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From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Tanya Mosley.
Today, Kate Hudson.
She's up for an Oscar for her role as Claire in the film Song Sung Blue, starring opposite Hugh Jackman.
As one half of Lightning and Thunder, a Neil Diamond tribute band,
And she can sing.
Look at the night And it don't seem so lonely.
We fill it up with only twilight.
We'll also hear from Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård.
He's won a Golden Globe Award and earned an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film Sentimental Value.
He'll talk about his many roles over the years and recovering from a stroke that impaired his ability to memorize lines.
And David Bianculli reviews a new documentary focusing on Paul McCartney and his wings years.
That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.
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Over the years at NPR's Fresh Air, we've gotten to talk with a lot of great filmmakers.
Now we've made a playlist of some of our favorites, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Ava DuVernay, Mel Brooks, Spike Lee, Werner Herzog and others.
Find all our new playlists and more at FreshAirPlus at plus.npr.org.
This is Fresh Air Weekend.
I'm Tanya Mosley.
My first guest is Kate Hudson.
She's up for an Oscar for her role as Claire in the film Song Sung Blue, starring opposite Hugh Jackman.
As one half of Lightning and Thunder, a Neil Diamond tribute band,
Here they are together singing Neil Diamond's 1971 hit, Solomon.
If folks could see, you just started singing as you were listening to yourself.
It's such a joyous song.
Yeah, yeah.
Kate Hudson landed the role of Claire Sardina after Hugh Jackman first saw her sing on CBS Sunday Morning.
He had already committed to the movie and he was so taken by her performance that he texted director Craig Brewer and said I think I just found your Claire.
She was on TV promoting her debut album, Glorious, which she began writing during the pandemic.
And while Hudson is primarily known for her acting, as I was preparing for this interview, I was struck by just how often she's used her voice over the years, singing on screen in Nine performing Cinema Italiano, and on television in Glee, where she played the demanding dance instructor, Cassandra July.
This latest Oscar nomination for Best Actress comes 25 years after she first earned a nod for playing Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous.
From there, she became one of the most recognizable romantic comedy stars in the 2000s, starring in films like How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days and Bride Wars.
Most recently, she starred in the Knives Out sequel Glass Onion and the Netflix series Running Point about a woman who inherits ownership of a professional basketball team.
The show has been picked up for a second season.
And Kate Hudson, welcome to Fresh Air and congratulations on your Oscar nomination.
Thank you.
It's nice to be here.
I look forward to our conversation.
Yes.
Well, I just had a chance to look at this Oscar nomination luncheon where all of you all are on bleachers and it's like a class photo.
It's almost like a graduation.
It is.
It is.
I remember it the first time.
It's actually one of my favorite experiences, because I remember the first time Feeling like oh, you know, we all got to be in one room and it's really just a bunch of people who love to make movies.
It's, you know, there's not a lot of other people there.
It's just sort of celebrating this class, this year of movies.
And when you're a part of that, it's really fun.
It feels it feels really nice.
You mentioned the first time.
It was in 2001, where you were nominated for your role as Penny Lane in Almost Famous.
I put both of those photographs side by side when I saw this most recent photograph.
I mean, you're ravishing in this red outfit and you're smiling ear to ear.
You're also.
You have that same energy from 25 years ago, but there's sort of a pensiveness there in you.
You know, you're the young kid on the block at that time.
How did it feel, with that 25-year separation, being in that room and really sitting with the?
Well, it feels different.
I've been comparing it to like having my third baby.
You soak in everything very differently.
You take it in differently.
And you have so much knowledge.
I mean, that was one of the great things about the Oscar nomination luncheon was I've worked with two of those costume designers.
I've worked with so many people in the room.
I just... you look around so many producers.
Like a reunion almost.
Yeah.
The person that was in front of me is Didi.
She was the executive on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
Like you realize that you create a family, that in this industry it's a and like in family.
You see all of it.
You see the good, you see the bad, you see the ugly.
And it's an amazing and incredible dysfunctional family.
And then every once in a while you get to celebrate the best of the best of the year.
Well, let's get into the role that you have been nominated for.
Your character, Claire Sardina.
She's a real person, a hairdresser from Milwaukee who performs as a Patsy Cline impersonator by night.
