Capone discusses the majesty, the mystery, the mustache of Sam Elliott, with his THE HERO co-star Nick Offerman & writer-director Brett Haley!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

Writer-director Brett Haley has now directed two really wonderful films with lead characters well into their 70s. Working on both with co-writer Marc Basch, Haley first made the 2015 I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, starring Blythe Danner, Martin Starr, and a classically handsome devil named Sam Elliott, in which Danner plays a widow and former singer realizing that her life is far from over, and she still has a lot of living left to do. After spending time with Elliott during the making of the film, as well as during the subsequent press junket, Haley informed Elliott he had an idea for a film centered around him. The resulting film is THE HERO, which premiered at Sundance in January and is now playing in theaters around the country.

THE HERO tells the tale of a struggling, aging actor (Elliott) whose best-known work was in a Western he made decades earlier. Today, he’s lucky to get bit parts and seems to earn most of his money doing voiceover work for commercials. But shortly after receiving devastating news about his healthy, he also enters into a new relationship with a stand-up comedian, played by Laura Prepon, and is invited to attend a convention of Western enthusiasts who want to give him a lifetime achievement award. He also spends a great deal of time with an old acting buddy and current pot dealer, played by the truly mellow Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation,” “Fargo,” and recently seen in THE FOUNDER).

I had a chance to sit down with Brett Haley and Nick Offerman back in March at the SXSW Film Festival, to swap Sam Elliott stories and discuss the film’s more poignant and painful moments of THE HERO. Please enjoy…





Capone: Brett, you had to have written this with Sam in mind. You’ve worked with him before. Why him? What was it about him that made you want to build something around him like this?

Brett Haley: I guess I’d say “What isn’t there about him?” He’s beloved, certainly by me. When I was lucky enough to get him in my tiny movie, I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, I was shocked. I’ll never forget how scared I was to meet Sam Elliot. I think Nick and I shared that, where we admired him so much and then you meet him and he’s the sweetest guy and lovely. For me, it was really this idea of I got to see a different side of Sam. I got to see him do something different in I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, and there was a moment when I was directing the scene, and I looked at him and I thought “This guy can do anything.” He’s a really incredible actor, an actor’s actor. A passionate guy, cares so much, so prepared, a joy to work with, and I thought “I want to give him something that’s just for him,” and we created this character.

Originally, it started as a little funnier, a TV show idea where he’s a washed-up actor, playing on what people know Sam for, and it quickly became, we’re not going to be able to do a TV show for a lot of different reasons. When we went for the film, we wanted to get him something to show all the different sides of him, that he can do comedy better than anybody, that he can do drama, he can say so much with just a look. It really was just a vehicle for him, and that’s truly the inspiration for it.

Capone: You conceived this as a series of some sort?

BH: I did, originally. I did. That was just my co-writer Mark Basch and I talking about it. We’re like “We could do a six-episode, British-style, dark comedy about this guy living in Topanga Canyon or Malibu, getting high and hanging out with his drug dealer. When we realized we needed to shorten it up and make it a feature, it came very quickly because we had all these ideas and characters in mind already.

Capone: It’s weird watching him use a cellphone or do something that feels like everyday for the rest of us. It’s strange seeing him fight for a job. It’s a vulnerability that he doesn’t get a chance to play very often.

BH: That’s right. A sensitivity too.

Nick Offerman: His cellphone is powered by beef tenderloin. But still…

BH: I just want to say real quick about the iPhone, because it is interesting to see him with an iPhone, but that comes from real life, because Sam started texting. Sam does not email. Still doesn’t. He faxes still. A fax joke is in the film, and actually Offerman improved that on the day. We had the fax in his house, but he had the great line about “You still fax?” But Sam himself is texting now. It’s weird to see him do that.

NO: He uses emojis.

BH: Now he’s using emojis! He always sends me a heart emoji when he talks to me now.

NO: You know what? We should probably protect that information. Please don’t print that Sam Elliott uses emojis.

BH: [laughs] Yeah, please don’t. Actually, you’re right. He does not use emojis.

NO: He uses emojis but only the cactus and the tumbleweed.

BH: Right, and the middle finger.

