Mike Davies discovers Kurt Russell is playing the father figure this week...
With films that range from the highs of Escape From New York, The Thing and Dark Blue to the lows of Tango & Cash, Tequila Sunrise and Overboard, somebody once described Kurt Russell's career as looking like it was controlled by a drunk driver.
The man himself didn't disagree, but he's certainly got a firm grip on the wheel and is heading straight down the highway with his latest outing, Sky High, a Disney comedy in which he plays the world's greatest superhero but discovers that being the father of a teenage boy is the toughest job of all.
Russell brings warmth and humanity to the role of The Commander who may be pompous but is basically generous and loving.
"The Commander loves being a superhero," says the 54-year-old actor. "He loves his son but he's a very unaware father. He's a boy at heart and is endlessly enthusiastic about his own abilities, but he doesn't live in the real world.
"When I read the script I thought it was really funny, but it also makes you think maybe you've not been aware of what your child's been going through, having to live up to incredible expectations from their parents. Maybe it will get you to look at things from your son or daughter's point of view."
Having started out as a child actor in Disney movies, the son of Bing Russell, a character actor who appeared in countless TV Western series during the 50s and 60s, Russell knows a little about imposing expectations.
"As a father myself I try not to put pressure on my kids, but I did look at this character and think, 'Maybe I'm more like this guy than I know'. I think I've done as well as I could as a father, to help my children have a healthy perspective on life. But maybe there've also been times where, like the Commander, I was blind to things that were going on for them.
"But there's a lack of communication on both sides because Will's pretending he does have a superpower because he's so scared of what his dad's reaction will be when he finds out that his son has no super human talents. That kind of thing doesn't happen in our family. We talk to each other."
Family, of course, is partner of more than 20 years Goldie Hawn and the four kids they've raised from both their own partnership and their previous marriages. He's a far more focused parent than his character.
"I believe very much in allowing my children to be who they are," he insists. "My mum and dad provided me with a lot of opportunities and believed I could pursue any of them.
They felt that whenever you pursue something, you should go after it wholeheartedly and have fun doing it. That's the same philosophy Goldie and I have tried to infuse in our children.
"Like anybody else, sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed but I think we've been really fortunate with all our children. Katie and Oliver (Hudson) are great people, they always have been. They needed some guidance, and we did the best we could to provide that. Wyatt and Boston, my two sons, have always been great, too. I don't feel we did a great deal of parenting.
"We did have discipline. If they did something bad, we'd say, 'No, that's out of the question.' But they always knew it was coming from love. I didn't ever want to be a cop. I used to say that to them, 'I don't want to ever catch you at something.' I would say, 'If you believe in me and you believe that I want what is best for you, then you will listen to me.'"
But does his and Hawn's own success put the same pressure on their kids as Russell felt from his own father's career?
"Sure," he agrees. "But we all have that pressure. It's greater in some families and less in others. There are some kids who are incredibly ashamed of their parents and they have a different kind of pressure. There are kids like ours who are expected to do as well as their parents. Maybe one of the things my kids saw in me was someone who very definitely said 'I will follow my own path. Sorry, but the rest of the world doesn't matter.'
"I tell my kids they know themselves when they've done a good job and when they've let themselves down. We all know all these things inherently, so look to yourself and don't blame other people or let them give you a sense of your value that is a lie."
If Russell is a passionate parent, he's still no less enthusiastic about his life as an actor. With Sky High opening the same day as Dreamer (another parent-child story in which he plays the racehorse trainer/father to Dakota Fanning, who bonds with an injured horse and helps nurse it back to championship form) and next year seeing him in both the remake of the Poseidon Adventure and Munich, Spielberg's film of the aftermath of the 1972 Olympic massacre, he shows now signs of slowing down.
"I think it must be arrested development," he laughs. "I like going to work. I've had great opportunities and I've taken them. I'm interested in the job and I love giving audiences as a good a show as I can.
"I guess some people are meant to do something with their lives and are fortunate enough to be able to do it. As a kid, although I was acting, baseball was what I was going to do with my life. But then I got hurt playing and couldn't pursue it as a profession and I wondered if acting could to mean as much to me as baseball. It did and I'm thankful for that."
He smiles: "It just took time to get over baseball!"
* Sky High and Dreamer open today.
