Keith Carradine Is In “Complete Support” Of His ‘Pretty Baby’ Co-Star Brooke Shields’ Emotional Journey: “She’s A Woman of Great Substance”

For multiple decades, the last name “Carradine” has been one associated with actors who work steadily and continue to hone their craft to the bitter end. John Carradine was a legendary character actor, of course, the late David Carradine followed in his father’s footsteps, and not only do his other sons continue to carry on the family tradition, but so do his grandkids, including Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton. But we’re here today to talk specifically about Keith Carradine, who’s been a working actor since the dawn of the 1970s and continues to keep busy on a very regular basis. 

Indeed, this week marks Carradine’s return to TV, this time in the anthology-series format with Fox’s Accused: in the show’s season finale, he plays an aging rocker who — in addition to returning to the studio to record a few songs for his greatest-hits album — is dealing with a few family problems…and we’ll just leave it at that for the moment. (The Accused Season 1 finale airs on Tuesday, May 9, 2023 — that’s tonight!) In addition to talking about his work on the episode, Decider was able to ask Carradine about several other key moments in his career, including working alongside the then-11-year-old Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby, Robert Altman on Nashville, and his father on Love, American Style, along with his love of westerns, and how he wished he could’ve survived a bit longer on Fear the Walking Dead.

DECIDER: I was able to watch your episode of Accused in advance, thankfully, and not only was it a great performance, but it was great to hear you sing again.

KEITH CARRADINE: Oh, thank you! It’s nice to have been given the chance to do that. And that’s one of the things that drew me to this, obviously, was the chance to do some music again. I’ve continued doing that — songwriting — and I’ve done it for different things. I did a film with Tanya Tucker a little while back, and I did a song for that. She and I went and recorded it. So I’ve kept my hand in music. But this is the first time since the last episode of Madam Secretary that I’ve actually been able to perform a song on camera.

And just to confirm that it’s not just idle talk…

There you go. The second album! 

So how did you find your way into Accused? Did [executive producer] Howard Gordon approach you directly?

Yeah, Howard approached me, and as soon as I read it, I jumped at it. I actually had another job all lined up that was going to immediately follow it, one for which I’d already cut my hair and grown this Van Dyke, and then this came along. And I said, “Listen, are you guys okay with how I look?” And I sent ’em pictures, and they said, “Yeah, that’s fine.” And then the other question was, “Are we gonna be finished in time for me to go into this gig that I’m doing in Los Angeles?” And they got that worked out so that we were able to do that. So it was a very happy circumstance when it came along, and as things often happen in this business, it came along and required a fairly quick decision and getting on an airplane and going and doing it. But I was able to work with Howard and his son Micah on the music beforehand, so that was a real bonus.

I was actually wondering who was responsible for the music you performed.

Yeah, Howard’s son, Micah Gordon, he’s a wonderful songwriter and musician and producer in his own right, so they came up with the material. And Micah actually kind of wrote both to the idea of the genre of Billy’s time, his era, and also to my musical sensibilities. So it just worked out very well, I think.

In addition to the music, it’s also a great dramatic performance. As a father yourself, I’m sure you can relate — if only in general terms — to the horror that your character’s son is going through.

Listen, I can’t imagine anything more profound as a parent than to be dealing with a child having a substance abuse issue. Fortunately, none of my grown children — I have now a 4-year-old — have gone down that road, so I haven’t had to deal with that. But just knowing what one feels as a parent and how desperately you want your children to be healthy, happy, productive people in the world, anytime there’s an issue like this or even the threat of an issue like this, it’s the parent’s worst nightmare. I haven’t experienced that loss myself, but I have friends who have. I can’t imagine anything more devastating. 

I wanted to make special note of the little girl who plays your granddaughter in the episode, in particular because we’re doing this interview on May the 4th and her name is Skywalker Hughes.

[Laughs.] Yes!

But entertaining name aside, she gives a really great and heart-wrenching performance.

She’s terrific! You know, everyone in the episode does really good work, I think. It was a pleasure to work with all of them.

Well, knowing this was an anthology series led me to look back through your filmography to the first time you worked on an anthology series, which was particularly notable. You did an episode of Love, American Style.

