donald sutherland interview
TRANSCRIPT
EDITORIAL
ROUTTNG 12-28-93
TO:
ENTERTAINMENT
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'separation'
anxiety?
Sutherland
doesn't
see
the
Point
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!
By Frank
Lovece
.i.
He is the
acting
equivalent
of The
Flying Wallendas,
Donald Sutherland
taking
risks and
outre
roles few
if
any established
American
leading
men
would take.
Sure,
there
was
Hawkeye
Pierce
in
(Mx'A*S*H'
(19?0).
But there
was also
the
likes
of
"Fellini's
Casanova"
(1976),
and
the infamous
"F.T.A."
(1972).
Now Sutherland flies without
a net
yet
again
in the
screen
version
of
John Guare's
Broadway
play
"Six
De-
grees
of Separation."
In
seem-
ingly
unflashy
vehicle
-
a witty
drama of
a collegiate
con-man
who
insinuates
himself
into the
lives of
rich Manhattan socialites
-
Suther-
land
plays
the
well-meaning
Flanders
Kittredge,
an
art
dealer who
goes
by
the
preppy
nickname
Flan.
He
and
his
wife,
Ouisa
(Stockard
Channing,
reprising her Broadway
role),
are the
to be the son
of Sidney
Poitier.
Yet though
the
Kittredges
are
played
for fools,
neither actor
plays
them os
fools.
Flan is
capable
of
im-
mense
pomposity
and
pride,
yet
Sutherland
somehow
never
carica-
tures him,
as
many
other
actors
would
have
done.
"He
just
has a character
failure
that
most of us
suffer
from,"
the 58-
year-old
Sutherland
softly
explains.
"And
that
is, he's
never
fulfilled
him-
self as a
person.
He
wanted
to
Paint,
but
he compromised
everything
be-
cause
he
wasn't
sure enough
of
him-
self to
commit
as
a
Painter.
He
studied
law, but
he
wasn't
satisfied
with
law, so he
didn't continue
in law,
and so became
an art dealer
with
a
legal bent.
When
you
start
making
those
kind of decisions,"
he believes,
"they
infect
your
decision-making
processes
for
the
rest of
your
life."
The character's
name,
he
saYs,
helped
him flesh
out the man:
"Flan-
ders," as
in Flanders
Fields,
the
World
War
I
battle-site
made
famous
by
a
poem,
where
untold
Canadian
soldiers
were
killed
and
buried.
"It
represetted
some
sort of
heroic
emblem
for me,"
says
the actor,
born
and
raised
in St.
John,
New
Brunswick.
"And
then," he adds, "the
name
he was
called
late
in his
life was
Flan
-
a crust
with a
Yellow
muckY
substance
underneathl
And that,"
he
says,
smiling,
"was
my
metaPhor
for
him."
Sutherland
-
the
father
of actor
Kiefer Sutherland,
late of
l'The
Three
Musketeers"
-
says
all
this
in
a flow-
ing,
mellifluous
voice.
His
hair
today
is
uncharacteristically
long, scraggly
I
don't
go
see
mavres
that
l'm
in,
My
iob
is
subjective,
and
I
go
and
t
do
my
work
and
I
give
it
to the
director.
I
put
everything
in
his
recalls,
"and
he'd say,
'Ah,
you're
never
gonna
make
it.' And then
(M*A*S*H'
came
out while
we
were
shooting
and did very
well.
And some-
how the
upshot was,
I said
I would
do every
film of his until
he became
a
success. So
I
did
'The
Kentucky
Fried Movie'
0977),Lwas
a
billboard
in
something
else,
and then they
called
to
House.'
He
said they wanted
to
give
me2-Ll2per-
cent of the
profit.
No way!
Pay me
my daily
rate! And it came out,
and
we sat and
watched this
movie and
just
went,
'This
is ridiculous, this
is
not
gonna
make a dime.'Ayyi
yi!"
he
says, rolling
his eyes and
smiling
helplessly.
"Who
was
to know?"
Sutherland
-
who'd
been Canada's
youngest
radio
personality
at age
14
-
got
his acting
start
onstage
in
Toronto and
in
the
England before
breaking into
British TV shows
cluding
"The
Avengers" and
"The
Saint." After his movie debut
with
the
Italian
horror flick
"Castle
of
the
Living Dead"
(1964),
he did a
siew of
British horror
films
until
"The
Dirty
Dozen"
(196?)
began
propelling
his
career.
Twice married and
divorced,
he has a
2l-year relationship
with
former
actress
Francine Racette,
the
mother
of three
oT his
five children.
He's done about
75
films, with
two
more
("Red
Hot" and
"Younger
and
Younger")
coming up soon.
"I
got
stuck
by
British taxes
years
ago,"
he
says,
"and
now
I'd
just
love to
make
enough
money
so that my
family,
when
I die,
will
have something
to
fall back on.
But I don't
know
-
I
just
looked at
the expiration
date
of
my
credit card.
And I
think,"
he
jokes,
"that
I'II expire before
that!"
O, T993
NEWSPAPER
ENTERPRISE
ASSN.
STAR
VIEW
;f:il,iJi'fffI
$ili$3i;1'riilfi
possession
to do
with
artist,
Paul
(Will
Smith),
who claims
aS
WiShgS,
and.
white,
and
he wears
a
ZZ
IoP
beard,
both
grown
for the
CBS
minis-
eries
he's
shooting, "Oldest
Living
Confederate
Widow
Tells
AIl"
-
which,
Iike
most
everything
else
he's
done,
he'll
probably miss.
"I
don't
go
see
movies
that
I'm
in,"
he says.
"My
job
is subjective,
and
I
go
and
I do
my
work and
I
give
it
to
fhe director.
I
put
everything
in-his
possession
to
do
with as
he ?ish'es.
Nonetheless,
the
nature
of the
work
requires
that
you
have
a very
specif-
ic line through
your
character,
or oth-
erwise
you
cannot
maintain
any
kind
of
truth
or honestY
with
resPect
to
that.
And that
line
is
so
indelibly de-
fined within
yourself
that
when
you
see
the
movie
and
you
see
the
waY
they've
(editeO
it, it varies.
So
for me,
it's
too
emotionally
disturbing
to see
them."
One exception
was ditector
John
Landis'
surprise
hit
"National
Lam-
poon's
Animal
House"
(1978),
in which
he had a bit
part
done,
he saYS, as
a'
favor and
a
lark.
"John
Landis
had been
a
gofer
on
.'Kelly's
Heroes)
(19?0),'"
Sutherland
Donald
Sutherland