Kurt Russell Presents “Breakdown” Trivia (and Thoughts on Great Acting)!

Rob Hunter, at Film School Rejects, presents 26 Things We Learned from Kurt Russell’s ‘Breakdown’ Commentary.  Before you click over, here are three of my favorites and thoughts on each…

Russell says J.T. Walsh might just be his favorite American actor. He also recalls how both he and Mostow (CO-Writer & Director) had independently decided on who should play the trucker and were pleased to discover they were both thinking of Walsh. “He’s flawless. Nothing fake, nothing phony.”  (JT Walsh isn’t an actor most folks think of when talking the best actors.  I love it when big name celebrities recognize and promote lesser known actors. – Craig)

Russell had hesitated on signing on to the film as he had just finished a movie and wanted to be home every night, so De Laurentiis worked some extra magic to make it happen. “You were picked up every morning, taken to a private airstrip, flown by jet then there’d be a helicopter waiting to fly you to the makeup trailer,” says Mostow, “we’d finish somewhere around 4:30 in the afternoon and we’d hear the helicopter coming back.”  (That is amazing that they wanted Russell so bad that they worked this out to get him! – Craig)

“When you’re an actor, you act,” says Russell after Mostow asks if he ever doubted the character or his portrayal. He references Dakota Fanning in Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, saying “She screams as much as she talks in that movie, but she’s got fifteen different screams.” His point is that “you’re playing the same beat, but you can’t play it the same way.”  (Again, Russell recognizing a fellow actor, this time a child, and praising their acting abilities.  Gotta love Kurt Russell.)