Strathairn says. "The idea that news shouldn't have to entertain. With Person to Person (the celebrity interview show Murrow did to appease his network), we got to indicate the conflict of interest. I know he enjoyed doing interviews with people like Oppenheimer and Nehru--less so Liberace."Playing figures from the distant past presents far fewer problems than one such as Murrow, whose image remains well-known, even as the nativity of television fades into memory. But Strathairn's research, he reveals, "was pretty much scattershot--reading his writings, biographies and looking at as much footage as I could of See It Now (Murrow's hard news show) and Person to Person. From what George said from the start, it obviously wasn't going to be a biopic--no cradle-to-grave stuff. So that took some of the daunt, I guess you could say, out of it."
Still, he says, the role carried its burdens. "I did feel a responsibility to honor the man and what he spoke for and how he lived. The bar was a little higher."
One of the better things about making the film, he says, was working with Clooney.
"I got along with him wonderfully. His helmsmanship was really impressive, from his preparation, to the team he put together, to his generosity, to his awareness of what kind of atmosphere actors need to do their best work. It felt very much like a team effort. And it was fun. His confidence was quite pervasive."
Making a movie is one thing; watching it is another.
"It came out much more emotionally resonant than I expected," Strathairn says. "I expected it to be beautiful. Robert Elswit was shooting beautiful stuff; I saw the dailies. And I knew the performances were in the zone. But I was surprised at how moved I was."
SOUND BITES
What directors would you like to work with and why?
So many, just by evidence of their work. I'd love to have been in a Kurosawa film; I can't wait to see the newest Bergman. There are lots of directors out there, actually, and it would be disrespectful to mention some and not others. But I feel very lucky to have worked with the ones I have--Curtis Hanson, John Sayles, George, Sydney Pollack.
How do actors balance commerce vs. art?
Actually, it's never been a conscious decision for me. I always go for the story first. Knock wood, I've never had to go the other way.
Up next: The film I was just finishing in New Hampshire, an independent called The Sensation of Sight, by a screenwriter and first-time director, Aaron Wiederspahn. He's put together a terrific little ensemble piece about people trying to deal with the big and little banana peels we all find along the way.
[ Link to article ]
Brilliant performance
The Courier-Mail
December 10, 2005
By Des Partridge
Actor David Strathairn nails a key character of the emotionally charged McCarthy era, writes Des Partridge.
The phone call came completely out of the blue to actor David Strathairn's home in upstate New York.
George Clooney and Grant Heslov were inviting him to play the role of famous American broadcaster and Emmy winner Edward R. Murrow in a new movie, Good Night and Good Luck.
"They pretty well cut to the chase, and asked if I would be interested. When they eventually sent me the script, and I read it, I knew I was," Strathairn says in his Sydney harbourside hotel.
After more than 70 movies and appearances on television series such as Miami Vice and The Sopranos, the actor born on Australia Day, 1949, is winning the best reviews of his career for Good Night and Good Luck.
At the world's longest-running film festival in Venice in early September, he was on hand to accept the award for best actor.
Last week, after he had arrived in Sydney to publicise the film's Australian release through the Dendy group, he learnt Good Night and Good Luck was one of the finalists in the Independent Spirit Awards, the indie film world's annual response to the Academy Awards.
Strathairn was selected among Best Actor contenders at awards that are a pointer to actors on the short-list for Oscar nominations.
Strathairn, who appeared in L.A. Confidential with Australian actors Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, won an Independent Spirit award for best supporting actor in City of Hope 14 years ago, and was nominated again in 1992 (Passion Fish) and 1999 (Limbo).
He's been well known to Australian moviegoers who've followed the films of independent director John Sayles, whose socially and politically aware films such as Matewan and Eight Men Out have won him an arthouse fan club over the past 25 years since his debut with Return of the Secaucus Seven which marked his university friend Strathairn's low-budget film debut.
"John and I were at college together in Massachusetts," he says, "and while we weren't exactly friends then, our paths crossed at the university theatre club, and he called me up when he was casting Secaucus Seven."
It was a film that dealt with a reunion of university friends, similar to The Big Chill which proved a big hit three years later.
Strathairn, who brought his wife, registered nurse Logan Goodman, with him to Australia and spent last weekend driving to the beaches along the New South Wales coast around Jervis Bay, said "the role" was not the first consideration when he was offered work.
"Yes, being offered Edward R. Murrow is a wonderful opportunity for an actor, but I am really interested in the story that I'll be part of," he says. "I look for a story that says something close to my heart, and I always look at the story before I consider what my role is."
Good Night and Good Luck, made by George Clooney and Grant Heslov for a modest $US7.5 million--about a quarter of the cost of a small studio movie--deals with the stand broadcaster Murrow took against right-wing Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunt which caused widespread fear across the US in the early 1950s.
News reporter Murrow, who had two popular news-based programs on the CBS network, had to defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to expose the lies and scaremongering tactics McCarthy engaged in during Senate hearings.
"I didn't know a lot about Edward R. Murrow before this," Strathairn admits. "I was too young to be aware of Murrow--I was running around the woods and didn't see much television in my childhood." He grew up in the San Francisco area.
To prepare for the role, he visited the Museum of Television and Radio in New York's Manhattan and devoted several days to watching historic footage of Murrow performing his early programs such as See It Now as well as listening to the live radio reports he sent back to the US while covering the World War II Battle of Britain.
"They have a wonderful collection, and you can see practically any show from the 1950s that they have in their archives," he says.
It was about 12 months after the invitation to play Murrow that Strathairn had to test his preparation when filming started.
There had already been the nerve-racking experience of "reading" the script aloud in character in front of Murrow's son, Casey (an educator) during a run-through before filming started.
Murrow Jr had joined some of the film's real-life characters, such as Joe and Shirley Wershaba, portrayed in the film by Robert Downey Jr and Patricia Clarkson, and two sons of Murrow's newsroom producer, Fred Friendly, played in the film by Clooney.
Clooney had considered playing Murrow early in planning for the film, but has said since that once Strathairn was considered, "it was no contest".
"We knew he (Strathairn) was a great actor, but you still can't tell," Clooney says, "particularly when it's playing somebody as iconic as Murrow.
"However, the second he was in front of the camera, and started doing some of those huge speeches, he was transformed.
"I've been with a lot of actors and I'd never seen anybody as transformed to the point where I'd look up and forget that it wasn't Murrow. It was uncanny, but he's brilliant."
Strathairn doesn't smoke, which added to the challenge of his role, as Murrow was a famous chain-smoker, rarely seen without a lit cigarette at hand, and who died from lung cancer in 1965 aged 57--a year older than Strathairn is now.
It was suggested that he should smoke pipe tobacco as opposed to real cigarettes, and it proved a lot more crew-friendly, and wasn't as harsh as regular tobacco.
Strathairn says he concentrated on Murrow's signature cigarette and gesture, and tried to get "at least a little bit" of the cadence of his voice. "His articulation was so precise, I really had to work at it."
The actor says that the content of Good Night and Good Luck is relevant to today's audiences because strong journalism was needed as much as ever on television, and in print.
"What's happening here in Australia right now, the sedition legislation, needs examining," he says, admitting to "keeping tabs on our President's connections, such as Prime Minister John Howard."
"I've never run for political office, but I like to follow current affairs. Some devastating decisions have been taken by President (George W.) Bush, and there have been deceptions.
"We need an active Fourth Estate to play its role against arrogant government," he says.
With two sons, aged 26 and 19, Strathairn says he's been distressed by America's role in Iraq.
Strathairn says he's been so involved in promoting Good Night and Good Luck in recent months that he hasn't had time to consider the future.
"I've got to look for another job as soon as I've done some more publicity in parts of America where the film hasn't screened yet."
Previews of Good Night and Good Luck are screening at the Dendy Cinema, George St, this weekend (December 10 and 11). The film's season opens on Thursday, December 16.
[ Link to article ]
INTERVIEW: Murrow role both exciting, educational
The United Methodist Reporter
December 9, 2005
By Leslie Rigoulot
Actor David Strathairn, who stars as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, still has the intensity of Murrow in his eyes--or maybe a press tour for the movie is just wearing him thin.
The 56-year-old who looks much younger in jeans than he did on screen in suits admits this is his first press tour, although he's been acting in films since 1980, with prominent roles in The Firm, A League of Their Own and many other films.
Leslie Rigoulot: How did you feel when George Clooney tapped you for this role?
David Strathairn: They had to pull me back down to the ground. I was floating. I didn't really know the details of Murrow's life, but when I saw the script I knew I wanted to do this. I didn't just learn about Murrow's mannerism but the change in our political landscape, the change in how broadcast journalism functioned. We view TV differently because of Murrow.
LR: Was it hard to be Murrow after watching Murrow?
DS: Yes and no. It was great to have all this archival footage and I got to meet his family. It was a great responsibility, but there is so much footage and so many photos that it was easier to catch the little mannerisms. Murrow was a smart man, a cagey, crafty man who knew how to use language. So, when he had a pause in his speech...that was for a reason, he was saying something with the pause. So, I had to be cognizant of that; I had to recognize that and respect it.
