William Hurt facts:

Hurt has narrated several audiobooks, including The Sun Also Rises, Hearts in Atlantis, Consumed, and The Boy Who Drew Cats, as well as given several live short story readings. In an interview by Symphony Space recorded for the Selected Shorts: The William Hurt Collection audiobook, he discussed the appeal of public readings, art, and stories:

“My phrase on time is that time isn’t money, it’s love. So that it’s far more valuable than money.”

“My job as an actor is to investigate the work so well that I then, after I’ve gone up the river and solved all the detective stories about the origins, let myself flow down the river and make all the discoveries, as we are making discoveries as we flow along the river of life. So that, to me, is how audiences identify with the characters that I play.”

“The value of art is consideration. If you’re allowed to consider deeply, then you are profoundly satisfied… Acting, for me, is invention of character and invention of given circumstance. In surrendering my invention, or the invention of the character, to the invention of the given circumstance—It’s like an electron accelerator. What you’re doing is you’re accelerating character and eventually smashing it up against your idea of destiny and watching, and taking a quick picture of the conflict, of the moment of impact between character and destiny… The stories are wealthy because the writers had this great chance to, at 3 o’clock in the morning under naked lightbulbs, divulge their souls, and they did it in monasteries of themselves when they were alone in their soul, expressing that freely and generously for all other people no matter what the judgement. It’s an amazing act of courage and why the experience of reading a short story is for me like the experience of acting in a well-rehearsed, well-prepared, well-written play.” ^[1]

Describing reading for an audience on stage, Hurt said, “To be among. Being among. In the frontline of life. [How does it affect the way you read? Are you getting reinforcement of an idea or feeling from the audience attention or from the fact that they laugh?] Being with others is comforting; it is emboldening; it is inspiring. To be with other human beings is the natural state of the community of our life. This is our species. To be with you here in this conversation is exciting to me. If I was sitting alone at this microphone, I would be so isolated. I would feel lonely.”

Marlee Matlin Wins Best Actress | 59th Oscars (1987) ^[2]

https://youtu.be/2y4K_Xc7-JU

She kissed Hurt and thanked him “for his great support and love in this film”.

William Hurt obituary ^[3]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/14/william-hurt-obituary

Having established himself in the 70s as a stage actor, Hurt initially turned down all movie offers. This inbuilt reluctance made his film work, when it finally came, feel fascinatingly conflicted, as though he was regarding the medium itself with skepticism.

Hurt was honest about his struggles with alcoholism earlier in his life

William Hurt Interview - ROD Show, 1996 ^[4]

https://youtu.be/GHNwbJ1E3ck

Interview for Michael

Believes in angels

DP/30 ^[5]

https://youtu.be/Ia5ASwfZFYY

I don’t fall for the character; I fall for the whole thing. If I’m going to love a script, I have to love the script as a WHOLE script… Then you go take the next step and find people and hopefully they can help you pull it off. You interact with them and you find the truths inside it as a living exchange of questions among other artists. That’s the collaborative essence, so that’s what I aim for.

I come in to work with you. I come in to find things out from you and engage with you and participate with you and discuss with you. Even the scene is a discussion. You may know the words but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna know how to say it.

You don’t repeat; repetition is impossible. You do it again for the first time.

[On art vs craft]: The craft is helping you get to a spontaneous state. That’s an irony. It seems like a paradox, that knowing how to do something doesn’t preclude spontaneity, it enhances it. You know how to hit your marks and say your lines, but that doesn’t mean you have to think the same thing every time we go from action to cut.

[On the rarity of rehearsal before filming a movie]: You take the principle and you try to infuse it into process that exists in the hopes that the quality of material that you’ve chosen that excited you and the quality of the people that also excites you will be interpreted somehow.

The whole thing is an act of discovery.

I’m an actor, so I’m observing you… That’s my work. My work is to observe you… All of those things just happen to be, for me, a joy to observe. I’m fascinated by that… Viscerally, I’m fascinated by the uniqueness of every human portrayal. So, I work with that, and it tells me things. It tells me things… in languages I can’t quite wrap up easily or fancily for anyone else. That’s why I act.

