you crush your own skull<\/a>, a phrase one rarely gets to use. That was your idea?<\/p>\nSL: Yes it was. I always thought it would be necessary to discover the remains of your own self. Taking that skull and contemplating it \u2013 what do I remember about this guy? Am I this guy? This is the guy I was. And by crushing it the way he does, that\u2019s so pure Quaritch. He doesn\u2019t set it aside to contemplate it later. He crushes the skull. That I believe operates as a repudiation of the past and a pathway forward for him. I negate my failure, I negate my humiliations, I move forward.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6943e33499bf2.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/p>\n
SM: You wrote Beyond Glory, a one-man play about all the soldiers who won the Medal of Honor. Did your work there inform your portrayal of Quaritch?<\/p>\n
SL: First of all, the work I did on Beyond Glory informed my work on this a lot. The two are linked, by the way. Have you ever looked at the AMP suit in the original Avatar? There\u2019s a tattoo on the side that says \u2018Beyond Glory\u2019. It\u2019s on every action figure you\u2019re going to see.<\/p>\n
Jim Cameron said to me, \u201cWe should put a tattoo on the side of your AMP suit.\u201d We were thinking, should it be a dragon? Should it be a serpent? Should it be an eagle? And he said, \u201cWhat about your logo for your show Beyond Glory? That works.\u201d It was very moving that he would do that.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think that I would compare Quaritch to any of the characters that I portray in Beyond Glory. Partly because he\u2019s a fictional character, and these were real, living, breathing men \u2013 all of them are gone now \u2013 who did extraordinary things. These were ordinary men who did extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n
Quaritch is not an ordinary man at all. He\u2019s a bit extraordinary; I don\u2019t care how many people you put in the room, he\u2019s going to be the alpha.<\/p>\n
I was fortunate enough to work with and to drink with and to speak with a true titan of American literature<\/p>\n
SM: You said Quaritch has informed you in some ways. Are you more alpha now?<\/p>\n
SL: I dunno. Over the years, I think I\u2019ve become more benign. I\u2019ve come to certain conclusions about life, my life, what it is to lead a good life over the years. I\u2019m a grandfather to six, I\u2019m a father to four. I\u2019ve been married to Tina for 45 years. That teaches you a lot of things. It teaches you patience, it teaches you humility. And more than anything else \u2013 and this is not just a family thing, this is something one extends to everyone \u2013 it teaches you kindness.<\/p>\n
Does that inform Quaritch at all? Well, you know what? In some way it must. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m prepared to sit here and to quantify that. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be able to do that for you. But you bring yourself to whatever it is you play.<\/p>\n
I think over the years that I\u2019ve become a more rounded person. But talking about alpha males? It\u2019s interesting \u2013 when I come on set, I go pretty much full Quaritch and I\u2019m on set with Jim Cameron. What does that mean? I\u2019ll tell you what it means. It means there are two alphas in the room. That creates a wonderful situation. We\u2019re both aware of it, and we\u2019re both aware that the crew is aware of it and the crew likes it.<\/p>\n
SM: One of your first TV roles was Death of a Salesman. What an incredible journey to go from the most famous American play of the 20th century to the biggest blockbuster in cinematic history.<\/p>\n
SL: You\u2019ve put your finger on something interesting there because I could make a case that Death of a Salesman and Avatar are the two most significant jobs that I\u2019ve ever been given. One, Death of a Salesman just kicked off a whole Broadway thing for me and really put my career in gear. And Avatar was the culmination of years of work. In between there have been many, many other projects that are very near and dear to my heart as well. No doubt about that.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6943e339b3780.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/p>\n
SM: I know you were good friends with Arthur Miller. Are there similarities between him and James Cameron?<\/p>\n
SL: Whoa, whoa, whoa. [Laughs.] I could rack my brain here\u2026 They\u2019re both tall. I would say that they both are extraordinary. They both were extraordinary writers. Arthur was, Jim is.<\/p>\n
I discussed Death of a Salesman with Arthur on more than one occasion. I was with him quite a lot. And I always felt that Death of a Salesman was kind of written through Arthur. He was really just vibing. The writing in it, you really have to read it and work on it to appreciate just how brilliant it really is. It\u2019s an extraordinary piece of theatre. Absolutely. In its time, it was revolutionary as well because of the messing around with time that he does.<\/p>\n
The original title of that play was Inside His Head, and in a way that entire play does take place within the tortured skull of Willy Loman. Of course he wrote so many other wonderful plays as well but to my estimation, the Salesman stands above everything. So I was fortunate enough to work with and to drink with and to speak with a true titan of American literature, American theatre. And I feel pretty much the same with Jim.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is one of the darkest and coolest stories. I\u2019d love to take that particular journey into darkness.<\/p>\n
