Remembering legendary British actor Maggie Smith

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. Maggie Smith, the renowned British actress best known to American audiences for her roles in the "Harry Potter" films and the masterpiece series "Downton Abbey," died last Friday in London. She was 89. In a career that spanned nearly seven decades, she won two Academy Awards, for "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" and "California Suite." Among her many other films are "A Room With A View," "Gosford Park," "The Secret Garden" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." She was recognized for her stage and television performances with a host of Tony and Emmy nominations and awards.

We very nearly didn't have Maggie Smith in our archive. She was available in 2016 to promote a film, but we were told she wouldn't sit for a long interview about her career. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to talk to her for an hour. She finally agreed with two days' notice, and I recorded the interview we'll hear now.

We'll begin with a scene from "Downton Abbey." She played an elderly countess in an aristocratic British family and won three Emmys with her sharp-tongued wit. Here, she's speaking with Lady Grantham, played by Elizabeth McGovern. There's brief mention in the scene of an incident at the estate in which a Turkish diplomat died in a bedroom. The two women are talking about finding a suitable husband for Mary, Lady Grantham's eldest daughter. Maggie Smith's character speaks first.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOWNTON ABBEY")

MAGGIE SMITH: (As Violet Crawley) How about some house parties?

ELIZABETH MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) She's been asked to one next month by Lady Ann McNair.

SMITH: (As Violet Crawley) That's a terrible idea. She doesn't know anyone under 100.

MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) I might send her over to visit my aunt. She could get to know New York.

SMITH: (As Violet Crawley) Oh, I don't think things are quite that desperate. Poor Mary. She's been terribly down in the mouth lately.

MCGOVERN: (As Cora Crawley) She was very upset by the death of poor Mr. Pamuk.

SMITH: (As Violet Crawley) Why? She didn't know him. One can't go to pieces at the death of every foreigner. We'd all be in a state of collapse whenever we opened a newspaper.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

DAVIES: And that is our guest, Maggie Smith, with Elizabeth McGovern, from a moment of "Downton Abbey." Well, Maggie Smith, welcome to FRESH AIR. It's great to have you.

SMITH: Thank you.

DAVIES: I mean, you know, this is a wonderful, you know, ensemble cast, but everyone remembers you and those terrific lines you have. Did you realize what a great comedic role this was when you first got it?

SMITH: Yes. Yes, I did. I thought it was great fun, because she was - well, obviously, the oldest in the group. And it was wonderful 'cause she would just sort of - she was in the position when she could say what she wanted to say, because she was the oldest and they all deferred to her. And that was - it was fun. I'm so glad you said that about the ensemble, 'cause we got three awards for ensemble work, which is really good - three SAG Awards, which is terrific for the whole company.

DAVIES: We interviewed Julian Fellowes a while back, and he said that he based your character on an aunt of his, I believe.

SMITH: Oh.

DAVIES: Yeah. Yeah. And he said what was terrific about Maggie Smith was that she was able to combine the contradictions in the role - someone who could, at time, be so cutting and then be so kind - and sort of integrated them. And he said that only an actress of your talent and stature could pull it off. Did...

SMITH: Oh, that's very nice.

DAVIES: Any particular, I don't know, inspiration for you finding this character?

SMITH: Well, it was mainly the way it was written by Julian, which is - which was terrific, you know, and the wonderful lines to say. And it was written so elegantly. She was always very in sympathy with the girls, I think, the very young. She was very helpful to all of them, and I think she knew that they felt restricted.

DAVIES: Right. She understood the constraints of those roles...

SMITH: Yes, I...

DAVIES: ...Better than anyone. Right.

SMITH: Yes.

DAVIES: Right.

SMITH: Yes, completely, because she'd been through it even stricter, but I think she was very aware of it.

DAVIES: You know, Julian Fellowes writes about this life, partly with some personal knowledge. I mean, he actually holds a title, which I don't remember, but...

SMITH: Oh, he's frightfully grand. He's a lord.

DAVIES: Right, and so he had a connection.

SMITH: We do a lot of curtseying.

DAVIES: He had a personal connection to that world. What was your sense of the English aristocracy?

SMITH: Oh, goodness. It's so way beyond me. I'm far, far, far from that. But, of course, that's one of the joys of acting, is that you can move up in the world, you know, in the characters that you're playing, even if you don't. So it was - it's always very nice to be somebody rather grand. Now I seem to be stuck with it, which is a bit of a strain. I think I'm just...