To me the whole work—in every aspect of the theater, in every medium of the theater—is this amazing window into all the subjects of man’s interest, of every kind, in this thing called drama.

Drama to me is not necessarily conflict or bombs going off… There are other forms… The detonation of stereotypes can be just as shocking as any car exploding; maybe more.

You’re asking a thousand questions every second of your life. Every heartbeat is this amazing opportunity to be curious. To be alive is to be curious, to satisfy the greatest hunger there is, which is your curiosity… Go below the surface… It’s like the Chinese ivory doll. It’s like peeling the onion.

I see patterns of overall human behavior that are phenomenally interesting and that’s why I just want to go back to school and sit with young people and surreptitiously ask them what’s going on… It’s such a privilege to work with young people who are teaching me so much, cause they have so much to offer. It’s wonderful. That’s school for me.

That’s the purpose of rehearsal: to prove to other actors that they’re safe in your company so that they can then release the energy, to reveal the character rather than worry about their next job and box it up, and make it a household name for dimensions that are really very limited compared to your potential.

Consideration is courage. Consideration is art. Consideration and reflection; this is the mirror of nature we’re working on. So of course, the whole thing is about reflection.

[After quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet on theater holding a mirror up to nature]: See, those are mantras to me. I just have them like mantras. So that I can have the most exquisite experience of life that I can have before I pop off. And so, I can add something and appreciate the glimpse of eternity and maybe belong to it.

I’m the luckiest person I know as far as my vocation. I can’t imagine being happier or more fulfilled as an artist than I’ve been allowed to. I struggle. I struggle mightily. But I’m lucky enough to be allowed to struggle. That’s something that I appreciate. [He appreciated it more as he got older.] You know the days are dwindling; you don’t know which day it’s going to be.

Nothing came fast. I’d done sixty plays I did any movies. I took it slow. I wanted it to be deep; I didn’t want it to be superficial so I slowed down instead of sped up.

You can give people what they want, which isn’t what they really want, or you can give them what they really want, or you can give them what they need, which is the most compassionate and generous thing to do.

Then you have to have the courage to go into yourself and find out what your true questions are and share those. Then you’re telling the truth; you’re not faking it. You are the litmus example of humanity that you have. You’re the laboratory of human experience that you have. So go in the laboratory.

They things that you were prevented from doing are things that you try to turn to some use. The things that caused you pain are the things that hopefully gave you some wisdom. Or the failings gave you sensitivities in other situations. Don’t just let pain breed pain. Don’t let hopelessness breed hopelessness. Don’t let negative breed negative.

[What he takes from a situation that doesn’t work so well]: You gain, if you look. You stay open. You try to say, Well maybe it was me. Maybe the impasse was part me. There was an impasse here; there are usually two sides of a wall. Maybe I was the stubborn one. You’re always working it all, trying to find out if you were wrong or right. You can’t finally judge anybody—you’re still on this side of the boat.

[His acting teachers deserve as much credit as he does for his great performances.]

One of the great questions in life is credit where credit is deserved—the other half of that is debit where debit is deserved—how are we measuring these things?

[He doesn’t “go back” to theater but is always doing theater work.]

What I am is a reparatory ensemble actor. That’s what I am. But all of that stuff is stuff I will use to bring back to film. When I do a film, let’s say you don’t have six weeks for rehearsal—I’ve never had it, but I’ve had three weeks. I’ve had three days. I’ve had no days. You’re still using the principles that underlie the examination that you can fulfill in six weeks, in whatever time you’re given, whether it’s three minutes, three days, three weeks, three months—it’s the same principle. You’re trying to examine it from the ground up, from its roots up, so that you’re not telling people what to think and feel. You’re not telling them what a character is. You’re not showing a character. You’re participating in a character that’s made of its questions. You place the questions and then they seethe in the character, and then the scene is a seething of our two characters. It’s a living thing.

[His relationship with the audience when he’s on stage]: As far as I’m concerned, they’re always there, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re always equal to me. Never condescend. It’s life. I’m not talking about movies. I’m not talking about celluloid on the shelves. I’m talking about people. As far as I’m concerned, it’s always a beating heart.

