Interview: Charles Durning
Charles Durning had a somewhat stunned reaction when he was told he would be the recipient of the Screen Actors Guild's 44th annual Life Achievement Award. "I thought they made a mistake," the actor says, without a trace of irony. "I had to question it two or three times: 'Are you sure it's me?'"

Well, why not? With a career spanning several decades and covering every medium, the 84-year-old Durning long ago solidified his place as one of the greatest character actors in history. More than that, he has become somewhat of a national treasure, the kind of performer whose appearance in a film is always a welcome surprise. He can show up for one scene in a movie and walk away with an Oscar nomination, as he did in the 1982 musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. His five minutes of screen time as the double-talking, singing and dancing governor are a shot of bliss that would leave even the most jaded audience member smiling and humming a tune.

Durning has played dozens of cops and fathers, bad and good, and he has portrayed Santa Claus on five occasions. His best roles are unforgettable: He was heartbreaking as the clueless suitor to Dustin Hoffman's Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie; a force of nature in his Tony-winning turn as Big Daddy in the 1990 Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and he's a little bit of both in his current role as the patriarch of the dysfunctional Gavin clan on the FX series Rescue Me. Though the character was by all accounts a horrific father to Denis Leary's Tommy on the show, when he passed away peacefully during a baseball game, the loss resonated for his son and the audience. (Good news: Durning will continue to appear on the show in upcoming episodes.)

Still, the actor remains befuddled by the SAG honor, noting, "You've got people like Barbara Stanwyck who've received this award. These are incredible people." That the recognition comes from fellow actors also means a great deal to Durning. "Somebody said, 'You're going to get an award.' I said, 'Yeah, I'd rather have cash.' That was until I found out what it was," he says.

A Star is Born

Durning was born Feb. 28, 1923, in Highland Falls, N.Y. As a teenager, he became a singer in a band with his uncle. "The original singer loved the women, loved the booze, and hated to rehearse," Durning recalls. "So they fired him. The guy who was running the band said, 'We have no singer for tonight.' My uncle, who was the piano player, said, 'Hire the kid.' That's how I got my singing job."

Durning sang for about a year before enlisting in the Army to fight in World War II. After surviving the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach, he was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge and was one of the few survivors of the attack on American POWs in Malmedy, Belgium. When he was discharged from the Army in 1946, it was with several honors, including the Combat Infantryman Badge, Silver Star Medal, Bronze Star Medal, and three Purple Hearts. Returning from the war, Durning tried his hand at standup comedy and taught dance at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. His big break came when he met Joseph Papp while the two were filming a live TV show. At the time, Papp was a "floor walker" — a second assistant director. "He liked what I was doing and asked me to come and read at his house," Durning recalls of a group that met every Sunday. "Ten or 12 of us would come and read Shakespeare and Ibsen and Chekhov and so forth." In the 1950s, Papp had begun staging Shakespeare productions in Central Park, the beginnings of what would become the yearly Shakespeare in the Park event. "He asked if I wanted to come and play," says Durning. "And I said, 'Nothing could stop me.'"

Durning spent most of the 1960s under the tutelage of Papp, whom he remembers as "brutally honest but always right." Durning notes, "He never did it maliciously. If you didn't know him, you might think he was being harsh." The actor recalls one incident in which he wanted to play Hamlet and Papp told him he wasn't good with the poetry of Shakespeare. Says Durning, "I said, 'What do you mean? I'm in all the Shakespeare plays.' And he said, 'Yeah, but you're doing all the prose stuff. You're not doing any of the poetry.' He had me pick up a Shakespeare play and read it, and I asked what he thought. He said, 'More to the point, what did you think?' " Durning pauses before admitting, "I'm still trying to figure that one out."

He stayed with Papp for 12 years, occasionally dipping into film and TV work. A chance to appear as a crooked cop in 1973's The Sting led him to ask Papp to release him from a play. "If you were in one of his plays, he wouldn't let you go to do anything else," Durning reveals. "So I was in a play, and we only had a week or so to go, and I came to him and said, 'Joe, I'd like to get out of the play because I have a movie I want to do.' He said, 'You know what my opinion is on that.' I said, 'Yes, I do, and I'm here pleading with you because I'd really like to do this movie.' And he said, 'Who's directing?' I said, 'George Roy Hill.' He said, 'I know him; he's a good director. Who's in it?' I said, 'Paul Newman and a guy I've never heard of called Robert Redford.' He shook his head and thought about it, and a couple days later he said, 'Okay, I'll let you do it, but you've got to come back here after the movie's over.' I said, 'Oh, I will; you know that.' But I didn't. I got another movie right away, and I didn't come back until about 17 years later."