DAVIES: Stuck with the role, you mean?

SMITH: Well, with old mad women, if you know what I mean.

(LAUGHTER)

SMITH: They seem to be, well, the one thing I can do now. You know, it's funny to be pigeonholed so late in life, but there we are.

DAVIES: You can go on YouTube and find montages of your lines in "Downton," one after the other after the other after the other. Do you have a favorite one yourself?

SMITH: I don't remember any of them, to speak truth.

DAVIES: (Laughter) The one that people...

SMITH: Honestly, there are so many. I don't remember.

DAVIES: The line people most mention to me is when Matthew Crawley is talking about how he would manage his time, and he said, there's always the weekend.

SMITH: Oh.

DAVIES: And you say...

SMITH: Yes.

DAVIES: (Laughter)

SMITH: What is a weekend?

DAVIES: (Laughter)

SMITH: Yes, but truthfully, I mean, it's funny, but I - it's weird that it sticks in people's memories so much, isn't it?

DAVIES: Mm-hmm.

SMITH: I mean, what is so funny about saying, what is a weekend?

DAVIES: Well, it's the fact that this woman has grown to her age and hasn't distinguished the weekend days from any other, and (laughter)...

SMITH: No, they've all been lazy, idle times. But even so, it seems odd, doesn't it?

DAVIES: It's the way she says it, I think.

SMITH: Yeah, maybe it's the way you say it.

DAVIES: You didn't grow up in a theatrical family. Your dad was a pathologist, I believe, right? Tell us a bit about...

SMITH: Yeah, he worked in a pathology lab.

DAVIES: Yeah. Tell us a bit about how you grew up, what you were like as a kid.

SMITH: Well, I - no, there was - nobody in the family had ever done anything like that before. My brothers - I had two brothers. They were twins, and they both became architects. And they were about six years older, but they could do these fantastic drawings. And so that was a mystery, I think, to my parents, too, 'cause they had no idea that that was around in the family anywhere. Maybe it never was. But - so they broke the way for me, if you know what I mean.

I went to a school where they were - well, no, they did plays and things. I was never in those, really. But I had a very good English teacher who said to me that she thought I ought to do it. She - I don't know. She saw something, thank goodness. Because I think if it hadn't been encouraged by somebody that serious, I'm not sure what would have happened to me.

DAVIES: And you went to an acting school in Oxford - right? - and got in...

SMITH: Well, they started one, yes. It didn't last very long. If you applied to get in, you got in, if you know what I mean. I was there for about a term, I think. Then I went to the - there was a playhouse that did repertory theater in Oxford. And I worked there for quite a long time, actually, on stage management, understudying and being a dogsbody, really.

DAVIES: And you got into reviews, where you did - what? - singing and a lot of...

SMITH: Yes. I did that a lot...

DAVIES: ...Comedy, right? Yeah.

SMITH: ...Because there was - because it was - the drama school was in Oxford. And it's funny to think of it, but in those days, when I started out, the university was nearly all male, and they certainly weren't mixed. There were male colleges, and there were a very few female colleges. So they were always looking for women to be in productions. We did quite a lot of - well, they were amateur revues. And we did them up in Edinburgh, right at the beginning of the Edinburgh Fringe, you know, the big festival that goes on in Edinburgh every year.

DAVIES: Maggie Smith recorded in 2016. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to our interview with Maggie Smith, the British actor whose films include "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" and "Sister Act." She died a week ago at the age of 89.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

DAVIES: Let's talk a bit about "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie" - 1969, you played a teacher in a girls school in Edinburgh, Scotland, who's a bit more modern than - in her views and lifestyle - than the school itself, which is quite conservative, but very popular among her students. This is a scene where the head mistress, Miss Mackay, who is played by Celia Johnson, has summoned you, as Miss Brodie, to her office because she's concerned about Miss Brodie's influence on her students. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE")

CELIA JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) Please sit down.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) Oh. Thank you.

JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) What a colorful frock.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) Color enlivens the spirit, does it not?

JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) Perhaps you are right, though I sometimes wonder if the spirits of the girls need enlivening.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) Oh, indeed, they do. My credo is lift, enliven, stimulate.

JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) No doubt, but the Marcia Blaine School is essentially a conservative school. We do not encourage the progressive attitude. Now, Miss Brodie, I have noticed a spirit of precocity among your girls, your special girls.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) Well, thank you.

JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) Oh.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) I am in my prime, and my girls are benefiting from it. I'm proud to think that perhaps my girls are more aware.

JOHNSON: (As Miss Mackay) Precisely.

SMITH: (As Miss Brodie) To me, education is a leading out. The word education comes from the root ex, meaning out, and duco, I lead. To me, education is simply a leading out of what is already there.

DAVIES: And that is our guest, Maggie Smith, in her performance that won her the best actress Oscar in "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie," in 1969. This is about a charismatic teacher. You know, I actually taught in a girls school in my 20s, and I knew teachers like this who just...

SMITH: Did you (laughter)?

DAVIES: ...You know, were magnetic personalities but could be controversial. Did you draw on anybody for this performance? This is just a terrific role, isn't it?

SMITH: No, I don't think I did. I don't think - I didn't have a teacher like that. But again, it's so fantastically written.

DAVIES: You know, I believe you were not at the Oscar ceremony where it was presented. Did you have...

SMITH: No. I was opening in a play at the National Theatre. It was the first night, and Sir Laurence wouldn't let me go.

DAVIES: Laurence Olivier. Yeah.

SMITH: Yeah.

DAVIES: Yeah.

SMITH: And well, quite rightly - I mean, you can't just abandon a whole production. We were doing Congreve, "The Beaux' Stratagem."

DAVIES: Were you shocked that you got the nomination and the Oscar? I mean, what...

SMITH: I was - you know, back then, it hadn't entered my mind, things like Oscars. And they weren't anywhere near such huge things as they are now. I mean, now they've become, I mean, just extraordinary, haven't they - all this, sort of all over the place? But it was thrilling. But, of course, I missed out on it all.

DAVIES: Well, it happened again a few years later for "California Suite," which was the 1978 film written by Neil Simon, where you won the best supporting actress. This is a film about several different stories, all of them couples, I believe, at a California hotel, right?

SMITH: Yeah.

DAVIES: Your character is an actress who is in California, ironically...

SMITH: That's right.

DAVIES: ...For the Academy Awards.

SMITH: How funny. I haven't thought of it...

DAVIES: Yeah.

SMITH: ...For a long time.

DAVIES: Yeah. And your husband is Michael Caine. It's a marriage of convenience, I gather. He's actually gay.

SMITH: Yes.

DAVIES: He's gay. And I want to play this little scene where you've just come back from the award ceremony, where your character, the actress, did not win and did not take it so well. And she's having an argument with Michael Caine in their suite. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CALIFORNIA SUITE")

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) What was the best picture?

MICHAEL CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) The best picture? You were there when they announced it. It came after the best actress.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) I was in a deep depression at the time. What was the best bloody picture?

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Do you mean what was the best picture of the year, or what did those idiots pick as the best picture of the year?

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) What won the award, you a******?

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) I am not an a******. Don't you call me that.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Sidney, I have just thrown up on some of the best people in Hollywood. Now is no time to be sensitive. What was the best picture?

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) I'm not telling you.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) I'm not asking you. I'm threatening you, you crud.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Now, I'm definitely not going to tell you.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) I'm sorry, I take it back, Sidney. You're not a crud. Oh.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Am I still an a******?

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Definitely.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Then I'm never going to tell you. You behaved abominably tonight.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Did not.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Abominably.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Did not.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Abominably.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) A****** crud.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) I am going to bed. We have a 10 a.m. plane to catch in the morning.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Ten a.m. is the morning. That is redundant, you AH.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) Well, do you think I don't know what you're saying? I can spell, you know.

SMITH: (As Diana Barrie) Not without moving your lips, you can't. I would like another drink, please.

CAINE: (As Sidney Cochran) You drank everything in this state. Try Nevada.

DAVIES: That is fun. That's our guest...

SMITH: I haven't heard that for years.

DAVIES: Do you like it listening back?

SMITH: Yes (laughter), it's fun suddenly hearing Michael.

DAVIES: Yeah. That is Michael Caine with our guest, Maggie Smith...

SMITH: Yes.

DAVIES: ...In the film, "California Suite." Tell us a little bit about what Michael Caine did that was so special in that role for you.

