{"id":9267,"date":"2020-12-29T22:18:01","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T22:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/?p=9267"},"modified":"2020-12-29T22:18:01","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T22:18:01","slug":"jon-voight-on-runaway-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/?p=9267","title":{"rendered":"Jon Voight on “Runaway Train”"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 22, 1986 |<\/strong>\u00a0 In Runaway Train<\/em>, a thriller now on view at local moviehouses, Jon Voight is cast as a hard-boiled, quick-tempered convict who breaks out of a maximum security prison. Later this year, he will be seen as a brutal alcoholic who mistreats his hapless stepdaughter in a drama titled Desert\u00a0<\/em>Bloom<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Previously, Voight has been seen as an eager but naive male prostitute in\u00a0Midnight Cowboy<\/em>, an embittered paraplegic Vietnam veteran in Coming Home<\/em>, and an obsessed German writer on the trail of Nazis in The Odessa File<\/em>. He also has been a student radical in The Revolutionary<\/em>, a punch-drunk boxer in The\u00a0<\/em>Champ<\/em>, and a businessman forced to fight for his life in Deliverance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Obviously, when the call goes out for a party kind of guy, Voight\u2019s phone never rings.<\/p>\n

To give him credit, Voight has tried his hand at comedy, albeit with disastrous results, in Lookin\u2019 to Get Out<\/em>. He was appreciably more successful with his sincere portrayal of a dedicated schoolteacher in a rural black community in Conrack<\/em>. And he took a shot at heartwarming domestic drama as a ne\u2019er-do-well father in the under-rated Table for Five<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to pleasing the ticketbuying public, audiences respond best when Voight suffers most. And no one is more aware of this than Voight himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cGee, it\u2019s so funny to me,\u201d he said during a recent Manhattan interview. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I got here. I mean, I used to be very good at comedy. I was always delighted, and delightful, at interpreting comic roles when I was in high school. I\u2019d like nothing better than to make people laugh. There\u2019s something that a comedian does, he makes people laugh at the silliness of it all. It\u2019s a very beautiful experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut somehow, in my career as an actor, I\u2019ve not been the one who has done that in the community. I\u2019ve been the one who has had a career that\u2019s somewhat controversial. My best films have been controversial films. And they\u2019ve had to do with interpreting pain of different kinds, severe psychic damage, like in Coming Home<\/em>, where I play a man who’s had such horrific experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some way, I guess I do have an understanding of pain. I have felt it in my own life, though I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve had it as much as the people I\u2019ve played. As a matter of fact, I\u2019ve felt that I\u2019ve had a pretty good life. But because of my sensitivity, I\u2019ve felt a lot of pain. A certain kind of psychic pain \u2014 I can understand it. And that\u2019s why I\u2019ve been drawn to interpret pain in a certain way. I\u2019ve been able to identify myself with most human pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that Voight considers himself unduly somber. \u201cI do know that I\u2019ve got a good sense of humor, it hasn\u2019t left me. And I do use it to infuse the roles in some bizarre way. It\u2019s a river under every scene \u2014 there\u2019s a little humor in all the things that I\u2019m doing.\u201d Even in Runaway Train<\/em>, he notes, Manny, the vicious convict he portrays, evidences a crude, self-deprecating wit during many intense moments.<\/p>\n

For the most part, though, Runaway Train<\/em> is deadly serious. And Voight, wearing wind-burn makeup and a Fu Manchu mustache, doesn\u2019t look like anybody\u2019s idea of a comedian in the film.<\/p>\n

Off-screen, the blond and blue-eyed actor still has a boyish appearance, even though he turned 47 last month. In conversation, he comes off as easygoing, ingratiating and totally unaffected. When he grins, you know he\u2019s genuinely happy. That’s quite a change from Manny \u2014 when that guy grins, you can\u2019t be sure he isn\u2019t just showing you his teeth.<\/p>\n