George said that Murrow wrote a third of the script since so much of it was archival footage. But it is the cadence, the images, the bits of Shakespeare that he used that captured me. What Murrow was about was truth--he believed that television could be used as a tool of delivering truth like it never had been delivered in history--but he was also frustrated by what he saw as the cheapening of television, as the path of least resistance always taken, as the bowing to the pressure of sponsors.
LR: Did you get claustrophic? Very few scenes are set outside of the tiny studio.
DS: George wanted that sense of claustrophobia. The newsroom was small. Remember George grew up on his dad's sets. [Mr. Clooney's father, Nick Clooney, is a veteran anchorman, television host and newspaper columnist.] He knows what those newsrooms were like because he was there.
LR: The screenplay starts in the middle of the McCarthy story.
DS: George and Grant Heslov [the movie's co-writer] didn't want to play down in that respect. They figured the audience is smart enough to be able to see what is going on, clever enough to delve into the characters, the situations.
LR: No pandering.
DS: No. The message that Murrow gives in the opening is also how they wanted to make the film. There is an intelligence to it.
[ Link to article ]
David Strathairn actor
The Hollywood Reporter
December 8, 2005
By Stephen Galloway
Of all the actors vying for attention during this year's awards-season frenzy, David Strathairn has perhaps received the most praise for his riveting turn as famed newsman Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's black-and-white Warner Independent Pictures production Good Night, and Good Luck (with Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in Sony Pictures Classics' Capote a remarkably-close second). For an actor who has built a career around smaller roles in films such as 1993's The Firm and 1997's L.A. Confidential, Strathairn exhibits a certain star quality as he portrays Murrow doing ideological battle with Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
Strathairn says it wasn't years of training that enabled him to inhabit Murrow so believably. Instead, it was a black-and-white photo that helped him determine how to best capture Murrow's inner soul. "It was a profile taken of him, close-up, and somehow, it gave me an insight into the man," Strathairn says. "I think it was the fact that it was taken a few years after the Buchenwald event (when Murrow witnessed firsthand the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp), and you could see how it marked him. You could see it in his face."
The haunted quality Strathairn found in that photograph was essential to his presentation of Murrow, who was "very different off-camera than on-camera. He was very, very aware of the camera throughout his life."
Strathairn researched Murrow's life as well, speaking to people who knew him and studying any footage he could find. "The Museum of Television & Radio has a lot of material, and George sent me a lot of archival footage," he says, adding that the most difficult aspect was "finding the voice, the posture, the cadence."
To do that, he thought back to, of all things, the seven weeks he spent at a Florida school for circus performers just after leaving college in Massachusetts. "It wasn't the same as that Russian institute for clowns where they train for five or six years," Strathairn says.
"But it taught me a lot about physicality. One of the old-timers told me that there is an unwritten patent in the circus: You only have one face; your makeup has to be your own--you can't copy anyone else's. It has to become your face."
Strathairn abandoned clowning (perhaps a smart move in hindsight) partly because he never quite found his face. Now, with his name at the top of nearly everyone's list of most-likely Oscar nominees, Strathairn says he's still enthralled by the process of creating characters and remains passionate about mastering new identities. "It is a continual, perpetual discovery," he says.
[ Link to article ]
Oscar performance from go-to man
The Australian
December 7, 2005
By Lawrie Zion
He has emerged as a surprise prospect for an Oscar nomination for his role as broadcaster Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, but David Strathairn is hardly a household name.
Still, nobody could say that he hasn't paid his dues. In a career spanning a quarter of a century, he has appeared in more than 70 movies and television programs. Before that he spent six months working as a clown with a travelling circus, an experience that he says "taught me how to fall down and not hurt myself, which is metaphorically important".
Before Good Night, and Good Luck, he was best known for his appearances in the ensemble films of independent American auteur John Sayles; he has been cast in six of them, including the 1980 college reunion drama Return of the Secaucus 7, 1987's Matewan, 1992's Passion Fish and 1999's Limbo, a survival tale set in the wilds of Alaska. He has long been the go-to man for nuanced character roles in more mainstream films such as The Firm, LA Confidential and The River Wild. But never, until now, has he been given top billing.
Speaking at a Melbourne hotel, the lean fiftysomething Strathairn says he was cast in his first leading role in Good Night, and Good Luck after director George Clooney called him out of the blue.
The consensus is that this is the part he was born to play. Strathairn was named best actor at the Venice film festival last September for what many critics have hailed as a note-perfect performance, capturing Murrow's physical and vocal mannerisms.
"George said, 'We're not going to make an impersonation here.' But Murrow was such a giant in the industry, that I have to give at least a respectful indication of the guy," Strathairn says, explaining how he prepared for the role. "So I listened a lot. Tapes of all the programs still exist.
"And when you think of Edward R. Murrow you think of phrases he used, like 'Good night and good luck', and his amazing clarity, almost the poetry of his writing."
Murrow was also a chain smoker and Strathairn smokes incessantly in the film, although he insists that he didn't inhale and had no trouble quitting once the cameras stopped rolling.
While conceding that Murrow could be a determined and wilful character, Strathairn clearly admires him and the film about him.
"The story itself is a very special one for America because it's a vital piece of history about one of our heroes or at least one of the great Americans," he says. "He was always at the cutting edge of his profession. What he did when he covered the Blitz in London and what he did for the electronic gathering of news and live feeds, he was sort of the first man on that moon."
What would he have made of the modern media? In a speech from 1958 that bookends the movie, Murrow complains that TV "in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us".
Were he alive today, Strathairn speculates, "he would probably say, 'I told you so.' Look what's come to pass because of the divergent priorities in the media, when everything is profit-driven and corporatised, and any given news outlet is often a bulletin for some boardroom."
In one of the film's more poignant moments, Murrow is reminded by CBS boss William Paley (played by Frank Langella) that audiences want entertainment, not civics lessons. "That's really where that fork in the road happened with television," Strathairn says. Where does this leave the modern media? The premise of Good Night, and Good Luck is that a journalist can make enough of a difference to reshape the political landscape. Should film-makers and other artists attempt to follow suit?
"It's a tricky thing," says Strathairn who, with Clooney, is keen to distance himself from firebrands such as Michael Moore, whose tactics he describes as divisive and antagonistic. "Artists, actors and performers are sometimes vilified for stepping outside of the workplace or using their work as a kind of bully pulpit," he says.
But Strathairn says journalists and artists have always had a responsibility to speak on behalf of the rest of society. In Clooney's case this means using his skills as a film-maker to provide a platform for a broader discussion.
"I think George was impassioned by the idea of journalistic responsibility and adherence to our constitutional rights, and if it puts a mirror up to today's world, then that is great," he says.
Strathairn says Murrow was motivated by a strong sense of civic duty. "He was driven by passion and principles based upon the [US] constitution to inspire or illuminate or educate the audience about ideas, and he never seemed to use that for his own ends," he says.
"I think he was a deeply honest man and not a showboat, as you might expect from someone who had garnered that kind of celebrity. The celebrity had come upon him just by his deeds."
[ Link to article ]
Peterborough film lures actor David Strathairn
NewHampshire.com
November 17, 2005
By Stephen Seitz
Principal photography has finished on the independent film Sensation of Sight, bringing with it an end to star David Strathairn's latest stint in New England, where he has acted before.
"I love this region," Strathairn said. "When I was younger, I sort of yo-yoed between Williams College (in Williamstown, Mass.) and the Mount Washington Repertory Company (in North Conway), where I did summer theater for six or seven years."
Strathairn comes to Sensation of Sight as his latest release, Good Night and Good Luck, in which he portrays the well-known broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, is garnering laudatory reviews and talk of Oscars.
Strathairn said the rumors are nice, but should be put in perspective.
"I had this image of it the other day," he said. "When I was in Alaska with (director) John Sayles, we were told that you can smell a bear in the woods. The scent will occupy an invisible zone, a culvert of odor that will drift through the woods. But if you step back five feet from that zone, you won't smell it. So, you can stick your head into the Oscar wind, but I prefer to step back."
Strathairn said he picks his scripts on the basis of the story, which is why he went from a successful Hollywood project to the small independent Peterborough production. In Sensation he plays Finn, a middle-aged high school teacher who undergoes a calamity which forces him into a spiritual crisis and forces him out of teaching.
"He's like someone you might like to live next door," said Strathairn.
"He makes a radical choice to stop teaching and sell encyclopedias door-to-door in hopes of finding answers and progressing with his life."
Behind the scenes
The film is being directed by its screenwriter, Aaron Weiderspahn, whose production company, Either/or Films, is based in Munsonville. Weiderspahn and Strathairn sat down together and discussed the character at length.
"David is an actor's actor," said Weiderspahn, "and he's giving us a real tour de force. He embodies Finn exactly. We spent plenty of time talking about the character, but from way back when I was writing the script, David's face popped up. He's perfect for this role."
Strathairn has appeared in about 70 films, ranging from A-list Hollywood productions like L.A. Confidential and Good Night to smaller, independent productions like his debut in The Return of the Secaucus Seven for his friend Sayles.
