The five directors that “verified” Kurt Russell’s career: “Those are those great guys”
With more than 60 years under his belt as an actor, Kurt Russell hasn’t been seeking validation for a long time, but it’s always nice when a performer, no matter their experience level, comes across a director who knows how to get the best out of them.
The star is typically at his best when he’s playing Kurt Russell-esque characters, but he’s never been typecast. He excels when playing charming rogues, handsome idiots, or charismatic leads, but he’s also shown a willingness to branch out and try something new or unexpected, which is why he’s ended up playing Elvis Presley, Santa Claus, and Wyatt Earp.
Russell has enjoyed a longer, more successful, and illustrious career than most, but he’s never quite managed to crack the A-list ceiling. That’s not to suggest he’s a B+ player when he’s a living legend who’s worked with the best in the business, but it’s also true that he needs to be on the set with a filmmaker who understands exactly how to get the best out of him to do his best work.
When reflecting on his involvement in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Russell understood and appreciated that his inherent Kurt Russell-ness was one of the major reasons why he was cast. It didn’t bother him that his baggage was key to the role, before singling out a quintet of directors who respected his process and persona, even when they were in the minority.
“Quentin Tarantino, John Carpenter, Ron Howard, Bob Zemeckis,” he began. “Those are those great guys, and Mike Nichols, they always made me feel verified in the way I was going about things, you know? But, and other things, when especially critics at the time would look at the movie or not understand why something’s cool, or, ‘That’s funny! Don’t you get that?’ So you know, sometimes it was hard to keep my own course and be criticised for it.”
Russell has become a Tarantino regular in Death Proof and The Hateful Eight, as well as his off-camera contributions to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with Stuntman Mike thriving because both the actor and filmmaker knew that giving him the leeway to play against type while still leaning into his strengths was the best way to make the most of the character.
His relationship with Carpenter needs no introduction, with the pair combining to become the definitive cult cinema partnership of the 1980s. Russell ended a five-year sabbatical from the big screen with the lead role in Zemeckis’ underrated black comedy, Used Cars, and was happy to do the Forrest Gump helmer a favour when he needed someone to stand in as Elvis.
He only worked with Howard and Nichols once apiece, but Backdraft was a performance that Russell relished sinking his teeth into, and the opportunity to share the screen with Meryl Streep and Cher in Silkwood was an irresistible one, with the Oscar-nominated biopic featuring arguably the best dramatic performance he’s ever given.
Carpenter is the only one of them who hasn’t won at least one Oscar, but his bulletproof status as Russell’s most famous collaborator makes up for it, although the common theme is that they all played an equally important part in letting the erstwhile Snake Plissken verify himself as an actor.
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