AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID CARRADINE

11.04.2008

Perhaps one of the most popular and well-renowned cult character actors of all time, David Carradine has built up an impressive acting canon over his years of operation. David speaks to MJ Reviews about Scorsese having to direct while at gunpoint, Kung Fu and Kill Bill, and how there's plenty of life in him yet.

David, your father John was an incredibly prolific actor, and his sixty-year career spanned over three hundred films. Is this what inspired you to enter the film industry?

I wasn't actually inspired to enter the film industry. I was inspired to be an actor. To me that meant stage. I had performed in some thirty plays including eleven of Shakespeare's before I ever stepped on a movie set. The change came in '64, I think. I was playing a lead on Broadway, and, as a member of Actors' Equity, I could see all the Broadway shows for free. But I realized I was more interested in the European films that were playing in the theaters on the east side: Fellini, Bergman, Godard. Not to say I hadn't been a freak for those movies before. I had watched them non-stop when I was in college as a Music major. I just didn't know that was what I wanted to do. Or rather I didn't know I knew that was what I wanted to do. And yes. My father of course had a something to do with that. I thought that Hollywood had never given Dad a fair shake, and I was determined to get even for him. But that took a while to gel. I studied Music in college, intending to write operas. However, the Drama department and the Music department were in the same building and I would drift down the hall to look in on the theatre classes. One day someone asked me if I wanted to be in a play. Once I got the taste, I dropped out of college to join a Shakespearian repertory, and that was all she wrote. I might still get around to that opera one day, though.

You served with horror director Larry Cohen in the military. To what extent was your service?

I was drafted. That meant two years of service. We had no war at the time, so I spent my whole time in Virginia at a post that trained officers. I drew pictures of helicopters, maps, charts and cartoons for training aids. On the side I started a theatre company. We performed, mostly musicals, for different posts up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Larry was writing speeches for General Vissering, and selling scripts to Television in New York. He also put together revues for special services. He wrote, directed and starred in them. Larry is an extremely funny man.

Did you feel it ultimately affected you? For the better or worse?

Well, the Army robbed me of three good years, when I would have been making it on Broadway: the years when I could have established myself as a young leading man. So I missed out on that stuff: you know, like Romeo. But it did really make a man out of me. when I got back to New York, there were a lot of actors ahead of me who used to be behind, guys who had dodged the draft. But I was tough, in incredible physical shape, an expert with the M1 Garande and the M1 Carbine, and I'd put up with a lot of crap. I'd spent my last birthday on the infiltration course, crawling in the mud with live machine gun bullets flying over my head. I was also married with a two-year old daughter. I don't think I would have grown up that fast without the Army.

One of your first starring roles was in Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha. Tell us a little bit about that experience.

Barbara [Hershey] and I wanted to work together. She was offered the movie, and she told Roger [Corman, the film's producer] she'd do it if I could play opposite her. On my first meeting with Marty, the first thing he said was, "I really wanted Bruce Dern for the part." I liked him immediately. It's hard to find an honest man. The shoot was almost a collaboration between us. Marty and I were both super-inexperienced, and we had a lot of resistance from Sam Arkoff [the film's producer], who just wanted us to make a sexploitation film. Marty tried to do what he wanted and I backed him up. He really was literally under a gun. At one point when he was trying to get a point across to the line producer, the dude pulled out a .38 and slammed it on the table for emphasis. I acted up some. They would get my dander up. Not hard to do in those days. Threw a cup of hot coffee at one of the black hats, and after a heated discussion with Sam Arkoff, I turned his desk over on him. I later regretted that. But my manager, Saul Krugman (a prince of a man - they don't make 'em like him anymore) said, "what do you care? You're never going to want to work with Sam Arkoff again." Roger was a horse of a different color. I did nine movies with him. He's a sweet man.

And the infamous sex scene with Barbara Hershey? There was a lot of speculation about that sequence...

Yes, there was. We were completely naked except for Barbara wearing a lot of jewelry. and we really were making love. The story about our son being conceived during the scene is totally apocryphal. He was conceived two months later on New Years Eve, 1971, in the privacy of our home. what really created the controversy was the Playboy spread shot by Ron Thal. I think it was the first couple shoot that Playboy ever did. The love scene itself was very beautiful, and would seem tame today. Even the unused footage, which was pretty hot, would barely rate an "R" today.

You returned to work with Scorsese in 1973’s Mean Streets, but in a far smaller role. What was it like working with Scorsese?