And she and her husband, Mike, create a Neil Diamond tribute band called Lightning and Thunder.
They're everyday people with real battles.
We watch them as they recognize that within themselves and each other.
And in this scene I want to play, the two of you are on a date.
It's before you're married and you're sharing your hopes and dreams.
Let's listen.
I'm always going to be an alcoholic, but I've been sober 20 years.
The other day it was, well, they call it a sober birthday.
Happy belated sober birthday.
Here's the thing.
With sobriety, you've got to face up to certain truths.
Way to go.
Lightning, 20 years.
All right, I'm not a songwriter, I'm not a sex symbol, but I just want to entertain people and I want to make a living.
I know, me too.
I don't want to be a hairdresser.
I want to sing, I want to dance, I want a house, I want a garden, I want a cat.
So here's what I'm thinking.
I need something big.
I need something new.
And as you put it, nostalgia pays.
That was my guest, Kate Hudson, with Hugh Jackman in the film Song Sung Blue.
What was it about Claire's arc that you felt you understood?
Well, I think part of what's fun about what we get to do is that there's some things we don't understand.
And we have to delve into it and try to portray something that seems further away from your real life than maybe other people would think.
It's like there's not much about Claire's life that I really would personally be able to understand.
The one thing that I do understand about Claire is her longing for love and family, her strong desire for community and her love of music and her love of singing and performing.
Everything else became about honoring her story and really trying to, you know, portray that as successfully as I could and respectfully.
She has ups and downs, but I mean, she...
She really, there's a moment where she actually loses her leg.
And so you had to learn how to kind of move even your body with the idea of wearing a prosthetic.
She deals with depression, ups and downs, all of those things as well.
Addiction.
Addiction as well.
You chose not to meet with the real Claire.
And I wondered is there something that gets in the way of being able to explore those parts of her by not meeting her?
I chose not to research her personally, right?
So I have met Claire and I've spent time with Claire and she's amazing and I love her and it was great.
So when we started filming, I did spend some time with her.
But in the beginning it was important for me and for Craig that you know Craig's story.
Craig Brewer, the director, were making this film that is an adaptation of the documentary.
And he took eight years of their life, consolidated into two.
And my job as an actor is to give Craig the movie he wants.
His relationship to Claire and the family is the intimate one.
And for me, I think it would distract me from being able to give Craig what he needed.
You know, I didn't want to challenge him because I'd spent so much time with Claire.
I want to trust my director and what his vision is for his version of their life story.
And then Claire sort of came to set and then we got to meet each other and hang out and I'd already done all of the work you know.
And getting to know Claire after that became the validation that we were, That you were on the right track.
On the right track, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, Kate, in the intro, I mentioned that Hugh Jackman saw you singing on CBS Sunday morning.
And I know you taking on this role, the story is much more complicated than that.
But the fact that he saw you and then text it to Craig Brewer, the director.
I think I just found your, Claire.
Had anyone in the industry ever chosen you for your voice before that moment?
You know, I think Hugh, it wasn't about my voice as much as it is about what I was talking about.
And what I was saying was talking about why I had to make an album.
And Hugh.
To speak for Hugh, you know he would reiterate when he saw it I was talking about my kids.
I was talking about COVID and what happened when I was sort of reflecting on if I was going to die.
Am I happy with my creative output?
I'm very happy with myself as a mother.
I feel like I've made all the right mistakes and all the wrong mistakes.
I feel like I've been really great when it comes to parenting.
I'll tell you, Kate, it's so refreshing to meet a woman who says that because...
Don't we so often like we're always stopping for a moment to say I'm not sure if I was a great mom?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I like who my kids are.
And so, as I get to know them, I got one an adult.
As I get to know him as his own man and as an adult, I'm really proud of myself for the work I put in for him.
And I am in it with my teenager right now in the best possible way.
And my young girl, seven.
Momming is everything to me.
And I'm proud of that output.
I put a lot into that.
And so I could say you know, during COVID, if this was it, I felt confident in what I've given my kids so far.
But I couldn't say that about my art.
And that would be my own personal sadness and regret is that I didn't share my writings as a musician.
Whether people like them or not.
