CraveOnline: That’s a good attitude. We love to do a career retrospective with our interviews too. Did playing Salieri set a really high bar for the rest of your movie career?
F. Murray Abraham: Oh yeah. What it did was open up the world to me. I began to do the greatest roles ever written. It was really wonderful.
That came after Scarface, right?
No, I did them at the same time. I was flying back and forth from Prague to Hollywood.
So in the industry it made an impact, but in terms of having one of the greatest parts of all time, has anything else ever even measured up to that?
Well, Shakespeare.
Of course. Have you done Shakespeare on film?
No. No, but we had a great production of Merchant of Venice which we took to Stratford on Avon, and we took here at The Road. It was a great production. That was a high point.
Part of the problem with me not doing a whole lot of other films shortly after that [Amadeus and Scarface] was hubris. I really thought I was better than all the things that were being offered. I got a lot of terrific offers and films I should have done I guess, but I kept saying, “No, I don’t want to be a supporting actor. I don’t care about the money or the billing. I want to do the central character.” And that was hubris. It’s okay. I still have the theater. It’s a very simple equation and it’s okay. You do what you do. “No, I’m not a supporting actor anymore. I’m a lead actor.” What nonsense. I’m so glad that’s behind me.
And here you are with a one-day scene in Inside Llewyn Davis.
Yeah, which is really getting a lot of action. It’s a treat.
One of your movies that meant a lot to me was Finding Forrester. I had teachers like your character. When he challenges the kid and can’t outsmart this kid, do you think the teacher realizes it’s his own insecurity coming out?
Isn’t that interesting? Rather than recognize the kid’s genius and paying it the respect it deserves…
Or nourishing it like a teacher is supposed to do.
Or nourishing it, he loses it. Maybe it’s the insecurity but so many teachers in that capacity respond that way unfortunately.
Well, he wants to be the smartest one there.
Exactly. That’s the difference between him and Salieri. Salieri did recognize the genius and this guy is mostly involved in his own navel, but it’s a good movie I think.
In Mighty Aphrodite, did you ever think you’d get a chance to be the Greek chorus on film?
[Laughs] What a lot of fun that was. I love the Greeks by the way. They’re still the best.
We read a lot of them in high school, it all paid off in that movie. I got it. Woody Allen is doing the Greek chorus.
Woody Allen loves that classical thing. He was a great devotee of the Martha Graham company because she deals with those basic tenets of art.
But he broke all the rules. He interacted with the chorus. You came into the main story.
It was a real treat and shooting it in Sicily was fabulous.
And because he does the credits in alphabetical order, you got top billing.
It was a neat thing to see. It was fun. Why can’t they all be that way? That’s what these guys do. They really have a good time. It doesn’t happen that often. Wes Anderson, everything’s nice and calm, serene and good. Everyone respects each other and has a good time. It should be that way all the time.
