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It took Hal Holbrook more than 40 years, but he’s finally starting to feel comfortable acting in movies — and he has Sean Penn to thank for that.

Two years ago Holbrook gave an unforgettable performance for director Penn in “Into the Wild.” Holbrook played Ron Franz, a widowed loner who befriends a young adventurer (Emile Hirsch) who eventually moves on and perishes in Alaska. Holbrook received an Oscar nomination for the role and, perhaps even more important, got a shot of needed confidence.

The way Penn treats actors made him a better one, Holbrook says.

“After a few shots you begin to realize that anything you do is going to be OK. Instead of retakes and retakes, he maybe will do one or two takes and then he would go like that” — Holbrook proffers a thumbs up — “and go on. The little buzzing, faint quiet thing inside of an actor that always creates a little anxiety when you are creating a role, he took that right away because you realized he cast you and he trusted you.”

Working with Penn, he says, he could understand what Sidney Lumet told him on the set of his first film, “The Group,” in 1965. After disliking what he had done, Holbrook begged the director to see the dailies.

“I saw the scene I did and after the thing was over I said, ‘Oh, my God, I was acting, acting. I was awful.’ Sidney said, ‘Yes, you were, but we can get around it in editing. But what you have to remember in film is that the camera can read your mind.’ It took me most of my life to really believe that and I believe it now. I don’t have to add or throw in any kind of stuff; you just need to live the life of the person.”

The idea that this beloved American actor, who in his six decades in the business has won a Tony and multiple Emmys, worries about his acting chops is a bit startling. So is that he’s waited so long to get star billing in a feature film — “That Evening Sun,” which opens this month.

“I had a chance to be a movie star with Goldie Hawn,” recalls Holbrook, 84. He shared top billing with Hawn in the 1974 box-office bomb “The Girl From Petrovka,” but his most vivid memory is the reaction told to him later by Dixie Carter, who took her two young daughters to the movie when it opened in New York.

“She didn’t know me then,” Holbrook says with a twinkle in his eyes, referring to Carter, who later became his wife.

“She went to that movie with her two little girls and her agent. They were looking for a picture they could take the girls to, and they thought this would be safe because Hal Holbrook was in it. When I start getting in bed naked with Goldie, they covered the girls’ eyes and looked at each other and said, ‘Hal Holbrook?’ ”

Holbrook keeps his clothes on in “That Evening Sun,” adapted and directed by Scott Teems based on William Gay’s short story “I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down.”

The intimate film has earned several festival awards, including two at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Recently, Holbrook also earned an excellence an acting honor award at the Denver Film Festival.

The veteran actor shines in “Evening Sun” as Abner Meecham, an elderly Tennessee farmer. Meecham is sent to live at a retirement home by his attorney son. The old man flees the home to return to the family farm that he shared with his beloved late wife (Carter). But unbeknownst to him, his son has leased the farm to Abner’s enemy and his family.

“Abner has a code of honor and a code of behavior, which has been violated and has made him angry,” Holbrook explains. “The side you see of the man in the film is mostly a man filled with anger and grumpiness. He’s on a mission of survival.” 

Los Angeles Times