Although Murrow was not his first portrayal of an historical character, he said it presents some challenges.
"An historical character is a different animal, especially one who is so well-known as Murrow," explained Strathairn. "There's archival footage and people have a visual memory. You have a responsibility to respect what is known. With a fictional character, the choices are infinite; you can form the character from his psyche to his shoes. But with Murrow, we know what he looked like, what he wore, what he thought, and we knew he smoked cigarettes. You have a responsibility to history and to the character himself."
One performance that sticks out for many in northern New England is Strathairn's portrayal of Joe St. George, the Maine fisherman who is the villain of Dolores Claiborne. In it, Strathairn was able to accomplish what so few actors seem to be able to--adopt a credible New England accent.
Strathairn said it came from careful study.
"There are wonderful, diverse sounds from Maine to Vermont," he said, "but you still have to get down and study it. You don't want the accent to sound silly; you want these regional dialects to live on. If you're doing a film or story that's site-specific, it's a challenge to do it well."
While Strathairn's part is finished, the Peterborough production office will remain open for about another week to deal with loose ends. Weiderspahn said the film would be ready for release in about a year.
[ Link to article ]
The Peterborough Transcript (11/11/2005) - photo copyright © The Peterborough Transcript
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Versatile actor enjoying 'Our Town'
The Peterborough Transcript
November 11, 2005
By Seth ChatfieldDavid Strathairn, the actor playing the lead role in the film Sensation of Sight, currently being filmed in Peterborough by either/or films, has had a long, distinctive career and a bright future ahead. But it hasn't gone to his head. The renowned character actor said he has enjoyed his time in our small town, shooting an independent film that uses real people, like those he prefers to portray on screen.
Coming off the heels of filming the high-profile George Clooney film Good Night, and Good Luck, chronicling the battle of newsman Edward R. Murrow's fight against McCarthyism, Strathairn got involved with Sensation of Sight when an old friend, producer Buzz McLaughlin, called to see if he'd be interested. Strathairn and McLaughlin had worked together before, but what really drew him into the film was the story and the vision of director Aaron Wiederspahn. He also liked the idea of shooting in small-town New Hampshire.
"I thought it was really quite a beautiful story," said Strathairn in an interview with the Transcript last Friday. "I like the tapestry of characters, all very eccentric and all very communal, all vital parts of the story. Nobody was anything but a central part of the puzzle. I liked Aaron's vision of how he wanted to shoot it and that it would be shot in New Hampshire. That was a plus. I thought it was very literate and at the same time very accessible. It's about how everybody walks through life, in a way."
Strathairn's resumé boasts a vast, impressive body of work. He has appeared in dozens of films, from several pictures with longtime friend and director John Sayles to his role as the despicable husband in Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne, to his appearance on The Sopranos as ill-advised suitor to Tony's wife. His career history is large and his scope of characters serves as a veritable cross-section of humanity. But for him, the best roles and films are those that allow for an examination of the human condition.
Strathairn said he feels film is "something that has sprung from the need to study ourselves. In a way, it's a very narcissistic phenomenon. Like Shakespeare would say that we are holding up that mirror to our nature. So films that, like John's films and this film, Sensation of Sight, films whose goal it is to artistically investigate relevant issues...I find those more compelling. Those are the kinds of films I would go for, rather than the shoot-'em-ups with gratuitous violence...they're unreal."
In Good Night, and Good Luck, Strathairn had a chance to play a central character of American history. Playing a real person was not a new experience--Strathairn played physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in the 1989 made-for-television film Day One--but it was a challenge he was glad to embrace. Strathairn is dedicated to his work, and strives to bring realism to his characters. Thus, a lot of research and background work must be done for such a role to work. While researching his role as Edward R. Murrow, Strathairn said he was fortunate there were so many resources to draw from. "There's a lot of archival footage available of the man. You have to study these things. All those Kinescopes exist; it was great to have that available because it's such a responsibility to depict somebody that's sort of an icon. It was great to have all that detail at our fingertips."
While Strathairn has appeared in countless big-budget films, independent film is nothing new for him. His work with renowned independent filmmaker Sayles made up much of his early career, when he appeared in Sayles' films Return of the Seacaucus 7, Brother from Another Planet, Matewan, Passion Fish and others. The two met in New Hampshire, where they were both involved with a summer theatre in North Conway. This is also where Sayles shot Seacaucus 7.
"I've learned basically what it was to make a movie by working with John," said Strathairn.
Sayles has said he loves working with Strathairn, largely for his innate ability to "play the text as well as the subtext."
But it's not the size of the film or its budget that informs his choices, it's "the story, mostly," he said. "If I'm moved or compelled or awakened or informed by the story, and the story is something I'd like to have been told myself," he's interested.
This was certainly the case with his role in Dolores Claiborne. In this film, critics noted his command of the New England accent as well as his apt handling of a delicate, demanding role. "That was, in my mind...one of the best [films of Stephen King]. It wasn't a horror film or a sci-fi film, it was a very potent window to look through," he said.
Strathairn said there are many things that influence the way he plays his roles. It's not just method acting, nor is it solely about a director's motivation for a character. It's a combination of strategies that brings his performances to a level he's happy with. "It's a scattershot of all those things...from the outside in to the inside out. There's so many ways to approach it--the author's vision, the sense of locality that's with it... You sort of surround yourself with all that loam and sort of plant your own seed in there and see what comes out of it."
Strathairn is in town for a total of 18 days shooting Sensation of Sight. He said Peterborough has been "very welcoming and supportive and they have been very respectful of our space, and hopefully we have been respectful of theirs. That's very important...to set a good example for the next [film] that comes through and it's also important to educate the community to the nature of a film production...what kind of impact it can have and what to watch out for. Often that can be a difficult relationship if a production company doesn't respect [the local community]...but the fact that either/or films is based here and that the town seems to welcome the film is great. That things can be done on a small scale with residents, that's a very huge production," he said.
Movie Broadcasts Strathairn's Talents As An Actor
The Tampa Tribune
November 4, 2005
By Bob Ross
It's pronounced STRATH-ern. Like it's spelled.
After his latest movie makes the rounds of theaters and award nominations, perhaps David Strathairn will be a little more of a household name.
If not, it won't bother him.
Despite an extensive 25-year resume, the 56-year-old actor remains known to most folks as "that guy," as in "oh, there's that guy from Molly Dodd on TV," or "hey, it's that guy who played a rich pimp in L.A. Confidential."
"The fact that I haven't been in big Hollywood blockbusters may be one reason" for his relative anonymity, Strathairn said in a recent telephone interview. "If people remember you for something but are not sure what--if they say, 'oh, yeah, he was in that movie'--it gets them to thinking about the film. They recognize you for your work, not your face."
As of today, he's more likely to be recognized as the man who creates the miraculous reincarnation of Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck.
The movie, directed by (and co-starring) George Clooney, is set about 1953, when Murrow used his clout at CBS to denounce a red- baiting senator named Joe McCarthy, who portrays himself in vintage newsreel clips.
And though the new film won't break any box-office records, it should raise Strathairn's profile because it's the kind of performance that draws broad media attention. After all, Murrow was a hero to journalists, especially those in broadcasting.
"George didn't want to make a bio-pic about Murrow's whole life," Strathairn notes. "He wanted to make a film that was a tribute to journalists, including his dad [Nick, who was a TV anchorman in Cincinnati and Lexington, Ky.] and Murrow."
So the movie focuses on a singular time, place and controversy.
Clooney, says Strathairn, "felt that this was a vital time in our history as a country, when Murrow was taking on McCarthy, because there was a fear across the land, and it was being used to erode civil liberties. Certain constitutional rights were being denied in his attempts to finger communists. Murrow raised questions then that are appropriate now."
Although the actor and the TV legend have vaguely similar features, Strathairn created a striking resemblance for the role. He credits Clooney and writer-producer Grant Heslov with giving him the chance.
"I got to hand it to them," he said. "They rolled the dice and gave me a call. They are the ones who went through the files and came up with me."
Black And White Looks Realistic
One reason the movie looks so realistic is that it's in black and white.
"I wasn't surprised by that," Strathairn says. "In all my research, I can't remember seeing a color picture of Murrow or any of those guys [at CBS News]. To responsibly depict them, black and white was the only way to go. It really kept the integrity of the film."
To make it look more immediate, he adds, cinematographer Robert Elswit "re-created the framing and the relationship to the camera" of the original newscasts. The suits and the cigarettes--lots and lots of cigarettes--added verisimilitude.
In the movie, Murrow doesn't look happy. His hound-dog countenance added to his legend, but Strathairn studied the man and concluded he was different in his private life, which is not included in the film.
"Some people say Murrow wasn't very quick to smile," he says, "but he did. And when he did smile, he lit up the room. From everything I've read, he was a hale and hearty guy who liked to kick back with the fellas. But at this moment in his life, things were crucial and high-pressure, especially in the studio. You get the sense he was carrying around a great weight."
