Marlon Brando: The Past

Marlon Brando with his father.

Interview with Marlon Brando

Conducted by James Grissom

By Telephone

1991

 

 

There's no getting away from the past. The past is the great hurdle; the great lesson. If you want to think in mythical terms, our past is the secret, and the world is the forest into which we need to lunge to figure it out, to find the key to unlock our souls--certainly our hearts.

 

I didn't always know this, and I buried my past in sex and food and things. Buying and fucking and eating were for me the great mechanisms by which I thought I could bury the sounds of my past, the images.

 

Face it. You hate your father: Face it; accept it; forgive it. You want to keep saving your mother and yourself: Well, mama is dead, and you're all that's left.

 

The past is the rock you turn over and you don't find creatures and mud--you find a nice patch of land on which to sit and get a better view.

 

 

© 2018  James Grissom