Sorry to hear that the great Swedish actor Max Von Sydow passed away at the age of 90. I only had one occasion where I crossed paths with him, but it was memorable. It was back in my dark days when I was doing movie PR, though working on staff as the head writer in the marketing department before I headed into freelance unit publicity on individual movies. I found being on staff a bit more palatable for my taste. At one point, we had picked up a bunch of movies from an independent company to release (I think it was the British firm EMI), and they didn't tend to have all the PR material we needed, so I would have to fill in the holes. And on this instance, for the movie Flash Gordon, there was no biography for Max Von Sydow -- who played 'Ming the Merciless -- and as someone so renowned, I had to interview him and put a bio together. He was in town briefly, so we set up a meeting. I was a bit intimidated. After all, I was still just slightly past being a kid, and he was...well, Max Von Sydow. He was a legend for starring in films by Ingmar Bergman, including the classic The Seventh Seal (in which he famously played chess with Death), The Virgin Spring and The Magician. He starred as Jesus Christ in the blockbuster The Greatest Story Ever Told. Played the priest in The Exorcist. And during his career, he got two Oscar nominations. And was in both the Star Wars series and Game of Thrones. And tons more. And since, once he started making films in Hollywood he so often played villains or cold, distant characters, he was all the more foreboding. So, it was with a great deal of trepidation that I went to the meeting. Unsure what on earth I could conceivably ask someone so renowned internationally, a major figure in film history. He turned out to be one of the kindest, most thoughtful actors -- or film person, period -- I ever dealt with. Though I was there to interview him for the production notes of the presskit, he spent almost more time asking me questions. It was a bizarre experience. At one point, I almost wanted to say, "Stop it! Le ME ask YOU my questions already!" And it wasn't just random questions he was asking, but follow-ups on what I'd said because he was interested. Maybe it was part of his actor training to learn about people and study them. Maybe it was because he'd been acting for so long (and went on to actor for another 30 years...) and had done so many interviews that he was tired of just talking about himself -- something, if that were the case, deeply rare for an actor, and to his credit on that alone. Maybe it was because he was just a very nice fellow. It felt like the latter. Because it felt like just a very warm, pleasant conversation. Which it was. Far more so than this --
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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