I just really was not happy with the fact that I wasn't brave enough to put it out there.
If you're just joining us, my guest is Kate Hudson.
She's nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Song Sung Blue, where she plays Claire Sardina one half of a real-life Neil Diamond tribute band in Milwaukee.
We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.
Greenland has said it is not for sale.
Denmark has said it can't even legally sell Greenland.
And whether Trump can or will or should try to control or purchase a territory that does not want to be sold is one question.
But on Planet Money, we are more interested in how we even got to this moment and how we might gracefully get out of it.
Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, the CBS Stephen Colbert dustup is part of a pattern.
Corporations are changing to avoid angering President Trump and his administration.
It's really the first time I can remember so many of these organizations have bent because of their own business interests.
This week on the NPR Politics Podcast.
Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kate, your breakout role, for which you earned your first Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win, was as Penny Lane in Almost Famous.
And I actually want to play a scene from near the beginning of the film.
So the young teen journalist William, played by Patrick Fugate, is at the back door of a concert and the guard is not letting him in.
And a few young women, including your character, Penny Lane, enter.
Come back to the back door and start talking to William.
Let's listen.
It's Connie Lane, man.
Show some respect.
Who are you with?
What band?
Oh, I'm here to interview Black Sabbath.
I'm a journalist.
I'm not, not a, you know.
You're not a what?
You're not a what?
Not a... groupie.
We are not groupies.
This is Penny Lane, man.
Show some respect.
Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous.
We're here because of the music.
We are band-aids.
She used to run a school for band-aids.
We don't have intercourse with these guys.
We inspire the music.
We're here... because of the music.
You know, she was the one who changed everything.
She was the one who said, no more sex.
No more exploiting our bodies and our hearts.
Right, right.
Just and that's it.
That was my guest today, Kate Hudson in Almost Famous.
That is one of the most famous scenes, because of course you really lay out who they are and what you do and what you don't do.
We are Band-Aids.
That's right.
One of my favorite things.
I did this show in San Diego and girls come and they had these little signs that said we're your Band-Aids.
And it was so cute.
I loved it so much.
I was like, oh, it's so fun.
Yeah, Penny Lane, man.
I mean, you've said that you didn't have to reach very far to get to Penny Lane.
But what's a memory that you come back to the most in the filming of that iconic movie?
Oh, there's a million memories.
I mean, there's no most.
The whole entire experience of making that film was...
Not only has it never repeated itself in terms of like experience and what that felt like, but it was so special for multiple reasons.
Number one.
Cameron Crowe is brilliant and an amazing person, amazing director to work for as an actor.
Like I couldn't have asked for like how lucky was I that I got to work with Cameron Crowe Like, so young on a role that was so layered.
But it was his life story.
So we were all, again, like Song Sung Blue.
There was this very, like, strong intention to get it right for Cameron.
And everybody was in on it.
We all wanted to get it right for Cam.
And so...
That made it very different.
Then it was six months.
It was a long shoot.
We all got to know each other very well.
We had rock school.
What's rock school?
Rock school was about a month before we started shooting...
The band was learning how to play all the instruments, all the songs.
The fictitious bands.
And the girls were band-aids.
We were hanging around and we'd get them food.
I was bringing Billy Crudup a towel.
We would just hang.
We'd all smoke and live this alternate universe that we hadn't experienced yet.
Kind of like method acting, preparing rock school, preparing you for the real thing.
It's kind of what it was, yeah.
And we were all so young and so fun.
So, you know, we were having a great time together.
And then the work was intense.
You know, it was big set pieces, long day's work.
Big crew.
So as much fun as we were having, then we, like anything else, like it's a job and hard, great work.
You and your mother, Goldie Hawn, you're known for your exceptionally close relationship.
But what's it like building a career?
Was there ever any tension about building a career following your mother?
Like did you ever have a moment of rebellion when you felt like maybe I want to be or do something else?
Oh, as like a – A young person.
Oh, I didn't – honestly, no. there was nothing else to me.
I don't know.
That had nothing to do with like performing.
But when I say nothing else, I mean performance.
So like singing dance, song dance acting, like those, those three things were just like that's what I do.
Like from very early on, if someone was like, you'd be a very good lawyer.
