HOLLYWOOD -- Kurt Russell is an exile on mainstream street, and he knows it, feels it, senses it.
He's a rich A-list player who has the lovely and talented Goldie Hawn as his partner-wife, and a stable family from previous marriages.
By all accounts, Russell should be the envy of his industry, but he is not. He is shunned, he is avoided, and often he is ceremoniously ignored.
He is an outcast, considered unsuitable for membership in his club-mentality world, and there is nothing he can do about it, except maybe publicly denounce his political beliefs.
You see, the 45-year-old Russell has been, and continues to be, a Libertarian. He believes in way less government and fewer controls.
He is neither wishy-washy nor bleeding-heart about those beliefs. But he is, as he has been for almost 25 years, politically incorrect about them.
"I've been thrashed all my life," says a serious Russell. "I've been ripped apart. I promise you, I know."
Then he chuckles like he's just told himself a joke.
Finally, he shares it. "At least being a Libertarian in this town tends to be confusing, because nobody knows for sure what it means."
Folks still aren't sure about philosopher Kurt Russell, but lately the community is paying attention to actor Kurt Russell after a succession of big hits -- Tombstone, Stargate and Executive Decision.
The string of box-office bonanzas even gave Russell enough clout to get his Escape From New York sequel completed more than 15 years later.
That would be Escape From L.A., which opens on Friday and co-stars Stacy Keach, Peter Fonda, Steve Buscemi, Pam Grier, Valeria Golino and Cliff Robertson.
Directed by Escape From New York buddy John Carpenter and co-written by Carpenter and Russell, the sci-fi action comedy is chockful of Russell's too-much-government-not-enough-individual-freedom rationalizations through the dialogue of Russell's eye-patched anti-hero, Snake Plissken.
When he is asked about this, Russell shrugs.
"Y'know," he says evenly, "there comes a time in your life, especially as an American and especially as a filmmaker, where I don't think you should have to apologize for the way you feel and think.
"I was a Republican, and I was brought up as a Republican, but when I realized that at the end of the day there wasn't much difference between a Democrat and Republican, I became a Libertarian."
In Escape From L.A., Russell minces few words about defining what that means -- the U.S. president's a madman against the people, the rebel leader a glory-seeking powermonger, the masses merely kowtowing for their own gain.
"I look at all those scenarios through Snake," Russell says. "He is so true to himself that he is incorruptible. He doesn't care about anybody but himself.
"Everybody else is corruptible because of their ideals and their agenda. They are extensions of us in society."
And he doesn't mean that in a good way.
Not surprisingly, L.A., the city and the mind-set, get kicked around a lot, too. Tinseltown icons are used for sight gags, lifestyles of the rich and famous are mocked, obsessions with movie industry perfection are ridiculed.
To Russell's credit, he also takes a few shots at himself, most thoroughly with a running joke about Snake's lack of height.
"You don't know how many times I've heard that," says the 5-foot-8 actor. "Right in front of you, people say, `Gawd, he's not that big.' And I say, `Well the screen is a lot bigger than what you're looking at.' "
No kidding.
And the quiet Russell may be a lot smarter than the snarling Snake Plissken. Not only did the actor get to spout his world view in Escape From L.A., he earned $10 million in the process.
"In '94, I was doing press for Stargate and kept hearing so much about Escape From New York, and I kept thinking how much longer could I possibly be able to do a sequel."
The answer was not very long, so he got down to it, wrote and re-wrote with Carpenter, then got a studio interested in forking over the $50 million it cost, which is a shocking contrast to the $7 million price tag of the first Escape film.
Anyway, Russell's big paycheque just happened, he says, but there is a profit motive at work.
"The money I got paid to do this kind of movie, I understand," Russell says, referring to an action-style picture, "because the audience is a worldwide audience. The movie translates well. What you get paid is what you are worth on the worldwide market.
"So my suggestion is," says Russell, a pilot and plane owner, "if you want to own big airplanes, do action pictures."
A banished Hollywood philosopher king has spoken -- in a common-denominator language everybody here understands.
THE KURT RUSSELL FILE
ACTING: At 13, string of Disney family flicks, including The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and The Barefoot Executive.
PLAYING: Semi-pro baseball interrupted his movie career, but he quit and went back to showbiz.
WRITING: He soured on acting, began writing when he moved to Colorado. But John Carpenter convinced the then 28-year-old to do Elvis for TV. "He made acting fun again," Russell says of Carpenter. They also made Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China. "I feel like I have a smarter older brother in John," Russell says.
MORE SEQUELS: He says maybe one more Escape, and he'd like to do one more of Used Cars, Stargate, Tequila Sunrise and Executive Decision.
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