The Combination of Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor’s Artistic Voices for A Prairie Home Companion: John C Reilly says he was really impressed with how well the two men worked together. “I have to say, given the two old men of the sea… I think with age there comes a certain amount of, I don't know, you're used to being the center of your universe. It tends to inflate your ego, but I was amazed at how easily they ceded territory to each other. Bob, for the most part, because of the physical part of the production, was out in the audience most of the time, unless we were [filming] backstage. And Garrison, for the most part, was sitting up there on the stage with us the way he does on the real radio show.
I thought, ‘Oh man, these are two strong personalities that are used to having total control over their respective kingdoms. How was this going to work out?' It worked out beautifully. I think there's just a lot of respect. Garrison really respected Bob's work and Bob obviously respected Garrison's work or he wouldn't have taken the film. I was like, ‘Wwow, I hope I'm that generous and that cool with my peers when I'm that age.'”
Virginia Madsen on the Disconnect of Playing an Angel: “It was very odd in the beginning because I didn't get to join in and I wanted to. I wanted to play in the sandbox with everyone else and instead I had to stay on the swings. I thought I'd just, kind of, haunt the theater. I told the props department that I wanted a camera with a big telescopic lens so that I'd just be always around watching from a distance. And you know, it's just such an actor's trick. I mean, all of that stuff I threw out the window. I just loved being there. Ultimately, I really felt like I was a part of things. I didn't get to do what [the other actors] were doing. Most days I just sat there behind Bob and watched him direct, watched everybody rehearse, and there was a real feeling of [being in] like a theater company. It really felt like we were doing theater, every day. Like, we were in rehearsal and then we were in a performance. It was so creative all the time, kind of like an actor's camp. So no, I didn't get to participate much on camera but overall, I felt very much a part of everything.”
The Singing/Joke-Telling Cowboys of A Prairie Home Companion: Reilly and Woody Harrelson play a couple of performing cowboys who sing and joke and behave exactly the same off stage as on. “My impression of [Dusty and] Lefty? I think those guys are a living performance. That was one of the wonderful things that Garrison did with that character. Rather than make him an onstage personality and then back stage they're these totally different people. I, personally, like playing characters that believe in some alternate reality, you know, people who believe in a dream. And with Dusty and Lefty, they're living the cowboy dream. It was a lot of fun. Luckily, I'd already had a similar relationship with Woody. We worked on A Thin Red Line together so I already had like this teasing relationship with him. The way we acted with each other as Lefty and Dusty was very similar to the way that Woody and I treated each other.”
