To mark Harry Dean Stanton‘s 90th birthday today, I thought I’d post my interview with him from our July 2014 issue, around the release of the Partly Fiction documentary and album. We had to cut short our interview when he learned that a friend had been admitted to hospital; we reconvened the following night. Considering the company he has kept over the years – Brando, Nicholson, Dylan – he came noticeably modest and sweet-natured. Anyway, here he is – a great man and it was a genuine pleasure to have interviewed him. Long may he continue to be a marvellous analogue presence in a digital world.

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After over 250 roles, Harry Dean Stanton has all but retired from the movies. These days, it seems the actor ā€“ an indelible, laconic presence in films like Cool Hand Luke, Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Wild At Heart, Alien, Repo Man and Paris, Texas ā€“ spends much of his free time watching television. ā€œIā€™m addicted to the game show channels,ā€ he reveals. ā€œI hate the hosts and the people. I just like the questions and answers.ā€ But cinemaā€™s loss is musicā€™s gain: aged 87, Stanton has recorded his debut album, a collection of covers of songs by Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Fred Neil which accompanies a new documentary about the actor, Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction. As a singer, Stanton has regularly performed at some of Los Angelesā€™ most colourful watering holes. He lists Luciano Pavarotti and Patsy Cline as his favourite singers, while conversation is peppered with references to musicians he has befriended through the years. ā€œI love Dylanā€™s work, and Kristofferson,ā€ says Harry Dean. ā€œIā€™ve sung with both of them, in fact. Tom Waits, weā€™re good friends. Heā€™s gnarly. Heā€™s a fine poet. James Taylorā€™s song, ā€˜Hey Mister, Thatā€™s Me Up On The Jukeboxā€™? He borrowed my guitar to compose that song.ā€
After turning the sound down on his television, Harry Dean focusses his attention on your questions. ā€œIā€™m sure thereā€™s dozens more things we could talk about,ā€ he says, after a lengthy, digressive chat thatā€™s taken in Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Leon Russell and Alfred Hitchcock. ā€œBut I think we got enough, donā€™t you?ā€

Harry Dean, do you like chocolate bunnies?
David Lynch
Chocolate bunnies? Of course. David is a big fan of mine. He first got in touch with me to play the part Dennis Hopper ended up playing in Blue Velvet. Because I play myself as much as I can, I didnā€™t want to go there emotionally, I guess, killing people and stuff. I told him to get Dennis. Dennis had dropped out at that time. He was down in New Mexico or somewhere, I think. I really liked The Straight Story. It was very touchingly written, the scene I had. David called me up and said, ā€œI want you to do the last scene in the movie and I want you to cry.ā€ He had me read a letter from Chief Seattle to the President in the 1800s. Chief Seattle was the first Indian to be put on a reservation. He wrote this great letter to the President: ā€œHow could you buy or sell the skyā€¦ā€ Itā€™s beautiful. Anyway, it makes me cry. So I read that. And cried.