SMITH: He was very supportive because it was a tricky time. Herbie (ph) Ross wasn't the easiest of people.

DAVIES: He was the director. Yeah.

SMITH: The director, and Michael always stood up for me. That means everything on a movie, you know, when you're working with somebody particularly, when they support you and help you through the difficult times. And there were some difficult times.

DAVIES: Michael Coveney, who's written a biography of you - he wrote, you behave at all times as if you have no power or status whatsoever. And, you know, when I think about the remarkable talent that you seem to display in every performance - you know, there are stories that on the set you can be intimidating, maybe even difficult at times, which seems at odds with someone who - well, one might think as odds - with someone who really doesn't think of herself as having power and status. And I'm wondering if you think that's true, that you are...

SMITH: Yeah.

DAVIES: Yeah.

SMITH: Yes, I think it is true. But I think it's because - I've thought about this a lot. I think it's because - I know it sounds silly, but I am - and I think a lot of actors will agree with this - I am very insecure. And I don't know - I feel somehow - on a set, I feel a bit trapped, because you're in a corner and you absolutely have to do it. There is no way out. In the theater, you know, you get another chance. You can do it the next night, the next performance. You can probably get it right then. But you don't have any real say in a film. And quite honestly, I'd probably drive everybody mad and go on and on and on and want to do another take, and - because I never feel that it's right. So I always feel huge pressure. It's an odd feeling, but when you're there and you're having to do it, the choice you make has to be absolutely right. And of course, it can't be, so you don't really have a say in it. I find it very hard because I don't know that I trust myself to know if it's good or if that's the take that should be or whether we just do it with one take or there isn't time to do any more, you know?

DAVIES: And that...

SMITH: I find that...

DAVIES: Yeah.

SMITH: ...Real pressure.

DAVIES: And that can lead to some tension at times. Yeah.

SMITH: Yes. I think there's always great tension, because there never seems to be enough - there is always pressure. There's always pressure because there isn't enough time. There's never enough time for a movie, it seems to me - never.

DAVIES: You know, what's interesting about it is that I think so many people see your performances, and you make it look easy. I mean, this is natural. There's no other way that line could have been read.

SMITH: But that's from being under pressure, I think.

DAVIES: And you're saying that you have to work really hard and prepare, and you still feel insecure on the day you shoot.

SMITH: Yes, because that's the pressure. You want so much to get it right.

DAVIES: When I told people I was going to interview Maggie Smith, I just can't tell you the number of people who said, oh, my heavens, you're so lucky. I just love her. And I think, you know, you've particularly had an expanded audience with "Downton Abbey" and the "Harry Potter" films. But, you know, you've had such a terrific career, and you've achieved so much, and so many people just love you. And I'm wondering what that kind of mass adoration feels like to you. Is it gratifying? Is it scary? Is it - can you even comprehend it?

SMITH: Well, it's only happened to me since "Downton Abbey," so I blame the whole thing on television.

(LAUGHTER)

SMITH: It's odd. And I've said this before, but I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now, because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before, because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose, if you're in people's rooms all the time - I don't know. I was thinking that the other night, with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and the Cate Blanchetts. And you just think, how do they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive, because of these cell phones, you know, with cameras.

DAVIES: Right.

SMITH: Wherever you go, people want to take a picture of you or take a picture of them with you. And it's - I don't know.

DAVIES: So how do you...

SMITH: So it's very hard. It's hard to do anything on your own.

DAVIES: Do you want to take one question about "Harry Potter," or would you rather be released (laughter)?

SMITH: I would rather be released.

DAVIES: Then...

SMITH: I think you've been adorable.

DAVIES: (Laughter) OK, well - no, no...

(LAUGHTER)

DAVIES: ...I don't know about that. I...

SMITH: What do you want to know about "Harry Potter?"

DAVIES: Just - what was it like to play that role, to act in those films?

SMITH: Well, I'll tell you - I just adore Daniel, Daniel Radcliffe, who I had worked with before "Harry Potter" and spent a long time telling all the producers they had to see him, because I thought he was so terrific. And it's been sad thinking about it, because of Alan Rickman...

DAVIES: Oh, who died...

SMITH: ...Who was...

DAVIES: ...Recently. Yeah.

