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Now back on TV after nearly 40 years, Kurt Russell feels that a streaming show is a bigger risk than a movie because “there are a lot of eyeballs on it” and “when you do a streamer that’s no good it’s gonna be there for
as long as you want it to be there.”
Honored at this year’s Monte-Carlo Television Festival with a lifetime achievement Crystal Nymph Award, Russell admits that with TV in general and streaming platforms in particular the stakes are much higher than they were 30-plus decades ago.
Russell is currently headlining two TV shows, namely “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” on Apple TV and “The Madison” on Paramount+ – prior to which his last leading role on television was in “Elvis” back in 1979.
The latter was directed by John Carpenter, with whom the actor also collaborated on “Escape From New York,” “The Thing” and “Big Trouble in Little China” – all of which underperformed on release but are now considered cult classics.
Meeting journalists in Monte-Carlo at a standing-room-only press conference, he says: “With movies back then it was like ‘If you fail at it, so what? Nobody’s gonna probably see it.’ There’s a sense in Hollywood now that doing streamers might be a little less than movies in terms of risk. Not true.”
He’s intrigued by the difference in viewer demographics for the two shows, saying: “With the ‘Monarch’ show it is really dominated by audiences of like 40 and under and ‘Madison’ is dominated by like 30 and up.” Gauging reactions to things he’s in has changed for the actor whose screen credits are too numerous to mention. “I used to be able to tell how a movie was doing by hitting the streets within five or six days [of it opening] and you could pretty much tell.”
Now with the streaming shows he’s in “there are a lot of eyeballs on it. You run into people and it’s also about their attitude when they see you. I’m 75 years old and now you can see if people are enjoying it and it’s such a large number. That’s really nice.”
Of those so-called flop films that eventually found a new lease of life, he adds: “Thank God for cable TV and DVDs and audiences being able to find something that they thought only they were finding. They tell their friends about it and it has a life of its own.”
Playing Preston Clyburn on “The Madison,” which is created by Taylor Sheridan and co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Fox, is especially enjoyable for Russell. “It’s really fun to do and Michelle is incredible. And I had a great time working with Matthew Fox. We did a picture that I liked very much called ‘Bone Tomahawk.’ It is just a dream experience. It’s just great from top to bottom, which is very rare.”
He’s not a Method actor. “I never was [but] everybody works different ways. I work from experience. I’ve always been fascinated by human beings. My mother and I, from the time I was little, we used to see somebody and I’d look at my mum and go ‘What is that person doing?'”
