‘I’m still training’

Tim Blake Nelson talks Old Testament, James Franco, and self-evaluation

Noted actor, writer, and director Tim Blake Nelson, a native of Tulsa, will deliver the McFarlin Fellows lecture at The University of Tulsa on April 6. Initiated in 1992, invited speakers have included well-known authors, political figures and artists such as playwright Tracy Letts, National Book Award winner Tim O’Brien, and former president of Ireland Mary Robinson. The McFarlin Fellows is a giving society affiliated with TU’s McFarlin Library.

Nelson is highly regarded for films he has written and directed, including “Eye of God,” “The Grey Zone,” “Leaves of Grass,” and “Anesthesia.” As an actor he is best known for roles in films such as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Syriana.”

THE TULSA VOICE: What is your lecture about?

NELSON: It’s about how changes in technology have impacted the way we think, the way we approach and experience storytelling, and the wider cultural implications of what’s manifested, specifically in our attitudes toward art.

TTV: You’re Tim Blake Nelson, you’re recognizable and now you’re coming home and for some of the time you’ll be your mother’s son. What’s that transformation like for you?

NELSON: I find tremendous pleasure in that. I suppose I’m very well known but I’m not what you would call extremely famous (laughter). I owe the lion’s share of what’s right about my life to my mother, so it’s very easy to go home and exist in the role of the son in her house. I frankly feel that I owe a tremendous amount to her.

TTV: Are you writing anything at the moment?

NELSON: I’m in this weird position of actually having a bit of a backlog. I’ve got a new script that I’m going to hold back. It’s another Oklahoma story and I’m very excited about that. But I’ve got a movie that I’m supposed to be directing at the beginning of next year—something I’m just directing, I didn’t write it—and I’ll wait until I know what’s going on with that before I start pursuing making this new Oklahoma script.

TTV: Your films seem in one way or another to be about fate. What are your philosophical underpinnings?

NELSON: I work on what interests me and if there’s a common theme it goes back to the Old Testament and Judaism and the notion that man is a venal creature with an unruly core, who strives to organize a world that is just as unruly and merciless as he is. We have this gorgeous desire to control ourselves and the world around us through law, definition, structure and limitation, without which there’s going to be chaos and eventually extinction. I’m interested in the impact of all that on the individual and how ultimately our impulse to control ourselves fails and what we do to confront that. And that probably is common to all [my] movies: the need for structure and laws and the ultimate folly of that for the individual.

TTV: You’ve worked a lot with James Franco. What is it like when you have a running relationship with one director?

NELSON: James has been a really important collaborator in my own development, particularly as a filmmaker. I had reached a point in my career when I felt like I had it very well under control. I would do two or three nice character roles a year, make a movie every five years or so—which is all another way to say I’d become somewhat complacent.

And then I got a call one day, asking me to be in the film “Child of God” that James was directing. It was a Cormac McCarthy novel I really loved and I certainly admired James and so I immediately said yes. I found myself in West Virginia on what was quite familiar as a movie set [but] also quite unfamiliar to me because the movie set was inhabited by a sort of collective that had gathered around James. Everybody was working for the same amount of money; everyone was young. There was a stance of collective ownership of what was being put on the screen. It just served to remind me why I got into this in the first place which was the spirit of collaboration along with a rigor of spirit toward all coming together in a cohesive way, with as little hierarchy as possible. 

I became a much more productive writer and director because James reminded me that I’ve only got one life and I want to get as much done during that life as possible and that there’s really no excuse or upside to complacency. 

TTV: Obviously, you’re never going to be the leading man “type.” That must give you a lot of freedom in a way.

NELSON: It gives me a tremendous amount of freedom. I was with another character actor on a set years ago and he said, “I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to be the ‘guy next to the guy,’ I want to be the ‘guy.’” I’ve never had any interest in being “the guy,” unless it’s a film that’s driven by the character and then I’m fine. I think character roles are more interesting. I like being in a lot of different stories and going to a lot of different places; it’s a more adventurous life. I also can take risks I couldn’t take as a leading man because if I do a character part in a movie and the movie doesn’t work it’s not going to do much damage to my career.

TTV: What was your development as an actor from your training at Juilliard? 

NELSON: I’m still training. I feel like I’m still learning. Juilliard was really the nonpareil in terms of teaching how to work with language, technically, and how to work technically with the body as well. But every director, every experience has taught me something. 

After Juilliard, I worked with this director, Mark Wing-Davey, and from him I learned how to work actively with scene partners. That was enormous. Then I started doing more and more films and I remain in this process of learning how to work on film. I’ve done over 60 movies now and still I trip myself up and look at my work and say, “That’s too theatrical,” or, “These other actors seem to have the tone of the piece right and I didn’t quite get that.” It’s this never-ending process that takes an enormous degree of openness and discipline and the self-confidence to be able to be self-critical.

TTV: Many actors say they can’t or won’t watch themselves in a film.

NELSON: I’ve gotten to the point now where I can watch myself and say, “Alright, that performance works. This scene, that scene, maybe I could have made some adjustments, but by and large that works.” 

There’s a movie coming out next month called “Colossal,” which is really good; it’s a wonderful film made by a Spanish director named Nacho Vigalondo. I’m happy with my performance in that. I think, “All right, you got the tone of the movie and I believe you.” This is just to say I’m capable of looking at myself and being satisfied. But I’m also capable of looking at myself and saying, “That just didn’t work.” It’s how I can get better.

For more from Michael, read his article on Theatre Pops’ production of “The Last Days of Judas Iscariot.”