Elliott Gould: Stories of Connection from a Hollywood Icon

The prolific actor sits down to talk philosophy, humility, and the art of the moving picture with Benjamin Oberman of Film Festival Flix.

Los Angeles, California

By Benjamin Oberman and Amber K. Davis Johnson

I first met Elliott Gould at a SAG-AFTRA holiday cocktail party in the early 2000s. It wasn’t much of a meeting; a moment or two for me to introduce myself and tell him how much I loved his work. Still, it was an opportunity.

When I was new to L.A. and had my first chance to have a meeting at a studio with a development executive, he told me, “Nothing’s going to happen today. But this relationship that we’re starting today may pay off for you in 10 or 20 years.”

I relate the story to Gould over Zoom on a spring afternoon, the sound of our voices overlapping one another with the staccato cuts and breaks we’ve all become accustomed to in the last year. We could have used a lighting director, body mics, hair and makeup. Instead, we are two humans, making the best of the same technology as millions of others, and connecting despite the digital distance.

“Absolutely,” Gould echoes. “Anything — that’s like seeds in the forest. Like putting seeds or bulbs in the earth. Yeah, absolutely.”

By virtue of our being logged in together that day, Elliott answering my questions and sharing his experiences, we’re proving that studio executive right. Chance meetings, mutual acquaintances, year after year of working in the same industry — that’s what led us here.

I ask him to share any life lessons that he thinks would help people as we come out of this period in history.

“Who says we’re going to come out of it?” he replies.

I concede the point. Still, I counter, people moved past the Spanish Flu. Life went on.

Gould takes the question seriously. “The two things that saved my life. . . were the movie camera and philosophy,” he replies. “The movie camera was my first objective relationship in my existence. Being a unionist, being a professional actor, I belong to a union. I believe. . .that no one of us, no matter who anybody thinks we are, is any more than the least of us. . . true humility is such an asset in terms of what we are, it moves me so deeply.”

Here he takes a deep breath, and with renewed energy begins:

“So, we were doing a film called Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice.”

He says this as if I may have heard of the iconic 1969 film for which he and Dyan Cannon were both Oscar nominated.

“It was the first film that Paul Mazursky ever directed. And each of the four title characters had a fantasy. . .my wife was played by Dyan Cannon. Her fantasy was that every man in her mind wanted to dance with her. Mazursky and his partner, Larry Tucker, staged a scene at Columbia pictures where we shot the movie. . .with about 300 or more male extras. And, being in the union, at a certain point we had to break. . . to take a breath of fresh air, or have a coffee, or smoke a cigarette. So everybody went off and they turned the lights down, kept the camera where it was, kept whatever the sets were, and I, as usual, I had no place to go. I’m here now.”

Gould laughs, but I see the stillness and hear the silence of the scene he’s set. Alone on a sound stage that, minutes ago, was filled with work and footsteps and sweat and light. Gould, and a camera. Alone.

“So I just stayed there and I realized, oh. The camera doesn’t give me problems. . . I give me problems. The camera doesn’t lie to me. It doesn’t promote me. And it doesn’t manipulate me. It simply reports where I am.”

It’s a telling revelation. This was a young Elliott. 31 years old in 1969. Not inexperienced, but to be clearing the camera of blame for his problems means that there were problems. He’s human, then, I conclude. Gould has already moved on.

“That was my first objective relationship. . . the other. . .is philosophy, which in the Greek, the definition of philosophy is the love of knowledge. Between the camera and philosophy, I am very grateful.”

We agree that the last year — COVID-19, quarantine, social unrest — has brought out the best in many people and the worst. Gould muses for a moment on who I may or may not be related to, based on my last name, and then suddenly waxes philosophical once more.

“Can you imagine at this point in time and space that we as a species are not yet capable of eliminating nuclear armaments, we’re not yet capable of abolishing war? Doesn’t matter what your nationality is. It doesn’t matter what language you speak. We’re all here alive in the same moment. And we’ve got these enormous problems.”

“There are a lot of decisions being made based on fear, not in the vision of what might be,” I reply. Then I ask Elliott to tell me about the vision of writers and directors that he’s worked with over the years, if any of them imagined their work might influence the masses. I ask him about the changes he’s seen in technique and process.

Technology has certainly changed, Gould begins. Nature hasn’t, and the joy it brings. He mentions my children, seeing them as babies, and the joy, the wonder, the responsibility of human life.

“I do believe that each one of us has a responsibility to all of us. . . have I seen a change? Not really, not really. We still have the same problems, selfish, egotistical, vain.” Gould is lost in thought. “I know I’m honest and it’s taken me forever to get here. I understand that.”