I'd be like, In a movie.
You just always knew.
Yeah.
I always knew, yeah.
And then when you grow up in a house with parents who are not only incredible performers but like amazing producer,
My mother's an amazing producer, trailblazing producer.
My dad is one of the great – process of an actor i've ever witnessed.
Kurt russell yep kurt, kurt russell, let's just call him kurt russell, because it's a fun name to say.
Um, i have a friend who only calls him kurt russell.
It's really funny.
Uh no, i call him pa.
Yeah, he's my pa, but um, his process and what i learned from my dad growing up, i mean he's got an incredible process of a very caring, very process when it comes to storytelling.
So when you grow up like that, and it says something that there's only one of us who's not an actor.
My other two brothers are actors.
They're also very much into storytelling, developing, writing, producing.
That comes from what we were modeled as kids, which was people who really care about telling stories.
When you see that and you're like, oh, so fun.
I mean, we were just kids making movies our whole life.
I just wonder how it is to reflect now you're an accomplished actor and a multitude of other things.
There's a generation that knows you and they don't even know your mom or your dad.
I know.
And so for you to come up with this person who is so well-known, as your mother and You all also look just alike.
You know, you look so similar to now being at a place where we could have had this entire conversation and I never talked about your mom.
You know what I mean?
Like, was there ever a moment of growing where you could see a future where that would be the case?
And was that ever tension for you, having such well-known parents and then stepping into a career like this?
I never thought of it like that.
Yeah, I think, because we all love each other like we so much.
The only thing for me that was really important was that I really wanted it on my own terms.
So, and I my son I see my son feeling similarly right now.
I think that there is a responsibility to say opportunity does come when you grow up in Los Angeles and You got a lot of privileged kids who work in this industry, who have a lot of parents with a lot of power and a lot of access.
So to say that there's not opportunity is to be lying.
But there's something else that comes with it when you grow up in it, which is.
You also as an actor, as a performer.
You have to honor the craft and be good enough to have other people actually want to watch you.
So that part requires like... a different type of fortitude.
It's like going into it, it was like, okay, I just want to do this on my own terms.
I know that when I walk in the room, everyone's going to know, or maybe some of them, maybe they won't.
I have a different last name.
Thank God.
I was so happy about that when I was younger to not have to walk in the room and be a Russell or a Han.
It was nice to not have that be something where you know people went oh um, so that that the pressure wasn't didn't feel as intense right, um.
But you know, when they do know that you have to be on your game, you know you can't like walk in and not know your lines or you can't.
You know which is why I worked so disciplined and everything else that I did like I just wanted to do a good job, and When you grow up with parents like that, there's so much modeling that they did that I take with me.
Right now I look at this Oscar nomination and I look at my mother and it's an absolute extension of my mother.
I think people who didn't grow up with a parent in the industry still feel like these moments are extensions of their parents and the gifts that they give.
But I have a mom that sees me, sees all of that differently.
She knows what it is.
She knows what it feels like.
She knows the work that goes into it, the time away from your kids that it takes.
She knows how deeply I miss my kids when I'm doing these things.
She knows all of it, right?
And she knows that I know that that's what she went through.
So there's this amazing connection that I get to have with my mom at this time.
She's 80, I'm 46.
How lucky am I that I get to really share that experience with her in that way.
Um, i feel very, very blessed to like have my mom and kurt be the people that like really behind you and he'll set the model for you.
Yeah and yeah, kate hudson, it's been a pleasure to learn more about you and have this conversation.
This is so nice.
Kate Hudson is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film Song Sung Blue.
Sir Paul McCartney is the subject of a new documentary on Prime Video.
But unlike recent films, this one isn't about his years with the Beatles.
Instead, it's about his first decade without them.
Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.
Yes, there have been plenty of Beatles-related documentaries in the past decade or so.
And yes, I've reviewed most of them.
But in my defense, the Beatles are a great subject, musically and biographically.
And the best filmmakers are drawn to them.
Peter Jackson gave us the Get Back documentary miniseries and the latest installment of the Beatles anthology.
Ron Howard directed Eight Days a Week about the group's touring years.
Martin Scorsese directed Living in the Material World, his two-part biography of George Harrison.
