After the death of the legendary actor Robert Duvall On Sunday, he was 95 years old. Bruce Beresfordthe Australian director who directed Duvall’s 1983 film Giving mercyfor which Duvall won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1984, shared his memories of Duvall exclusively with Hollywood Reporter. As you can read below, Beresford – whose credits also include 1979 Crusher Morant1986 Crimes of the heart And 1989 Driving Miss Daisywhich won the Academy Award for Best Picture — remembers the actor as “sulky” but “absolutely brilliant.”
***
I never saw Duval again after that Giving mercy. It was shown in Cannes, but I was filming something else, so I never went to Cannes. And then we were nominated for an Oscar, but I was filming elsewhere.
The film was written by Horton Foote. Horton wrote other roles for Bob. In fact, Horton suggested Bob for his first film, To Kill a Mockingbird. Horton wrote Giving mercy Specially for Bob.
The text was sent to me by the Hubbells[[Philip Hubbell and Mary Ann Hubbellfounders of The Cinema Guild]a very nice couple in New York. I later found out that they offered it to a lot of American directors, who turned it down, and then saw my film Crusher Morant And he sent me the script. I thought it was so cool, so I called them and said, “I’ll do this, it’s great!”
Duvall was already attached, that was the first thing they told me. I’ve seen him in many things. I knew he was a great actor. He was very polite when I first met him. He didn’t have much to say. He spent a lot of time in Texas learning the accent he used in the film and mingled a lot with people from that area.
He had an opinion. It was really very strange. I would pre-plan scenes and say ‘We’re doing this’ and ‘We’re doing that’ – you know, I choreographed all the movements and camera angles – and he tended to be a bit grouchy. He would look at her and say, “Oh, is that it?” And I say “yes”. But no matter what it was, he did it very well – he always looked better than I could have imagined.
But he had some oddities. I mean one day he wanted us to take [boom] Microphone away. He said: What is he doing there? I said, “Bob, this is the microphone that’s recording you.” “McSledge,” he said. [his character in the film] He never had a microphone hanging over his head. And I said, ‘No, he didn’t, Bob, but you’re not MacSledge. You’re an actor and we’re making a movie.’ But he still insisted on taking the microphone off, so we shot for a few hours without sound – it was late in the day, so I left it – and the next morning I brought it back in and we went on as usual. He never mentioned it again.
Another day, we were filming a very important scene with him Ellen Barkin [who played his daughter] In the living room, and Bob looked out the window, and he kind of froze and said, “What’s that light doing over there?” “Well, that’s what shines for us, Bob,” I said. “But the light comes through the window anyway,” he said. I said, “Yes, but not enough. Also, the sun is moving. In half an hour, the sun will be on the roof of the house, or on the other side, and we want to light it so it’s consistent throughout the scene, which will take all day.” He reluctantly accepted it, but looked at me as if I was making it all up!
I don’t know what this was all about. I thought to myself, “This guy has made over 50 films. He knows a lot about lights and microphones.” Overall, though, he went through the scenes the way I planned them, and I knew from the start that he was giving a great performance. I remember the first scene we shot in the little hotel room where he was [the character] He is drunk on the floor and wakes up – as it is [Duvall] When I did that scene, I felt the skin crawling on the back of my neck, and I thought, “This guy is absolutely gorgeous.”
