Actor’s Studio alum Harvey Keitel worked in theater for a decade before landing roles on the silver screen. He has been in six films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar – Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, Barry Levinson’s Bugsy, Jane Campion’s The Piano, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, as well as Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. He also won an Independent Spirit award for his starring role in Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant and was given the inaugural Rebel Award for his commitment to indie movies. In his new film, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, he plays a director looking to make his swan song, opposite his friend Michael Caine, a composer refusing to perform – even for the Queen.
Were you looking to work with Paolo Sorrentino, or did he have you in mind?
I’d seen Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo and The Great Beauty [which won a Best Foreign Picture Oscar] and I wanted to work with him. Those are two of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. The script came along, and I said to my new agent, John Burnham at ICM, “I’d like that part.” And I got it – or rather he got it.
In Youth, your character and Michael Caine’s have been friends for decades. In preparing for the role, did you draw on your...
Let me say that – I always have a difficult time talking about a movie like this for a few reasons. One, it hasn’t been released yet, really, just in Italy and it screened in Cannes [in competition for the Palme d’Or]... I don’t like to influence people with my perspective on the movie. I’d like them to see it fresh, so I don’t encumber their relationship with the story Paolo wrote. It’s a very beautiful story and a complex one, in terms of the way we live our lives. There’s plenty to think about when you see it.
You can read the whole interview in today's Festival Daily.