All of them were terrific, and all of them were made by Oscar-winning directors.
Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville, who won an Oscar for his film about backup singers 20 Feet from Stardom, has joined that club.
He's already directed outstanding biographies of everyone, from Johnny Cash and Anthony Bourdain to Steve Martin and Fred Rogers.
And now, Prime Video is premiering his latest documentary, Man on the Run, about former Beatle Paul McCartney.
And the word former is key here.
While brief, artful montages encapsulate the frenzy and impact of Beatlemania, Man on the Run is focused on the decade immediately afterward, the 1970s.
Specifically, it spans the period from when McCartney left the Beatles to when his former bandmate, John Lennon, was shot and killed.
Neville conducted many lengthy new interviews with McCartney, but uses only the sound.
Virtually all the footage in Man on the Run is vintage, so there are no white-haired rock stars in sight.
But because McCartney is an executive producer and has provided a stunning amount of previously unseen private footage, there's lots of fresh stuff to see here.
The danger of McCartney having such input though, is of man-on-the-run becoming too sanitized as a personal biography.
But it's not.
The decade covered includes McCartney announcing the breakup of the Beatles, his very public musical feud with Lennon, the formation of McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings, even the Paul is Dead rumor.
And in these new interviews, McCartney seems to be speaking honestly not only about what happened, but how he felt about it all.
On the Beatles' breakup, for example, it was McCartney who announced it publicly, but it was Lennon who already had left the group.
John had come in one day and said he was leaving the Beatles.
He said, it's kind of exciting.
It's like telling someone you want a divorce.
But I was thinking, what do I do now?
Because it had been my whole life, really.
You know, I'd had growing up, going to school, and then becoming the Beatles.
It was a puzzle I had to kind of unravel.
Paul's reaction at age 27 was to retreat with his wife, photographer Linda Eastman, and family to a remote property he owned in Scotland.
In a vintage interview, she recalls his out-of-the-blue suggestion.
He said, I've got this farm.
I know you won't like it.
But it was so beautiful up there.
Way at the end of nowhere.
Civilization dropped away.
It was quite a relief.
Man on the Run does rely on other voices and perspectives to defend some of McCartney's infamous actions during this period.
John Lennon's son Sean, for example, excuses Paul's stunned, understated reaction to John's death.
When asked by reporters, Paul called it a real drag, as having been in shock.
And John himself, in an interview filmed years after the Beatles' breakup, admits that Paul was right in hating and suing the manager that John had brought in to handle the group.
At the time, John and Paul even attacked one another in song.
And in a new interview, Paul is very open about how much that stung.
The only thing you did was yesterday was apparently Alan Klein's suggestion.
But the back of my mind I was thinking.
But all I ever did was yesterday.
Let it be long and windy road.
Hello to Rigby later.
Madonna you, John.
How do I sleep at night?
Well, actually, quite well.
That same refreshing honesty extends to other key moments.
The formation of his group Wings and recruiting Linda as its first charter member.
His jail time in Japan for bringing pot into that country.
Even the time Lorne Michaels on Saturday Night Live jokingly offered the Beatles a ridiculously small check if they would reunite on his show.
Now here it is, as you can see, a check made out to you, the Beatles, for $3,000.
All you have to do is sing three Beatle tunes.
She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, that's $1,000 right there.
Me and Linda were over to John's apartment in the Dakota.
He said, oh, this is a big show over here, Saturday Night Live.
In my book, the Beatles are the best thing that ever happened to music.
It goes even deeper than that.
You're not just a musical group, you're a part of us.
We grew up with you.
We got kind of excited.
We just go down, we show up.
Hey!
But it was like, why?
You know, I mean, it'd be great for them.
Would it be great for us?
We've come full circle and now we're off on another journey.
So we just decided to just have another cup of tea and forget the whole idea.
Man on the Run is more about the man than it is about his creative process.
But his music runs all through the documentary and it all adds up to an impressive, inspirational second act.
David Bianculli is Fresh Air's TV critic.
He's currently working on a book about the visual artistry of the Beatles.
Coming up, we hear from Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård.
He's been nominated for an Oscar for his new film, Sentimental Value.
This is Fresh Air Weekend.
