LOS ANGELES—It’s been 42 years since Alan Arkin first took a lead role in a film, but he admits, in an L.A. hotel room, that he is still not completely sure if he will work again. “I don’t think any actor really believes he will get another job. I remember hearing a story from a best friend of George C. Scott and she was visiting him a month after he won the Oscar for Patton. She said she heard screaming and went to see what was going on. He was yelling, ”˜I got a job; I got a job.’ So most people never get over that sense of never working again. It’s a precarious life.”

Arkin, who was nominated for an Academy Award for that 1966 film, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, has followed up his first Oscar win, for Little Miss Sunshine, with Get Smart. The film, which opens June 20, sees him playing the Chief, a senior agent for CONTROL who decides to promote one of his researchers, Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell), to field agent despite some strong misgivings about his abilities.

Arkin’s career longevity can probably be attributed to the fact he has never been pigeonholed by Hollywood. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was able to move easily from the satirical Russians to the slapstick of Inspector Clouseau
before going over to dramas, earning critical praise for Wait Until Dark, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and Catch-22. He says that he has never felt uncomfortable in any genre.

“When I first started out, I didn’t want to bore myself to death. And I wanted to stay a moving target because the challenge has always been to have some control over your career. But if I read a script and I didn’t feel connected to it I wouldn’t take it, and it didn’t matter whether it was a comedy, tragedy, or melodrama. That doesn’t really make a difference to me. I just want good material. But part of taking a role is your bank account. If you haven’t worked in six months and the cupboard is bare, then your sights get lowered a bit out of necessity.”

He works a lot now, and he completed five productions in the two-year interim between the release of Little Miss Sunshine and Get Smart. However, he doesn’t look at the screen much any more. He says that when he does look at himself he finds it hard to relate to the actor he sees.

“I can look at myself from 20 or 30 years ago and feel more sympathetic than with recent stuff. I always feel that what I am doing is more vivid than when I am looking at it. Instead, when I am watching it, it feels kind of small and insignificant. But it’s usually only my character that I feel that way about. Everyone else in the film is fine.”