‘I turned down Gandhi because I’m terrified of snakes’: the amazing movie memories of Bruce Dern
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- Northbound, Bruce Dern's latest film, receives its world premiere at the Edinburgh film festival next week, with Dern playing Arthur, a man fleeing a US nursing home for a childhood shack on a Canadian lake
- Shot in Canada for about $1.6 million over 30 days during the Olympics, Northbound is described by Dern as a related, sunnier cousin to his Oscar-nominated Nebraska
- Bruce Dern won Cannes best actor at age 77 for Nebraska and returned to the festival this year for documentary tribute Dernsie, named for his signature habit of breaking from the script — including his improvised 'John Wilkes Booth?' line in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
- After the Dernsie documentary screened at Cannes, the applause lasted six minutes; Dern told festival chief Thierry Frémaux that 'Cannes gives a shit'
- Richard Attenborough begged Dern to play the American journalist in Gandhi, but Dern walked away after asking whether a snake handler might be waiting outside his hotel in India; Martin Sheen took the part
- Born into a wealthy Chicago family with Adlai Stevenson as godfather and Eleanor Roosevelt as babysitter, Dern was disowned for quitting college to act and trained under Elia Kazan at the Actors Studio before Kazan sent him to Hollywood on Memorial Day 1960
Why it matters: The Northbound premiere caps a late-career surge for Dern, who won Cannes best actor at 77 for Nebraska, drew a six-minute standing ovation at this year's festival for documentary Dernsie, and remains a leading-man draw at 90 — a comeback arc for a performer who spent decades feeling overlooked.
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