Q 6

PLAYBOY: You also ended up playing years of minor-league baseball. Where do you stand on the designated-hitter controversy?

Kurt Russell: As much as I think it's been fantastic to extend the careers of record makers, I disagree with the concept of putting in a hitter. It's trying to solve the problem of run production for a television audience. Pitchers are 11 percent of a team's hitting power, but the teams don't make them hit. I say make the motherfuckers take batting practice. Letting the pitcher hit adds variables to a game that's made up of variables. It makes the manager have to deal with the situation. Having played so much baseball, I've come to the conclusion that after a certain point, most guys are basically of the same physical ability. But what's truly interesting about the game is the mental aspect: They've got Joe Blow in the bull pen and it's the seventh inning and they're only two runs down. What should they do? I'm interested in what can be done with moves, in giving the American baseball audience something to second-guess. The more you take away from the fans the ability to second-guess, the more you hurt the game.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: Jocks are notorious practical jokers. What's your most memorable prank?

Kurt Russell: Jeez, we had some great ones, but this is the best. A guy I knew was pitching a no-hitter in the ninth inning and the batter hit a grounder to the shortstop, who threw to first and got the runner by two steps. But the ump at first called him safe and blew the no-hitter. Well, the pitcher hated the ump anyway, and after the game, he was thinking of how he could get the guy. About a week later, the pitcher caught the clap. And a week after that, we were scheduled to have the same ump. So the pitcher figured out a plan, and I, another guy and the pitcher carried it out. Actually, it wasn't funny. It was awful. But I felt sorry for the pitcher, because he would have been in the record books--which meant a lot in minor-league ball--but the ump, whom the pitcher didn't like, had blown the play. Our plan was to butter up the ump completely; take him out and have a couple of drinks after the game. So the pitcher did. He apologized, said, "You didn't blow the call." We then got the ump really drunk. Meanwhile, the ump's wife, who knew the pitcher and was privy to all this, had gone along. Which was the whole point. The pitcher had been dying with the clap for a couple of weeks just on the off-chance that he could pull off his plan--which was to sleep with the ump's wife. He did. Cut to three weeks later. It was toward the end of the season. We ran into the ump and he was still in a good mood. Again, we went out with him for some beers and he bragged about this and that and all the girls he'd been with. Then he said, "Shit, I don't know where I got it, but I got a hell of a dose of the clap." The pitcher just looked at him and said, "You got it from your wife," and told him the whole story. Those two ended up going at it like two bulldogs under a blanket. I saw it all. It was brutal.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: What's dangerous about you?

Kurt Russell: Just what I'm capable of imagining, because one is capable of doing anything he imagines. There is, however, an acceptability level. There is that line between all things, and it is of great concern to anyone who wants to get a lot out of life. I mean, what stops men from raping and pillaging? What stops a guy from walking down the street and just fucking any girl he wants to fuck? Not that it's unacceptable to society but that it's unacceptable to him. What stops a woman who's very much in love with her husband from having, on a whim, another guy in her bed when her husband comes home? It's unacceptable to her. What stops you from being mean and ruthless even though there is a level at which you will be both? It's where you draw the line. The same is true for sensitivity. You can be too sensitive, too loving, too understanding, too good. It's wrong to be too good. At least, it's too much for me.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: You once said you hated your generation. How will history sum us up?

Kurt Russell: Our generation--the baby-boomers--is just like any other. And that's what I hate about them. They don't seem to understand that we're just another generation. We're just here to procreate the race. But if you think you're going to change the world forever, have the guts to carry it out. Be dedicated enough, rather than stop and say, "Oh, shit, I guess I have to make a living. Oh, God, now I've got a family. Oh, God, now I have to take this job." If you do that, you have no balls. This generation didn't change basic structures. It became other things. All of it was another view of youth going through its period of wanting change for apparently no reason other than being young. Every generation has that period. It's biological; otherwise, how could so many people buy the same bag of shit? It would be interesting to see something different.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: When was the last time you were surprised?

Kurt Russell: The last big surprise I had was Goldie Hawn. I was surprised by the way I felt about her and by the way she was and the way she looked--also, by the way she could make me feel. I'd begun to think that perhaps my lot in life wasn't to feel exactly how I wanted to feel with another person. I thought maybe it was something I just wasn't lucky with; it was turning out to be more of an effort than I'd ever thought it should be. But after meeting Goldie, I realized I was right in the first place. I could just be who I was and someone would take me for that and not hold it against me. I feel right. I feel like me. And I'm still surprised.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: What more do women need to know about men than they already do?

Kurt Russell: I wonder if they need to know any more at all. I wonder if perhaps the need now is to know less. Everything these days is so broken down and picked apart. Now there's this incredible movement toward understanding. But there are some things in nature that we are never going to understand. No matter how deeply you get into it, there are always more questions. And the answers don't apply to all men. Every one is an individual. I would prefer that men and women looked at each other as individuals and tried to understand more about themselves.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: What fascinates the Hollywood press?

Kurt Russell: For some reason, the press will always love an actor who has tremendous personal problems or apparent ones. They think that suggests creativity and ability. They're wrong. It's just personal problems. But as long as the person is tremendously tragic, with an emotionally charged, up-and-down life, we're told that's why he's so great. Half the thing with alcohol or drugs is that the great moment will come in an actor's life when he admits he's an alcoholic or a drug addict. Well, who the fuck cares? I don't buy that he had to experience that to be a great actor. I know very well some big stars, great actors and actresses, who are normal. But the press and the public like to find something mysterious about them. Meryl Streep is a good example. Meryl is a nice, simple, wonderful, great girl who is a great actress. She's got a tremendous array of technical things to use and she uses them. But mysterious? The public likes to think about the mystery, because otherwise, people would be saying, "Shit, I could do that." And the truth is that they could. And a reason many actors are out of work is that that's what some of them did. There are only so many jobs. I can't tell you how much I dislike that idea of building into a myth someone who is just standing on a mark and reading a line. Even Brando is not a myth. He's a man who does a job, and he's extremely good at it.