Director John Carroll Lynch talks about working with the character actor on the indie film.
Harry Dean Stanton may be gone, but the well-respected character actor has left a quirky, unsentimentally touching and rather delightful tribute to himself, a movie called “Lucky.”
“It was certainly a movie inspired by Harry Dean Stanton, and then Harry Dean Stanton played the part inspired by him,” explains John Carroll Lynch, a character actor almost as admired as Stanton, who made his directing debut with “Lucky.” “That’s a weird set of circumstances for an actor. He was obviously working with things in the movie that were familiar to him, but in a different context. And context is everything to an actor.”
RELATED: Harry Dean Stanton dies at age 91
Written by two of Stanton’s numerous Hollywood buddies, Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja, with many of the actor’s personal habits (watching game shows, working crossword puzzles, doing a half hour of yoga every morning, singing in Spanish) worked into the title character’s daily routine, “Lucky” is about a 90-year-old loner who, despite his solitary inclinations, is quite well-liked by the eccentric denizens of his tiny desert town.
Those folks are played by an eclectic ensemble that includes Stanton’s longtime pal Ed Begley Jr., his co-star from the 1979 “Alien” Tom Skerritt, 1950s teen idol James Darren and director David Lynch, for whom Stanton often acted, most recently in the cable revival of the “Twin Peaks” series.
It was all supposed to be a celebration of Stanton’s life and art, which numbered nearly 200 film and TV jobs since the mid-1950s. The dour-faced Kentuckian could always be counted on to lend indelible touches of soulfulness, menace or dry wit – sometimes all at once – to whatever project he took on. Everyone has their favorite Harry Dean performance, and a rewarding Stanton retrospective would have to include “Cool Hand Luke,” “Two-Lane Blacktop,” “Straight Time,” “Escape from New York,” “Repo Man,” “Paris, Texas,” “Pretty in Pink,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Alpha Dog” and any given episode of “Big Love,” among dozens of others.
And, of course, now “Lucky.”
Stanton passed away at age 91 on Sept. 15, two weeks before “Lucky’s” scheduled opening. When the film was being made on a tight, 18-day schedule in the early summer of 2016, the actor showed no evidence of failing health – much like his character in the movie, who’s concerned about a fainting episode but otherwise amazes his doctor that he’s in such good, though still smoking and drinking, shape.
“The interesting thing is that Harry was like the character,” Lynch says of Stanton during shooting, “utterly and completely fragile while completely vital at the same time.
“We finished a week before Harry’s 90th birthday in July of 2016,” the director continues. “We shot it in Piru, California, and the walking in the town was done in 90 degree heat. Harry Dean walked three miles from ‘action’ to ‘cut.’ Then in Cave Creek, Arizona, where we shot desert vistas and Saguaro and those kinds of things, in some ways there was less walking, but we did it in early morning and late afternoon. We tried to make sure no one was out in the midday heat of July in Arizona.”
Although he also appeared on “Big Love,” Lynch never worked with Stanton on the show – nor at any other time before “Lucky.” “The Founder,” “Jackie” and “Invitation” actor (to name just a few recent standouts among his own 100-plus roles) had only a casual personal relationship with the older legend; he’d accompanied mutual friend Sumonja to Stanton’s favorite hangout, Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood, several times, and enjoyed watching Harry Dean get into heated but friendly arguments with other actors there.
“He was always cutting and charming in a very peaceful way, but also fierce very quickly, like lightning,” Lynch reports.
When the writers asked Lynch if he wanted to direct “Lucky,” he jumped at the chance, and knew how he wanted to guide the narrative.
“I thought the script was the spiritual journey of a 90-year-old atheist,” Lynch says. “It talks about the things that we both wanted to talk about, which was living with joy in the shadow of mortality.”
Although that jibed with the star/subject’s view of it, Stanton was understandably skeptical at first about handing his highly personalized project to a first-time filmmaker.
“In some ways, it was obviously an arranged marriage,” Lynch admits. “I had not directed before, but I think that for awhile Harry didn’t believe it was actually going to happen. When we started working together, every Sunday for three-and-a-half months before shooting, I and the writers would go up to his house and have conversations. There were times when it was clear that he was trying to figure out whether or not I could do it. He’d ask questions about the script and how I would shoot it and things like that, and when he was done he’d say ‘Well, I guess you guys know your s—.’ Then he’d turn on the game shows and we’d know that particular conversation was over.”
While it was an emotional roller coaster ride for all involved as Stanton’s health deteriorated, rallied and then worsened earlier this year, longtime fan Lynch seems to have been inspired one final time by the terse, unfussy realist quality that made Stanton who he was and so many of his performances, ironically, vibrantly special.
“My personal feelings about Harry are complicated because he meant so much to me, and yet I can’t really claim that I was a longtime friend of his,” Lynch explains. “There are so many people involved in ‘Lucky’ – Logan and Drago and Ed and David – whom I know have really lost a close, abiding personal friendship. My complications have to do with my love of what he gave me, and it seems oddly selfish in these circumstances to have a lot of emotional life around that – at a time when the movie is to be celebrated, and he is to be celebrated for what he did.”
It’s not hard to believe that Harry Dean Stanton would find a sendoff like that kind of perfect.