On.
Wait, Wait.
Don't Tell Me, it's not so much we get to talk to celebrities, it's that we get to talk to celebrities about other celebrities, like we did with actor Nathan Lane.
I remember having to tell George C Scott that I was leaving the show to do this musical and he said to me you're leaving me to do a fing magic show.
Listen to Wait, Wait in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
This year on ThruLine, NPR's history podcast.
For generations, an American quest has shaped the world.
Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
Now, 250 years in, what is that pursuit really about?
Join us each Tuesday for an essential new series America in Pursuit from ThruLine on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
Dave Davies has our next interview.
Our guest today.
Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard has had a long and interesting career, which only seems to get more interesting with age.
Now in his 70s, he's just earned a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the widely acclaimed film Sentimental Value from the Danish-Norwegian director Joakim Trier.
This surge in Skarsgård's fortunes comes four years after he suffered a stroke which left him struggling to memorize his lines.
He found a workaround which we'll talk about and that enabled him to continue to play roles he'd begun in the science fiction movie series Dune and the Star Wars spinoff TV series Andor, as well as the film Sentimental Value.
Skarsgård began acting as a teenager and has appeared in more than 100 movies, from independent European films like Breaking the Waves and Melancholia to commercial Hollywood fare such as The Hunt for Red October, Pirates of the Caribbean and Mamma Mia.
He's also found time to raise eight children from two marriages.
Five of those kids are also professional actors.
The best known in the United States are his sons Alexander and Bill.
Skarsgård will find out if he's an Oscar winner at the awards ceremony March 15th.
He spoke to me last week from a studio in London.
Stellan Skarsgård, welcome to Fresh Air.
Thank you very much.
In this film, Sentimental Value, you play Gustav Borg.
He's a famous director.
And it's about his family relationship.
He's the target of a lot of anger from one of his daughters because she says he wasn't around.
Being in the movie business can mean you're away a lot.
And this daughter is also a successful actress herself.
There's an obvious parallel here to your own life.
I mean you're in the movie business and a lot of your children are actors.
I know you've been asked this a lot, but to what extent, when you read this script, did you identify with this character?
Not at all.
He's from a different generation.
He's a different kind of father than I am.
Of course, the conflict between working as an artist and combining that with a personal life is difficult.
And those problems I have.
But that goes for every artist.
But I didn't think I had anything to do with the role at all.
So I did the entire film as if it was a stranger I was doing.
But then my second son Gustav, said to me after having seen the film that he liked very much.
That he said to me do you recognize yourself?
And I went, no.
And he said, look again.
And even if I was at home basically eight months of 12, I only worked four months a year since 1989.
If I was at home eight months a year, I wasn't enough home for him.
So I started to thinking about it.
What became clear to me is, I mean, I have eight children.
So I have eight different needs.
Some children need me a lot and some don't need me at all.
So you can't get it right as a parent.
I read that the director, Joachim Trier, you talked about this I guess a year before you started shooting.
And he kind of crafted the script for you.
Is this true?
Yeah, he wrote it for me.
Not as a service to me, but he was thinking of me when he was writing it.
He and the writer Eskel Fugt.
He says that the role was such a bad guy that he needed someone nice to do it.
So it was a flattering way of putting it.
Yeah.
Is he a bad guy, Gustav, your character?
I don't believe in bad guys.
No, no.
I mean, the monster that I did in Dune was a bad guy.
You might say that.
But in like human beings, we have problems because they are newest, real humans.
And they're flawed.
They're sad and they're comic and they're everything.
Right.
And the gulf between Gustav and his daughter is bridged as the movie eventually reaches its climax.
It's quite well done.
I wanted to talk about this stroke that you had that you suffered, I guess, in 2022, right?
If you're comfortable, could you just tell us what happened when this occurred?
Well, I just got a stroke.
I mean, my wife sort of noticed something on me and my son who was a doctor.
He said that you should go to the hospital.
And it was a stroke, it was a rather mild stroke.
I lost some muscles in my right side of my body and I lost something, some part of my brain.
I have a bigger problem with if I'm presenting a long thought chain, like if I'm having a political discussion or anything.
I mean, I lose my bearing in the middle of it and just go quiet.