Background As A Funny Guy
That sort of role seems to suit Strathairn, who seldom ventures into comedy, although he has been wonderfully funny in The Brother From Another Planet and Sneakers.
And he even has little-known experience as a circus clown. As a young man just out of college, he came to Florida to visit a grandfather who died before he arrived. So Strathairn chose to stay awhile and enrolled at the Ringling school for clowns in Venice, south of Sarasota.
"I had a great time down there," he recalls. "I lived in Sarasota and hitchhiked to Venice."
After taking the seven-week training course and learning some routines, he spent "the better part of a year" traveling with the blue unit of the Ringling Bros. circus.
"It's not really my choice," he explains when asked about his serious screen persona. "One gets pigeonholed to a certain extent. You are remembered for what you did last, and people keep you in mind that way. It's tricky to change things up. There are some little parties left for me to crash: Comedies, action movies, sci- fi."
Will Good Night get him those offers? "It remains to be seen. If it keeps the ball rolling, that will be great. But at this point, I don't see an earth-shattering change. I haven't seen it yet."
David Strathairn on Murrow, McCarthy and Good Night
The News Tribune
November 4, 2005
By Betsy Pickle
It makes sense to have David Strathairn play Edward R. Murrow. Not that there's an indisputable physical resemblance between the actor and the icon of broadcast journalism--makeup, costuming and performance take care of that. But in the way that Murrow stood for integrity and the purest goals of journalism, Strathairn represents the same in acting--although he laughs at the suggestion that he has a nearly flawless resume.
"We all have a banana peel out there," he says.
For playing Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, Strathairn won the best-actor prize at the Venice Film Festival. He doesn't want to talk about awards or the escalating Oscar buzz.
The pleasure of acting is "telling a good story," says Strathairn. "Being with a group of artists that are committed to it.
"And I learn a lot. I've always learned a lot in every production. It's kind of an anthropological window as well as a psychological one. ...Then, if it's a period piece or if it's a play about another time in history, I learn an awful lot about ourselves."
Good Night, and Good Luck is Strathairn's highest-profile role in 25 years of film acting. He has starred for director John Sayles--his classmate at Williams College in the late '60s and early '70s--in seven films, including Return of the Secaucus Seven, Matewan, Eight Men Out and Limbo.
He's made memorable appearances in such studio releases as L.A. Confidential, Dolores Claiborne, The River Wild, The Firm, Sneakers and A League of Their Own, in addition to elevating a host of indies. So when director George Clooney and producer Grant Heslov, who co-wrote the Good Night screenplay, needed a seasoned actor who could disappear into the role of Murrow, they called Strathairn.
Strathairn, 56, was a kid growing up in Northern California when Murrow was on the air in See It Now and Person to Person and he doesn't remember watching him on television. He learned about Murrow's role in toppling Sen. Joseph McCarthy in depth while making the film.
"There are quite a few people who do remember him vividly," he says. "And yet there are also a lot of people who are coming to him for the first time.
"I've been talking to lots of journalists, so they obviously know who he is and what he stood for and all the things that he began. He was sort of the patron saint of journalism."
While the film is set in the 1950s, it should resonate with today's audiences, Strathairn says.
"There are issues today that are very similar to the ones then--when people's constitutional rights are being played with, to put it mildly, like with the Patriot Act," he says. "In '53, with McCarthy, it was guilt by association. He was saying dissent is disloyalty, and accusation was enough for him to prove that you were a communist, and he was denying people's right to face their accuser.
"It's similar today, in many ways. But that's also happened before: Japanese-American internment camps and the reservation system. ...These are issues that have been with us forever as a nation."
Actors who express their political views often draw criticism, especially when the actors lean toward the left and their critics lean toward the right. But Strathairn says there's no reason actors shouldn't speak up either in their work or through another public forum.
"I think if people are threatened by artists, then we have to figure out why they are threatened, consider the source of their threat and why they feel that artists shouldn't speak out," he says. "Artists are at the core of any democratic society from the Greeks on. They have been the ones who speak truth of the people and to the people about all range of issues, not just political.
"As Shakespeare says, artists are the ones who hold the mirrors up to nature, our natures. To be vilified for their creations is, I think, unfair."
Strathairn admires what Clooney accomplished with Good Night, and Good Luck.
"George's intention with this film was not to polarize or proselytize in any way," he says. "He wanted just to create a platform for discussion about issues germane and vital to all of us. He didn't want to make it a Michael Moore film, which I think is a bit propagandizing.
"(Moore's films are) investigative and revealing works, but he tends to make things more divisive and fractured and antagonistic. George isn't about that with this film; this man Murrow and what he did was for the good of the society."
[ Link to article ]
The Independent (11/2005) - photo copyright © The Independent
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Q & A: David Strathairn
The Independent
November, 2005
By Rebecca CarrollIf you've seen a John Sayles movie, you know who David Strathairn is. Sadly, if you've not seen a John Sayles movie, you're much less likely to have ever even heard of David Strathairn. He's one of those I-know-I've-seen-him-somewhere actors that every once in a blue moon will pop up in a studio film like, say, Losing Isaiah (1995), but is more likely to be seen in an independent film you stumble across on the Sundance or IFC channels, or at a festival, which most likely will end up being the only place the film is ever screened. No matter where you end up catching a performance by Strathairn, when you do, it's hard not to be struck almost immediately by his dark good looks, his fierce intensity, and the fact that he is a wildly good actor.
During a press junket in September for the George Clooney-directed independent Good Night, and Good Luck, about the confrontation between CBS newscasters Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s, I sat down with Strathairn to talk about what it was like to be Edward R. Murrow, how America thinks about television and film, and the virtues of pipe smoke.
Rebecca Carroll: The first thing I noticed when I was watching Good Night, and Good Luck--and it's probably because I just had a baby and had to quit smoking--is that there's a lot of smoking going on there. Real smoking?
David Strathairn: Yeah, you had to. You know what fake smoking looks like.
RC: Yeah, but there was a lot of smoking.
DS: Forget about it. It's just heinous.
RC: Are you a smoker?
DS: Nope.
RC: How did that work out?
DS: I couldn't not do it, especially for this guy [Edward R. Murrow]--you never saw him without one.
RC: Did it mess with your throat at all?
DS: I thought it was going to, but I didn't use regular cigarettes. I researched. I tried every possible kind knowing that I was going to have to smoke 20 or 30 a day.
RC: Wow.
DS: Yeah, one day I smoked 51 cigarettes. There were days when I smoked more. But one day I said, I'm going to count today. But I tried them all—herbal, Carltons, Kents, Pall Malls, Gauloises, Shermans--until someone said, "Why don't you try pipe tobacco?" It burns slower, it doesn't have 242 kinds of chemicals, and it smells better. And I found that to be true. It doesn't dig into you like cigarettes and cigars.
RC: Even when I was a smoker, I couldn't have been in such a closed space with everybody smoking at once--so for a nonsmoker, you pulled it off pretty well. But what a cool movie this is--although, I was thinking when I was watching it: How do we watch this movie without being cynical? The moral message is such a nice idea, and of course it comes at such an important time.
DS: Because it comes at an important time, we shouldn't be cynical about it. Murrow is still referred to today, and I think what kept him going was an innate hope that he would make a difference based on what he believed journalism should be. It's a nostalgic idea. Some people say the film is kind of sad--like something is lost. But it's not. I don't think it's cynical. You can say, "Yeah. Look at how you dropped the ball."
RC: I don't mean that the film itself is cynical. I mean that it's a very hopeful film and maybe sad, yes, but the fact that we think it's sad is cynical. Do you know what I'm saying?
DS: There you go--that it is lost. Yeah. Right on. That's true.
RC: Because Murrow did make a difference, but where do we look for evidence of that today?
DS: Well, there are people trying, I think. There's Bill Moyers' approach to journalism, which is very similar to Murrow's in that he uses it to educate--tell a great story, but also educate.
RC: I think that what can happen, too, is that the educating becomes entertainment to a certain extent.
DS: Yes, that's absolutely true.
RC: When did that happen?
DS: Well, it started happening right there [in the film], when William Paley [the president of CBS from 1928 until 1946] made the decision that more people wanted to watch I Love Lucy more than they wanted to watch the senate sub-committee hearings--they don't want a civics lesson, they want to watch Jack Benny. Fine. And that's what's great about this film. It shows the collision of those two things. Murrow felt that television could be both entertaining and enlightening--that it should be both.
RC: There was a real palpable camaraderie in the film--like you all were having a very good time.
DS: We were having a great time. It was like making news, but it was also like, you wanted to go to work.
RC: I get the sense that your career has kind of been like that. Like, you've wanted to go to work.
DS: For the most part, yeah.
RC: You've been in a number of John Sayles' films--when did your relationship with him start?
DS: We went to college together--I didn't really know him then, but came to know him about seven, eight years later at a summer theater. It's been great working with him, and it's so much fun. You get to go to the very place where the film takes place. Not in any studio. You're not in any other location that may look like the film. You go to the coal mines of West Virginia [Matewan, 1987]. You go to the Bayou [Passion Fish, 1992]. You go to Alaska [Limbo, 1999].
