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In truth, these movies, like many of his best-known roles, made no significant money during their theatrical runs, and each was panned by critics before enjoying a second lease on life in the home video market.
“I’ve done things that I loved that didn’t get a very good release or were ill-timed or that people didn’t want to see, but then got found and became cult movies,” Russell said. “The Thing was not at the time well received. Now it’s considered one of the great horror movies.... Big Trouble in Little China was a movie that was completely misunderstood by a lot of people, loved by some. It really has a big cult following.” This month sees Russell as the common denominator in two of 2017’s biggest blockbusters, with The Fate of the Furious having broken worldwide box office records and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 expected to be one of the largest domestic openings of all time. “When that happens, it’s nice. It’s just nice to have the moment happen where two of them go ‘boom boom,’” the actor said.
He has never won a major acting prize, doesn’t go to many showbiz parties and is not even a member of the Academy. His first movie was a two-week shoot with Elvis Presley in It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963), but he made his name as a young teen on a series of family-friendly live-action Disney movies. In 1976 he auditioned for the parts of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in a promising if farfetched-sounding space Western called Star Wars. He dropped out, though, as filmmaker George Lucas dithered over which part would be most suitable and as NBC came in with a rival job offer on a Western series.
That NBC show, The Quest, was canceled amid poor ratings after 11 episodes while Star Wars has arguably done rather better. Still, Russell is circumspect about his choices. “If you do movies for 54 years you’re going to get lots of them out there that you could have done, didn’t do, didn’t get, whatever. That’s what an actor does,” he said with an insouciant shrug.
Russell’s half-century career comes full circle on May 5 with Disney’s release of Marvel’s Guardians 2, in which he plays Ego the Living Planet opposite Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana. Russell, as it happens, isn’t much of a sci-fi guy; he hadn’t even seen the original Guardians when he was being talked up for the sequel. “I know of them, I’ve seen a few ‘Iron Mans,’ I’ve seen a couple of ‘Spider-Mans,’ ‘Batmans’ and ‘Supermans.’ There’s a portion of it that doesn’t draw me,” he says. “’Guardians of the Galaxy’ -- I was the right audience for that. That one works for me.”
