The C&I reader favorite and Oscar-nominated Dances with Wolves star will be inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers this weekend at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Graham Greene has loomed large in so many movies and TV productions during his decades-long acting career that he’s used to being recognized in public. Trouble is, some of the folks who approach him can’t remember why they recognize him.
“Yeah,” he told C&I during a 2021 interview, “I’ll have people come up to me and say something like, ‘Hey, where do I know you from?’ And when they do, I’ll usually say, ‘Man, just Google it.’”
Mind you, Greene chuckled when he said that. Because, really, even he recognizes that he has played such a wide variety of characters — everything from the formidable Kicking Bird in Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves (for which he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor) to the villainous Malachi Strand in TV’s Longmire, from the resourceful tribal police chief Ben Shoyo in Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River to the mischievous grandfather of a Marvel superhero in Echo — that admirers and autograph-seekers might find it difficult to recall precisely where they have seen him before.
“Sometimes,” he added, “someone will come up and say, ‘Hey, man, you were great in such and such a movie. I really loved you in that.’” Pause. “But I was never in it.”
But he is expected to be in Oklahoma City this weekend at the at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, where he will be honored as an inductee into the museum’s prestigious Hall of Great Western Performers. It’s an altogether appropriate honor for the widely admired 72-year-old actor — a member of the Oneida tribe born in Ohswken on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario — who already has another western-themed award to his credit.
“Yeah, they used to have this thing called the Golden Boot Award that they gave in Santa Clarita,” Greene said. “And I got my star on the street there somewhere between John Wayne and Steve McQueen and Tom Mix, all those guys.”
So now you can say you have definitely earned your spurs, right?
“I hope so,” Greene said, his chuckle building to a hearty laugh.
Greene also has earned the respect of his collaborators on either side of the camera — both for his immense talent and his status as a bona fide living legend.
“Working with Graham was a dream come true,” said Echo executive producer and co-director Sydney Freeland, a member of the Navajo Nation. “And talking about representation for myself growing up — anytime there was a Native American person in front of the camera, it was exciting. It was an event no matter how small or how big that portrayal was. And I think Graham Greene in Dances with Wolves was such a seismic shift forward in representation. So to have the chance to work with him was absolutely amazing and incredible.”
“Every scene I worked with him, I wanted my character to be tough, but I also really wanted him to be vulnerable and very open and caring for people. I would listen to Graham and what he was saying beyond just the words of the script. And he got me very emotional many times. I was very, very connected to Graham Greene.”
If you look closely at Greene’s resume, you may be struck by how often he has made an indelible impact in movies where he had a minimal amount of screentime. In Transamerica, writer-director Duncan Tucker’s marvelously empathetic 2005 road movie, he has only a few scenes as Calvin Two Bears, a sweet-natured rancher who’s drawn to a trans woman (played by Independent Spirit Award winner Felicity Huffman) a few days before the operation that will complete her transformation, but he makes every moment count. (He even gets to strum a guitar and warble “Beautiful Dreamer.”) And in writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game (2017), he steals scenes simply by appearing firm but fair as the judge overseeing the trial of a woman (lead player Jessica Chastain) charged with operating illegal high-stakes poker games.
“Aaron, the director, was looking at me sitting behind the bench,” Greene told True West magazine. “I had a puzzled look on my face. He said, ‘Are you all right?’ I said, ‘Yeah. I’ve just never seen the bench from this side before.’”
Cowboys & Indians: Even after you’ve been making movies all these years — and earned an Oscar nomination for your role in Dances with Wolves — do people still confuse you with the famed British author Graham Greene?
Graham Greene: [Laughs] By now, I think pretty much everybody knows that he died. But there was a time when I got letters from some professors of English. This was back when we just had fax machines. They faxed me questions like, “When people read your books, what do you prefer us to be doing? What kind of wine should we be drinking? What kind of weather should it be outside?” All that sort of thing. I sent them back some ridiculous answers. The type of wine? Lots of it. Weather? Pouring down rain, but high winds.
C&I: What do you look for primarily these days in projects that are offered to you? Are there certain roles that you're drawn to, that maybe you weren’t drawn to 10 or 20 years ago?
Greene: Yeah. The ones that pay the most.
C&I: Good choice, good choice.
Greene: No, I'm just kidding. No, I like the diversity of roles. I’ve played cops, I’ve played soldiers. I played a judge in Molly’s Game. I played God twice. I played the Archangel Gabriel. I guess that’s pretty much got me covered.
You know, I’ve been killed in over 50 pictures. So it’s funny. Most times, I just flip through the script and find out, okay, I’m dead. Then I just take the rest of the script, and throw it away. Don’t need it.
C&I: I wish I would have seen you give your acclaimed performance as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival back in 2007.
Greene: Well, I was doing Merchant of Venice at one theater in the afternoon, then going to another theater at night and doing Of Mice and Men, playing Lenny.
C&I: Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh man.
Greene: Mice and Men was an incredible production. And nobody could get tickets for it. It was sold out.
C&I: What do you think you learned about yourself as an actor after an experience like that?
Greene: I don’t know. I’m still learning. You don’t know everything. Everybody thinks you know everything about acting, but you don’t. I just know one thing: Steal from the best.
C&I: I’ve often asked actors what they think they learned from working with certain people. What do you think you learned from working with Kevin Costner?
Greene: Persistence. He didn’t give up. I believe he mortgaged his house to finish [Dances with Wolves]. I remember when we were in Washington D.C., and I think that's where the film was was first shown. And about a minute and a half into the film, the projector bulb blew out. So he was out in the lobby, having a panic attack. I thought we would all throw up. So I told him, “Kevin, go start it from the beginning. Nobody’s going to say anything. Nobody will know, don't worry about it.” And that’s what happened.
C&I: Do you remember a particular film or stage or TV production where it first dawned on you that, hey, you probably could make a living at this?
Greene: I never really thought about it. It just happened. I guess that it was when I was nominated for an Oscar. I said, “Well, being nominated is better than winning.”
C&I: In what way?
Greene: Well, suddenly, everybody wants you.
C&I: What do you think was the best piece of advice you got when you were starting out as an actor?
Greene: Don’t leave your wallet at the dressing room, make sure your fly’s done up, and get an alarm clock.
C&I: And what do you say when young actors ask you for advice?
Greene: You got to have the urge. I have kids today ask me, “I’d like to become an actor, I have a degree, what do I have to do now?” And I say, “Learn how to wait tables, and get your cabdriver license.” You don't just walk in and start acting.
A buddy of mine, we’d been in the business — I don't know, maybe 20 years or so. And this kid was sitting in the theater where we hung out in Toronto and he said, “You know, I’ve been out of acting school for two years. I should be in Hollywood making movies right now.” And we both laughed at him. You’ll never get there with that attitude. You’ll never get there.
C&I: What would you say are some of the roles you’ve played that you felt were most like Graham Greene?
Greene: None of them. I’ve done over 140 films now. I think I recall every one was different.
C&I: Finally, are you still as excited about acting as you were 10 or 20 years ago? Is it still as fulfilling?
Greene: Yes. I mean, it’s the only job I’ve ever had where I liked going to work. Sometimes it’s boring and miserable, but you still go back. You go to town, get your ass kicked, go home and let it heal up. And then you go back again.
