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David Strathairn is not an actor with paparazzi in tow. If he's ever nominated for an Oscar, he could probably sneak in right under Joan Rivers' nose.
We could see that theory tested with the George Clooney-directed Good Night, And Good Luck, in which Strathairn inhabits the rumpled suit of American proto-news anchor Edward R. Murrow circa his 1950s on-air war with Communist-conspiracy jihadist Sen. Joe McCarthy.
Strathairn has a formidable reputation as a character actor, based on performances in L.A. Confidential and the films of John Sayles (Passion Fish, City Of Hope, Eight Men Out) among others. And in the wake of a best actor win at the Venice Film Fest, the plaudits keep coming.
But he's quick to disabuse interviewers of the notion that this Murrow is a one-man show. "I know it's been said that George (director Clooney) got an actor with gravitas who is made to portray having the weight of the world on his shoulders. And that's nice of them to say. But this is George's movie. He said, 'You're not going to carry this movie, I will.' And he did from the get-go. It wouldn't have been made without him and the team he brought together."
Indeed, Clooney -- whose producing/directing efforts were partly a love letter to the journalistic career of his dad, Nick Clooney -- assembled the kind of supporting cast Strathairn is usually a member of. Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson play CBS reporter Joe Wershba and newsroom assistant Shirley, whose secret marriage contravenes company policy. Frank Langella plays legendary CBS boss William Paley, and Clooney himself is CBS News head and Murrow defender Fred Friendly. (McCarthy plays himself, in all his bellicose glory in old footage.)
Good Night, And Good Luck (taken from Murrow's famous signoff) is a compressed incident in the newsman's storied career. It follows his potentially suicidal decision to take on McCarthy and his House Subcommittee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) via his CBS show See It Now (the 60 Minutes of its day), and expose the Wisconsin senator as a bullying demagogue.
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"The man and the issue go hand in hand," says Strathairn. "It's obviously important and compelling and current, when you look now at things like the Patriot Act, the (Karl) Rove scandal, the Judith Miller affair.
"But I'd also have been happy if it were a full biopic. There's so much more to learn about the guy. It would've been even more intimidating, playing him from the lumber fields of the Northwest, to London and the Blitz and this event, and on to his shortened life."
Murrow died of lung cancer at 57, it should be said. The CBS offices that are virtually the main sets of Good Night, And Good Luck are awash in cigarette smoke, in keeping with the times (as is the black-and-white film itself). A non-smoker, Strathairn found rolled pipe tobacco to be the least objectionable route.
Still, he says, the motivations were harder to film than the mannerisms. "There's so much out there about Murrow, biographies and hundreds of photographs and personal testimonials. I talked to his son, and Joe and Shirley Wershba, Fred Friendly's wife. I think Murrow was honest, willful, sort of unconsciously courageous. He was frail in a way, and at the same time a warrior."
Strathairn says his favourite scene was also ironic -- an "interview" Murrow conducted with a pre-filmed Liberace, in which "Lee" talks about his desire to get married and have children, possibly with Princess Margaret. In it, the paragon of hard news reporting seems like a reluctant Entertainment Tonight reporter.
"That Liberace interview is hilarious, and if you hear the whole thing, it goes on for a long time. He started that whole 'infotainment' ball rolling right there."