Jim\u2019s talents are wider because Jim is a superb writer and storyteller, but that doesn\u2019t cover it. He\u2019s like an engineer. He\u2019s a brilliant engineer. He\u2019s totally in touch with all the physical parts of working, of acting, the fighting, all of that. Jim knows a lot about a lot of things.<\/p>\n
So, gosh, my response is that I\u2019m just so fortunate and privileged to have known both of these fellas and to let some of their genius rub off on me. And I don\u2019t use the word genius lightly at all. Jim Cameron is the only unalloyed genius that I\u2019ve worked with. I\u2019ve worked with some very, very great, smart people. But I will also say that Arthur Miller, whether he\u2019s a genius or not, doesn\u2019t matter \u2013 Death of a Salesman is a work of pure genius. It\u2019d be interesting for those two to have dinner together.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is one of the darkest and coolest stories. I\u2019d love to take that particular journey into darkness<\/p>\n
SM: What do you think Arthur Miller would\u2019ve made of Avatar?<\/p>\n
SL: Oh, he would\u2019ve said, \u201cOh gee. Wow!\u201d First of all, he\u2019d have said, \u201cYou were pretty big. Look at those muscles on you there. Wow. That\u2019s quite a thing you guys did.\u201d He\u2019d kind of hem and haw about the whole thing a little bit. I\u2019d say, \u201cArthur, did you like it?\u201d \u201cSure I did. I thought it was great.\u201d I think he would\u2019ve loved it.<\/p>\n
SM: Over your career, you\u2019ve done the American Civil War, the Wild West, Prohibition, gangsters \u2013 you\u2019re living out the American story on screen. Is there any particular period that you\u2019d like to explore?<\/p>\n
SL: There are many. The labour movement is something that\u2019s always been interesting to me. I\u2019ve never really done much in the political arena. I\u2019d say that would be of interest to me as well. My goodness! I always wanted to do the Transcontinental Railroad. I think that\u2019s an amazing story as well. Gosh, I\u2019d love to do a shipboard story at some point. I love films and stories about the sea. I\u2019m a huge fan of the Master and Commander series, it\u2019s one of my favourite things in the absolute world.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, you\u2019ll hear of a project where you go, \u2018Oh boy, I so much want to be part of that!\u2019 Sometimes you\u2019re fortunate enough to actually be part of it. The one right now that hurts my heart just a little bit is the fact that Christopher Nolan has done The Odyssey. I know The Odyssey pretty well, I\u2019ve read it with my grandson and granddaughter a number of times. That\u2019s a project that, well, number one, I wish I was in that thing, but number two, I\u2019m not in it, so I can\u2019t wait to see it.<\/p>\n
I love myths. I love where myths and history begin to coalesce. I did this project called House of David, I play the prophet Samuel in this series for Amazon. When you play Samuel, you are playing a historical figure, a character from 3,000 years ago. But he comes at a time where history and legend and myth all begin to coalesce. And I love that because you make decisions about how you want to represent the truth.<\/p>\n
There is one, I know people have been trying to make it for years, but I\u2019ve always thought Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is one of the darkest and coolest stories. I\u2019d love to take that particular journey into darkness.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6943e32ef1fae.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/p>\n
SM: Who would you want to play?<\/p>\n
SL: [Smiling] Who do you think I want to play? [Judge Holden, one of the great villains of American literature.]<\/p>\n
SM: You\u2019d have to shave your head.<\/p>\n
SL: Happy to shave my head!<\/p>\n
SM: Your dad Eugene sounds like a remarkable man. A self-made millionaire who donated millions to charity and encouraged you to forge your own path. Is that all correct?<\/p>\n
SL: Yeah, it\u2019s correct. He\u2019s gone now about eight or nine years. He was a great guy. He and I were very close. He was a tough guy. He was probably the toughest guy I\u2019ve ever met in terms of negotiation. If he believed in something, he wasn\u2019t going to give an inch on it. He had very high standards. He had the soul of a social worker but he became a multimillionaire.<\/p>\n
He was so damn smart and good at business and everything, but it would be foolish to say that money wasn\u2019t important to him. It was important because of what you could achieve in creative ways. If my father has a legacy, it really is that he taught a lot of people that philanthropy, charity is not merely giving money away to people who need food or shelter or clothes. It\u2019s creating opportunity for people and it\u2019s creating challenges for people as well. He was adamant about that.<\/p>\n
Very interesting guy. I think about him all the time and miss him. He left his mark on me for sure. He was a real New Yorker. He was New York through and through.<\/p>\n
