Harry Dean Stanton: Vet on and off screen

For his U.S. Navy service in World War II, Harry Dean Stanton received a commendation for "coolness under fire." That's apropos - because if anyone should win a medal for coolness, it's Harry Dean Stanton.

His friends have included Sean Penn, Madonna, Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. In the Blondie song "I Want That Man," Debbie Harry sings, "I wanna dance with Harry Dean." He got possibly the first on-screen "starring" credit in a music video, in the heartbreaking 1985 piece done for Procol Harum's classic '60s song "Whiter Shade of Pale." And in "Repo Man" (1984), he gave a code of conduct to hardworking outcasts everywhere.

The man-of-few-words actor, 84, who voices an outlaw mole named Balthazar in the animated feature "Rango," which opens March 4, spoke with frequent Newsday contributor Frank Lovece.

Your TV and film credits go back to 1954, and you've been in everything from "Alien" to "Laverne & Shirley," but this was your first voice-over for animation.

And I'm doing it in a series now, off and on. It's animated wrestling . It's pretty raunchy dialogue. It's for the college crowd, I think.

In voice dubbing, actors usually work separately, but some directors like to have them there together, to get a spontaneous interplay. How did it work with Gore Verbinski on "Rango"?

Well, I had a dubbing session, and the other voices were there, too. I don't remember who. All I remember is Johnny .

In a nod to "Repo Man," you played a repo man on the TV series "Chuck," and you played yourself in an episode of "Two and a Half Men." Do you find that directors and producers who grew up seeing your work want to cast Harry Dean Stanton just because, well . . . you're Harry Dean Stanton!

Yeah. Sure.

So, guess that feels good?

Yeah. It's nice.

Right, then. Let's talk about some of your movies: "Alien."

Yeah, that was a good film. That changed the sci-fi film genre a little bit . I remember the bloody thing coming out of [John Hurt's] chest . That was creepy.

Did you know ahead of time what was going to happen? Some directors like to surprise you.

We knew. We didn't know it was going to be as gory as it was.

"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid": You got director Sam Peckinpah mad.

Yeah. Me and Bob Dylan, we were jogging, and [Peckinpah] happened to be shooting a long shot , and we ran into it and spoiled the shot. I tried to tell Sam - he was screaming and yelling - and I said, "Sam, I was trying to run after Bob to tell him to get out of the shot!"

I read that Peckinpah then threw a Bowie knife at you.

Who, Sam? No. He did pull a gun on me and Donnie Fritts, one of the keyboard players for [co-star] Kris Kristofferson. That was a different time . He had shot a hole in his television, and Donnie Fritts said, "Let's go see Sam; he's been kind of sick." And so we went up and opened the door, and he's pointing a gun at both of us. Kris took it away from him later.

Was it a practical joke, or was Sam drunk?

I don't know if he was drunk or not. It was just Sam. I don't think he was going to shoot, but who knows? Somebody's got a gun; you don't know what they're going to do.

Words to live by. Speaking of guns, I heard you ad-libbed jumping on Marlon Brando's back during a scene in "The Missouri Breaks," where his character's undercover, dressed as a woman, and going to shoot your character.

I did. I tore his dress off. It was a wild moment. But I loved Marlon. We were very close the last three years of his life. We talked for hours on the phone. We spent a lot of time together. I was in his house and everything.

And, of course, you and Jack Nicholson were roommates back in the 1960s. That must have been some wild times.

Yeah. We lived together about two-and-a-half years up in Laurel Canyon. We were a pair. The Odd Couple.