Men's Health March 14, 2026 0 Comments

Kurt Russell’s Secret Passion Project—The Role That’s Been a Lifelong Game-Changer Revealed!

Picture this: you’re sitting in a packed cinema, psyched for a double feature, only to see someone stroll out after the first movie—completely missing the killer sequel. That’s exactly what happened with Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic Death Proof, starring none other than Kurt Russell, who’s still chuckling about that mix-up years later. But Russell’s latest role in Paramount+’s The Madison isn’t just another character; it’s a slice of real life wrapped in Taylor Sheridan’s signature rugged storytelling with a gentler touch. Join me as we dive into how Russell’s own journey—from Colorado’s wide-open spaces to the big screen—breathes life into a story about love, loss, and missed chances. Because sometimes, the best stories are the ones that hit closest to home… Ready to unravel this tale? LEARN MORE

6 min read

The following story contains spoilers for the first episode of Paramount+’s The Madison.

KURT RUSSELL IS laughing. That’s a good start. Especially when you’re telling a story about someone walking out of a movie—to the star of the movie. We’re in a hotel suite in Manhattan talking about Quentin Tarantino’s film Death Proof, which hit theaters in 2007 as part of the double feature Grindhouse. It was shown after Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, complete with fake trailers for fake movies during an intermission. When I saw Grindhouse, I noticed one guy walking out of the theater after the first movie ended, presumably unaware that a second was about to begin. I’ve always thought of Death Proof—which stars Russell as a psychopathic murderer who kills people with his 1970 Dodge Challenger—as one of my favorite Russell performances. I feel bad for the guy that missed it.

“There was a lot of confusion around the release of that movie,” Russell says. “People didn’t quite understand what it was. My favorite story is that Quentin once went to see it in a regular theater showing. He thought he was incognito there, I guess. A guy sat down, watched the show, and then after the first movie, Planet Terror, he got up, turned around, slapped Quentin on his shoulder, and said ‘Your best one yet!’ That’s when everyone thought, Okay, this could be an issue….” He laughs again, flashing the smile that’s been charming audiences for more than 50 years.

Throughout the course of his career, Russell has led a whole lot of movies across every genre you could think of. That includes horror classics like John Carpenter’s The Thing; Westerns like Tombstone and The Hateful Eight; post-apocalyptic thrillers like Escape from New York; dramas like Silkwood; action comedies like Big Trouble in Little China; and romantic comedies like Overboard (in which he starred with his wife of now 42 years, Goldie Hawn). He’s played American heroes like U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks in Miracle and comic book villains like in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He’s currently starring alongside his song Wyatt Russell in season two of the monster epic Monarch on Apple TV.

Dimension Films

Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike in Death Proof.

But Russell says that his latest role—in The Madison, the new series from super-writer/producer Taylor Sheridan—is one that hews most closely to who he is in real life. While Sheridan is known for his depiction of rugged masculinity, The Madison handles that theme with a softer touch. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the show’s lead, Stacy Clyburn, a member of New York society loathe to venture outside her plushy Manhattan circle, while Russell plays her husband Preston, who prefers getting away to the wilderness of his land in Montana. When a tragedy forces Stacy to relocate to the same countryside she’d for so long avoided, the story becomes one of grief, lasting memories, and lost opportunities.

It’s a return to the familiar territory of the rustic West for both Sheridan (who co-created Yellowstone) and Russell, who began his career in television Westerns and often revisited the genre on the big screen. “The guy I play is a man of finance from New York,” he says. “But he shares this place with his brother, and it’s special to them. He wishes he could bring his wife to to see and feel and experience it. That opportunity is something that goes by, and she regrets it.”

Russell sat down with Men’s Health to discuss how his own life intersects with The Madison, the time he crossed paths with Robert Redford, to whom the first episode of The Madison is dedicated, and the philosophy that has driven his career.

Chris Saunders/Paramount+

Russell and Michelle Pfeiffer in The Madison.