RC: And he's such a great writer.
DS: Yeah, he's a great storyteller because he respects every character he creates.
RC: Kind of an obvious question, but I'm always interested in actors who work in both independent and studio films. How are the two experiences different for you?
DS: With bigger films, you definitely feel like you're sitting on a bench until they say, "Okay, now we need you, come in. Do your couple laps around the track." You don't feel as integrated into the community of the film as you do with independent films. Independent films become, familial might not be exactly the right word, but you just feel that you're more in the mix than with larger films. But independent films have all the trappings of big budget films, they just don't have the big budget.
RC: So, as an actor, would you say that you approach both the same?
DS: Yeah. You approach your work the same.
RC: Goodnight imparts a lesson. As an actor, do you want to impart lessons for people to go away with?
DS: Well, film and television and theater are becoming our literature. You know, people don't read books. It's easier to turn on the television set or go see a film and have it told to you. And so it's the responsibility of people who are making film and television to understand that you are the literature. You are the thing that people learn about their culture from.
Rest of article coming soon....
[ Link to article ]
Movie filming causing a 'Sensation': Getting star-struck
November 3, 2005
By Anna Haigh
David Strathairn may have won a prestigious acting award at this year's Venice Film Festival, but long before Italy, he made a fateful trip to New Jersey.
Strathairn, 56, said he first met Buzz McLaughlin, the executive producer of The Sensation of Sight, now filming in Peterborough, at a playwright's festival in New Jersey about 17 years ago.
Strathairn did a few readings, he said, but the two didn’t collaborate until last year, when they starting discussing Sensation, a drama about a middle-aged man's journey through despair.
When McLaughlin and Strathairn finally joined forces, Strathairn signed on to join the production as a producer, and star as Finn, the central character in the film.
McLaughlin and Sensation writer-director Aaron Weiderspahn own the Stoddard-based production company, either/or films, that’s producing the independent film.
The shoot began on Oct. 24, and is scheduled to wrap on Nov. 14.
Strathairn has had roles in 70 films, including L.A. Confidential, and won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival in September for his role as CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck, directed by George Clooney.
He took a break from shooting a scene behind All Saints Church in Peterborough on Wednesday to talk with The Sentinel about The Sensation of Sight.
Question: What's it been like working with Aaron (Weiderspahn) and Buzz (McLaughlin)? I know Buzz is one of your good friends.
Answer: It's so great when you reconnect with people who mean a lot to you, and you're sort of on the same page about the kind of work you want to do.
I loved (the script) immediately and their whole plan for a production company...their dream is to set up a production company based in New Hampshire...it just seems like it has all the earmarks of being something really viable and valuable for the communities in New England.
Question: So, what did you like about the script?
Answer: It has a wonderful whimsical-slash-existential tone...the story...has lots of characters that are all part of the tapestry in equal ways.
I love what it's dealing with--people having to negotiate through their lives like we all do...in this case, dealing with some pretty tragic events, and the ball and chain that can drag you down or it can just become part of your normal stride...it's a very human story, I feel.
It's sort of about redemption and survival, and there's a lot of love at the center of the story...it's also very respectful of how everyone searches for answers to big questions in their lives.
Question: What about the character of Finn? What did you like about him?
Answer: Finn is a searcher. He's kind of a common man who is trying to figure things out... I love that he's kind of an everyman, he's kind of a fool. He's a thinker, and he's a questioner, but he's also just a high school English teacher.
What (Weiderspahn's) story does is peel back one layer of life, and look under the surface at things that everyone goes through...in a sincere and loving way.
Question: How do you know when a role is right for you?
Answer: I don't know. (He decides)...is the story something I want to be part of, as opposed to the character. ...All of the characters are part of the neurology of the piece, part of the soul of the piece. I love that ensemble work...
Question: You've received critical acclaim for your role in Good Night and Good Luck. If you were to be given another award for that, an Oscar, who would you thank first?
Answer: Well I'd have to thank George Clooney and Grant Heslov (co-screenwriter with Clooney) for giving me a job.
Question: What's it like to go from a high-profile production like Good Night and Good Luck to a small New Hampshire community? Is it easier to work in an atmosphere like this?
Answer: Well, the work is the work. Good Night and Good Luck was all inside the studio.
When you get inside the corral, it's all the same. All the bells and whistles on the outside of it, either you notice them or you don't.
It'd be nice if this film had more time and money...but Good Night and Good Luck didn't have much really. It was a relatively low-budget film by many standards.
Question: What's your next project?
Answer: I don't know. So...knocking on a few doors.
Actor gets fired up for role
The Guardian
November 3, 2005
By unknown
Talk about suffering for your art: actor, and non-smoker, David Straithairn had to smoke up to 50 cigarettes a day for his role as Edward R Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, which closes the London film festival tonight.
Good Night chronicles the real-life, and very public, feud between television news pioneer Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the communist witch-hunts in 1950s America. Murrow took on McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in a 1954 broadcast which gained legendary status; McCarthy responded by accusing Murrow of being a communist.
In the movie, the legendary TV journalist is often shown smoking--even while on the air--during his battles with the senator.
"I tried all different kinds of tobacco to see which would be the least crippling and I ended up with pipe tobacco," Strathairn told AP Radio in a recent interview. "I found that that burned less harshly. It also smelled better." Probably not a good idea to tell him that Murrow developed lung cancer and died in 1965 at age 57, then.
[ Link to article ]
Reserved presence: Strathairn's performances are understated but powerful
Times Union
November 3, 2005
By Mark McGuire
David Strathairn lives outside of Poughkeepsie, far from Hollywood's zone of influence. Like his Williams College classmate and frequent collaborator John Sayles--the writer-director who gave Strathairn his first film role in 1980's Return of the Secaucus 7--the actor likes to keep some geographic independence from the industry.
It makes no difference. Producers come to him. Strathairn doesn't have to say a word.
Come to think of it, that's what he does on screen, too. Strathairn, 56, has always been more slow burn than rolling boil, and he gives another powerfully understated performance in the new drama Good Night, and Good Luck, which opens Friday.
Strathairn, whose supporting performances have graced films as different as Matewan and The River Wild, has spent the past month collecting acclaim for his work as CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, host of the influential program See It Now, in George Clooney's drama about Murrow's battles with Sen. Joseph P. McCarthy, who "plays himself" in the film through archival footage.
In the movie, the legendary TV journalist is often shown smoking--even while on the air--during his battles with the senator. "I tried all different kinds of tobacco to see which would be the least crippling and I ended up with pipe tobacco," Strathairn told AP Radio in a recent interview. "I found that that burned less harshly. It also smelled better." Probably not a good idea to tell him that Murrow developed lung cancer and died in 1965 at age 57, then.In a sparse 90 minutes, much of the character development evolves silently, evoked more than stated through a cloud of cigarette smoke and lingering glances. It's a style that plays perfectly to Strathairn's strengths as an actor.
"It was off-the-cuff a little bit," said Strathairn. Clooney and cinematographer Robert Elswit--working in glorious black and white--tried to "pick up information on the fly, sort of candidly. ...You would get an accumulation of information about the ways these people were feeling about what was going on without framing it up and having them tell you."
"There was a lot of anxiety in the newsroom when these broadcasts were done," Strathairn added. "George would say, 'Just hang here for a moment and we'll just let the moment carry out.' It's almost like music: You let the sound linger."
Clooney appears in the film as producer Fred Friendly; the cast also includes Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson, Ray Wise, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels and Tate Donovan. But center stage is held by Strathairn's Murrow, a man still revered as a patron saint of broadcast journalism.
"I knew who he was, and I had been aware of the man and the moment with Mr. McCarthy, but not nearly as much as I came to learn about him," said Strathairn.
"The task was to respectfully honor the memory of the man and his particular broadcast technique--the cadence, his presence in front of the camera, how he used it almost as if someone listening to a story that is being read to him. All of those broadcasts are available on tapes, archival footage, so I looked at that a lot, listened over and over to him."
Strathairn said it's doubtful any single journalist today could have Murrow's reach--and the actor thinks that may be a good thing.
"He was the voice. He was the man, speaking to 40 to 60 million people," Strathairn said. "Today, I don't think there could be one person who could have that kind of power and that kind of access to do what he did."
While film critics have been near-universal in their praise, certain conservatives have grumbled that the film is the latest swipe at the right from the vocally liberal Clooney, who co-wrote the script. Strathairn said that sort of complaint was expected, but feels the facts aren't in dispute.
"The great thing about this film and George's direction, and his development of the script and the story, is he tells it like a journalist," Strathairn said. "Everything is double-sourced, triple-sourced. The historical accuracy is right there in front of you. He is not trying to spin it."
Considering the quiet intensity of Strathairn's performance as Murrow, it might be surprising to learn that some of Strathairn's earliest training was as a Ringling Brothers clown.
It's true: Strathairn is one of the few Williams graduates who went on to postgraduate work at the Ringling Bros. clown college in Florida ("You learned everything from famous clown skits to juggling and tumbling, the makeup"). Strathairn spent more than eight months touring with the circus.
