Lonesome Cowboy

Sam Elliott Isn’t Riding Off into the Sunset Just Yet

The western legend on how art imitates life in his new movie, The Hero.
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By Beth Dubber/The Orchard /Courtesy Everett Collection.

There’s a scene in Sam Elliott’s new film, The Hero, in which his character—Lee Hayden, a mustachioed actor with a voice that’s as instantly recognizable as his face—encounters a giddy female fan who barely manages to inform him she’s a fan of his work before blurting out, “I just love your mustache!”

Sam Elliott is more than a mustache, of course. But that profound tuft of whiskers that keeps his upper lip warm at night has certainly become one of his calling cards. Similarly, he’s forged a persona as a crusty but wise cowboy—which, it must be said, is not so terribly far removed from the man he is when he’s not in front of the camera. The cowboy persona has served him well in his career and has proved so successful that it’s often difficult for people to imagine him playing any other type of role.

Before The Hero hits theaters this weekend, Elliott spoke with Vanity Fair about the origins of the movie and his relationship with writer-director Brett Haley, getting a rare chance to work with his wife, Katharine Ross, and sharing a ‘stache situation with Tom Selleck.

Vanity Fair: Was I’ll See You in My Dreams how you and Brett first crossed paths?

Sam Elliott: Yeah, that was it. I worked just a couple of weeks on that, but then I ended up doing a sizable amount of the marketing campaign with Brett. Lots of miles, lots of meals, a couple of drinks here and there, and we got to be very close friends as well as collaborators.

Did he already have the idea for The Hero prior to working with you?

I think it came out of our time together. I think that he and Marc [Basch] just wanted to write something for me . . . or at least that’s what Brett says!

Your character in the film receives a lifetime achievement award from the Western Appreciation Guild, but the event felt pretty familiar: it’s pretty close in spirit to the Golden Boot Awards.

Yeah, it felt familiar to me as well . . . and I’ve been to the Golden Boot Awards, too! [Laughs] I’ll tell ya, we did a thing together the other day, and Brett said he heard from someone—and I’m not sure if it was someone in the general public or someone in the business—that they thought we were making light of the whole western heritage thing. I hope that nobody else feels that way, because that sure wasn’t on anybody’s mind when we did it.

It struck me as being more about the frustration an actor feels when they get pigeonholed, not that there’s anything wrong with being a western star.

Yeah, and I don’t even think it was about being . . . I think everything he says when he’s receiving the award—at least from my way of thinking—came from his heart. It didn’t come from anything about being pigeonholed. It was more, “We’re all in this soup together.”

You got to work with Nick Offerman again on The Hero. Given how well you two worked together on Parks and Recreation, I’m sure that was no hardship for either of you.

I love Nick—we connected from the get-go, we’re good friends—and we were lucky to have him. We were lucky to have everyone who came to this thing, but Offerman was a real bonus. The interesting thing is that all of these actors were first choices, and everybody came because of the script. It was such a well-drafted piece. I just think Brett and Marc are excellent writers, and everybody responded to it.

When you do a film like this, where the character is—to use the cowboy parlance—preparing for the final roundup, does it make you consider your mortality?

I think it does. I consider it all the time. When you get to be 72 years old, I think it’s just a matter of course that one visits that place. Brett talked about this film from his perspective, and not that I don’t see what he’s talking about, but I do disagree that it’s about one’s legacy. I’m not one to think about my legacy in terms of what I’m leaving behind as a body of work. I don’t think I’ve ever really dwelt on that thought. I think it’s just what you said: when he gets his diagnosis in the beginning, it’s more about his mortality and the failure than this pursuit of his career has brought to him. You know, it’s cost him his wife, it’s cost him his child, it’s cost him the relationships between them, and he’s ended up as a 72-year-old who’s sitting around smoking pot all day. And I think that he knows that all of that’s on him.

What’s your work ethic? Are you someone who works because you feel like you need to work, or do you work because the work is good?

I work because I want to work, and I hold out for something that’s good. I like working hard. I don’t like sitting around. Even when I’m not working, I’m not one to sit around and put [up] my feet. I’m always doing something. I’ve been a manual laborer all my life, and I still do it, albeit it’s harder to do these days for a long haul. But I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.

It was nice to see you onscreen with your wife again. It’s been awhile.

It has been. Too long. It was strange playing a divorced couple . . . and I think poignant on many levels. There’s a long shot of the two of us the last time you see us together—it’s across the road, through traffic—and a lot of people single that shot out as being a particularly powerful moment. But it’s fun working with Katharine. One of the things Katharine and I love to do is work on material before we get to the set. The opportunity just doesn’t present itself that often.

As far as your small-screen work, you had a well-received arc on Justified, and now you’re part of the ensemble of Netflix’s The Ranch. Was there a learning curve for you?

Yeah, in some ways. It’s a four-camera show, so it’s a whole new world for me. I think the learning curve is just accepting the confines of working on a sitcom. You never venture off the stage when there’s four cameras in there. It’s also an odd thing to be doing something called The Ranch and never see anything outside the ranch house or the driveway, other than an occasional set that they’ll build. But that’s part of the challenge: you’re not creating something real, you’re creating this kind of atmosphere.

It’s a five-days-a-week gig, and it’s an hour and a half one way in a car, which is the worst part about it. But on a creative level, it’s incredible on all sides of the camera. The writer-producers are incredible, Kutcher and Daniel and Debra are fun to work with. And it’s fun to hear people laugh, you know? I get a little unsettled on taping night, which is Friday, in front of a live audience. But beyond that, I’m enjoying it. It can be a grind at times, but I’m lucky to still be at it and still get a job here and there.

Your past jobs must help you considerably on that front. Well, that and your facial hair. The scene in The Hero in which the fan comes up to you and tells you that she loves your mustache . . .

It’s such an odd thing, isn’t it? The whole mustache thing is a mystery to me. I’m working on this thing now, A Star is Born—somebody showed me on their cell phone one day that there was this contest online between me and [Tom] Selleck about who had the best mustache. [Laughs] It’s so bizarre.

How would you rate yours in comparison to his?

Oh, I don’t know. I think it all depends on where we are at the time, you know? Right now I’ve got more of a mustache than Tom does, but I know he can grow one. I don’t think he’s ever grown his out the way I’ve grown mine out over the years. The odd thing is, we both started growing a mustache right around the same time, when we were contract players, at 20th Century Fox.

And they both became iconic.

Yep. I guess it’s better to be known for an iconic mustache than nothing at all . . . at least in this game!