Oh, my gosh! That’s right. I did that with my father!

You sure did. Although having watched the episode, I know you didn’t actually work with him on that.

We played each other, that’s correct, yeah. I didn’t actually get to work with Pa on that. I did get to work with him a couple of other times, though. The first time I worked with him was a dinner theater production of Tobacco Road, which we did at the Alhambra Dinner Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. [Laughs.] That was in 1970. And then I worked with him again on a film I did called… Well, it was called Grasslands when we shot it, but it wound up being called Hex, I believe. We shot it in South Dakota, but we did a week’s work on a western set at 20th Century Fox, and my father played an aging gunslinger in that. So we did get to play together in that regard.

[Writer’s note: Upon further investigation, it appears that whatever material Keith and John shot together for the film never actually made it into the final cut. Thankfully, however, someone had the foresight to snap a photo of father and son on the set.]

Can I just tell you that I literally just had Hex up on my screen right before we got on the call?

No way.

I was fascinated by the cast: it was you, Dan Haggerty, Gary Busey, Scott Glenn… I mean, that’s a rogues gallery right there.

Oh, yeah! And Cristina Raines, with whom I had a relationship for nine years, and Hillarie Thompson. And Robert Walker, Jr., who we just lost. Yeah, that was an amazing time we all had up there.

As far as that episode of Love, American Style goes, how did that come about? Did your dad ask you?

Yeah. He got offered that, and I think that they might’ve mentioned to him, “You have several sons who are actors. Would any of them…?” And he came to me. And, y’know, Love, American Style at that time was not necessarily something that, for my career, anyone would’ve considered a wise thing to do. [Laughs.] But it was my dad. And I’ve done other things in my career that were probably not great strategic career choices to make, but you do ’em for one reason or another, either for a friend or for a relative…or for my dad, in that case! So that’s how that happened.

Yeah, it was interesting looking at your filmography and realizing that you did that after you’d done McCabe and Mrs. Miller. 

Yes! It was after McCabe, and it was just before Thieves Like Us. 

I wanted to ask you about the experience of working with Brooke Shields on Pretty Baby. When she was talking to Drew Barrymore about the film, she made a great point of talking about how kind you were and how you assured her, “This doesn’t count as your first kiss.”

Well, yes, listen, Brooke is… She’s an extraordinary person. She’s a woman of great substance, I think, and incredibly intelligent, and I so completely support her process that she’s going through now and being able to address all of those issues in her own life and to come to terms with how she feels about all of that stuff now, as opposed to how she felt about it 10, 20 years ago, or even as a child. Our lives go on, and we learn things, and we become more conscious and…I’m in complete support of her, and I appreciate her recollection of how it was working with me at the time.

Yeah, she made a point of saying that you saying that to her… Well, I have the exact quote right here: “That was gracious and protective and caring on a level that I don’t even think I knew at the time.”

Well, I appreciate Brooke. She’s a really good person, and we stayed acquainted over the years. She came to me when she was doing her senior thesis at Princeton, because she was writing about her experience of making Pretty Baby, and she interviewed all of us. And when she came to interview me at the time, I remember thinking, “Oh, my gosh, look who she’s becoming.” She’s a remarkable person, and I completely support her journey.

I have to ask you about Deadwood. I interviewed Stephen Tobolowsky last year, and he talked about how, on his first week of shooting, a horse crapped on him, and David Milch informed him, “We don’t wash clothes here because we want it to look authentic.”

[Laughs.] That’s Milch, for sure! And that’s also westerns. If you’re gonna do a western, you’re gonna get dirty. And it’s certainly been one of my favorite genres to be able to participate in over the years. I became a decent horseman. And it’s my favorite place to be, frankly, outdoors doing something like that. While I also appreciate doing movies wearing suits and whatnot, I’ve always had a good time on westerns, and I look forward to another one in my future, I hope. 

I heard that you were disappointed that your run on Fear the Walking Dead ended when it did. 

