I'm Sean Fennessee, and this is the big picture, a conversation show about Robert Duvall.

Today on the show, we are building a Hall of Fame for the, quote, American Olivier,

an actor whose body of work is so vast.

I was still catching up with his movies at 1 a.m. last night.

I'm here with Playwright, actor, Bon Vivant, the King of Physical Media, Tracy Letts.

We're going to honor Robert Duvall in this episode.

It's all coming up right after this. Okay. Tracy Letts, we're going to honor Robert Duval in this episode. It's all coming up right after this.

Okay, Tracy, hello. Hi. Are you excited about this endeavor? You raised your hand for this, did you not?

I did. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Sure. I love Robert Duvall. You know, when he died,

uh, he died right around the same time

as Frederick Wiseman. They died the same day or maybe a day apart. And my first thought was,

well, we've lost our greatest actor and our greatest documentarian at the same time.

And then I thought, well, I'm given to the superlative.

Maybe that's not the case.

Maybe I should say my favorite actor or one of my favorite actors.

Because people value different things in their actors.

Some people love a movie star.

Most people love a movie star. Most people love a movie star.

And Duvall was a movie star, but he was also a character actor and of that guy.

And he could be the lead in movies, but more often than not a supporting player.

And I realized that when I thought of him as our greatest actor, what I was thinking of,

he's the kind of actor that I especially admire.

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