BRUCE DERN DISCUSSES THE HEART OF ACTING

The Astronaut Farmer star Bruce Dern says that acting comes from the heart.

Bruce Dern has had movie missions in space before most memorably in Silent Running where he played a lone spaceman harboring Earth’s last nature reserves, not to mention the television miniseries Space chronicling James Michner stories of the American space program.

In The Astronaut Farmer Dern plays Billy Bob Thornton’s father-in-law lending his moral support to his son-in-law’s unwavering dreams to launch his homemade rocket into space. Dern says the role took a little piece of his heart which the veteran actor thinks acting is all about.

“Acting is simply the ability to be publicly private. And I hope if I do my work correctly I give a little piece of myself and the rough part of that is it gets left that little piece on several movies and you’re never gonna get it back. Because you have taken it out of here and sometimes thrown it out of here meaning your heart and left it. And now it’s exposed for how ever many people want to see it, see it. And if you’ve exposed it well they’re gonna take a piece of what you’ve contributed away from there.”

Bruce Dern stays grounded in his next film Cake Eaters, but it’s also a family drama co-starring Tom Cavanaugh currently in Gray Matters.