MEN’S HEALTH: Preston goes to the Montana mountains to find peace and fulfillment. Where do you find that?

KURT RUSSELL: I moved to Colorado when I was 26 years old. At a certain point, you find yourself asking whether you’re going to live the life you want to live, or if you’re just going to talk about it. And I decided to make the move and live the life I wanted to live. But my business was still primarily out of Los Angeles, so my life’s been split, going back and forth. I’m glad I did what I did. I’ve enjoyed my life the way I’ve wanted to and I’ve been able to continue on in the business too. I was able to make that happen. I could draw on that in The Madison. My history with fly fishing, for instance, goes way back. So I guess it’s something that came naturally.

MH: In the first episode, Preston quotes the mantra, “Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Do you feel like you’ve lived your own life by that motto?

KR: Definitely. I’ve been fortunate. Baseball was the world I was preparing for when I was young. I got to play three years of pro ball and then I got hurt. It was devastating, but I was able to fall back on acting, something I’ve been doing since I was 10. As I increasingly committed to it, I realized, Oh, I actually like this more than I even knew. So I ended up doing something that I really did love to do.

MH: What appealed to you about entering Taylor Sheridan’s world?

MH: It hits men very differently than it hits women—almost deeper. He’s just a hell of a good writer. I recently discovered that he was primarily writing for Michelle and for me, with us in mind. And it hit awfully close to home. I’ve spent my life playing broad characters in all kinds of different genres, tut this is in a very real world. It’s relatable on a human level. Being able to play someone I’m quite similar to in many ways felt great. It felt really right.

MH: How do you relate to Preston?

KR: Well, some of the conversations that [Preston and Stacy] have, I’ve had. Goldie and I have had very similar conversations. Their relationship, it’s the kind of relationship you almost never see anymore. It’s a truly loving relationship. It’s not like there’s another shoe to drop. That’s what makes it so difficult for [Michelle’s] character when she loses her husband. She’s realizing how much more they could have had that they didn’t have because of something she didn’t do. I think a lot of people relate to that kind of regret. As you get older and you’ve only got so much time left, that doubles things up in terms of looking at what you’ve done in your life so far and what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Paramount

Russell and Matthew Fox in The Madison.

MH: You mentioned that Sheridan’s writing hits men particularly hard. Preston represents a kind of old-school, rugged masculinity, but not at the expense of an emotionally deep relationship. What did you think of the kind of masculinity and the kind of partnership the show depicts?

KR: I like the simplicity of it and the way that Taylor presented it. And I like the way he presents his strong women too. It’s different in that you’re seeing a relationship that is actually a successful one. You don’t see that much anymore. It’s always dysfunction, dysfunction, dysfunction, and I thought this was very different. Having been in a long relationship, myself, with Goldie, and Michelle having been in a long relationship with her husband, David E. Kelley, who’s a great writer in his own right, we were bringing the right experience together.

MH: It sounds like these characters spoke to you in a personal way.

KR: I’ve always, all my life, just done things the way I wanted to do them, whether it was because I wanted to work with this director or that actor. I love a project where, if you could go back to an old Blockbuster video store, you wouldn’t even know what section or category to find it in. And with this show, I just felt it was something I really wanted to do.

MH: The end of the first episode has a dedication to the late Robert Redford. In the show, we learn that A River Runs Through It, which Redford directed, is Preston’s favorite movie. Did you have any kind of relationship with him?

KR: I didn’t have any relationship with him, but I met him one time when he was shooting The Horse Whisperer. Dennis Liddiard, a makeup artist who I’ve done maybe 35-plus movies with, he and his father both worked with Redford for years and years. I make a Burgundian style Pinot Noir out of Central California, and Robert heard about it. Denny told him, “I’ll bring Kurt to the set, you can meet him, and I’ll have him bring you some wine.” [Laughs] And so I did. I brought him a bottle of my wine.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Watch The Madison Here

Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.