Barry Pepper

0:00How you doing? Very good, thanks. Where are you, L.A.? No, well, I'm on the same coast, but I'm just up in Vancouver right now. Oh, you're here! You're, well, welcome home. Yeah, yeah, thank you kindly. I'm spending the Christmas with my family up here. We got a lot of movies opening in the next couple of weeks. I see, yeah, I got one with Kevin Spacey called Casino Jack and then in the New Year. I guess it's a Kennedy series, mini series, and then... and then it turns Malick's film. You're working with all the big directors. Hey, is there anyone left on that list for you? Oh, sure. I mean, the list goes on and on, but certainly the coins and Malick were certainly on the top of my wish list. Like so many actors. Well, you mentioned the Cohen Brothers. Obviously, you're calling for True Grit because it opens on Wednesday.

0:45You want to tell us about the film, I guess? Yeah, well, it's, I think, one of the finer Cohen Brothers films that I've seen in a long time. It's a huge fan of their filmography and this just further elevates their awesome work. And I don't know about you, but I've always been a devoted fan of theirs and you watch this film and it's very Cohen asking, yet it's very much also a departure from their other work and that it's a faithful adaptation of this novel, this amazing classic novel by Charles Portis. And it's entirely from the voice of this 14-year-old girl. It's really sort of her coming of age as adventure story and she goes off into the Indian

1:34nation after this killer that shot down her father with this old drunken marshal by the name of Mr. Cogburn. And the Cohen, like I said, gone back to the novel and it's a faithful adaptation in the sense that I think when John Wayne did the film in 69, the Henry Hathaway film, they kind of adapted it to be more of a John Wayne film to suit his audience. And it's kind of overshadowed the original source material and became something very different. Whereas the book is extremely funny and dark and odd and the movie, the Cohen's film really reflects that sense of humor. A dark and odd movie from the Cohen brothers, you don't say. Yeah, I mean it just fits them like a calf skin glove.

2:21You'd never know that this was an original material but it's beat for beat as it reads in the novel. How close is your portrayal to Robert Duvall's in the original film? Did you watch it all to get in a sense? No, I'd never seen Robert Duvall's film. I'd never seen the original film until somebody mentioned to me after I'd been offered the role and I'd put my character together. Somebody said Robert Duvall's played that character before and I felt like a bit of a Jackass. I had some really big boots to fill but it never came up in filming. We never used that, like I say never used the John Wayne film as a source. It really was the novel.

3:07The novel has tremendous backstory that you can pull characterization from. One of the things in particular was a year previous to meeting our characters in the film, the Rister Cogburn character shoots my character in the face and so that was something that I really wanted to try to capture with that all the broken teeth and the busted up jaw and he has a big scar and his upper lip and it really informed the sound of the character that I created. But beyond that, there's certain things that are, you know, who the character is and what he looks like and how he walks and talks and what he wears. And then the rest is up to interpretation working with the Co-

4:00very similar to a Tom Hanks and he just has this water of a duck's back personality. Just nothing faces him. He works with tremendous joy and passion and it's like a ripple effect on a film set. It's infectious for everyone. Everyone is happy to be on a film set with him because he's a real pleasure to be around and that's unique. You know, on a big arduous, tough film set, you know, you're up in the mountains and snowing and it's miserable and tough conditions and you got a guy like that who just is, you know, reminding you what a great job you got and a real pleasure to be around people like that because it can be the opposite.

4:45You know, it can go pretty sour sometimes with other, you know, big actors. No, yeah, I like who. No, I'm kidding. Don't answer that. Yeah. On that same topic though, we're trying to kind of the Co-1 brothers. I hear working with them. It's different. I've worked, we mentioned before a couple of directors, but I mean Tony Scott, Darabond, Spike Lee, Clint Eat, well, even Clint Eastwood. Well, they're very similar. You know, Steven Spielberg produced a film as well with Scott Rooden and that's what is, it's very similar to Spielberg or Clint Eastwood film set in that it's very calm, cool, collected and they speak to you in a very intelligent and challenging way and it just gets the best results. You know, their films obviously speak for themselves, but yeah, actors flourish in environments

5:34like that and you know, they challenge you in the sense to really invest yourself in, you know, the characters that you're bringing in and because they're such well read, intelligent guys and they have such, you know, just interesting sort of lateral minds the way that they work and challenge you and what they have to offer. A very, very enjoyable place to work. I'm sure it is and I'm sure it's been very enjoyable for you in various facets over the years even with Clint Eastwood, who I mentioned earlier with Flags of Our Fathers. Now Eastwood obviously redefined the Western genre, the good, the bad and the ugly, you know, did wonders for it and now you're doing a Western. Do you take anything away from that experience or was it more where you just in awe of Clint

6:22Eastwood at the time? And that's the thing, doing too grit, you know, you think of Eastwood of course, you know, you're responsible for some of the greatest Westerns of all time and so yeah, working with him you are in a little bit of awe but he removes that instantly because he is just such a super easygoing salt of the earth kind of guy to work with and he really is not, he's not at all like the cartoon characters that he's played, you know, that he sort of self-professed is calling them that, you know, those are just characters he played and they really don't reflect his personality but what's the, but he is very much of a man's man if you will in the sense that I remember one day he wouldn't tell us where the explosions

7:10were on one of these battlefields, he just wanted to have us run, basically run the gauntlet as these explosions were going off and to see the sort of capture that electricity in these young actors eyes and just, you know, having them, you know, having to navigate through this minefield and of course the explosions are relatively safe, it's basically just an explosion of sand and debris, so you can't get too badly here but I remember one day having a squib go off in my face and having this copper wire lodge itself in my upper lip and he came up after the take and I was, I was bleeding and had this, you know, blood in my mouth and I said I think I, you know, the medic says I might need to go and get stitches and he reached over and pulled this copper wire out of my lip and he said I think you're

7:59fine, it's a long way from your heart. You know, we got back to filming and it, you know, it was just kind of, it was just one of those moments that makes you realize this guy has been doing this forever, you know, and he, he's, I think he was 65 years old at the time that we were filming and he was in the gym every night with us working out, trying to stay in shape for the film and, but he was a remarkable inspiration. Before I let you go, we do something called five questions, five quick questions, one more to answer. Sure. Actor you look up to most. What to say Jeff Bridges? Lennon or McCartney? Lennon. Favorite director you've worked with? I'll say two directors. You can? Going brother. Fill your most proud of. The Snowwalker.

8:44And one word, Barry Pepper. Tough one. I don't know if I figured that one out yet. That's a good answer though. And I'm going to throw a bonus one in here just, just for fun. Roger Maris or Dale Earnhardt? Oh, I have to say Roger Maris.