But other than that, maybe some balance problems, but other than that, I was fine.
Well, of course, the problem, as I understand it, that you faced with your career was that you couldn't really learn lines as you did before.
And you found a way to kind of work around this.
Tell us what you did, how you got there.
Well, the thing is I've always had difficulties learning lines in a way.
If I didn't sort of have them –
It's tailored to my feelings.
But the way I totally forgot lines immediately now.
And I discovered that I sort of was lying in bed in a hospital and I was trying to test myself if I could remember the lines.
And I sort of took a book and I read something and I closed the book and I didn't remember it.
Hmm.
So I called from the hospital.
I made a call to Tony Gilroy, who was the showrunner and writer of Andor.
I was in the middle of doing them.
I had done the first episodes and I hadn't done the second season.
And I also owed Denise Villeneuve, who was going to do Dune II. a phone call.
And I talked to them and I said, I cannot remember anything, any lines.
And they said, don't worry, we'll fix it.
And they said, take it easy, come in and do what you need to.
And I did.
And there's a lot of actors that are actually using this technique, which is an earpiece and a prompter.
And, But I found it rather difficult if you wanted to be precise in terms of rhythm and the rhythm of the scene.
And to me rhythm is very important because you use it as a tool the way – the rhythm you make in the scene.
And I had to –
Have the guy, the prompter, put his lines on top of my fellow actor.
So just so we understand this, you have a little earpiece, right?
And it's not a recording of the lines.
It's a live prompter who is saying these lines, as you're in the scene, often speaking at the same time as your fellow actors.
Yeah, that's true.
He has to speak at the same time, or she has to speak at the same time as the other actor for me to be able to put the cue where I want.
So I'm listening to him and I'm listening to the fellow actor.
And then I react to the fellow actor's line.
I don't react to the prompter, but I take the text from the prompter and say it.
So it's quite a complicated – in terms of simultaneous work, it's kind of complicated.
But it's feasible and we did it.
So I don't think there's any trace of the stroke in my work.
Are you surprised by the tremendous response to sentimental value of this film?
I mean, the power of the response, I am surprised by.
You can't anticipate that because it's fantastic.
I mean, the audience response.
It appeals to obviously everybody, from children to old people.
Because everybody has a family member or are in a relationship to some family member.
That is sort of reflected in the film.
But it's also, it's a very light film.
It deals with serious problems and it deals with them seriously.
And don't take them light.
But the film itself is very, very light.
It's like light as a feather.
Let's talk a little bit about your life here.
I understand you did your first acting as a teenager, a Swedish TV series called Bombi Bit and Me.
You played a character named Bondi who have – I've seen a little video of this.
Fortunately, there was no translation, so I don't know what you were saying.
But it's kind of like a Huckleberry Finn character, a guy with a straw hat with a lot of moxie.
It's more or less right.
And it was a hit, right?
You were well-known.
Yeah, I mean, it was a TV series, and we had one channel to choose between.
Everybody choose it.
So everybody saw it.
So it became very famous as a 16-year-old.
But I've done theater before, and I've done sort of amateur theater, and I've done...
Also professional theater before I did that.
Okay.
So what did being famous at 16?
I assume this meant people would recognize you on the street and that kind of thing.
What effect did that have on you in your life?
Well, you can say that child actors, they can either succumb to the pressure and the sort of loss of anonymity.
It can turn out really bad.
Or you can survive it and it turns out pretty well.
And I had very thoughtful and brilliant parents who sort of made sure that my head didn't get too big and that I was grounded as a person.
Do you remember how they did that?
Well, they pointed out to me how different I was from my persona, my public persona.
And the important thing is, don't get that difference between your public persona and yourself too big.
Because that's when it happens, when it goes wrong.
You were in Good Will Hunting, which was directed by Gus Van Sant.
This was the film set in Boston, written by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
And I wanted to play a clip here.
The story people will remember is about these young friends in Boston who are working class guys.
They're kind of brawlers.
They like to drink at bars.
But one of them, the Matt Damon character, is a janitor in a college and is also a savant, brilliant at math and whatever.
You, Stellan Skarsgård, play a math professor who want to get this brilliant young man to work with you.
