TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Next up on our classic films and movie icons series is an interview from our archive with Robert Duvall recorded in 1996. Duvall made his mark starring in epic movies and intimate dramas. In "The Godfather" films, he played the Corleone family lawyer Tom Hagen. In "Apocalypse Now," he played the macho Colonel Kilgore. In "The Great Santini," he was a rigid marine pilot who imposed a strict discipline on his family. In his Oscar-winning performance in "Tender Mercies," he was a country music singer on the skids, living a quiet life with a widow and her son. He also starred in the Western miniseries "Lonesome Dove." Here's Duvall in a famous scene from "The Godfather." He's traveled to Hollywood to persuade a movie producer to give a starring role to Don Corleone's godson.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")

ROBERT DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I was sent by a friend of Johnny Fontane's. His friend is my client, who'd give his undying friendship to Mr. Woltz, if Mr. Woltz would grant us a small favor.

JOHN MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Woltz is listening.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Give Johnny the part in that new war film you're starting next week.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz, laughter) And what favor would your friend grant Mr. Woltz?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) You're going to have some union problems. My client could make them disappear. Also, one of your top stars has just moved from marijuana to heroin.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Are you trying to muscle me?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Absolutely not. I told you, it's just for a friend.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Now, listen to me, you smooth-talking son of a b****. Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie, I don't care how many dago-guinea-wop-greaseball-goombahs come out of the woodwork.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I'm German Irish.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Well, let me tell you something, my Kraut Mick friend. I'm going to make so much trouble for you, you won't know what hit you.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I have not threatened you.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) I know almost every big lawyer in New York. Who the hell are you?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number. I'll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.

GROSS: It's interesting. You know, "The Godfather" films are such, like, operatic movies with, you know, people playing gangsters...

DUVALL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Who are given to grand displays of emotion and violence. And you're the one in the movie, the legal adviser, whose job is to advise to be discrete...

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: ...To tone everything down.

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: So in a way, you're playing a very opposite type of personality than all the other personalities in the film.

DUVALL: Yeah. Well, it was a pretty interesting character in that he was an adopted son plus this legal advisor. So therefore, as an actor and as a character, you really can't cross the line. You're kind of an outsider, but yet you're not an outsider. I was - I really enjoyed the part. I mean, those first two "Godfathers" - that's about as good as you can get filmmaking-wise, I think.

GROSS: I agree.

DUVALL: Francis was in top form, although, as you say, maybe a touch they romanticize the organized crime to a point. But it was such good filmmaking. You can excuse that.

GROSS: Do you have any favorite scenes in "The Godfather" films?

DUVALL: Well, there were a lot of them I liked, you know? I mean, the one with Michael Gazzo in "Godfather II" where I have to tell him he has to, you know, slit his wrists. That was - I enjoyed that a lot, that scene. And the scene where I had to tell Brando that Sonny died in "Godfather I" - that was nice. And there are other scenes I liked a lot, too, but those kind of come to mind very quickly.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")

MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consigliore of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone seems to know.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I didn't tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you just now and tell you.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) But you needed a drink first.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Yeah.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) And now you've had your drink.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) They shot Sonny on the causeway. He's dead.

GROSS: You worked with Francis Ford Coppola again on "Apocalypse Now."

DUVALL: Right. Right.

GROSS: And in "Apocalypse Now," you are Colonel Kilgore...

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: ...Famous for the line...

DUVALL: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Is that the one?

GROSS: That's the one.

DUVALL: Smells like victory. Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah.

DUVALL: Yeah, that was a wonderful line. People come up to me and quote it to me and say it like it's such an in thing between just me and them and like they're the only ones that ever thought of it. But that happens with everybody the same way.

GROSS: Did you get the script and say - well, first of all, was that line in the script? Or is that something that you...

DUVALL: Yeah. No, that was in there. And I think the part was offered to somebody else, and they turned it down. And I said to Francis, I know the part's written for a bigger guy - real tall, big guy, rugged. But, you know, I'll just say once. I think maybe I could do the part, and I'll put in my plea. And he gave it to me. So it was enjoyable. I was a lovely part, and I enjoyed playing it very much.

