interview Max Von Sydow
chatted with Nathaniel on November 30th, 2007 @ the Pierre Hotel
Max
Von Sydow on Ingmar Bergman, Woody Allen, and his rich history on the stage and in the cinema |
Nathaniel: One thing I wanted to ask you about --I'm not really sure how to phrase it. Directors, people like Bergman and Woody Allen, they have very thematic throughlines in their work but for actors, you know, since you're always working with other people's material --it's probably a lot more difficult to zero in on things that your'e interested in personally. But I've noticed in your work that you've done a lot of films that deal with religion or spiritual matters.
Max von Sydow: Not because I have chosen to.
Nathaniel: Because that's what was offered?
~CASTING / FUTURE ROLES~
Max von Sydow: Yes. I have done very much theater and I've done all sorts of things. I've done every –not everything: I've done comedy modern, tragic, whatever. And I've done it with great pleasure. But when it comes to film it's so much a matter of money and the producers want to play it safe. They are rarely courageous.
N: Right.
MVS: They are cowards most of the time. Because, you know, they want to protect the money which I understand. If they have a project which has certain characters than they look for actors who have done similar characters well before. And so that means that the actors who have been successful in doing something they are, all the time, asked to do the same.
So what is my situation and what was my situation? It all started, I think, when Bergman films in the beginning became known outside of Sweden. My first American film was The Greatest Story Ever Told, the life of Jesus by George Stevens. I don't know exactly what happened but my theory is –and I think this is true-- that he had seen, apparently, the films I had been in with Bergman. It was The Seventh Seal. It was The Magician. It was The Virgin Spring. The Seventh Seal is sort of a religious film. The Virgin Spring is not a religious theme but it has a religious undertone that's very much about Christianity and etcetera. And in The Magician I had Christlike make up. I think he needed someone with a certain experience but who was not too well known by the American audience, who --who wouldn't make people think of their past career as, I don't know what, as a gangster or as a cowboy or whatever.
N: Right
MVS: A fresh face. Which was just 'this is the face of Jesus. Don't think of anything else. ' And I guess that was the reason to ask me. But anyway then –and then, after, the producers have come back and said 'we need a priest, we need a bishop, we need a whatever. Ask Max von Sydow. He's a religious type.'
Max and the Spiritual (clockwise from top left): The Virgin Spring (1960), The Seventh Seal
(1957), The Exorcist (1973) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
N: Well I think it also has to do with that you project a lot of gravitas as an actor.
MVS: A lot of what?
N: Gravitas.MVS: Aha, okay.
N: I think a lot of theatrically trained actors have natural weight to their presence which I think helps in religious themed films. I know we have to wrap up but I wanted to say: It doesn't look like you're slowing down career-wise, which is great.
MVS: A little bit but it all depends on what comes my way also.
N: So what would—who do you –who would you most like to work with in the future?
MVS: Well, whoever is good to work with. Whoever has a good project.
N: So it's project based for you?
MVS: I'm looking for interesting stories. I'm looking for, if possible, characters with a certain delveopment who don't end up exactly the same as they were in the first scenes. I mean --good characters, interesting characters. [laughter]
N: Thank you so much. Takk skal du ha!
MVS: Vaer so god
~finis~
One More Thing...
If you'd like to learn more about Max von Sydow I'd suggest perusing his lengthy filmography (how many have you seen?) which stretches from his debut in 1949 (Only a Mother) to multiple Bergman classics (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Shame, The Passion of Anna among them) to American films across five decade co-starring everyone from Julie Andrews (Hawaii) through Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist) and Robert Redford (Three Days of the Condor) to Tom Cruise (Minority Report), with frequent side dips into 80s genre pictures (Flash Gordon, David Lynch's Dune, etc...) to Denmark's Oscar winning Pelle the Conqueror. He's still going strong 20 years after that Oscar triumph with France's Julian Schnabel film The Diving Bell and Butterfly (now playing) for which the actor could find himself nominated again for his heart wrenching supporting work.I'd also suggest checking out Bergmanorama, a fine site devoted to Sweden's most celebrated auteur and his huge company of amazing actors (Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow among them)