Theater is the collaborative art form. In it, it’s a dialectic. It’s where questions are asked; it’s my way of participating. It’s my way of asking questions and proposing ideas. It’s a way of interacting. It’s not a thing, it is a living act. No matter what form it takes. It isn’t less living because it’s on film, which may end up being nothing more than a museum piece anyway. But I am alive, so that’s what I do.

Hurt was well-read, and quoted Shakespeare, Gandhi, Rebecca Solnit, Bhagawan Nityananda, and Paul the Apostle in one half-hour interview.

--

92nd Street Y

William Hurt in Conversation with Reel Pieces moderator Annette Insdorf ^[6]

https://youtu.be/-8Wq2U1FsS8

2:39

Everything is informed by where you are. So there’s two things going on: there’s an idea, an intention; and there’s your given circumstance. Declan Donnellan talks about the senses and imagination. So in art, there’s two things that are happening all the time: there’s what you’re being given; and there’s what you’re saying with what you’re given. And of course, the environment—sometimes you see actors, they don’t pay any attention to their environment at all. It’s like they’re dislocated from it. To me, if you’re dislocated from your environment, you’re dislocated from yourself.

5:30

I believe there’s two parts to every character, and one is the 10%, and one is the 90%. 10% is what you see, and the 90% is what you don’t. 90% is what you rehearse; 10% is what you show. So that 90% has to be there. The film industry really is not used to granting that. So you have to fight for it, cause the craft of acting, the craft of what’s below the surface, is not its thing. Everything good comes from rehearsal, everything good comes from preparation, everything good comes from consideration. I think art is consideration. I don’t think there’s anything else that it is, if it’s good. If it’s art.

8:26

Paddy Chayefsky was my hero; he’s the reason I’m in film at all. [His first film was Altered States, which Chayefsky wrote.] I had not wanted to make film. I was very happy doing what I was doing. I was working of Broadway, I was working reparatory ensemble, I was extremely happy doing that. And then I read Altered States. My particular mind had already been querying exactly down those seams of questioning that Paddy was on. It was like he had written everything I was thinking about. After I read it, I couldn’t stand up for about 45 minutes, I was shaking so hard. But I didn’t want to face filmmaking much. I didn’t want to face fame, because it’s not easy for me. I’m thin-skinned. I’m not happy with it. But I love good work and I love talented people. I can’t stay away from them and I don’t want to stay away from them.

He was a great hero for me.

14:00

[Had not seen the 1977 Japanese film on which The Yellow Handkerchief was based.] It’s tough, because if you don’t have enough rehearsal, you can’t get other images out of your mind. I’m very careful about images that are powerful to me that might distract me from an indigenous experience in a project. I’d be very, very careful to use written material—for instance, a book—as character reference and inspiration, rather than trying to do the book in film. Film/drama is an indigenous artform. It is its own thing, is its own plant, is its own flower. Other arts are indigenous to themselves. You can’t MAKE a film out of a book; you can be inspired by it; you can use it for reference material; you can use it as a window into your own research but you cannot copy a book onto film. You can’t do that. Theater is theater. Literature is literature.

I don’t want to do something else, or a copy of… I want to do THIS. So, the first obligation you have, your primary responsibility, is to the uniqueness of THIS event, with your fellow artists and THIS script. Sometimes you have to set some things aside.

16:19

[How the character evolved]: It’s all based on an examination of given circumstances. You never want to repeat anything in any scene. So, if you’re showing something, you’re faking it. If you’re coming FROM an understanding, then you’re not showing anything, you’re doing something based on that life. The idea is to create a life, to imagine a life. Imagining a life against criteria, which are more demanding than shoddy, superficial criteria or exhibitionist criteria or anything that is degraded like that. We went back and I found things about his origins that made him quiet, that made him a worker, that made him valuable in ways that I have valued people that I have worked with in my life. On a sheep ranch in Australia or driving a truck, which I’ve done, or the people I’ve met along the way. People who walk on the other side of the avenue from you. People who will never be famous, but whose lives are richer than yours might ever hope to be. People who go unnoticed but are the greats, the Great Unseen.

19:56

An accident happened, and he knew that one of the rules of life was to accept responsibility for what happens. So he followed that course, and then you hope and pray. I wanted that to be evident in him and not to have to show it. That’s what rehearsal is all about.

