto the film but he remembered his broadcasts as a kid, and had boatloads of archival material to reference. “If anyone was talking about journalism in the '50s - it was Edward R.Murrow.”

In some respects, Clooney didn’t want Strathairn to know everything there was about Murrow though because that’s when actors tend to simply mimic. “George was very generous in saying don’t worry about impersonating him or replicating him, do what you can to get the voice and the kinks and his particular delivery and we’ll do the rest,” he says, adding that the cinematographer deserves a lot of credit for realistically replicating some of those famous broadcasts for film.

Strathairn, a long-time friend and collaborator of filmmaker John Sayles, made his film debut in the little-seen Return of the Secaucus 7 in 1980.

Since then he’s worked with some of the best - Redford, Poiter, Penn, Cusack, Cruise, Hackman, Foster, Hunter - but not uncommonly, it was by and large his more famous co-star that got most of the eulogise for the films. It’s now his turn.

Strathairn has never had as much approbation as he’s receiving now for his role as news journalist Edward R.Murrow in the George Clooney-directed Good Night, and Good Luck.

They’re even talking Oscar. “That would be nice,” he smiles. “It would be real nice to have some kind of bell or whistle attached to this film - it would give it a longer life. People seem to need that validation to go to a film these days.”

Clooney shouldn’t be ruled out though, he says. “He’s a really good director. He’s savvy in front of and behind the camera. He likes to have a good time but he also works very hard and is passionate about this story and the project.”

Strathairn says he’ll be forever proud of Good Night, and Good Luck, now considering it one of the favourites of the 72-odd other credits on his CV. “I was real proud of this one and it was a real privilege to be a part of it. It was really rewarding. I think the film is beautifully realised. His legacy as a journalist was recorded - as it were - well, and certainly the important issues of the '50s - or even today - are delivered and presented to the audience in a rather honest and objective way.”

Also on that list of ‘the favourite films I’ve done’, he says, is “John Sayles’ Matewan, Eight Men Out, Sneakers - great caper film, great cast - and I also had a great time doing The River Wild with Meryl Streep,” he says.

Though he was also in the Oscar Winning L.A Confidential, it was only a “brief role. A couple of days really,” he explains, “but that was a wild time. It was such a big, big, picture and production and I had never really swum in those kind of waters.”

And what of that short stint on 'The Sopranos' last year? “You saw that?” he laughs. “I have the dubious recognition of playing one of the guys from that show that got kicked off and wasn’t killed. Usually when someone walks into the family muck like that - they don’t walk away too readily, but once the kid (A.J) finished highschool they didn’t have any use for me anymore. I get it so often, ‘You mean you were on The Sopranos and you didn’t get offed’?”

Though he hopes to work with both John Sayles (“he’s always working on something”) and George Clooney (“he’s a busy man though!”) again, there’s nothing immediately pressing film wise for the actor, so he’ll just cross everything that the Gods of the Academy smile upon his film in the coming months.

Good Night, and Good Luck commences December 15th, 2005 in Australia.

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