Roll Film

Given a choice, Durning says he prefers to do plays over movies, "just because it's instantaneous. People will let you know right away whether you're good or bad. You don't get that in the movies. You can swing hard and miss the ball sometimes, but you've got to keep swinging."

Still, Durning carved out a great niche in films. He credits two actors he met through Papp in the 1960s with helping him along in his film career: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. "Those guys really kept me at work," he says. "They insisted on me being in their movies, and that helped me a lot." De Niro introduced Durning to Brian De Palma, who directed the two in his 1970 film Hi, Mom! and later cast Durning in Sisters and The Fury. And Pacino helped Durning get cast as the frazzled hostage negotiator in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. "I was originally in a different part, a smaller part," Durning reveals. "And Al Pacino came back and said, 'I don't want him in that part; I want him in this part.' Sidney said, 'Okay.' And I got a bigger part."

Durning hasn't worked with De Niro or Pacino in more than 20 years, noting, "They both changed and became very, very famous." He adds, "I asked them later why they cut me off, and [De Niro] said, 'Charlie, where we are now you don't know whether the guy is your friend or wants another job.' I said, 'You know I don't ask you for any work. You offer, and I take it. I'd be a fool not to.' He said, 'At this point in our lives, we don't know who are our friends and who aren't.' And I understood that because I felt that a little bit too, when I began working. But we're still friends, and I admire the both of them and think they're both terrific guys."

Asked if there were any film actors he admired growing up, Durning doesn't hesitate: "James Cagney. He was up-front; you knew what he was right away. And you knew people like that, who were aggressive and tough and ready to go." Durning had the opportunity to meet Cagney once through their mutual friend, actor Pat O'Brien. "I had never finished high school, so I was one of those guys who if you were talking to me and I didn't understand what you were saying, I would pretend I knew," Durning notes. "When Pat introduced me, somebody at the table said something, and Mr. Cagney said, 'What? I don't understand what that word means. Tell me.' And they told him. And I said to myself, 'Well, if he can do it, I can do it.' So from then on, when I didn't understand something, I would ask someone to explain it to me."

Coming Attractions

At a time when most actors are enjoying retirement, Durning is busier than ever. In addition to his ongoing role on Rescue Me, he has no fewer than five movies in various states of production. "I'm not going to give it up, ever," he insists. "They're going to carry me out." A moment later, at the sound of an ambulance siren, he quips, "See, here comes my ride."

Asked how he chooses his parts, he insists, "I don't pick them. People ask me if I want to play them, and I say yes or no." He credits his agent of 35 years, Judith Moss at Paradigm, with guiding him in the right direction. "She'll say, 'I don't know who the people are, and I don't know what they're doing. So we're going to do this one.' " He says he doesn't audition anymore: "If they don't know who I am, they'll never know." He admits to being surprised at some offers, such as the Rescue Me role. He had starred alongside Leary in the 2000 film Lakeboat but thought Leary didn't care for him. "He had never said a word to me on the whole shoot," Durning recalls. "But later on he called me to play his father. I said to him, 'You never talked me once; I didn't think you knew who I was.' He said, 'Of course I do!' So I took the role, and it's been wonderful. He's a terrific guy."

Having worked with rising talent as well as established stars, Durning has witnessed his share of bad behavior — and found the best way of dealing with it is to walk away. "I ignore it. I don't even get into it," he says. "It's none of my business, and the guy or girl think because they're the star they know more than the director. And they alienate everyone right away. If someone tells me to stand over there, I stand over there." Durning has also never left a project. "Not one," he says. "If I like the part — and I wouldn't say yes unless I did — then I don't care what they do. I know what I'm going to do."

Asked if there's anyone he would like to work with, Durning comes back to Cagney. "I would like to have seen how he prepared," he says, adding that he takes his own method of preparation from the actor. "Cagney once said, 'Learn your lines, find your mark, look the guy in the eye, and tell him the truth.' It sounds simple, but it's very hard. Because sometimes the guy you're telling the truth to isn't listening. And that's what acting is all about."