To me, the minimum—and it took me 15 years to figure this out—it takes me six weeks to have a character. 42 days to begin to have the structure of a character; to feel comfortable enough with the material, given circumstances, history of character, relationships, sensory awareness—all of the pieces. Then you begin the next segment of research.

I don’t see me doing it for you. I don’t see me making you think or feel something. I see me sharing a question that I have and therefore you might have. I’m the laboratory of human experience that I was given, so I must ask that condition—my questions—as a human being. Those are the things I share with you.

[the same for him whether doing stage work, film, or television]

That’s all time and space problem; that’s all geometric abstractions. The truth is told in a different shape. It’s all questions of time and space, but always the truth told inside that. All of those are frames.

You are trying to learn how to express yourself inside forms, like life.

27:40

The greatest joy for a human being, to me, is curiosity.

38:30

You’re posing a question. You’re putting your imagination inside of this little crystal ball and you’re saying, what if? What is human? Human is character flung at destiny, like an atom flung at a razor blade and you take a quick picture of the explosion and that’s your reflection of reality. That’s your reflection of the truth. Just for one split second, you might see out of the corner of your eye, truth.

51:53

Some people come up to me on the street and say, “Aren’t you who I think you are?” And I go, “I know very few things in life for sure, but I’m positive I’m not who you think I am.”

This question of acting and acting out, or personality versus character, became very big issues for me very early on in my teens. Then in college, it began to develop more because when I was acting out or in any way serving my insecurity, I was a little bit out of control; but when I was paying attention, I was in full control and yet at the same time, in a state of complete discovery. I was more excited by being in control but making great relevant discoveries while in the act of exchanging ideas on stage that were fully developed, with other intelligent actors, in well-mounted productions that enriched me. That became the life I wanted, so that’s the life I’ve had as an artist, and that’s what I want. That’s what I’m glad about, mostly. There have been some other things, too.

55:48

People are intelligent. That’s a fact of my life. I can’t see a human face without intelligence, maybe even genius in it.

1:01:27

[On his costars]

That, to me, is my treasure: the company I’ve kept.

The elusive William Hurt ^[7]

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/the-elusive-william-hurt

Hurt is the most intelligent of actors

He talks more like a man who is working toward a general unified field theory of existence.

who in less than a decade has become one of the two or three best actors in American movies.

[Kasdan] believes Hurt can modulate within a small range better than anyone else around: "His talent is to trust that less is more. I don't think anyone does that better in American acting. It's to trust that the camera sees everything if you are feeling it and if you're true -- and Bill is true."

"Acting is building the tip of the iceberg," Hurt said. "You have to build what isn't seen and then play the tip. Only a little bit of the iceberg is ever seen, but it is massive.

I oppose this idea that we have to vicariously live in the images of movie heroes who always know what's going to happen next. That's just not how life is.”

Remembering William Hurt, star of 'Broadcast News' and 'The Big Chill' ^[8]

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/18/1087169803/remembering-william-hurt-star-of-broadcast-news-and-the-big-chill

In college, he studied theology before switching to drama

We're going to listen to Terry's 2010 interview with William Hurt.

HURT: For various reasons - I used to visit prisons. You'd call it charitable work. I had worked with some people who were involved in a prison program, and they periodically visited the prisons in Rockland County in New York state to take a program of hope and self-rehabilitation to them. And I would accompany them. This is a little hard to say rightly, but I've always been interested in people, and I've been interested in people who were off the track.

in Brazil 25 years ago, when by accident I was taken hostage on a dark night in a small village south of Sao Paulo

GROSS: Was this while you were making "Kiss Of The Spider Woman?"

HURT: Yes. And we had 36 hours off from filming. And me and my date at the time got into a car, and we drove south to a village where her parents had a small villa in a very modest town with dirt streets. And as we drove into the driveway at midnight, a car pulled up behind us and blocked our exit. The engine of that car was turned off. There were four people in it - two men and two women. One of the men had a ski mask on, a black ski mask. The other man just hid his face.

GROSS: How'd you get out of this?