The most important lesson of that experience?
"Watch out for banana peels," Strathairn said. "They're all over the place."
[ Link to article ]
Strathairn Puffed on Dozens of Cigarettes
The Advocate
November 2, 2005
By Associated Press
Puffing away was part of the job for David Strathairn, who smoked up to 50 cigarettes a day for his role as Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck.
In the film, the legendary TV journalist is often shown smoking--even while on the air--during his battle with Sen. Joseph McCarthy. (Murrow developed lung cancer and died in 1965 at age 57.)
"I tried all different kinds of tobacco to see which would be the least crippling and I ended up with pipe tobacco," Strathairn, a nonsmoker, told AP Radio in a recent interview. "I found that that burned less harshly. It also smelled better."
The role of Murrow is the most visible yet for the 56-year-old Strathairn, mostly known as a character actor.
Strathairn said the part needed to "effect the essence" of Murrow for both the people who knew him personally and the journalists who revere him.
"We shot in sequence for the most part, and I get a lot better at it toward the end," he said.
Strathairn's films include A Map of the World, Blue Car and L.A. Confidential. He appeared briefly on HBO's The Sopranos as a character who nearly had an affair with Carmela Soprano.
[ Link to article ]
News worthy: In the anchor's seat with David Strathairn
Los Angeles Magazine
October, 2005
By Steve OneyAs the image of Edward R. Murrow fills the monitor recessed into a library carrel at the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills, David Strathairn extends an index finger toward the CBS newsman's fist and the trademark cigarette clutched therein. "He didn't go to the cigarette that often," says the actor. "It just lived in his hand."
While preparing to play Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck, director George Clooney's new film examining the reporter's 1954 clash with Senator Joseph McCarthy over Communist influence in Washington, Strathairn spent hours at the Museum of Television & Radio's Manhattan location doing what he's doing today--studying Murrow. Although the broadcaster's mannerisms captivated him, he ultimately focused on his voice: "Murrow's cadence is what was most recognizable about him. To get it down, I got into the habit of listening to him and speaking his lines at the same time." With that, Strathairn, who has flown to Los Angeles from his Hudson River Valley home to promote Good Night, and Good Luck, punches a button, and as Murrow talks, so does he. "While many of us were paying attention to the World Series, there was a meeting going on in Moscow. There, it seems to us, the Communists laid down a blueprint for our destruction."
After hitting pause, Strathairn observes that this statement disproves McCarthy's charge that Murrow was soft on Communism. Then he hones in on his subject's vocal patterns. "He spoke quickly, with such clean consonants. But there was a great amount of depth. He never spoke without thinking first. Unlike a lot of today's newsmen, he wasn't glib. He was something better--deft."
The same might be said of Strathairn. From his 1980 debut as basketball-playing Ron Desjardins in John Sayles's Return of the Secaucus 7, the actor has put together a body of work that is various and understated. Much of that work has been for Sayles, his Williams College classmate. Over the years he has given strong performances in such Sayles pictures as Matewan (police chief Sid Hatfield) and Eight Men Out (pitcher Eddie Cicotte), making himself a vital part of the director's repertory company Not that Strathairn hasn't made a mark elsewhere. The pimp Pierce Patchett in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential--that was him. So, too, the high school headmaster with whom Edie Falco's Carmela had a dangerous fling on The Sopranos last season.
Yet for all of Strathairn's critical success, he has not become a star. On some level, stars always play versions of their public personae, but Strathairn so inhabits his roles that there's no such thing as a typical Strathairn character. By their very nature, his performances, no matter how impressive, don't draw attention to the man giving them. With Good Night, and Good Luck, which opens nationwide this month, everything may change. "For years," the actor says, "a good friend of mine had been adamant that I had to find a way to play Murrow. He just saw a similarity. So when the call came saying George Clooney was interested, I thought, 'Wow, this is special.'"
Give Strathairn's friend and Clooney credit, for at first blush the actor bears little resemblance to Murrow. The figure holding forth onscreen in the carrel is pale and intense in his suit and tie. The actor, who sports khakis and a cotton work shirt, is tanned and relaxed. Yet Strathairn, as was Murrow, is serious and driven. "In his medium, Murrow was a pioneer," the actor says. "With his See It Now broadcasts, he's the father of principled television journalism."
Much as Strathairn relished the chance to bring Murrow to life, the newsman's august reputation initially intimidated him. "After I began doing research, I found myself asking, 'How do you respectfully depict this guy?' Then George said, 'This isn't a biopic. It's about events that happened during the McCarthy hearings.' I realized that there were handles to the role."
Further easing Strathairn's way was a surprise Clooney orchestrated for the cast's first table reading of Good Night, and Good Luck. "We get there," says the actor, "and George has flown in all these people from Murrow's life." His son, Casey, came, as did his CBS colleagues Joe and Shirley Wershba (played by Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson in the film) and Milo Radulovich. In the early 1950s, then-lieutenant Radulovich was discharged from the air force for having relatives who were possibly once Communists. It was this incident that led Murrow to take on McCarthy "Having them there for the reading was so galvanizing," says Strathairn.
Finally, though, the nonsmoking Strathairn may have made his breakthrough when he discovered a cigarette he could tolerate during weeks of playing the heavy-smoking Murrow, who died of lung cancer at 57. "I tried everything--Carltons, Pall Malls. Eventually a prop guy put pipe tobacco in a roll-your-own. That seemed to be the mildest. One day I smoked 51 of them."
As images of Murrow continue to flicker on the monitor, Strathairn says, "You can't see Good Night, and Good Luck and not get a sense of both the evolution of television and how things haven't really changed. You drop a pebble in a pond with Murrow's name on it and the ripples will fan out to what's going on in news today."
In a few hours Strathairn will fly back to New York. Early the next week, he'll accompany his 18-year-old son Ebbe to Cambridge, where he's entering MIT. Then the actor will head to New Hampshire, where he'll begin work on Sensation of Sight, an independent film. Strathairn does many small movies, seeing an integrity in them he rarely encounters in Hollywood. But after Good Night, and Good Luck--which was shot in black and white and features lines taken verbatim from Murrow's broadcasts--he's revising his opinion. "I'm proud to have been a part of this experience," he says. Indeed, George Clooney's quietly authoritative film is the sort of vehicle the quietly authoritative Strathairn has long been seeking--one that just might make him a star. As he emerges from the Museum of Television & Radio into the brightness of Beverly Drive, he seems to be emanating a light all his own.
Lights go up at the Murrow Center
Tufts Journal
October, 2005
By Terry Ann KnopfUntil recently, the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Policy has been one of the best-kept secrets at the Fletcher School. Founded in 1965, the center houses about 90 percent of the books, papers and effects of the legendary CBS newsman and serves as a bridge between journalists specializing in foreign affairs and scholarship and public policy research.
Dozens of distinguished journalists, diplomats and policymakers have spent time at the center, including David Halberstam, who, as a writer-in-residence at Fletcher in the early '70s, worked on his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Best and the Brightest.
Thanks to support from Dean Stephen Bosworth, the center is undergoing a renaissance. Recent speakers at the center have included Daniel Schorr, one of the last of the "Murrow's boys" news team and now an NPR news analyst, Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes fame and Louis Boccardi, the former CEO of the Associated Press.
Nowhere was Fletcher's commitment to the center more visible than on September 29, when the school staged an advance screening of the highly acclaimed George Clooney film about Murrow, Good Night, and Good Luck. The film, which stars David Strathairn as Murrow and Clooney as Murrow's producer Fred Friendly, centers on the very public clash between Joseph R. McCarthy and Edward R. Murrow in the early 1950s over the senator's allegations that Communists were hiding in every nook and cranny in this country. As an added attraction, Strathairn and Casey Murrow, the real-life son of the newsman, participated in a Q&A session after the screening.
In the best showbiz tradition—just as the film faded to black—the lights dimmed on cue and then went up as Strathairn made a dramatic entrance down the aisle in Barnum Hall to thunderous applause. During the Q&A, Strathairn was asked about Murrow's famous "wires-and-lights-in-a-box" speech, which closes the film. In the scene, Murrow receives an award from the Radio and Television News Directors Association and uses the occasion to lecture the group about its responsibilities as broadcast journalists.
"It's an amazing piece of writing, first of all, but [also] of insight and inspiration," Strathairn said. "They thought he was just going to get a gold watch, and he gets up and reads them a manifesto for the past and the future and the present."
Hollywood and the media have a responsibility to tackle important issues, Strathairn said. "Film and television [are] becoming our literature. That's how people are learning about our history, for the most part, for better or for worse."
Clooney directed the film and wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov. Clooney "didn't intend to polarize or proselytize or preach... He wanted to raise issues. He wanted to teach, as did Murrow," Strathairn said.
Asked to assess Strathairn's performance as his late father, Casey Murrow spoke in superlatives: "David did an absolutely remarkable job. I've talked to several people who've seen the film who are much older than I am and knew my dad well. And they said there are points in there, there are moments, scenes where they think, 'Oh, my God, it's him!'"