Yeah, I was disappointed! When I signed up, it looked like they had a plan, but I think that, as is often the case, the nature of storytelling is that, as stories get told, things dawn on the producers and the writers as the story is continuing, and things present themselves, and they realize, “Well, we need to do this here, and we need to do that there, and we need to have this impact here…” And I think that, ultimately, the greatest impact that they could derive from the character that they had created for me to play, that they had invited for me to play, was to kill him. [Laughs.] And we actors… I mean, hey, listen, Brian Cox just went through the same thing! When they come to you and say, “By the way, you’re gonna die,” you sigh and you say, “Okay. I would’ve liked to have been around a little longer, but I get it. You’ve gotta tell the story you want to tell, and I am here to be grist for the mill!”

Are you jonesing for another series gig if one comes about?

If it’s the right thing, absolutely. But like I said, I’m the father of a four-year-old boy now, and that is life’s greatest adventure. [Laughs.] So I’ve embarked on it yet again, and it’s an amazing time, so I am trying to find things to do that will enable me to stay as close to him as possible for as long as possible. 

Kind of on that note, I suppose, since it was a family sitcom, but I wanted to ask you how you enjoyed doing the sitcom Complete Savages, which I think is the only place on the flowchart where Betty White and Mel Gibson meet. [Gibson directed an episode in which White guest-starred.]

[Cackles.] Yeah, I think you may be right! That was a blast. We had such a good time. It was a great experience, and I’m sorry it was so short-lived. Again, I thought we did a good job on the show, I thought we were doing what we all set out to do, but there’s a lot of elements to whether a show succeeds or not, and timeslot is a big one.

Do you have any particular memories from working with Betty White?

I mean, she was fantastic. And hilarious, as you would expect. She was a legend! And she was everything that you would think that she would be: she was funny as hell and really not precious. She could hang. She was great. 

Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

Well, I’ve had a few of those! But I did a picture called The Bachelor years ago that I shot with an Italian director, Robert Faenza. There were some amazing people involved: Max Von Sydow, Kristen Scott Thomas, Miranda Richardson. [Ennio] Morricone did the music, Milena Canonero did the costumes. Giuseppe Rotunno was the cinematographer. I mean, we had the best of the best. We shot it in Hungary and in the Canary Islands. It was based on an Arthur Schnitzler short story, and I was incredibly proud of the movie…and nobody’s ever seen it. I think it’s a remarkable film, but I couldn’t get anybody to pay any attention to it. We didn’t have a distributor. So if you don’t have somebody behind you who can go and sell it… [Shrugs.] So that’s one of my favorite orphans. I have a few. 

I’ll have to see if it’s out there streaming anywhere.

[Snorts.] Good luck!

[In fact, we did find the film on YouTube, which is clearly better than Carradine thought we’d do. Unfortunately, anyone who only speaks English is likely to be out of luck in regards to actually understanding the dialogue. Still, the least we can do is offer it up.]

To bring things full circle in terms of your singing, let’s close by talking about Nashville, one of your many experiences working with Robert Altman.

Well, you know, that was such a gift, because Bob invited us all to bring our stuff. So I was able to bring my music, and Karen Black was able to bring her music, and Ronee Blakley was able to bring her music. Henry Gibson wrote his own stuff! All of us were able to bring our music to that, and it made the whole experience kind of remarkable. 

I’ve interviewed Ronee a few times, and she has extremely fond memories of the experience herself.

Oh, yeah, it truly was. And I got a record deal out of it! David Geffen saw the movie and signed me up! So that’s pretty cool. [Laughs.] 

Do you see yourself doing another album at any point?

I would love to. I have a lot of material. But, you know, that’s a youth market, and I have no illusions about it. But if I ever get the opportunity, one of my dearest friends is one of the great record producers of all time: Tony Berg. He and I talk about it. In fact, I just recorded something with his daughter, Z, for a film that she’s doing. We did a cover of “Love Hurts.” So it’s all happening all the time, and if I ever have the chance… I have at least an album’s worth of material sitting in my trunk. [Laughs.] And if I ever get the chance, yeah, I’d welcome it!

You could do a lot worse than Tony Berg. I’ve been a fan of his since his work with Michael Penn (March) and Squeeze (Play).

Oh, yeah, Tony and I… He was the bandleader on my second album – the one you held up! – and my second national tour. So we’ve known each other for a long time! He’s brilliant.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)