Capone: Nick, I think you even have something in your first book where you write about him, don’t you? About his mustache at least? At the very least, I know I’ve heard you speak on it.



NO: I don’t think it’s in one of my books. It may be. I’ve written a few things, sadly, about mustaches, and certainly I consider Sam’s the greatest living mustache.

BH: Amen to that.

NO: I’ve done one or two things in the press for “Parks and Rec” for some website, they said “Please describe your five favorite mustaches” or whatever, and to my detriment I agreed, exposing my weakness.

Capone: In addition to the mustache, what are the qualities about Sam that you admire so much? He was on “Parks and Rec” a couple times. You’ve worked with him before this.

NO: Yeah, he was on. He did a few of them as my character’s doppelganger, Ron Dunn.

BH: So good. So good.

NO: The thing about Sam is, it’s one of those instances where you meet your hero, and it quickly becomes apparent why he’s remained such a powerful icon for so long. It looks effortless. It seems like he was just born—he was actually a fence post, and they put some clothes on him and gave him lines, but that’s not true. Besides being gorgeous and talented with an incredible artistic heart, he’s also incredibly hard working and professional. It was such an incredible gift, the first day I met him in the hair and makeup trailer of “Parks and Rec,” I was really nervous, and he immediately got up and hugged me and started telling me what a fan he was of mine, and I said “Shut up. Not allowed!”

BH: [laughs] Flag on the play.

NO: You don’t get to be a fan of me. You’re my sensei, and it starts now. Just what Brett said, Brett saw all of the layers of Sam beneath the icon that we all know and love. He has such a breadth of beautiful emotion.

BH: He’s so open. He’s an open guy in life and as an actor. He gives a lot. You would say that, right?. When he’s acting with people, he’s so concerned about the other actor and giving to them and really opening himself up. It comes across in this film. I think you get to see that vulnerability, that sensitivity, the humor, the levity at times too. This one was not all doom and gloom. It’s very light and real. I think he just brings such a unique…I mean, he’s just frankly a leading man, and he’s more than a leading man of a Western.


Capone: I don’t know if Sam has that dilemma, where he’s identified with one part, but a lot of actors are. Nick, you might have even run the risk of that at one point, being one of those people that got identified with one character.



NO: Absolutely. I think any of us that are lucky enough to work consistently at all, that’s an issue. It’s one of the terrifying fears of television, because you can never really tell from a pilot if it’s going to become a great show or a horrible prison. Especially for me, I was always scared of procedural dramas because you end up with a really nice house and some excellent athletic shoes in the closet, but you’re picking up the same condom out of a sewer with tweezers week in and week out.

So I was asked quite a bit during “Parks and Rec" if I was worried about being pigeonholed as Ron Swanson? And thanks to the writing and the experience, I said “If that’s the deal I have to make—125 episodes of Ron Swanson verses I never work again—I’ll sign that in a second, because I can make furniture, I can do theater, I can find somebody to let me play Polonius in Central Illinois.”

BH: Just on that too, Jon Hamm and Sam got to talk at Sundance, and I got a chance to watch. Jon has broken out of that too, but he’s Don Draper, and Peter Dinklage was on the jury and he was at the film’s premiere, and I don’t think Peter Dinklage is just known for one thing, but most people are like “That’s the guy from ‘Game of Thrones.’” And I think most actors, if they are lucky, like Nick is saying, to get any success, you usually get known for one thing. Even the biggest stars you’re like “You’re that guy from that one thing that I know.”

And I like playing on that, because it’s this idea of legacy and what you’re remembered for and you’re like “I did a lot of other stuff too,” and they’re like “Yeah, but you were that guy, and that’s what we like you for and that’s where we’re going to keep you,” and you’re like “Okay.” And it’s a double-edged sword. I think the film plays on that. There is a moment where he looks out upon these people who do truly love him, and he loves them back and he literally says “I feel that love.” I think it’s a hard thing for actors. I don’t think we think about it enough and I think it was an interesting perspective to put in there.

Capone: Was Sam in any way concerned about people thinking this was more autobiographical than it actually was?

