Probing the Depths of Evil’s Contradictions

Robert Duvall, one of America’s most versatile and critically acclaimed actors, has brought to life countless memorable characters, ranging from his film debut as the shy, childlike Boo Radley in 1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Tom Hagen, the consigliere in “The Godfather.”

He won an Oscar as a sympathetic faded country singer in “Tender Mercies” and received an Emmy nomination for his memorable turn as the sexy, aging cowboy Gus McCrae in the classic miniseries “Lonesome Dove.”

In his latest project, “The Man Who Captured Eichmann,” premiering Sunday on TNT, Duvall is chillingly effective as Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi who was responsible for organizing the delivery of millions of Jews to Hitler’s concentration camps during World War II.

Duvall, 65, is also executive producer with Stan Margulies (“Roots”). The film is based on “Eichmann in My Hands,” written by Peter Malkin, one of the Israeli Mossad agents responsible for capturing Eichmann, who had eluded authorities for 15 years after World War II, until his capture in Buenos Aires in 1960. Arliss Howard co-stars as Malkin.

Duvall spoke from Louisiana, where he’s filming “The Apostle.” Not only is he starring in the drama about an evangelical preacher, but he is also director, writer and producer.

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Question: Four years ago you portrayed Josef Stalin in the HBO film “Stalin.” Can you talk about the similarities and differences between Stalin and Eichmann?

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Answer: I think probably a lot of the feelings of Stalin were more at the surface. One to one, he dealt with people in a broader way. Eichmann was an administrator, so he could hide things. Stalin, in a certain kind of way, put it out there more. Eichmann wouldn’t have destroyed his family like Stalin. They were both different people who attained the same kind of objective, really.

Q: What also made Eichmann scary was that he seemed so unassuming and harmless.

A: That was part of his act. I used to be in the Army and you would just stay in the middle so you wouldn’t be on either end of being bad or outstanding, so you would be kind of a nothing--a nonentity as much as possible so you wouldn’t be called on for detail. I think that made him able to operate. He kind of hid out a bit.

Q: What made Eichmann tick?

A: Some people say he was just an average guy, but Peter Malkin and another guy who interrogated him in Israel said he was a monster. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Q: How do you play someone evil?

A: You have to find the contradictions. With Eichmann, he loved his son. If he didn’t have that, then it would be nothing. . . . I think when you do play them you have to think the way they thought. They don’t think of themselves as bad.

Q: How did the project come about?

A: I had it first. We went to TNT and they brought [executive producer] Stan Margulies in. I had been connected with another project, “White Crow,” that dealt with Eichmann. That was a number of years ago. That kind of got shelved and then a friend of mine said there’s a book out that’s a more interesting treatment of Eichmann. So I read that and liked that better.

Q: Why were you so interested in playing Eichmann?

A: I always wanted to play a German guy. I was very interested in “Schindler’s List,” but [director Steven Spielberg] went another way, obviously. He went younger. I really wanted to play that part at one time. So I said if I can’t play a complex [character] on the good side of things German, let me play a bad guy.

Q: Did you insist on shooting the movie in Buenos Aires?

A: There was no sense in going any place other than Buenos Aires. I suppose you could do it in another place, but since you can work there well and you have good crews and a wonderful setup, that is the only place to go.

Q: Is it true you actually filmed where Eichmann lived on Garibaldi Street?

A: We approximated his house one block up from the real block because since that time they have put up an auto mechanic shop. So we actually got a house and re-created it one block away, but it was right on Garibaldi Street.

I met people who knew him and I hung around with people who knew him. It was a little bit strange.

Q: How did the people who knew him feel about the movie being made?

A: They didn’t seem to mind. It went from mouth to mouth in Argentina that Eichmann had said that when he died he wished he had been a Jew, so one more Jew would have died.

Q: Were you involved in choosing the director and the cast?

A: I picked the director, Billy Graham. I worked with him way back. He’s a great guy to work with. I have known Arliss for a long time. I am not sure the powers that be, including Turner, wanted him, but he was my choice.

Q: You’re currently shooting “The Apostle,” in which you play an evangelical preacher. You also are financing the film.

A: I didn’t get five cents out of Hollywood [to finance it], so it’s all me.

Q: Why has it been such a difficult sell?

A: I don’t know. I have my own ideas but I am not going to say any of them now. A lot of guys, actors, who try to do their own project, it’s hard. But we have a wonderful group of people around us.

Q: Who is in it besides yourself?

A: We got Miranda Richardson. Farrah Fawcett is playing my wife. Some people bailed out because they got more money [for other projects]. Tomorrow I am meeting--from a little town near the Texas border--a blind, black preacher to preach in the opening credits. I don’t want anything but the real preachers. We got real choirs.

Q: Is your preacher a good guy or a bad guy?

A: Let’s go to the Bible to David who killed Goliath and wrote the beautiful songs and was a spiritual man. My character would never send a man into battle to die so he could marry his wife, like David did with Bathsheba. That was pretty heinous. So if a biblical guy can have his faults, so can a modern-day guy.

* “The Man Who Captured Eichmann” airs Sunday at 5, 7 and 9 p.m., plus other dates throughout November on TNT.