SMITH: Yes. He was such a terrific actor, and that was such a terrific character that he played. And it was a joy to be with him. We used to laugh together, because we ran out of reaction shots. They were always - when everything had been done and the children were finished, they would turn the camera around, and we'd have to do various reaction shots of amazement or sadness and things. And we used to say we'd got to about number 200 and something, and we'd run out of knowing what to do when the camera came round on us. But he was a joy.

DAVIES: Maggie Smith, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

SMITH: Thank you.

DAVIES: Maggie Smith, recorded in 2016. She died last week at the age of 89. After a break, we remember singer, songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson, who died Saturday at the age of 88. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RANDY SCRUGGS' "SMILE AT ME AGAIN (INSTRUMENTAL)")

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies. Today we remember singer-songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson. He died Saturday at the age of 88. He was known for his evocative songwriting. Here's a sampling.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")

JANIS JOPLIN: (Singing) I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty, red bandana. I was playing soft while Bobby sang the blues. Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine. We sang every song that driver knew. Yeah. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing don't mean nothing, honey, if it ain't...

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN")

JOHNNY CASH: (Singing) On a Sunday morning sidewalk, I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'cause there's something in a Sunday that makes the body feel alone.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT")

SAMMI SMITH: (Singing) Come and lay down by my side till the early morning light. All I'm taking is your time. Help me make it through the night. I don't care what's right or wrong.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PILGRIM: CHAPTER 33")

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON: (Singing) He's a poet. He's a picker. He's a prophet. He's a pusher. He's a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he's stoned. He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction, taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

DAVIES: Some noted songs by Kris Kristofferson. Art critic Christine Arnold once wrote of Kristofferson, he's the Marlboro Man with a tender heart. Kristofferson's life took many colorful turns. Born in Brownsville, Texas, in a military family, he became a promising boxer in his 20s, then a Rhodes scholar in England and later a U.S. Army Rangers helicopter pilot in Germany. He turned down an appointment to teach literature at West Point to take a chance at songwriting.

Kristofferson went to Nashville in the '60s, and his first job in the music industry was working as a janitor at Columbia Records. There he met Johnny Cash, who became his good friend, recorded songs Kristofferson had written and convinced him to start recording himself. Kristofferson's rugged good looks and easy manner made him a natural for films. He acted in more than 50 movies, including Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," John Sayles' "Lone Star" and the 1976 remake of "A Star Is Born" opposite Barbara Streisand.

In the 1980s, he was part of the outlaw country supergroup that included Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. Kristofferson was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Terry spoke with Kris Kristofferson in 1999. At the time, he'd released an album titled "The Austin Sessions," which included new versions of his best-known older songs. They began with the song "Me And Bobby McGee."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")

KRISTOFFERSON: (Singing) Busted flat in Baton Rouge - heading for the trains, feeling nearly faded as my jeans. Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained - took us all the way to New Orleans. I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty, red bandana. I was blowing sad while Bobby sang the blues. With them windshield wipers slapping time and Bobby clapping hands, we finally sang up every song that driver knew. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free. Feeling good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues. Feeling good was good enough for me, good enough for me and Bobby McGee.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: Kris Kristofferson, welcome to FRESH AIR.

KRISTOFFERSON: Thanks, Terry.

GROSS: Well, let me ask you a little bit about the song that we just heard, "Me And Bobby McGee." What first inspired that song?

KRISTOFFERSON: Fred Foster, who owned Monument Records and Combine called me up, said he had a song title for me. It was "Me And Bobbie McKee." I thought he said McGee, but actually, there was a girl named Bobbie McKee, who was Boudleaux Bryant's secretary, and they were in the same building.

GROSS: Boudleaux Bryant wrote a lot of songs for The Everly Brothers.

KRISTOFFERSON: Yes, he did. You're right on. And anyway, he said, the hook is Bobbie McKee is a she, you know? And I thought that sounded like the worst idea I'd ever heard of. But I wanted to write for - write something for him. I had not had anything recorded since I'd gone to work for his company. And so I set out to write the song and hid from him for a few months. And I went back into the - our studio up there at Combine with Billy Swan and made a demo of it. And everybody liked the song.

GROSS: The most famous line from the song is, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. What inspired that line?