HURT: Well - what do they say in Sanskrit? They say life is about creation, sustenance, dissolution, control and the bestowal of grace, right? Probably the bestowal of grace. We were in the house for an hour. And one man, the guy in the ski mask - his duty was to hold the gun on us in the corner and shift us around the house while the other guy carried everything out of the house and put it into our car. There were a couple of times when I thought the guy was ready to pull the trigger and you can see the bullets 'cause it wasn't fake. And then he and I were just looking at each other for about an hour, me at his eyes through the mask. Anyway, he told us to face the wall, and he was going to shoot us. And so I said, no, I can't do that. And my feeling was, if I'm going to die now, I want to be looking into another human being's eyes, even if it's yours.

GROSS: Did you say that to him?

HURT: I did eventually, yeah.

GROSS: And he said?

HURT: And he drove me to the ground. He put the gun in my forehead, and he leaned on it with all his might, and he was screaming at me. And we both went to the floor, his face a few inches from mine. He's screaming at me in Portuguese. My date was collapsing in the corner. And I just was looking at him very, very steadily. And I just kept saying, I just don't want to - I don't want to - I don't want it in the back of the head. And he backed away slowly and he said, don't call the police for 15 minutes or I will find a way to come back and kill you. And he left.

So I called the police pretty much right away, and eventually they showed up and they were almost worse than he was. I mean, really, there's a lot of violence in the world. So I've seen not just that, but I've seen it in other places as well. My father worked for - he was the head of AID in Lahore, Khartoum, Mogadishu. I lived in all those places with him when I was young. I grew up in the South Pacific, basically.

I've seen a lot, you know. I've traveled in places where people don't have the benefits of American life and so I've seen a lot of stuff. So the prison was not new to me.

William Hurt on ‘Humans’ and How He’s a “Theatre Practitioner”

https://www.dailyactor.com/interview/william-hurt-humans-theatre/

Could you talk about what it was that first attracted you to this part and made you decide that you had to do it?

William Hurt: Well, initially it was just the title. And because that’s my topic, you know. And then realized that it was about human beings and machines, but still titled Humans, it was intriguing. And it’s about a topic that I’ve been interested in most of my life.

And then I started reading it and I realized it was full of character and good questions like the nature of this interview today, and the technology that we’re using to have it, which is so dislocating but at the same time, pretty interesting.

Ever since Altered States, you’ve made a lot of movies that have had science fiction but where real science was at a core of it. Is that just a coincidence or is that a subject you’ve always been interested in, how science relates to people and so on?

William Hurt: Oh, no question. It’s been a fundamental interest of mine, the whole time, since I was young.

What originally fascinated you about it and what, as you’ve gotten into all these different roles have you found fascinating?

William Hurt: As I began to read science fiction, important science fiction, specific, most especially Isaac Asimov and began to realize that it wasn’t anywhere near as much fiction as people were thinking, or generally people were thinking. It fired my imagination, you know, to red hot.

I just realized what they were talking about was anything but imaginary. And so I was enthralled and always have been.

William Hurt: I find it more challenging when I’m asked to play characters that aren’t so interesting, which I usually refuse. It’s challenging – I can’t say that this was challenging because I was so furiously kind of in love it, you know. So I just went to work very excited every day.

Was there anything then about Millican that you thought of that may not have originally been in the script for him, maybe something about his backstory?

William Hurt: Yes, I don’t, you know, the things, you can add anything you want as long as it doesn’t contradict anything that’s there. That’s the rule. The rule is you can invent anything that doesn’t contradict the truth of the character as described.

And no character as it exists on the page, in any script I’ve ever read is a large percentage of its potential because they leave you, in a good script they leave you creative room. So they didn’t write down how his hair, his hairdo, so I did that.

There are lots of things I invented about him, using, you know, my own personality, traits and other ones that I invented for him and, but I didn’t contradict anything on the page.

Initially I was going to ask what drew you to play Dr. Millican, but I did find an interview with you from a couple years ago, where you talked about you don’t play people, you chose to go for the character.

William Hurt: Right. I’m a character actor.

If you would elaborate kind of on that statement now and how it pertains to your portrayal of Dr. Millican?

