Legendary actor Paul Newman has recently spoken to Dark Horizons' Paul Fischer about his role in Pixar's next film, Cars, as well as reflecting on his career, which spans five decades.
Dark Horizons usually have very nice interviews, but this one seems very special, as it reads like a small biography of Paul Newman that is mixed with an interview about his life in the past, present and future.
The parts that relate directly to Cars are:
At 81, Paul Newman may walk more slowly and he responds to questions with greater brevity than in previous years, yet he remains quietly reflective these days. Long since rumoured to be retiring, he had maintained that he had just one last film in him. Perhaps that film is his latest, voicing a car, Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson Hornet with a mysterious past. "I don't seem to be living up to my timetable," Newman concedes, smilingly. "I may have one more movie in me. I'm not sure what it's going to be now. Redford and I are working on something but it's not by any means a slam dunk, but we're working on the script right now."
But a new generation, too young to remember the legendary Oscar winner in the likes of Hud, Butch Cassidy, The Hustler and other venerable classics, will at least get to hear the actor's unmistakeable voice in Cars, which fuses Newman's love of acting and his passion for car racing, yet he denies that was the attraction for spending a few years of his life in a recording booth. "I did it mostly because I knew it would be good, because Lasseter was directing and Pixar. That it was about racing was just a bonus."
And preparing for his latest role was relatively comfortable for this Hollywood method actor. "The nice thing about animation, you don't even really have to account for yourself. All of the physical stuff that you work on as an actor, you just throw away, so this was, I would say, relatively easy." He adds that what he appreciates about Pixar, is their "extraordinary sense of detail, both in the creative and the technical and they don't get rushed, which I think is critical. They have the luxury of control and they have the luxury of time and that gives us a terrific effect, let alone the gifts that they have."
It will be quite interesting to see if Pixar has successfully captured the essence of Paul Newman's steel-blue eyes, and the penetrating effect they have had on women's hearts! I can highly recommend reading the full interview/biography, which can be found here.