But he's in jail because he got into a fight and punched a police officer.
And you've gotten the court to agree to release him to study math provided he sees a therapist.
So in this scene we're going to hear you have come to a psychiatrist, played by Robin Williams, who you have a history with, to see if he will agree to see the young man.
And the psychiatrist is reluctant, and he speaks first.
Let's listen.
I've got a full schedule.
I'm very busy.
This boy is incredible.
I've never seen anything like him.
What makes him so incredible, Jerry?
Ever heard of Ramana, John?
No.
It's a man.
He lived over 100 years ago.
He was Indian.
And he lived in this tiny hut somewhere in India.
He had no formal education.
He had no access to any scientific work.
But he came across this old math mix.
And from this simple text he was able to extrapolate theories that had baffled mathematicians for years.
Continued fractions.
He wrote it with a... He mailed it to Hardy at Cambridge.
And Hardy immediately recognized the brilliance of his work and brought him over to England.
And then they worked together for years, creating some of the most exciting math theory ever done.
This Romano John, his genius was unparalleled, Sean.
This boy is just like that.
But he's a bit defensive.
And I need someone who can get through to him.
Like me?
Yeah, like you.
Why?
Well, because you have the same kind of background.
What background?
Are you from the same neighborhood?
He's from Southie?
Yeah.
Poor ingenious from Southie.
How many shrinks you go to before me?
Five.
Let me guess.
Barry.
Yeah.
Henry.
Yeah.
Not Rick.
Sean, please.
Mm-hmm.
Just meet with him.
Once a week.
And that's our guest, Stellan Skarsgård and Robin Williams in the film Good Will Hunting.
What was it like working with Robin Williams on this set?
It was fantastic.
I mean, he was a very nice man and a very gentle man.
But he also, he had like three brains going on at the same time, wildly.
And he was very funny.
And he was improvising.
He improvised every scene.
We had to do some extra takes because he had to get his versions out of his system.
But the improvisation was also good for us all.
I mean, you had to follow him wherever he went.
And also he would follow you wherever you went.
And Everything became very different from the previous take because of Robin leading it to somewhere that you didn't expect to end up.
But what Gus Van Sant got out of it was he got extremely vivid takes and different temperatures in the takes.
And he got aggression in some takes and sort of niceness in some takes.
And he could cut those takes into any kind he wanted.
When he was editing, he could take the film where he wanted.
Did you find it challenging to deal with that kind of fast-paced improvising from Robin Williams?
Had you done that before?
No, and I'm not good at improvising.
I did once.
Once I was in Toronto at the film festival and Mike Figgis comes up to me and he says Stellan, I'd like to do a movie with you.
Yeah?
Yeah, cool.
And it will be improvised in one take.
And that is my worst nightmare.
So I said yes.
And it's called Time Code.
It's a very interesting film.
You should see it if you can.
It says something about you that you pitched this idea and it kind of terrified you and you said sure, let's do it.
It's like with Mamma Mia.
Well, I was just going to bring that up.
That's the musical where you sing and dance with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.
Did you have any singing and dancing experience?
No.
I can't sing.
I can't dance.
But you did.
Yeah, I had to.
And were you happy with the result?
The thing is that Mamma Mia, they don't need those three men to be able to sing or dance.
All the girls are good at singing and dancing.
And they just want three bimbos to look pretty, be funny, and be sexy.
Yeah.
There's a lot of fun video you can find on YouTube of you and these other two men dancing.
In the studio singing these songs, which are songs by ABBA, which are, you know, not the easiest.
And just throwing yourselves into them.
And it's a lot of fun to watch.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know.
I haven't seen them.
So, but, I mean, I was terrified.
And we were all, all three of us were terrified.
We got to that studio and we met Bjorn and Benny that had made all these songs.
And they're very good musicians.
And they were so nice to us, but we were so frightened.
We didn't know how to get it started.
But they encouraged us and we threw ourselves into it.
We felt that they can always fix it afterwards.
Right.
Trust the director.
Trust the process.
All right.
Stellan Skarsgård, thank you so much for speaking with us.
Thank you very much.
It's been a pleasure.
Stellan Skarsgård is nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the film Sentimental Value.
He spoke with Dave Davies.
Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.
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