I was in the middle of the first season of Kung Fu, and essentially unavailable. We had to shoot my scenes on a Sunday, in Los Angeles. Marty thought it would be cool to have my brother assassinate me. On this picture, Marty had no sleazy producer to deal with. No one had a gun to his head. He was able to show what he could really do. He was a very happy man on that shoot. I was enormously impressed with Harvey Keitel. I thought at the time he was going to be the American Laurence Olivier. De Niro I just thought was crazy. But that was the part he was playing.

Scorsese was heavily into cocaine at the time, I believe. How did you feel that affected his role on set?

Yeah, I heard that, too. I don't know. Marty always has been very excitable. He chewed his finger nails a lot. To stop himself, he wore white editing gloves while he worked. He liked to make flamboyant gestures with them. It looked cool. It was like being directed by Mickey Mouse. Marty's very short.

The peak of your career professionally speaking is considered to be the television series Kung Fu, which went through three seasons between 1972 and 1975. How did you get the part?

For the record, I haven't peaked yet. I'm barely getting started. Jerry Thorpe, who produced the series, saw me in a play on Broadway, The Royal Hunt of The Sun, where I played The Emperor of The Incas, mostly in a loin cloth. I was pretty great in the part. When he found the script for Kung Fu in Fred Weintraub's bookcase, he got it directly to me.

In 1977, you worked with Ingmar Bergman on The Serpent’s Egg. Was it a different experience to your other work, given Bergman was a non-native English speaking director?

Ingmar spoke perfect, actually erudite English. The differences were not in language, but in spirit. Ingmar's spirit was unlike any other director. He was the flip side to Fellini. He once said to me, "If you go to see a John Ford picture, you will see armies of cavalry on horses, explosions, bar-fights, lots of broad comedy. With an Ingmar Bergman movie you spend three hours alone in a room with a woman who is crying all the time. He knew who he was.

Skipping forward in time a bit, 1993 marked the resurrection of Kung Fu with The Legend Continues. Why return to the series?

Everyone wanted me to, and I was tired of my career in exploitation films. Actually, when I walked off the series in 1975, I sent a letter to the folks at WB, outlining how I wanted to continue the legend: with four projects - Son of Kung Fu, Kung Fu in The City, Kung Fu with Love and Kung Fu to You Too, which would be a send-up. The film with Brandon Lee was Son of, hosting Saturday Night Live was the send-up, if you don't count Yellowbook, Lipton Iced Tea and my stint on Lizzie McGuire. The love story has yet to be done. It would be a musical, I think.

It was a successful show, with four seasons over four years. Were you surprised that Kung Fu was still popular, thirty years on?

Not at all. At that time 130,000 people were watching it world-wide in syndication.

Okay, now to what has probably become your signature role – Bill in Tarantino’s two-part opus Kill Bill. How did your involvement come about?

A psychic told me I was supposed to work with Quentin, so I looked him up. He agreed immediately. Turns out he's a fan, not so much of Kung Fu as of my other stuff, and my off-camera mystique. Quentin likes outsiders, I guess. He could actually recite the movie Americana, which I had directed. He told me he showed it to all his girlfriends. That's a lot of girls. Quentin gets more tail than Justin Timberlake.

What was it like working with Tarantino?

Quentin [pictured with Carradine at left]may be the best ever. We'll have to wait 'till he grows up to see for sure.

There was a fair amount of footage excised from the final cut of the two films, wasn’t there? The rumoured scenes of Yuki’s revenge from the original screenplay immediately spring to mind. Was that scene ever filmed?

Actually, very little was cut out. That was the point of making two movies out of it. Yuki's revenge is a different movie, which Quentin plans to do in about ten years, that would be five from now. We'll see.

Were any other plotlines removed?

The only whole sequence that didn't make the cut was my fight with Michael Jai White, which in the DVD extras [of the Kill Bill Volume 2 DVD].

You have a number of projects that are in various states of production. Can you tell us a little bit about them?

They tell me I have nine movies in the can, set for release this year (2008). I think at least a couple of those I've never heard of. Notably, Big Stan, coming out April 25, Homo Erectus, a caveman comedy. They're waiting for 10,000 BC to get out of the way. Camille, with Sienna Miller and James Franco, The Sunset Boys, with a remarkable cast including Bruce Dern, Rip Torn, Mariel Hemmingway, Charles Durning, John Savage and a cameo by Julie Harris. That will be out in October. Hellride, which swept the Sundance Festival and August, a zombie movie, but like no other zombie movie. There are some others.

David, it’s been an absolute pleasure to interview you. Thank you very much, and best of luck in the future.

I don't think it's a question of luck anymore.