A convicted killer who greets the world with snarling rage and sneering cynicism, Manny appears to be little more than a monstrous thug. But Voight insists there\u2019s something almost tragic about the character.<\/p>\n

Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, Runaway Train<\/em> is based on a screenplay by\u00a0Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Voight sees Manny as a soul-mate to the samurai who have been featured in Kurosawa\u2019s own directorial efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me,\u201d Voight said, \u201cthe character he most resembles in film literature is the one Toshiro Mifune played in Kurosawa\u2019s Sanjuro<\/em>. In other words, this weary man who had lived a life of violence, but who knows more than anybody else. He\u2019s a little uncomfortable with women. And, painfully, he has to advise those adulatory disciples.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest thing about playing this man for me, I suppose, was in the area of his aloneness, his not needing anything from anybody. I mean, he was set on his course. He never allowed himself to feel self-pity, or social needs. He didn\u2019t allow it, because he couldn\u2019t allow it. There was a certain mind fix to him. I must say, I respected this character. He\u2019s a powerful guy. He\u2019s a survivor. But he judges himself harshly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe judges people only according to their character, and how they can survive. If they don\u2019t have any guts, they\u2019re gone. They either walk, or they can\u2019t walk. He\u2019s walking a very thin line, so he has very few friends. Very few people \u2014 maybe nobody \u2014 can walk next to him. And that\u2019s a lonely place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does Voight see anything of himself in the character?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I have been very judgmental of myself, yes. I\u2019m trying, very avidly, to break down that harsh aspect of myself. But, yes, definitely, I\u2019ve been too tough on myself, for sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, of course, those people who are tough on themselves are tough on other people. And if they\u2019re judgmental on other people, they\u2019re gonna be just as judgmental on themselves. So when you see somebody who is rigid \u2014 and I have been rigid, and I am rigid, and that\u2019s a failing \u2014 then you can be sure he\u2019s hurting himself pretty harshly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, considering the run of roles he has played since attaining stardom in Midnight Cowboy<\/em> (1969), Voight had his first major showbiz success in \u2014 of all things! \u2014 the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music<\/em>. Even that experience, however, involved a certain degree of suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I shouldn\u2019t say I have a lousy singing voice,\u201d Voight said. \u201cBut\u00a0I don\u2019t have a formidable<\/em> singing voice. I have a nice, light little voice. And I enjoy singing much too much to subject anyone to my singing.\u201d While he was a struggling young actor, however, Voight was willing to audition for any available role on or off Broadway. So when the Sound of Music<\/em> producers needed a replacement singer-actor to play Rolf Gruber, a dashing young German lad, Voight and his agent, Ron Singer, rushed over to the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I could play on their sympathies. I would always apologize for my singing \u2014 that would take maybe five or ten minutes. And, finally, they\u2019d say, \u2018Go ahead and give it a try.\u2019\u201d It\u2019s at that point, however, that casting directors usually stopped being sympathetic. Which is why, when Voight finally sang for Music<\/em> composer Richard Rodgers, he was prepared for the worst. \u201cI couldn\u2019t take it seriously,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I must have been quite relaxed and charming.\u201d<\/p>\n

So charming, in fact, that, much to his amazement, he was cast in the musical.<\/p>\n

But one night during a backstage party, Voight listened to a recording of the previous evening\u2019s performance. \u201cAnd look \u2014 my voice may be bad, but my ears aren\u2019t. I heard me sing my song, and I wanted to go hide somewhere, send my understudy on. I felt so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Voight smiled at the memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the reason why I left anything light in the past. I remembered the embarrassment and the pain of that moment, and I\u2019ve made a career out of expressing the pain in the years afterward. My entire career has been based on the painful experience of hearing my own voice singing \u2018You Are\u00a0Sixteen, Going on Seventeen.\u2019 I was traumatized.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I was very generous with that trauma \u2014 I\u2019ve shared it with many people down through the years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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