Q&A: Eric Braeden

German immigrant Eric Braeden left Missoula in 1960 while struggling to balance academics, track and various odd jobs.

Since then, Braeden has had the starring role on one of daytime television’s longest-running soap operas, “The Young and the Restless,” acted alongside Oscar winners such as Marlon Brando, and recently was awarded a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

On April 19, Braeden returns to Missoula in support of his new film, “The Man Who Came Back.” Kaimin Arts caught up with him for a phone interview while he was in Los Angeles.

Kaimin Arts: While growing up in Germany, did you envision yourself ever being an actor someday?

Eric Braeden: That probably came about early on in Germany. When you grow up in as rough a time as I grew up in — with bombs every night, after the war was going up in total destruction – it makes you fantasize about a different life. Then, of course, that time created a lot of conflict and a lot of anger in a lot of people, primarily young kids as their fathers often died early on in the war. The wellspring I think for any creative person very often is anger, this unexpressed conflict. You find ways and art provides that way to express conflict and anger. It had occurred to me in the sense that I watched certain films that influenced me early on by Clark Gable and Marlon Brando where you envision yourself anywhere but where you are in reality.

KA: After nearly 50 years in television and film, how do you continue to challenge yourself as an actor in the roles you perform?

EB: I love acting, and the great advantage of doing daytime is that you can really examine a person’s psychological makeup from all sides. Usually in nighttime television, because of time constraints, (characters) are divided into ‘good guys and bad guys,’ and film’s very often the same. There’s no medium other than our medium of soaps that allows (us) to really see all the grey shadings of the character. There’s a whole kaleidoscope of emotions as there are in reality with people, unless you’re a bore. This medium provides that opportunity, and I never get bored with taking something someone else wrote and trying to make it real.

KA: What was it like working with director Glen Pitre and a cast consisting of Jennifer O’Dell (“The Lost World”), George Kennedy (“Cool Hand Luke”) and Billy Zane (“Titanic”) in “The Man Who Came Back?”

EB: The big names obviously are George Kennedy, the Oscar winner, then you have Billy Zane who I worked with in “Titanic,” and Armand Assante (“Mambo Kings”) who I’ve respected for years. The cast was absolutely wonderful and a joy to work with and were enormously helpful. They just liked the script a lot. I’m very deeply thankful for them.

KA: What kind of approach did you take in developing your character, Reese Paxton, in this movie?

EB: It’s basically a revenge story, and I think people really viscerally identify a lot with revenge pictures because it is an emotion that many of us often feel. In this case, an egregious injustice has been committed against my person and my family. A lot of us who are unjustly accused of something want to get back at whoever the accuser was, and well, kick their ass.

KA: (Laughs) Well put. What do you look forward to the most with your visit to Missoula?

EB: Well I tell you, I left in 1960. Can you imagine that? I’m curious to see what it looks like. It will be emotional for me in a sense because it was the first loner stay in America. I remember how hospitable people were and helpful in every regard. I worked my ass off in a lumber mill in Bonner from six until two in the morning on the Green Jane. My first class was at eight, I think, and then we had classes all morning. I was on the track and field team in discus, javelin and shot put. To be honest with you, I was mostly hungry. The University provided me tuition scholarship, but I had to earn a living because no one supported me. Needless to say, there wasn’t much juice left for shot put and discus and whatever. I worked on a ranch as a cowboy outside of Missoula, and I want to see that place again.

“The Man Who Came Back” will be showing at the UC Theatre at 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. There will be a question-and-answer session with Braeden following the first showing. Tickets are free, but seating will be limited.