KRISTOFFERSON: Well, that's what the song was really about to me - was the double-edged sword, you know, that freedom is. And when I wrote that, some of my songwriter friends in Nashville told me to take it out of the song, said it was - that it didn't fit, that the rest of the imagery was so real and concrete that it was out of place to put a little philosophical line in there.

GROSS: Tell me if I remember correctly. Did you have a house that burned down at about the time you wrote this song?

KRISTOFFERSON: No. No. I had - I tell you what I had. I was living in a condemned building at the time, and, you know, the thing cost me, I think, $50 a month. And somebody had broken into it during the week that I was down in the Gulf of Mexico and trashed the place and stole what little I had to steal. I remember it was a very liberating feeling to me because everything was gone, and there was nowhere to go but up. I had also alienated my family at the time. My wife had left me, and I was separated, you know, from my kids. And I think I'd been disowned by my parents by that time. And it was pretty liberating not having any expectations or anything to live up to.

GROSS: How did Janis Joplin end up recording this song?

KRISTOFFERSON: Bobby Neuwirth taught Janis the song, I believe, and I think he'd heard it when Roger Miller had recorded it. I first heard that she had sung the song when I came back from - I'd been down in Peru making a movie with Dennis Hopper singing "Bob McGee," as a matter of fact, in the film. And somebody told me she had sung it in a concert. I think it was in Nashville. And then later, Bobby introduced me to her, and we lived out of her house for about a month or so. And we became close friends, but I never did hear her sing it. I never heard her tape of it till the day after she died.

DAVIES: Kris Kristofferson speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 1999. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RODNEY CROWELL SONG, "COME SUNDOWN")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering singer-songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson by listening back to his 1999 interview. He died on Saturday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: What year did you first get to Nashville, and what was it like when you got there?

KRISTOFFERSON: I first went there in June of 1965 and was on my way back from a three-year tour in the Army in Germany - and was on my way to the career course down at Fort Benning and from there to supposedly to teach English, literature, at West Point. And since my military obligation was already fulfilled, I decided I was going to get out of the Army and be a songwriter. I had spent a couple of weeks there just on tour. I mean, just, you know, I was on leave and got shown around to some of the songwriter sessions and got a glimpse of the life. I've always felt like I was really lucky to have been exposed to Nashville at that time because I'm sure it's different now.

GROSS: There must've been some kind of life-changing thought that happened to you, since you'd been on this military career track. Your father had been a military career man. Was it a sudden change of heart or what that made you think I'm not going to teach at West Point, I'm going to try writing songs in Nashville?

KRISTOFFERSON: Well, I had never intended to make the military a career or the academic life. I always thought that I would - I hoped that I would be a writer and be able to have a creative life, you know? And then, well, after I graduated from college - I went to Oxford for a couple of years, and then I went in the military for almost five years. And by that time, I had a family and, you know, a wife and a daughter. And I think I sort of despaired of ever making my living as an artist until I went to Nashville. I went there because in my last year in the Army, or in Germany, I formed a band and started writing songs again. I'd been writing songs all my life but started really escaping into it during the last year I was over there in Germany - and went to Nashville to try to pedal the songs.

And then when I got there, it was so different from any life that I'd been in before, just hanging out with these people who stayed up for three or four days at a time, you know, and nights and were writing songs all the time. I think I wrote four songs during the first week I was there. And it was just so exciting to me. It was like a lifeboat, you know? It was like my salvation.

GROSS: How did you start making movies? Did you think, one day, I'm going to act?

KRISTOFFERSON: When I started performing my own songs, the first place I ever played was at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles. It was kind of a hangout like The Bitter End in New York. And I think at the time there was more people looking for new blood because I got a lot of offers just off of performing there. And eventually, Harry Dean Stanton gave me a script. I didn't even know he was an actor at the time (laughter). I thought he just sang in the bar there at the Troubadour. But he helped me do a screen test for a film that was called "Cisco Pike." And I got to put my music in it. And I was the lead in it, in a film with Gene Hackman and Karen Black and Harry Dean. And I just went on from there.

GROSS: Well, I'd like to close with another song from your new CD, "The Austin Sessions." And this is a song called "The Pilgrim: Chapter 33." Now, this song is quoted in "Taxi Driver." The Cybill Shepherd character, Betsy, buys the record for Travis, the taxi driver played by Robert De Niro. And she says that he reminds her of the character in the song, and she quotes the line, he's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction. How did the song end up in "Taxi Driver"?

