Martin Landau is a living legend. He recently flew into Chicago with two films to present at the 45th Chicago International Film Festival, a remastered print of North by Northwest and a new drama entitled Lovely, Still. The former is now available on Blu-ray (release date: November 3rd, 2009). The latter is a small film co-starring Ellen Burstyn about an elderly romance with a twist.

Landau is still working harder and more consistently than most actors half his age. We were honored to have a one-on-one with the Oscar-winning actor and covered as much of his amazing career as we could including both films at the festival, Entourage, and even a bit on the masters that he’s worked with in films like Ed Wood, Tucker, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and many more.

MovieRetriever: Let's start with North by Northwest. And we'll get to Lovely, Still, of course.

MARTIN LANDAU: It's a nice fifty-year span between those two.

MovieRetriever: And so very few actors will ever have this experience – two films at a festival from such different eras of their life. Can you speak about what that feels like and the sense of accomplishment that must be there?

MovieRetriever: Is it a film that you've watched a lot in those fifty years?

LANDAU: I saw it about 5 or 6 years ago at USC. They had a new print of it then. It's been enhanced since then. What impressed me ... It was the first time I had seen it in God knows how long ... the humor. The stuff in the dining car. There was nothing archaic about the movie outside of the fact that the lapels are a little skinnier on the suits. I mean there are questions people could ask now but no one does. You get Cary Grant on a road with nothing forever and you need an airplane? Anyone could drive up and shoot him in a second and drive off with no witnesses. You attract a little more attention with a crop-dusting airplane. But you renewed your dramatic license with Hitchcock. There were some preposterous things that went on but they were acceptable in the world that he created. Anyone else and you would say, "What are we talking about here? An airplane chasing a man? There's no one around for hundreds of miles."

MovieRetriever: How was Hitch different from other directors that you would go on to work with later?

LANDAU: The interesting thing is that I've had an interesting cross-section of directors – Joe Mankiewicz, George Stevens, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, Tim Burton, Francis Coppola, Woody Allen, Steve Spielberg. The good directors create a playground for you and give you a lot of freedom. That's the secret – casting the right person, somebody with the range and understanding to play your character, and then opening a door and creating a space for them to have fun. I haven't been directed, literally, in 30 years by anybody. I haven't been given a direction. I come in with stuff and I figure if they don't like it they'll tell me. They don't tell me. I hit my marks, I say the words, and I go home. All an audience wants to believe is that what's going on between two or more people is happening for the first time ever. That's what you have to create in a positive sense. Even in Shakespeare. It's a dynamic of behavior – what’s going on NOW. That's what's exciting about what I do.

MovieRetriever: So, when you're choosing a role, is the script the most important thing to you?

LANDAU: It's very important. It's the arc that's important.

MovieRetriever: What's more important, the script or the collaborators? If Woody Allen comes to you and you don't particularly like the script, is it no deal?

LANDAU: I turn him down. I HAVE turned him down.

MovieRetriever: It's always going to be the script first.

LANDAU: The arc of the character IN the script – both the story and the challenge of how the character ... When I did Entourage, Doug Ellin wrote it for me. It was a three-episode arc. I turned it down on the basis of one script. So he says let's have dinner. He and Jeremy Piven take me out to dinner and I told them that there's two more scripts and I wanted to see where the character goes. So, he sends me the second one and one of the directors and Doug take me to dinner. I say, "Look, I'm not being difficult but I want to see where the character goes." In the beginning, you think the guy doesn't have a few cylinders working and then you see that he doesn't even have a project and then as it goes on you think that he's going to be taken advantage of and then he winds up getting Ari fired. I liked that and I liked where it went. He wrote me in again. I wasn't in that script but I got back from Northern Ireland and he called me to see if I was in town and if I wanted to play golf with Phil Mickelson and Jeremy Piven. "Well, probably with Phil Mickelson, but do I HAVE to play with Jeremy Piven?"

MovieRetriever: Would you do the show again?

LANDAU: He wants to write me in. There may be something about The Ramones. He's got the problem of having to write for those guys but he wants to bring me in. I'm going to do a movie next with Jennifer Lopez, a film noir kind of movie like Double Indemnity – a lot of that stuff. We hired a director who did a pass on the script and it was terrible. We gave them another shot and it was worse. It's a very good script as it is but the guy didn't get it. I won't mention his name. It looked like it was written by a farmer with a rake. It's a good script and it's gotten better but he didn't get it. He's one of the friends of another one of the producers and it took a lot of time. But now there's a guy we're very interested in and we're talking to him. But that's going to go. That's a go project. It's a very good one for her. It's good.

MovieRetriever: With all of this experience, when you have a new, young director like you did on Lovely, Still, do you feel more responsibility? When you're working with Francis or Woody, you can be confident that it will be fine behind-the-scenes. Are you more nervous with a newcomer?

LANDAU: He [Nicholas Fackler] wrote it for me. Then sent it to William Morris who sent it to my agent who sent it to me. I read it. I liked it but it was bumpy in that because of the ending, it needed stuff. It's a good piece and a good concept and I told my agent that I'd like to meet with the writer. I said, "How old is he?" I figured 50 or 60. Who's going to write an older couple love story? "He's 22 years old." "Wow. I'd like to meet him and have lunch with him." "Well, he lives in Omaha, Nebraska." "Well, that's his problem." I wound up loving Omaha. We shot there. Anyway, he flies in and we have a 5 hour lunch at Art's Deli in the Valley, where they don't throw you out. I said, "The first act has to build to the date. These scenes do not belong here. These scenes need to be here." The reality that you're watching this movie on is not the actual reality. The second time is another movie. There's double entendres and moments that it needed. He did a rewrite and for two months on the telephone, we did 5 or 6 pages at a time. I said, "If you work with me on this, I'll do your movie." We had a list – Ellen Burstyn, Gena Rowlands, Blythe Danner. When it was 90% there, I said send it to Ellen. She called me and said, "Marty, what the f**k are we going to do in Omaha for seven weeks?" It never got past Ellen.

MovieRetriever: It sounds like there certainly is a bit more responsibility and involvement than with other projects.

LANDAU: In that instance, I'm also one of the exec producers, yeah.

MovieRetriever: It's more your baby than other films.

LANDAU: Yeah. Sometimes I'm the hired help and I say, "Thank God." The J. Lo movie I'm one of the exec producers as well. I'm part of it. And, yes, there's responsibility. No question. But I always feel responsible in some way. I'm filling one of the spots. It's a responsibility any time that you're cast in something.

MovieRetriever: Do you go back and watch your old films regularly or do you leave them behind?

LANDAU: If I'm watching TCM and something comes up, I might watch it, but, no, I don't ... There's so much going on in my life. I run the Actor's Studio on the west coast. I'm going to do a seminar with Mark Rydell and Lyle Kessler called The Total Picture. We're going to do a thing on Saturdays and Sundays. The J. Lo movie. I'm producing a stage musical as well and we're shooting the making of it. I'm doing that. It's like I'm doing a lot of stuff.