Working with Dustin Hoffman was kind of a years-long lesson. Dustin was relentless<\/p>\n
SM: Speaking of New York, your daughter Lucy Lang is the current Inspector General. You\u2019ve done something right!<\/p>\n
SL: I don\u2019t know how these things happen. My daughter Lucy blows my mind. She\u2019s the Inspector General of New York State. She wields a lot of authority, but she wields it with such grace and such compassion and such intelligence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m 73, but in a way I regard my own position in the family kind of as emeritus at this point. I really think of Lucy as the leader of the family in a lot of ways. At any rate, I usually do what she tells me to do.<\/p>\n
SM: That\u2019s always a wise move, for sure.<\/p>\n
SL: Well, I\u2019ve been married for 45 years, so I\u2019ve learned something over the years.<\/p>\n
![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6943e32f2a248.jpg\" "\\"Stephen")
<\/p>\n
SM: You\u2019ve worked with some unbelievable names throughout your career. Did you ever get any advice or a lesson that stuck with you?<\/p>\n
SL: Working with Dustin Hoffman was kind of a years-long lesson. Dustin was relentless. He was a relentless artist. He was constantly probing, constantly searching, constantly poking. And we did that on a night-to-night basis. When we did Death of a Salesman, when the curtain fell at intermission, John Malkovich, Dustin and I gathered together and did notes. We did that for almost 200 performances. That in itself was an amazing lesson.<\/p>\n
Some others? Early in my career, and it was early in her career as well. I was in Henry V with Meryl Streep. And to be part of that, to watch Meryl, the ease with which she worked was really quite extraordinary. We were doing Shakespeare in the park, and we were sitting on the grass after rehearsal or something like that, just actors sitting around talking, five or six of us.<\/p>\n
The actor playing Henry was an actor called Paul Rudd, not the Paul Rudd of today. He was another actor and he was a good actor, excellent actor. You look him up. He\u2019s gone now, rest his soul. He had a lot of success in the 1970s. He was playing Henry, and Meryl was playing Catherine. Some asked her, \u201cHow is Paul? How do you like working with Paul?\u201d<\/p>\n
She sort of cocked her head and smiled. She said, \u201cOh, Paul, he\u2019s so easy to love.\u201d And that was such an amazing thing to hear because to me it was a real double-edged comment in a way. Because it\u2019s like, \u201cDo I want to be easy to love?\u201d I don\u2019t know if I can explain myself but I made a decision at that moment, which was: I will never be easy to love. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n
She wasn\u2019t damning him with faint praise. Perhaps she was, I don\u2019t know. But what she was saying was, there were no obstacles. It wasn\u2019t difficult. To me, it\u2019s always been about the obstacles. If there are no obstacles, I\u2019ve got to create some.<\/p>\n
And some of the other greats, working with people like, oh my gosh, Gene Hackman, one of the greatest of all time. The simplicity with which he worked, the contemplative, the thoughtful nature of the work that he did was extraordinary. Working opposite Robert Duvall was one of the great privileges of my life.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a common kind of dynamism and brilliance to both Duvall and to Hackman. Very different actors, of course, but generationally they\u2019re from the same place. And I\u2019m so fortunate, I hope something rubbed off. But if there was one, and he\u2019s a very different type of actor than myself, it would be Dustin. Dustin had a profound effect on me.<\/p>\n
SM: You\u2019re in incredible shape. How do readers ensure that they look even half as good as you in their seventies?<\/p>\n
SL: Just got to do it every day. Just practise. Listen, what I do is based upon my work. I\u2019m not a painter. I don\u2019t have a violin. I\u2019m not a sculptor. The only tool I have is me from head to toe. So I don\u2019t want to limit it. I want it to be as good as it can be. As you get older, things begin to deteriorate. And if it\u2019s happening for me, it\u2019s happening for other actors as well. We\u2019re all getting older.<\/p>\n
So I think, is there some way that I can cut the odds a little bit? Is there some way that I can keep going and maybe be in the proper shape to do this gnarly role if they need some tough old bastard. That\u2019s what keeps me motivated. Also, there\u2019s a certain degree of vanity involved as well. And I will say that vanity, I understand that it\u2019s a sin, but I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s one of the seven deadly sins. I think a certain amount of vanity is pretty crucial.<\/p>\n
Some of it is vanity as well, to keep yourself in the kind of shape you feel good about. I want to feel good about myself. After I finish my day\u2019s workout, a lot of times I\u2019m done by 11am, I feel like the rest of the day is mine. It\u2019s all gravy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Avatar: Fire and Ash is out on 19 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past four decades, Stephen Lang has worked with everyone from Arthur Miller to James Cameron. Now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-356059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}