KRISTOFFERSON: I don't know. I always felt like that was the nicest thing that Marty Scorsese ever did to me, you know?

GROSS: I guess you had already worked with him in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."

KRISTOFFERSON: I worked - yeah. Yeah, but I didn't know it was going to be in that one. And, God, he had - there's De Niro holding up my album.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KRISTOFFERSON: And they're quoting me like Bob Dylan or something. It was - I still think that's one of the sweetest things I've ever seen anybody do for anybody in the business.

GROSS: And who did you write the song about?

KRISTOFFERSON: Well, I wrote it about myself and about a lot of friends of mine that I thought were, you know - Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Chris Gantry and Johnny Cash and everybody I knew at the time. And a lot of us were 33 at the time. That's why it's called "Chapter 33" - and Dennis Hopper. I remember when we were down in Peru, every time that you would tell somebody you were 33 years old, they'd say, oh, the age of Christ. So that sort of fit the pattern of it.

GROSS: So were you referring at all to how you and a lot of people you knew were kind of self-invented?

KRISTOFFERSON: Ooh, yes, yes - partly truth and partly fiction. You know, I've always felt that I and many of the people I admire are figments of our own imagination. I always felt that Willie Nelson, Muhammad Ali were particularly successful at that, at imagining themselves and living up to what they imagined themselves to be.

GROSS: And you're...

KRISTOFFERSON: I remember when I first saw Muhammad Ali, he was Cassius Clay. He was a little, skinny, light heavyweight over in Rome, and he was telling everybody he was going to be the biggest, the best. You know, he was the next Joe Louis. And he imagined himself right up into that.

GROSS: Do you feel you did that, too?

KRISTOFFERSON: I think I did. When I think back to when I first was writing my first songs - you know, like, when I was 11 years old, down in Brownsville, Texas - I think that I imagined myself into a pretty full life after that. I was certainly not equipped by God to be a football player, but I got to be one. And I got to be a ranger and a paratrooper and a helicopter pilot, you know, and a boxer and a lot of things that I don't think I was built to do. I just imagined them.

GROSS: Kris Kristofferson. His new CD, "The Austin Sessions," features new versions of his best-known songs, including the song that's quoted in "Taxi Driver."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) You want to go to a movie with me?

CYBILL SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) I have to go back to work now.

DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) I don't mean now. I mean, like, another time, though.

SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) Sure. You know what you remind me of?

DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) What?

SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) That song by Kris Kristofferson.

DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) Who's that?

SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) The songwriter. He's a prophet and a pusher, partly truth, partly fiction, a walking contradiction.

DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) You saying that about me?

SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) Who else would I be talking about?

DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) I'm no pusher. I never have pushed.

SHEPHERD: (As Betsy) No, no, just the part about the contradiction. You are that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PILGRIM: CHAPTER 33")

KRISTOFFERSON: (Singing) He's a fool, and he's a liar. He's a prophet. He's a dreamer. He's a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he's stoned. He's a walking contradiction, partly true, mostly fiction, picking out the wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

DAVIES: Kris Kristofferson on his song "The Pilgrim: Chapter 33." He spoke with Terry Gross in 1999. He died Saturday at the age of 88. Coming up, John Powers reviews the new Apple TV+ film "Wolfs," starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF RAMSEY LEWIS TRIO'S "THE IN CROWD")

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In the new movie "Wolfs," Brad Pitt and George Clooney play two shadowy cleanup artists who make their clients' problems disappear. The movie's now streaming on Apple TV+. Our critic-at-large John Powers says that it got him to thinking about its leading men and the decline of movie stardom.

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: For most of its history, Hollywood made its money by putting stars the public liked to watch in stories that wouldn't be worth watching without them. These days, such star-driven films are falling out of fashion except on our streamers. That's where you'll find "Wolfs," an Apple TV+ vehicle that features George Clooney and Brad Pitt skating through a crime plot in glamorously grizzled mode. They play two professional fixers - they'll do anything to clean up a client's mess - who collide while working the same job. Written and directed by Jon Watts, who did a popular "Spider-Man" reboot, "Wolfs" matters more for its stars than for the characters they play.

