The one thing you should never call Snake Plissken in front of Kurt Russell: “What the fuck?”
As the custodian of one of cinema’s greatest-ever antiheroes, Kurt Russell will defend Snake Plissken to the death. Not that he needs much defending when the cycloptic ass-kicker is an icon, but there’s one thing you should never call him if the actor is in earshot.
Even though he’s starred in more cult classics than the average actor, Plissken will always be Russell’s career-defining role. The perfect blend of smarts, smoulder, charisma, and badassery, the veteran holds him in such high esteem that he called it the greatest role that any actor has ever played.
Obviously, there’s a hefty element of personal bias in play, but he’s right to be so protective. After all, he helped create the character from the ground up, imbued him with the perfect amount of Kurt Russellness, and delivered an endlessly quotable, leather-clad antihero for the ages. Twice, no less, even if Escape from LA isn’t a patch on its New York-set predecessor.
He doesn’t give a shit about who inherits the mantle in the reboot that’s been threatening to escape from development hell for the better part of two decades, because Russell knows he’s Snake Plissken. Somebody else will play it eventually, but there’s no chance they’ll knock the original from his pedestal.
The eye-patch-wearing is a decorated war veteran, a man of few words, a killer, a self-serving sort who’s only looking out for number one, and many more positive and negative descriptors besides, but if there’s one thing Russell absolutely cannot abide, it’s anyone calling Plissken a dick.
The character is probably too popular for too many people to bandy that particular word around, but make no mistake; if Russell hears anyone say it, he’ll tear them to shreds. As it happened, in conversation with Ain’t It Cool, one unfortunate soul made that mistake and was swiftly put in their place.
“He is not a dick. Never call Snake a dick,” he declared. “One thing Snake Plissken isn’t is he’s not a dick. As he says about himself, ‘I’m an asshole,’ but there’s a big difference between being a dick and an asshole. He’s never a dick. It’s impossible for him to be a dick! It’s just something he doesn’t know how to do.”
Was that tirade the end of Russell’s rant? Nope, it wasn’t, and he continued to elaborate on why it’s perfectly fine to call him an asshole, but a dick is one appendage too far. “That’s like saying Snake’s not cool,” he raged. “I mean, what the fuck? If Snake’s not cool, then there is no cool! Yeah, he’s not a dick, he’s an asshole. He can be a fucking pain in your ass, and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything!”
There you have it, with Russell refining the archetype right down to its finest points. Asshole? Yes. Dick? No. Cool? 100%. If he was a real person, then it’s been made perfectly clear by the guy who played him what would be etched into his gravestone: ‘Here lies Snake Plissken: Always an asshole, but never a dick’.