GROSS: Why did you want to play it a lot? This is another part that I'm sure your father was thinking, hope nobody thinks this is based on me.

DUVALL: Right. No. He knows. He knows. I think he never - he always kind of just shook his head, I think, most of the time. It's like my uncle in Montana was a rancher. I wish he had lived to see "Lonesome Dove" because that's my favorite of all. And when he saw "The Godfather," he was hard of hearing, my uncle. He said, I'd rather see a good Western. You know, he piped out in the theater, you know, middle of Montana there. But, you know, my dad - he was -I think he was proud, you know? He never said a lot - mother, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "APOCALYPSE NOW")

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) You smell that? You smell that?

SAM BOTTOMS: (As Lance Johnson) What?

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world spells like that.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Come on. Move. Move. Move. Move.

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) I love the smell of napalm in the morning. That smell, you know, that gasoline smell - the whole hill smelled like victory.

GROSS: So when you saw the line in the film, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, did you say to yourself, a classic line? People will be repeating this back to me.

DUVALL: No, I didn't think of that. I didn't think that - I didn't think of it that way. I wasn't sure. You know, I mean, sometimes you're not so aware of that, although you like lines like that.

GROSS: Did you do a lot of different line readings on that?

DUVALL: The one that was predominant was Jimmy Keene, a friend of mine who played a small part in that from Buffalo. I made him call me Mr. Duvall for a year 'cause that was our relationship in the movie 'cause, you know - but we're all on a first-name basis. But he said, now, how do you do this? And he was watching me. And he did great imitation, was always doing imitations. So the final dress rehearsal before we filmed this, we were always doing Brando imitations. So I said, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. I paused, and I said, smells like (imitating Marlon Brando) victory.

GROSS: (Laughter).

DUVALL: My Brando - he couldn't believe I would do that, you know? So then he began doing Brando imitations. So then when Brando wanted $100,000 to do six lines of the censored stuff for the censored version of - the TV version of "The Godfather" and they wouldn't pay him, they got Jimmy Keene from Buffalo for $200 to do Brando, of course.

GROSS: Oh, really?

DUVALL: Yeah. So those imitations started in the Philippines, and Jimmy got - because of those imitations, blossomed into the guy that would do the censored version for Brando.

GROSS: Hey. They could have saved a lot of trouble with Brando in "Apocalypse Now," I guess.

DUVALL: I suppose. Yeah. Well, Jimmy was the guy that was there that told me all these wild stories after I left. See; I did the second half of my part first and then, six months later, came back into the first half. It was strange the way I had to go do another job 'cause they got so bogged down with weather and with different actors and approaches and so forth. It took a long time to complete that film.

GROSS: We're listening to my 1996 interview with actor Robert Duvall. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF WAGNER'S "RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1996 interview with Robert Duvall as we continue our classic films and movie icon series.

It must have been really different working with Coppola on "The Godfather" movies and working with him on "Apocalypse Now."

DUVALL: Yeah. Well, you see; I had worked with Francis in "The Rain People," as I had said. And he was...

GROSS: And that was in the late '60s.

DUVALL: ...Kind of a moody guy. I didn't quite get a handle on Francis, but then I gained a tremendous amount of respect for him because on "Godfather I," we started out, said, OK, it's Francis again. He's not saying much - little moody, you know, the way he is. He's a real - he never comes - I want to write a book someday called "The Rushes Are Great" because everybody protects everybody by saying the rushes are great. Francis is one of the only guys that comes out of the cutting room with a long face, and maybe that's why he's so good in that he isn't always thrilled, you know?

But I gained a lot of respect for him 'cause in "Godfather I," physically, they had an understudy director following him around in case he failed to fire him and take over. And I think the first AD was the best friend of that would-be hopeful director. That was - that's quite a lousy thing to do to a director. And I gained a lot of respect for Francis for working under that pressure.

GROSS: When you were young, Brando was one of your heroes, right?

DUVALL: Yeah, I think so. I mean, he was quite a phenom. I mean, there were others, too, but he - and then you have you grow away from somebody's influence and find your own way.