The action begins when a New York politico played by Amy Ryan has a casual fling at a posh hotel that goes terribly wrong. She calls Clooney, a seasoned pro who knows how to make trouble disappear. He's doing just that when they're interrupted. Enter Pitt, who, as it turns out, is working for the hotel, which also wants the problem to go away. Because Clooney and Pitt - their characters don't use names - always work alone, both bristle at each other's presence. The two bicker and jibe and question each other's expertise. Pitt keeps hinting that Clooney's an old man. And naturally, they discover that their task is more challenging than it looked.

All too soon, they're dealing with four bricks of stolen drugs, a goofy college kid and a group of murderous gangsters from Albanian Central Casting. Over the course of a long night, the two come to a kind of understanding, not only with one another but about their larger role in the world. You get a taste of their interaction early on when Pitt nurses a Coke while Clooney deals with a body. When Clooney suggests that he's doing him a favor by even letting him stay, Pitt scoffs.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WOLFS")

GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Jack) You know, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, letting you clean up unsupervised.

BRAD PITT: (As Nick) Unsupervised. Wow, that's an honor. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here.

CLOONEY: (As Jack) Do I?

PITT: (As Nick) Yes.

CLOONEY: (As Jack) I want to finish the job and go home. And that is where there is a fundamental misunderstanding.

PITT: (As Nick) Enlighten me.

CLOONEY: (As Jack) Well, your job is to make sure that that mess behind you cannot be traced back to your client. And to do that, you have to make sure that that mess disappears completely, as if it never happened.

PITT: (As Nick) Difficult.

CLOONEY: (As Jack) For you, maybe. Well, that's irrelevant because my job is to make sure that you do your job so that that mess cannot be traced back to this hotel.

PITT: (As Nick) Less difficult.

CLOONEY: (As Jack) So you're just going to sit there and slurp your soda.

PITT: (As Nick) I'm going to supervise.

POWERS: Now, if I paid to see "Wolfs" in a theater rather than screened it on TV, which has the lowered expectations of in-flight viewing, I'd probably have been bugged by its lack of imagination and urgency. Watts' script gives you no singing dialogue a la Elmore Leonard or Quentin Tarantino, none of the stinging emotional force you find in comparable two-hander stories - Elaine May's "Mikey And Nicky," say, or Martin McDonagh's "In Bruges." And yet the movie is still enjoyable. Clooney and Pitt are such deft, charismatic actors that even in a lazy, low-key picture like this one, you get a lot of pleasure from their barbed asides and mocking silences. It's clear why they've been stars for three decades.

Thirty years ago, one would have wagered that Clooney, a smart man with a wide-ranging mind, would wind up with the weightier resume of the two. And, indeed, he's been in lots of terrific movies like "Out Of Sight," "Up In The Air" and his work with the Coen Brothers. Yet just as he's drawn to the idea of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, he has one of his own. He often throws himself into projects that feel like throwbacks to the 1950s or '60s. He's an old-fashioned kind of star. And while a lot of his movies are fun - think "Ocean's Eleven" - they rarely resonate in the culture as much as he does off the screen.

For all his prettiness and ubiquity in the tabloids, Pitt's movies do, maybe because he's always been running away from his beauty. He's never happier than when he's scruffed up. He's chosen a more adventurous path. From "Thelma And Louise" and "Seven" to "Fight Club" and "The Tree Of Life" to "12 Years A Slave" and "Moneyball" and "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood," he's made movies that feel in touch with our present moment.

What Clooney and Pitt share beyond friendship is that both achieved stardom by doing the kind of movies that rarely get made anymore. That's why even though "Wolfs" is slight, I can see how they might find it meaningful. After all, this is a story about two old pros who each start out thinking he's irreplaceable, the only one who can do this special job. Then each discovers that, far from being unique, there's somebody else who does exactly what they do and, so far from being indispensable, they're working for soulless people who have no qualms about getting rid of them and hiring somebody new, which is to say "Wolfs" isn't really a film about being a fixer. It's a film about being an aging movie star.

DAVIES: John Powers reviewed the new movie "Wolfs," starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, now streaming on Apple TV+. On Monday's show, Will Ferrell found out that his close friend and former "SNL" writing partner was coming out as a trans woman named Harper Steele. They took a road trip to talk about what coming out meant to Harper and to their friendship. It's documented in the new Netflix film "Will And Harper." We'll talk with both of them. I hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Adam Staniszewski. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.