William Hurt: Well, I, we were just talking about Asimov protocols and how they breakdown into three elegant, simple, vast ideas. I would add one more note to the comment that I made about character. I do go for character but I go, the character as a function of the entire play, the entire screen play.

So really what I want when I’m reading a screenplay, is to have the feeling when I’m finished with it that I would basically like to go and play any character they offer me or even go for coffee on the film set. That I want, my feeling is that I want to be part of that project.

So that’s the first criteria for me, is do I want to be part of the whole, the whole thing.

I understand that you’re a private pilot?

William Hurt: Yes, I was. I mean I haven’t flown for a while but I flew for about 30 years, yes.

I was just wondering if any of that training ever helped you with your characters on screen?

William Hurt: Yes, it’s, I mean what helps you with your characters is inspirations in life. And the hobbies that I’ve chosen are the ones that connected me to life and that certain is one of those things that flying thrilled me for most of my life. I started out very young flying unusual aircraft, flying in unusual aircraft.

The first time I flew long distance was in 1951 when I flew from San Francisco to Hawaii in a plane called the MARS, which is larger than a 747, was an amphibious airplane, prop driven and it would double decker with birds. It had been a military aircraft and then was converted to commercial.

I flew PBYs in Catalina – in, I flew in PBYs, Catalina’s, EC3s, 2s, 4s, you know, C47s, all those things in the Pacific in the early 50s. I flew, I was in, I think I was in the second Pans Atlantic 707 flight, I think it was in the sixth or seventh Pans Atlantic comet flight.

I’ve had myself, I’ve owned airplanes from Cessna 180s. I had a part interest in a de Havilland Beaver. I had a Cessna 5, Seneca 5, I had a 206, a Bonanza, you know.

So I flew quite a bunch of stuff and it inspired me no end to see the world from that point of view, from high up but also in the peace time, civilian job, which is the job with the highest level of personal responsibility legally permitted.

I don’t actually see myself as a film actor. I see myself as a theater practitioner. And I see all the different forms of expression in the theater as being what I do.

And it has lots of different parts but it’s fundamentally the same basic art form, and I reduced it to its components, it’s fundamental components a long time ago, the same way that Asimov tried to do with the protocols. And I see it, I see what I do as going to work at the art of the theater.

And that can happen in television. It can happen on film. It can happen on stage. It can happen lots of ways. But I do see it fundamentally as that art form and the principles of drama.

And the principles of character development, and the principles of the relationship of character to destiny are its perennial questions and those are the questions that interest me in life and that’s why I do it.

William Hurt, Oscar-winning ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ actor, dies at 71

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-03-13/william-hurt-death-obituary-kiss-of-the-spider-woman

When it came to movies, Hurt told The Times in 1985 that he found it hard to watch himself on-screen.

“But it’s not me up there,” he added. “You don’t play yourself. I wouldn’t know enough to be able to conjecture or judge the difference... I think our purpose is to seek as great a contribution as we can, whatever that might be.”

CEC Speak of the Week | William Hurt, Spencer Tracy Award Recipient

(1988)

https://youtu.be/orv7-uh2xgA

12:45

I happened across some words in a book where my chances of repeating anything untrue from it are pretty well nil.

Psalm 107:23-31

17:13

I think of the theater as a ritual. I try to think of it the same way the Greeks and Romans had in mind as a purgation of pity and fear, so that we are relieved to enjoy our lives. I thought, why not? I want to do that. That’s basically it.

21:20

We are all crippled in some way. And I think Tracy knew that. And it gives us strength.

23:21

Since my primary concern is structure, my identification with character doesn’t come until after I’ve sorted out whether the project is worthy to belong to in the first place on any level, let alone how I may contribute to it through the character. I identify with all of them. As you study, you begin to study the essential question, which in the theater is what is the line between reality and fantasy? So, for an actor, what that becomes is what is acting and what is acting out? I don’t like to act out in public. To me, if I have not crafted enough of a mask, either as a concept or physically or whatever, to protect my privacy as a human being, then I cannot share with you what I know about all of our souls. You do use yourself, sure, but then you have to differentiate that enough to make sure that it is an image up there rather than you. You have to be real careful about that.