GROSS: So what was it like to work with him when he was much older? He'd physically changed. It wasn't, I think, a particularly good period for him, especially during...

DUVALL: Well, no, in "The Godfather," he was very - he was rather trim, yeah.

GROSS: In "The Godfather," but yeah. Right, right, right.

DUVALL: And when I first worked with him in, well, "Apocalypse" - yeah, I didn't really - I wasn't really there when he worked.

GROSS: Right.

DUVALL: I worked with him first in "The Chase," way back, and, you know, the first day he called me into his dressing room, and we talked about the part. I said, oh, to my wife, this is going to be great, we're going to be like brothers who had a great rapport, and he never spoke to me again for eight weeks. I couldn't - I wasn't quite used to that lifestyle, somebody not speaking to you at the beginning of a day, but that's the way he is, I guess. But no, I was respectful and admired him and enjoyed working with him. And as I say, in the in "Apocalypse Now," he came into the jungle with his baby blue Mercedes, driving down the jungle. You know, after I had left, and then when I came back, he'd finished, you know, So, so I didn't get to work with him during his heavy period. I guess - who was it? Picasso had his blue period, his this period, his that period - Brando had his thin period, now his heavy period.

GROSS: So tell me. When you were young and getting started in acting, what were your expectations? What did you think would come of your career?

DUVALL: Well, you know, maybe I was innocent, and maybe innocence is not the same as naive, maybe it is. I always felt that somehow I would fit in. I went to New York feeling I would be a stage actor. I didn't think a lot about movies. I thought about them, but I wasn't sure. I just figured I was going to work. I didn't know how, but I figured it would happen. And when I got one of the worst reviews anybody could ever get. I went back to Virginia for a while, and then I came back again. My friend Ulu Grosbard - then we had done "A View From The Bridge," and we did it again off-Broadway, and it was a wonderful production with Jon Voight, Dusty (ph) Hoffman was assistant stage manager, Susan Anspach, Ray (ph) Bieri, you know, Richie (ph) Castellano - it was a wonderful production. And that helped launch my - getting more into film and TV, you know.

GROSS: So, if you don't mind my asking, what did that terrible review say about you?

DUVALL: I'm going to tell you exactly what it said.

GROSS: (Laughter) You still remember?

DUVALL: It said, Shaw has invented some impossible young men in his plays, but never one so revolting as the romantic young interest in this one. And the character is made even less palatable by Robert Duvall, whose spine tends toward a figure S, whose diction is flannel-coated and whose simpering expressions are moronic. Now, that's a pretty bad review.

GROSS: Yeah.

DUVALL: And the other paper likened me to Liberace so I had to get off the...

GROSS: (Laughter) Liberace?

DUVALL: Yeah, I had to get off the bus. I was physically ill.

GROSS: What was the connection to Liberace?

DUVALL: I don't know. Maybe I played him a little effete. I don't know what it was. It was...

GROSS: (Laughter).

DUVALL: It was a guy from the Actors' Studio. I don't know. He had us lying down doing sense memory before we were doing George Bernard Shaw. I said, we should be telling jokes not lying on the floor for sense memory. It was - the whole approach was wrong. It was a disaster. But, you know, at least it was an experience, at least.

GROSS: Well, Robert Duvall, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

DUVALL: Well, thank you. I enjoyed it.

GROSS: My interview with Robert Duvall was recorded in 1996. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we continue our classic films and movie icons series. We'll feature interviews from our archive with two actors who started as child stars - Jodie Foster and Molly Ringwald. Foster became famous for her 1976 films "Freaky Friday" and "Taxi Driver." Recently, she starred in the latest season of "True Detective" and was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "Nyad." Ringwald was in the sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts Of Life" and became famous for her roles in the teen films "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink." Most recently, she was in "Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans." I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERNARD HERRMANN'S "I STILL CAN'T SLEEP/THEY CANNOT TOUCH HER (BETSY'S THEME)")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joe Wolfram. Special thanks to NPR+ producer Nick Anderson. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERNARD HERRMANN'S "I STILL CAN'T SLEEP/THEY CANNOT TOUCH HER (BETSY'S THEME)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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