[ Link to article ]
Good Night, and Good Luck: A Look at George Clooney, Edward Murrow and National Security
Tufts-Fletcher News
October, 2005
By Raya Widenoja"We cannot defend freedom abroad by abandoning it at home," proclaims 1950's newscaster Edward R. Murrow, staring intently in the camera, his cheek muscle twitching--and suddenly it becomes clear why a graduate school of law and diplomacy is screening a Hollywood film.
Fletcher students and faculty filled the campus cinema September 29 for a preview of the movie Good Night, and Good Luck, a cinematic essay on the politics of truth, fear, and morality as seen in the 1954 media battle between the legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and the "Junior Senator from Wisconsin," Joseph R. McCarthy.
The screening was followed by a lively Q&A session with David Strathairn, who portrayed Murrow in the film, and Murrow's son, Casey, a frequent visitor at the Fletcher School. The event was co-sponsored by The Fletcher School's Murrow Center and Warner Independent Pictures.
More than a moral lecture, the movie is a touching and accurate portrait of a man and a time in which the smoke and scotch flowed freely at work, but in which journalists took the truth, their ethics and their obligation to the public very seriously.
Murrow set the standards for broadcast news from its infancy in the 1930’s until he left CBS in 1961 and was known for his passion for truth and democratic ideals. His name still inspires intense respect among journalists, even as many argue that television reporting has moved further away from his standards.
Despite its excellent recreation of the politics and atmosphere of broadcast news in the 1950's, Good Night, and Good Luck is not just a period drama. Strathairn, in fact, called it an openly political "gauntlet" thrown in the face of all who think that civil liberties can be compromised in the name of national security. The film poster proclaims simply, "We will not walk in fear of one another."
In the film, Murrow is at the height of his popularity and makes the decision to speak out against the McCarthy, knowing that it could end his own and his teams’ careers. In the ensuing melee, reporters are pressured, sponsors and advertisers are lost, and a man commits suicide. And in the end, it seems Murrow and his CBS team won the battle, but not the war.
Personal bravery plays a key role in the film, Strathairn commented on Thursday.
"McCarthy was [a] bit of a loner," he said, "who drank a lot and was drawing a considerable amount of criticism by 1954. That loner phenomenon doesn't really exist today." Strathairn also noted that the possibilities of technology today can make it even more different to present truth or reveal deception. The result may be confusion more than fear, but it can be just as paralyzing in today’s skirmishes over security and civil liberties.
George Clooney, who wrote and directed the film, also appears as Murrow's producer Fred Friendly. His father was a news anchor, and the elegantly filmed black and white movie not only recreates the look and feel of a 1950’s newsroom, but also examines classical issues of making "objective" and "real" news in the face of corporate and political pressure.
The film also stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as Joe and Shirley Wershba, Frank Langella as Bill Paley, Ray Wise as Don Hollenbeck, Heslov as Don Hewitt, and Jeff Daniels as Sig Mickelson.
GRAMMY® Award-winner Dianne Reeves appears in the film and provides the soundtrack, singing about TV, sorrow and everything in between as the reporters live it a few rooms away.
"(The movie) is like a song," Strathairn said as the evening drew to a close, "...where you never lose sight of the theme."
Good Night, and Good Luck will open in the Boston market Oct. 7.
This screening is part of a series of events initiated by the Murrow Center to renew interest in Edward R. Murrow's legacy. Other recent events included speeches by Daniel Schorr, veteran reporter and the last of the "Murrow Boys," and Louis D. Boccardi, former President and CEO of the Associated Press.
Shortly after becoming Dean of The Fletcher School, Edmund Gullion approached Murrow about heading a new center dedicated to what he thought should be called "public diplomacy." Murrow, then director of the United States Information Agency, was considering the offer but died unexpectedly in 1965. His widow, Janet, agreed to have her husband's effects housed at The Fletcher School. Today, more than 90 percent of Murrow's writings are housed in the Center.
[ Link to article ]
Interview with David Strathairn: An Actor's Actor
The Gate
October, 2005
By Christopher Heard
I am a huge fan of actor David Strathairn and have been for many years. He got his start in films by being cast in The Return of the Seacaucus Seven--the first film from maverick indie filmmaker John Sayles. He has made several films with Sayles including the terrific Matewan, and one of my favorites of his--Eight Men Out about the Black Sox Scandal (when the 1919 Chicago White Sox supposedly threw the World Series at the behest of gangsters). But the subject at hand here is the crowning glory in Strathairn's already impressive career--his role as Edward R. Murrow in the George Clooney directed Good Night and Good Luck--one of the best films of this year, and of the last five years.
Edward R. Murrow was a television journalist who spoke more eloquently about television and its power and its future than anyone before or since. He would do silly talk shows with guests like Liberace or Zsa Zsa Gabor but what he really liked to do was stretch the boundaries of television--make it a tool for change, for education, for empowerment. Strathairn captures Murrow's body, spirit and soul and is simply brilliant in the film. The film is not about the life of Murrow it is more about his legendary battle with Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee that was looking for communists...everywhere and trashing the Constitution while doing the looking.
Strathairn came to Toronto to promote the film, but a week after he was supposed to--laryngitis prevented him from coming when he had planned. During his time in his suite in the Four Seasons Hotel I asked Strathairn about his work in this fantastic film...
The GATE: It is not often that actors get to say the kinds of words uttered by Murrow--was this choice role something that came to you or was it something you had to go after?
Strathairn: Well, first, you are right about not getting to speak these kinds of words, which is a wonderful thing for an actor--this is like doing Shakespeare because Murrow's words and speeches and orations were recorded on television so we could do the speeches exactly as Murrow said them. To answer your second question--it was kind of both--I read the script because it was given to me as something I might be able to become involved in, but once I read it, I really pursued it.
The GATE: Did what you learned about Murrow change your views on television?
DS: I don't know if they were changed so much as they were deepened. What Murrow was about was truth--he believed that television could be used as a tool of delivering truth like it never had been delivered in history--but he was also frustrated by what he saw as the cheapening of television, as the path of least resistance always taken, as the bowing to the pressure of sponsors.
The GATE: The movie was directed by George Clooney...is it a different experience being directed by an actor?
DS: George also co-wrote the film, co-produced the film and plays a rather pivotal role in the film--he has his heart in this, his guts...not to mention the paper on one of his houses that he had to put up as a guarantee to get the funding...so it wasn't so much that it was a benefit because George is an actor, it was the fact that George cared so deeply about this project and had a profound love and respect for this subject matter and these people--that is what made it a different experience. Working with someone with such a burning passion is rare and wonderful. You get the feeling that you are really part of something unique. It made me really want to work hard to give George what he needed from me and more.
The GATE: When you were doing this movie, playing this man, could you feel that it was connecting? I mean, could you feel that this was seriously good work you were doing?
DS: Well...thank you for that...and I am not sure I could say that I knew...it would be more that I really hoped it was turning out that way... I do what my director tells me and where my research and instincts lead me...how it turns out is a conclusion that is arrived at long after my job is done.
The GATE: Was it an advantage that Murrow, while an iconic figure, is not really that well known to the current generation--did that take the pressure off you in a sense...
DS: In theory that would certainly be the case...
The GATE: I wasn't being dismissive...it is like playing...Paul Gauguin or Jesus Christ...you can get away with more contributions of your own...
DS: Oh, but wait a minute...Gauguin or Christ...there is no real record of them visually, how they moved, how they spoke--playing characters like that are based on written words, recollections, descriptions...but Murrow, a lot of what we are dealing with in this story...it happened on camera--we know how he spoke and how he moved and what his expressions were...
The GATE: Which brings me back to your earlier description of playing Murrow being akin to Shakespeare...
DS: ...in a way, yes.
The GATE: Meaning, you have speeches that have to be spoken specifically and precisely or they lose the meaning that Murrow gave the words...
DS: Exactly, yes, that is exactly what I meant by that. Murrow was a smart man, a cagey, crafty man who knew how to use language. So when he had a pause in his speech...that was for a reason, he was saying something with the pause. So I had to be cognizant of that--I had to recognize that and respect it.
The GATE: What was your initial reaction when you first saw the finished film?
DS: I was really proud of it--not just what I did in it, but for all of us--I was really proud and happy that George had a film that was the film he dreamed of making--he realized and I was really grateful that he let me contribute and be a part of it.
The GATE: Why don't we just leave it at that--thank you very much for your time, sir.
DS: Thank you Christopher, I enjoyed your questions.
[ Link to article ]
Strathairn relished playing news icon
Toronto Sun
October 28, 2005
By Jim Slotek
David Strathairn is not an actor with paparazzi in tow. If he's ever nominated for an Oscar, he could probably sneak in right under Joan Rivers' nose.
