Beatty, who died June 13, made his film debut in Deliverance and then went on to appear in scores of movies, including Network, All the President’s Men and Superman.
He earned an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the 1976 film “Network.” In this scene, Beatty plays a TV executive reading the riot act to a network commentator, Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, who’s been telling audiences not to trust what they see on TV networks run by corporations.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state – Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, min-and-max solutions and compute the price/cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
So it wasn’t in my lexicon of thinking about acting whether or not I was going to be identified with this character and what happened to him.
I think it has to do with seeing – any time we act out violence and we do it anywhere near how it might actually happen, that’s frightening.
GROSS: I think your career proves that it’s not the size of the role, but what the role is and how you play it that counts.
BEATTY: Well, it must have been less than three, I would think.
And this particular character was focused on a lot by a wonderful actor named Robert Duvall, who talked about me all the time and his fear of me.
You know, there’s that old saw about, you know, who’s Ned Beatty? You know, how’s it go? Who’s Ned Beatty? Get me Ned Beatty.
I’ve always liked to think that one of the reasons I’ve been very fortunate is because I have been typecast as an actor rather than as a particular type of character.
I know sometimes I’ll pull something out of the sack that maybe I haven’t used in 20 years and dust it off and see if this will work.
And every once in a while, when I’m having trouble, you know, getting the right feeling for a scene, I’ll look around for that little piece of melody.
BEATTY: There’s one that always comes to my mind because I got so tickled when it worked for me.
BEATTY: Yeah.
I really felt like, after 15 years in the theater and having been lucky enough to play a lot of different kind of parts, that I could do just about anything as an actor that I chose to do.
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