BH: No. I think he was such a successful guy. I don’t think he was worried about that aspect. He would say this is close in many ways to him and he related to it in many ways, but there’s so much fiction in this. He’s a much sadder guy in general, more of a fuck up.

NO: It speaks to characteristics of his own experience, but as you say, Lee’s situation is much more dire and depressing than Sam still doing A-list movies.

BH: He’s happily married, he has a great relationship with his daughter Cleo. That’s all fiction.

NO: He also is not an abuser of intoxicants. He’s got his shit together.

BH: He does not smoke pot. I take total credit, Mark Basch and I take total credit for just being like “I want to see Sam Elliott smoke j’s all the time,” because he has that slow drawl. I just thought he’d be a great old stoner, so we went for it. I think there’s a bit of LEBOWSKI still lingering, and he was the straightedge guy in LEBOWSKI. He doesn’t cuss, he has a sarsaparilla instead of a beer. Think about it. Now he gets a little bit of that edge back.

Capone: Speaking of degenerate drug users, where did you get the idea to make Nick the pot-smoking, drug dealer best friend?

BH: I love this idea of again taking the guy we think of as…Nick to a large degree is like “sausages, woodworking,” and that is part of who Nick is, but he is again way more than that. And I saw this guy who has a nice house in Los Feliz and was a child actor, a product of the Los Angeles industry. I always had this idea that his parents were like in the industry like producers, and they had money and they left him their money, and he gave up on his acting career and just sells drugs to his actor buddies. He’s got all these connections.

I thought a guy like Nick would just be the really unique and fun choice for that, to see what he would bring to it. We talked a lot about his look and about how he was going to dress, but really Nick brought his own sensibility to Jeremy. I love the relationship between Jeremy and Lee. It’s a bit prickly, and you can tell they’ve been friends forever, but there’s also so much love and respect. I think that is a little bit from real life. I just wanted to see him not in like a collard shirt.

Capone: I thought you were just going to be this guy that drops in for a little comic relief, but the scene where you’re reading lines with him is fantastic, and I love that we get to see him go through that again in the audition, which is very hard to watch and to watch him like that. That really does show the depth of their friendship. I feel like you have to trust somebody you’re reading lines with.

NO: You do. It’s funny, there are two or three people in my life. When you’re preparing for an audition, I’ll run lines with these nice publicist ladies. Whoever’s around, you can use to run lines. But there are only a couple of people when you need to really work on the acting of a scene that you can trust to do a nice job. These guys met acting together, these two characters, so wherever their lives have taken them, they have that history. They probably have been running lines together for 30 years.

Capone: That’s the sense I get, that this isn’t the first time you’ve said that to him.

NO: “Do you want me to apply your liniment?”

BH: I think it’s also beautiful in that scene to see Jeremy, Nick’s character, become an actor again. He starts getting into it. It starts off silly, then it starts getting real. That’s what I love about that scene is this terrible writing that these two guys make sound good. Jesus christ, I’ll never forget directing that. That was my favorite day on set, just seeing Sam Elliott rip into that. It’s a terrible monologue, makes no sense, we wrote it that way, and I just said, “Sam, just fucking go for it. I don’t care.” I just said, “Act!” which I never tell an actor to do.



I was watching Richard Burton last night in EQUUS. That’s an actor. He’s fucking acting. And I thought “Man, they don’t make ‘em like this anymore.” And that was what I was saying to Sam: “Just fucking rip it up, tear it up, man.” Because he’s so understanding, he’s so real, and it was so fun to see him go into movie-star mode. And to see Nick/Jeremy get affected by that and get into the scene. I think that’s my favorite scene in the movie.

NO: I’m grateful and I can take very little credit, because all that was required of me was to successfully countenance Sam doing that a few feet away. I was in awe.

BH: Yeah, your reaction was not written that way. It just happened.

NO: Both in the moment of Sam’s character affecting me, and the larger macro life moment that I was on a deck, and Sam Elliott was calling me “Buttercup” in the most tender fashion. I challenge you not to weep at the enormity of that moment.

BH: And Sam and I still lovingly call you Buttercup via text message.

NO: They sent me a coffee cup that says Buttercup.

Capone: It was wonderful to meet you both. Thanks so much.

BH: Thank you very much.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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