“One of the great cinematic actors ever”: the director who called Kurt Russell the perfect movie star
Looking at everything he’s contributed to the art of cinema during a storied career that began when he was a child, it seems massively unfair that the major awards ceremony to have nominated Kurt Russell more than any other is the Golden Raspberries.
Despite his status as a living legend, Russell has never been shortlisted for an Academy Award, while he’s only been nominated once at the Golden Globes and Primetime Emmys for Silkwood and Elvis, respectively. Somehow, though, he’s a two-time Razzie nominee after Tango & Cash and 3000 Miles to Graceland made the cut for ‘Worst Supporting Actor’ and ‘Worst Screen Couple’.
It’s been over 60 years since Russell made his screen debut, which he did by kicking Elvis Presley in It Happened at the World’s Fair, with ‘The King’ becoming one of the three most formative influences on his professional life alongside Walt Disney and John Carpenter.
After first gaining stardom as one of Disney’s most popular young actors, Russell would then collaborate with Carpenter for the first time on their aforementioned musical biopic, an unusual first project considering they’d become synonymous with each other crafting timeless genre fare like Escape from New York, The Thing, and Big Trouble in Little China.
Those are just three of the classics Russell has appeared in, with the star lending his talents to Robert Zemeckis’ cult favourite debut Used Cars, Ron Howard’s fiery Backdraft, high-flying action thriller Executive Decision, revisionist western Tombstone, Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky, and Sky High, the superhero comedy he named as one of the most underrated entries in a stacked back catalogue.
Even in recent years, Russell has become a Quentin Tarantino favourite in Death Proof, The Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, not to mention his flirtations with two of the biggest franchises in the business after he boarded the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Fast & Furious.
It takes a special kind of performer to weather the storms that come with a six-decade stint under the harsh and unforgiving spotlight of Hollywood, but with the greatest respect, Russell wouldn’t make the list of celluloid’s greatest-ever actors. Movie stars, however? Few have done it anywhere near as well for anywhere near as long.
Another overlooked gem from the Russell vault came when he teamed with director Jonathan Mostow for 1997’s Breakdown, where he plays a husband who hits the road with retribution on his mind when a rogue trucker kidnaps his wife during a cross-country road trip. It’s B-tier fluff, albeit of the highest order, but Mostow couldn’t imagine the movie happening with anyone else.
“Kurt is, in that sense, one of the great cinematic actors ever because you feel like you understand what he’s thinking even when he doesn’t have any dialogue,” he explained to Filmmaker Magazine. “That was perfect for what we needed for this role.” He was the first choice from the moment Mostow signed on, with the end result being a propulsive popcorn favourite.
Breakdown needed “an actor who is all about behaviour and little moments,” and Mostow couldn’t imagine it being as successful as it was without his idealised embodiment of American silver screen stardom leading the line.