We speak for a moment of the ability to be direct as a form of kindness. The thought leads Elliott to his childhood, and the comic book culture and characters that shaped his imagination, his world. He ruminates here for a second or two only, then speaks of the contemporary intersection of comic book world and novel that exists in the work of Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. He hints that perhaps I should make the book into a movie, with a sparkle in his eye.

I see my opportunity to ask him about one of my favorite films he’s done: The Deal, with Meg Ryan and William H. Macy. It’s a perfect parody of Hollywood, in my opinion. Under the radar but well-done, and I tell him so.

“You know The Deal?” Gould is pleasantly surprised. “Wowee, I don’t know if I ever watched it. I could watch it. I really want to see everything I do because I still work, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much. . . every bit of work that I can do is precious to me because each of us has a limited amount of time in body to be here. . . we shot it in South Africa and that was very meaningful to me to be able to be in South Africa and William H. Macy — he’s quite wonderful. And Ryan, I mean, she’s so great.”

“There’s a line at the end of the movie — and it brings attention in a comedic way to what you were saying about greed earlier — Meg Ryan says to William H. Macy that, you know, we’re going to be arrested for this. And his response is: only if it doesn’t make money.”

“That’s funny. Yeah. Well, it’s so ironic. . . I find that everything is interconnected. . . every piece of work is meaningful to me, no matter what. Some things work, some things don’t work, but it’s interesting. I’d done quite a bit of work with George Clooney and in the Oceans movies I somewhat bonded with Casey Affleck. At any rate I’d never connected with Ben Affleck. And then when I got to see Argo, I was really impressed. And then Clooney was having a party for Argo. He’d produced it and with Ben Affleck who directed it. And I thought maybe it’s an opportunity to go and see him and tell him because I thought he’d be pleased. It’s a little pretentious on my part, but. . . so I did, and I said, you know, I don’t like to be impressed because it distracts me, but I’m really impressed with your craft. You’re really good. And I thought you’d be pleased to hear that I recognize it. And he was pleased, and he waited a few moments. And then he said, I have a question for you. . . everything you’ve done and for all the time you’ve been here, have you ever done anything that you were sorry you did afterwards?”

I lean in, ready to hear the answer.

“No,” Gould says. “It would be so disloyal. There are so many people who depend on our work and can earn a living that — sometimes things work, sometimes things don’t work, and we should be able to learn from everything.”

Gould is traveling through time now, on a road where I can’t predict the turns but am happy to be listening as rich stories of the past come to life one by one, each name or moment leading him to the next in some way I can’t see. Monica Vitti and making Scandala Segreto in Rome. Lunch with Richard Dreyfus and Norman Lloyd in Brentwood, talking about the pain of caring, the pain of love.

“Of everyone in your life, is there anyone who stands out as the most influential?” I ask.

“My mother of course,” Gould answers without hesitation. “Don’t make me cry. My daughter, my sons, the two women I. . .”

He stumbles here, and I wonder if he was thinking of his two marriages. But when he speaks again John Wooden, the great basketball coach, is next on his list.

“He’s one of two people I really wanted to meet. . . and I was able to meet him because his son, I was told, belonged to one of my unions. . . And so, we arranged for me to meet coach at a coffee shop in Tarzana, near where he lived. And so, I was there waiting for him and he walked in, walked up to me and immediately told me that he had been an English teacher in Indiana, where he came from, and that the most important word in the English language is love. And the second most important word is balance.”

We speak for a few minutes on the relativity of balance, on connections, and on the chain of events that brought us together over Zoom today. L.A. stories. Those seeds in the forest. Knowing Gould is a member of the elite Five-Timers club — those who have hosted SNL five or more times — I tell him about my experience working with Will Ferrell on Blades of Glory, how he remembered me and called me by name when I saw him in an airport nearly 10 years later.

“I think he’s fabulous. I’m so happy to hear what you’re saying to me. I think he’s something of a great actor. . . I think he’s great.”

“There was another small film where I saw you again over the years. . . I think it was the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival screening of Dorfman in Love.”

“Oh sure, that meant a lot to me. . . And Wendy Kout who wrote it and conceived it. . . the character of that father was something that I, after watching it, I felt I could have done something more with it. . . all I wanted to do was please the people I was working for and there was more to be done. I know that picture quite well, Dorfman in Love, very interesting. . . and the leading lady. . .”

“Sara Rue,” I remind him.

“Sara. She was great, I do remember.”

“It was a very funny Q&A after,” I recall. “I remember they asked you the questions of what’s it like to play a Jewish character versus a not Jewish character.”

“And what did I say?”

“You said, well, I have to prepare my chah’s (repeating the throaty pronunciation of the Hebrew letter).”