We could see that theory tested with the George Clooney-directed Good Night, And Good Luck, in which Strathairn inhabits the rumpled suit of American proto-news anchor Edward R. Murrow circa his 1950s on-air war with Communist-conspiracy jihadist Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Strathairn has a formidable reputation as a character actor, based on performances in L.A. Confidential and the films of John Sayles (Passion Fish, City Of Hope, Eight Men Out) among others. And in the wake of a best actor win at the Venice Film Fest, the plaudits keep coming.
But he's quick to disabuse interviewers of the notion that this Murrow is a one-man show. "I know it's been said that George (director Clooney) got an actor with gravitas who is made to portray having the weight of the world on his shoulders. And that's nice of them to say. But this is George's movie. He said, 'You're not going to carry this movie, I will.' And he did from the get-go. It wouldn't have been made without him and the team he brought together."
Indeed, Clooney--whose producing/directing efforts were partly a love letter to the journalistic career of his dad, Nick Clooney--assembled the kind of supporting cast Strathairn is usually a member of. Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson play CBS reporter Joe Wershba and newsroom assistant Shirley, whose secret marriage contravenes company policy. Frank Langella plays legendary CBS boss William Paley, and Clooney himself is CBS News head and Murrow defender Fred Friendly. (McCarthy plays himself, in all his bellicose glory in old footage.)
Good Night, And Good Luck (taken from Murrow's famous signoff) is a compressed incident in the newsman's storied career. It follows his potentially suicidal decision to take on McCarthy and his House Subcommittee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) via his CBS show See It Now (the 60 Minutes of its day), and expose the Wisconsin senator as a bullying demagogue.
"The man and the issue go hand in hand," says Strathairn. "It's obviously important and compelling and current, when you look now at things like the Patriot Act, the (Karl) Rove scandal, the Judith Miller affair.
"But I'd also have been happy if it were a full biopic. There's so much more to learn about the guy. It would've been even more intimidating, playing him from the lumber fields of the Northwest, to London and the Blitz and this event, and on to his shortened life."
Murrow died of lung cancer at 57, it should be said. The CBS offices that are virtually the main sets of Good Night, And Good Luck are awash in cigarette smoke, in keeping with the times (as is the black-and-white film itself). A non-smoker, Strathairn found rolled pipe tobacco to be the least objectionable route.
Still, he says, the motivations were harder to film than the mannerisms. "There's so much out there about Murrow, biographies and hundreds of photographs and personal testimonials. I talked to his son, and Joe and Shirley Wershba, Fred Friendly's wife. I think Murrow was honest, willful, sort of unconsciously courageous. He was frail in a way, and at the same time a warrior."
Strathairn says his favourite scene was also ironic--an "interview" Murrow conducted with a pre-filmed Liberace, in which "Lee" talks about his desire to get married and have children, possibly with Princess Margaret. In it, the paragon of hard news reporting seems like a reluctant Entertainment Tonight reporter.
"That Liberace interview is hilarious, and if you hear the whole thing, it goes on for a long time. He started that whole 'infotainment' ball rolling right there."
[ Link to article ]
David Strathairn finally gets his closeup: Non-smoker puffs constantly in big role
The Star
October 28, 2005
By Peter Howell
The nervous cough David Strathairn has during a Toronto interview can't be blamed on cigarettes, although he inhaled many a puff playing chain-smoking TV journalist Edward R. Murrow.
The hacking is the lingering laryngitis that hit the veteran character actor while promoting Good Night, and Good Luck, a biopic of the famed newshound who fought back against 1950s fear monger Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The film was directed and co-written by actor George Clooney.
The soft-spoken Strathairn isn't used to talking this much about his work. And as a non-smoker, he's never had to inhale so deeply for a role.
But what a role it is. With his hair slicked back, his hooded eyes set straight and his black suit as sober as a bishop, Strathairn uncannily conjures Murrow. And at 56, several decades into the acting game, he's suddenly the recipient of genuine Oscar buzz.
Hollywood is finally recognizing a quietly devastating actor who has appeared in many a John Sayles film, including Sayles' 1980 debut Return of the Secaucus 7. The San Franciso-born Strathairn has also added heat to L.A. Confidential, Blue Car, The River Wild and Silkwood, to name just a few of his dozens of movies.
Q: How tough was it to smoke as much as Edward R. Murrow did?
A: For a while, it was a little shocking. When I started realizing I was going to have to smoke, I went out and tried to find what kind of cigarette would be best, and no cigarette was. I couldn't have done it if I actually had to smoke cigarettes. So I smoked pipe tobacco. A friend of mine from Montreal, as matter of fact, said I should try a light pipe tobacco, and I tried that and it turned out to be the best solution. Better than herbal cigarettes or American Spirits or roll-your-owns. Pipe tobacco was crew friendly, it smelled good and it didn't get in your clothes like cigarette smoke. But the cigarettes had to be freshly made, and the prop guy must have rolled between 3,000 and 4,000 of them."
Q: Growing up, did you ever think you resembled Edward R. Murrow? The resemblance is astonishing.
A: I was about three or four in 1953, so I don't remember him from that time. But, you know, they did a pretty good job framing it up like that, with the hair and everything. For the most part, there's nothing I could do about the looks. The looks are what they are.
Q: What do you make of Murrow the man?
A: He was an amazing guy, just amazing. I read everything I could about him, saw all the pictures of him that I could stare at, listened to the recordings and looked at the kinescopes, over and over, trying to find some way in.
You know, he was wilful and brave, but not consciously. I think that was just his inclination. His instinct was just to go to the edge of any cliff or any fire and report it... But I think he was a frail person. Physically frail, but spiritually he was a warrior. Ultimately, he was a very decent guy, although maybe a little dark.
Q: Murrow really seemed anxious in many ways.
A: He had really high standards; he was very critical of himself. He never thought that he got it right. He was very nervous about doing these reports. Even the radio broadcasts brought lots of anxiety.
Q: Did this movie make you feel better or worse about politics?
A: Better or worse? Well, I was trying to think what would I have felt like in 1953. Back then it was a little bit more directly frightening, because it was coming from one man. And you could hang your fears on that guy, McCarthy, and what he was doing. You knew if you read a magazine or if you had a friend who had a friend or had unsolicited publications about the Communist Party come to your door, or somebody across the street had had a gathering or a meeting...you knew that you might be implicated. So the fear was palpable and more tangible.
Today, it's even more insidious and debilitating and confusing. You don't know if (the government) is looking at your library list or your medical records because of the Patriot Act. You don't know what they're looking for in your email. I don't think communism was ever really a danger. I mean, it's not as dangerous as terrorism is today. Communists are not going to go and blow up a train station. They have a whole different agenda. So that kind of fear is even greater today, and even more crippling. And also apt to be used as leverage by our government to do basically what McCarthy was doing, which was to erode your civil liberties. Murrow said that dissent should never be confused with disloyalty, and investigation is not and should not be persecution. We cannot defend freedom abroad if we deny it at home.
Q: What do you think of George Clooney as a director?
A: I think everything about him, everything good. You look at the film and you see that he shot a lot in six weeks, and what remained is [a] testament not only to the editing and cinematography but also to George's handling of it. George created an environment for us that was so inclusive. For everybody--cast, crew, people who came to visit the set--he created an all-inclusive and very generous playground for everyone to come. And at the same time, he had asked this hefty cast to give their time for this low-budget film: $7.5 million.
George directed the hell out of this movie. He hopes that it will create debate and not more divisiveness. He just says, "Well, these are issues that we should talk about." It's happened before in our history, and it will probably happen again--although let's hope not--that the pendulum of power swings a little bit too far in its arc, and they need somebody to hang onto it like Murrow did. But today it's really hard for a journalist to be like Murrow, because you don't have the access.
Q: The funny thing about Clooney is that he so often plays the clown at press conferences, and he's an inveterate prankster. Yet he comes up with a serious movie like this one.
A: I know. It's interesting you mention that, because he does slip in his ideas and his thoughts and his awareness, but they're done in a different way. He's not out there Michael Moore-ing anybody; he would loath to think people thought that.
Q: How does it feel to be the subject of Oscar buzz? Have you started campaigning yet?
A: I don't know (coughs nervously). I can't tell. It's so far down the road and frankly, it's kind of a circus. Now, I've heard that word "campaign" and I might have to talk to somebody about it. I'm going to call my friend (the actor) Chris Cooper, who is a good guy, and ask him about it. He probably feels about it the same way I do.
[ Link to article ]
MCN Interview: David Strathairn
Movie City News
October 28, 2005
By unknown
Good Night, and Good Luck is a quiet, concentrated effort, adroitly capturing a flickering moment of courage by a clutch of broadcast journalists against the backdrop of fearsome abuses of governmental power in the 1950s, notably incorporating extensive archival footage of Wisconsin Senator Joseph "I have here in my hand a list of 205 people" McCarthy.
Director, co-writer, co-star and co-producer George Clooney grew up the son of a television broadcaster whose hero was Edward R. Murrow, the CBS broadcaster who opposed the junior Senator in his series, See It Now, and earlier, gathered gravitas with his 1940s radio broadcasts from the London Blitz. Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov worked as much as possible from the historical record, multiply sourcing content so that their black-and-white venture could not easily be called "revisionist." Bleating bullie
