Tim Blake Nelson Recounts Being in a Coen Brothers Musical | Role Call

With 'O Brother, Where Are Thou?' celebrating its 25th anniversary, Tim Blake Nelson joined Vulture for an episode of our series 'Role Call' to look back on playing Delmar, the dimmest dimwit of the film’s three dim witted escape convicts.

Nelson calls 'O Brother, Where Are Thou?' “the movie that changed my life,” because he’s been working consistently ever since. Like this fall he co-stars with Ethan Hawke in Sterlin Harjo’s new FX series 'The Low Down' (premiering September 23), leads the independent film 'Bang Bang' (out September 12), wrote the Off-Broadway play 'And Then We Were No More' (runs September 19 through November 2 and his second novel, 'Superhero' (out December 2). “I got to have a career as a character actor solely because of Joel and Ethan,” says Nelson. “Now I had to deliver, but it’s pretty easy to deliver, with that kind of writing and that kind of direction.”

00:00 Intro
00:00:18 Shakespeare
00:01:00 Getting the part
00:01:29 Working with John Turturro
00:02:00 How to work on a Coen Brothers' set
00:02:41 Working with George Clooney
00:03:44 The Baptism scene
00:04:30 'Man of Constant Sorrow'
00:05:30 The sirens scene
00:06:46 Working with John Goodman
00:07:55 The Klan scene
00:08:50 The film's legacy