HOLLYWOOD -- It took a decade, but Jon Voight finally made it back to Calgary.

Voight, 67, shot Convict Cowboy in the Calgary area in 1995. This past summer, he returned to film September Dawn, an independent western drama.

"I love so much about Calgary and the area surrounding it. The city is very welcoming. People make you feel at home. The countryside is so magnificent and it's only an hour's drive away at the most," says Voight, who is currently starring in Disney's basketball movie Glory Road.

"I particularly love the rolling hills. It's amazing what the glacier carved into that landscape."

Voight almost had to turn down September Dawn because the offer came in at the same time he was in negotiations to play the lead in the TV movie Pope John Paul II.

"I remembered Tommy Glass and John Scott and I knew I'd be in good hands if I did September Dawn.

"It was a great script and great role for me, but I also knew an opportunity like playing Pope John Paul comes only once in a lifetime."

Both producers wanted Voight so much they "worked it out between them so I could do both projects."

Voight says what's most alluring about Calgary is "its basis in the cowboy culture.

"Cowboys are so real. They have such good strength of character. They are such honest, hard working people, they inspire you to strive to be the same."

In Glory Road, Voight plays Adolph Rupp, coach of the Kentucky basketball team that lost the 1966 NCAA championship to the underdog Texas Western Miners.

The final game was historic because the Miner's coach, Don Haskins, used an all African American starting line up -- something unheard of before that game.

Voight is adamant Rupp is not the film's villain, nor was the man a racist.

"He was very competitive. I think that's a positive virtue. He definitely had an edge but so did Haskins. They both wanted the best for their players."

Voight made his film debut in 1967 in Fearless Frank, a superhero parody in which he played the title character.

Two years later, he starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy.

Voight says he recalls bumping into Hoffman after a screening of Cool Hand Luke in 1967 when they were both struggling actors.

"Dustin remarked that to make a good movie, so many things have to come into play.

"That remark has stayed with me all these years because it really is hard to make a good movie. When I'm part of one, I'm so grateful and fortunately, I've been in some very good movies."