An actor and filmmaker who needs no introduction to anyone who has been watching movies any time over the past 50 years, Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall came to the SXSW Film Festival with his new movie A Night in Old Mexico, a Texas-based road movie directed by Cuban filmmaker Emilio Aragón based on a screenplay by Lonesome Dove writer William Whitliff.
Earlier this week, ComingSoon.net sat down with Robert Duvall for a long, somewhat rambling conversation mostly talking about A Night in Old Mexico and how the project came together, but the actor also talked extensively about The Judge, his new dramedy with Robert Downey Jr. that will be released by Warner Bros. on October 10.
“That script is different,” he told us. “That script is so smart and so beautifully and logically put together that if you asked me to explain it to you now I’d have to think hard, even to what I did. Different to this and very well crafted in the writing. It’s a very complex character. It was a great character, but my agent had to talk me into doing it, because there are some negative aspects to it I didn’t like. I worked very hard on it because it was not a very easy thing to do. It was very challenging.”
He had great things to say about working with Robert and Susan Downey as well.
While Duvall is in talks to play the title role in Terry Gilliam’s long-delayed The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which may start filming again later this year, he’s dubious that it will happen, having seen the doc Lost in La Mancha:
“Terry Gilliam has said that he wants me to come to Spain to play Don Quixote in his movie. I don’t know if it will ever come to be. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
We tried to get Duvall to talk more about that project, but he instead started talking about Black Mass, the Whitey Bulger movie his friend Scott Cooper would be directing, saying that he thinks Mark Wahlberg would be better in the role unless Johnny Depp finds a new bag of tricks.
Duvall was not a fan of The Lone Ranger, but his favorite movie of last year was Ralph Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman and after that, the interview devolved into talking about how sad it was for a vegetarian (i.e. me) to be in Austin when there’s so much great BBQ and brisket.
During the interview, Duvall also told us that he’s busy developing a project with the Texas Rangers for himself to direct.
You can watch the entire unedited interview in the video player below.
A Night in Old Mexico will be released in select cities by Phase 4 Films sometime in May.
