The career-making advice Eliza Kazan gave Bruce Dern: “How in the hell am I going to get away with that?”
Most actors need to start from the bottom and work their way up, and Bruce Dern was more than happy to debut with an uncredited bit-part when he was given the opportunity to pick up invaluable advice from one of the all-time greats while doing so.
Having studied at the prestigious Actors Studio and done some work on the stage, most notably starring alongside Paul Newman in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth in the late 1950s, Dern upgraded to features with 1960’s Wild River.
His character may have gotten a name, but the actor Jack Roper wasn’t listed in the credits. Not that Dern would have minded being shunted so far into the background because Elia Kazan had told him exactly what he needed to do to stand out.
As far as directors of film debuts go, they didn’t come much more knowledgeable than Kazan. He was instrumental in launching Marlon Brando to superstardom after helming A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, and he’d also taken the reins on James Dean’s East of Eden.
By the time he’d called action on Wild River, Kazan had won two Academy Awards from four nominations to go along with three Tonys and a trio of Golden Globes, so he was clearly one of the best in the business. He might also be the greatest actors’ director in history, too, which guaranteed Dern was going to put his words of wisdom to good use.
Throughout his career, Kazan oversaw nine Oscar-winning performances and steered another 15 to nominations, so he obviously knew what he was talking about. Before Dern’s first excursion to Hollywood, he was instilled with several pearls to stand him in good stead during his ascension up the acting ladder.
Kazan gave him two very important things to remember, and the first was that “nobody’s going to know who the hell you are, nor are they going to give a shit because you’re going to be the fifth cowboy from the right for a long time.” It was harsh but accurate, with the filmmaker instructing him to be “the most honest, unique fifth cowboy from the right anybody ever saw.”
The second was “don’t ever tell a director what you’re going to do before take one,” something Dern admitted to A.Frame he was unsure of. “I said, ‘How in the hell am I going to get away with that?'” he remembered asking. “It’s quite simple. He’s got something you’ll never have: take two. So make sure yours gets recorded.”
The long and short of it was that Dern only had one chance to make a first impression when the camera was on him, and the fact that he’s been working solidly for over 60 years is indicative of how staunchly he followed—and mastered—what Kazan told him to do before he even had one picture under his belt.