“Yeah. I recall. Do you know a film of mine? . . . Little Murders. We had a screening for students and for people at a screening room at 20th Century Fox before the picture was released and Alan Arkin and Jules Feiffer couldn’t attend. And so they asked me to do the interview. . . and the first question, seeing this film, the first film I had hands on. . . the first question was: did Alan Arkin and Jules Feiffer ever fight? And I couldn’t see between the lines. And what I did was I — with a very controlled tumble — I fell onto the carpet. Like is . . . is that the question? Is that the way you want to start?”

He is chuckling at the memory, those famous raised brows and wide smile familiar on my screen.

“Art Garfunkel was in the audience and Art Garfunkel said that the picture is a masterpiece. And Norman Lloyd, who we mentioned earlier, escorted — before I ever met Norman — escorted Jean Renoir to see a screening out here of Little Murders. And John Renoir wrote to Alan Arkin a letter that took Alan 35 years to share with us. And in the running commentary of Little Murders, I read the letter. . .it’s so gratifying.”

“You made an interesting point earlier with Dorfman, realizing that there was more that you wish you could have done. . .I think in life, we all face that. How do you deal with that and move on?”

“Robert Altman gave me so much space,” Gould says, referring to the director of The Long Goodbye. “But with Ingmar Bergman,” moving back in time to The Touch, “Ingmar studied my work and then, uh, chose me over the entire populations of the planet at that point, you know? And I thought, gee, I’m making a living, even with all of my inhibitions and my fear and my doubts. . . I was secure playing his part, as I said he studied my work and he chose me, but I didn’t understand myself. And I didn’t have an inkling of how deeply insecure life is. I finally got here not knowing that I’d have to come through the dark. I was afraid of the dark. I’d have to come through everything in order to get here and be here. . . it’s such a privilege. . . you’ve got to surrender to life.”

“You’ve played so many parts in your life, you’ve been so many other characters, so many people — where’s the line between them and who you are? Or is it that you become a little bit of everyone?”

“I play — generally speaking — anybody I play is a little bit of me. It’s a little bit of us. . . we’re all human beings, we’re all here. Bergman published me as being tragic, in Life magazine when they were writing about our work together. He said I was tragic for not doing classical work in relation to. . .these natural gifts. And he quoted Shakespeare, Iben, Strindberg, and Moliere. And I thought, I felt, I’m very flattered, but I didn’t come here to repeat anything that someone did before now.”

“You made a statement once that I liked that it was never about the parts. It was never about the ego. It was the opportunity to practice your art. In this modern world with so much competition, what advice would you give to young actors, or anyone out there?”

“My grandson, Henry, is 21. I said to Henry, is there anything you’re afraid of? And Henry said, ‘I’m afraid to fail.’ And I said Henry, Henry. . .so long as you’re honest with yourself you’ll never fail. We have to make our mistakes. I said to his sister, my granddaughter who’s younger, she’s 16, we have no judgment to begin with. We have no perspective to begin with. We develop it through trial and error.”

I’m aware of the time as Elliott’s phone buzzes, of how generous he’s been, but he glances at the number and says, “No. We mustn’t be interrupted now. . . did I mention Dick Cavett?”

“No, I think you might’ve mentioned Dick before we got started.”

“Cavett said to me in recent times because he’s befriended me, he said: you’re one of two, perhaps three people I’ve ever known who’s made it. And I said, by made it do you mean transcended identity in relation to the business of this industry? Yes, he said. And I said, well, thank you. But I mean, we have to work at it because the industry has no conscience. . . we’ve got to pay attention. . . you can never do enough, you know. . .in terms of heart and what we all are to one another.”

I ask Elliott how he would explain to his grandkids the way the world has changed.

“My first remembrance,” he begins, “was on October 29, 1939. The reason I know the date is because they took pictures of me on the boardwalk of Far Rockaway, back east, and they dated it. I was two years plus. . . I always knew how to think, I always knew how to feel. . . my last thought in that period of infancy — I was three and a half— I thought everything had been written and everything had been read, and that fame and fortune was not the answer. And that if there wasn’t peace and harmony, I was going to have a lot of problems.”

Gould found fame and fortune, there’s no denying, but he also seems to have found that peace and harmony. As we wrap up our interview, my mouse arrow reluctantly hovering over the End Meeting button we’ve all come to know so well, I am left with the hope that, despite the shortcomings of the industry we are in, and in the face of the often-harsh realities of the world, we might all find that peace. In the crossed paths and serendipitous moments of human connection that make up our lives, we might all recognize, in Gould’s words, “what we all are to one another.”

Benjamin Oberman is the Founder and CEO of Film Festival Flix, the premiere platform for curated film festivals in the virtual space.

Amber Davis Johnson is a Los Angeles-based writer, artist, and brand strategist.