“Failure is easy to deal with”: the role Kurt Russell called the toughest of his career
Kurt Russell started young. When the actor was just 12, he appeared in the Elvis Presley film It Happened at the World’s Fair, and while it was only a very brief role which required him to kick the King in the leg, this would come to take on increasing resonance once he got older. A decade and a half later, he stepped into the shoes of the icon himself.
Just two years after Presley’s death in 1977, Russell, hoping to break free from the Disney shackles he’d found himself in, was cast in a biopic about the very man who marked the start of his acting career. With John Carpenter at the helm of Elvis, fresh off the back of Halloween, Russell had the tricky task of embodying the musician in the first-ever biopic about his life.
Even when Presley was alive, he was treated like a deity, ascending the level of celebrity to become more than a musician, but a symbol. Shocking people with his gyrating hips, Presley marked an earth-shaking moment in popular culture – America was never the same. How was Russell ever going to embody such an icon?
“Elvis Presley is the second most recognisable unit to Coca-Cola. The only thing tougher to do is play the Coca-Cola logo,” he told The Washington Post. Certainly, if you were to describe America in images, Presley’s hair alone is recognisable enough. Russell knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task to take on the role, but it would prove to be a breakthrough moment for him.
Russell quickly proved that he could do so much more than Disney movies, which he’d been doing since he was a kid, and he also came to find a longtime collaborator in Carpenter, who would then cast the actor in movies like Escape From New York and The Thing. So, if he hadn’t portrayed Elvis, he might not have become one of cinema’s biggest action stars. It’s funny how these things work out.
While he was worried about taking on the mammoth role of Presley, Russell had a pretty mature attitude about the whole thing. If he failed, he knew he’d get by. “Failure is quite easy to deal with because it’s right there, and it’s much less complex than success. Success can become very complex, dealing with your ego and dealing with greed. You begin to make amounts of money you don’t want to stop making,” he added.
Suddenly, Russell was faced with the complexities of success following the acclaim received by Elvis, however, which included various prestigious nominations, including a Golden Globe nod. He didn’t let it all get to his head, though, and he even reprised his role as the King of Rock and Roll (well, his voice) in the mega-hit Forrest Gump, a direct reference to his previous embodiment of the star.
Elvis remains one of the most acclaimed music biopics ever made. Music biopics are tricky, especially when the subject is someone as legendary as Presley, who has since been played by various other actors, like Ron Livingstone and Austin Butler. The latter might have nabbed an Oscar nomination for his performance, but for many, it’ll always be Russell who did the best job of playing the King.
