Loggia received an Oscar nomination for
his role as the delightfully
foul-mouthed private investigator in
Jagged Edge. In Big, Loggia played the
owner of the toy company where Tom Hanks
worked, and they danced together on a
giant piano keyboard. In Independence
Day, he played the general who delivered
the bad news, “We could be looking at
the worldwide destruction of every major
city in the next 36 hours.”
Editor-In-Chief Gary Barg sat down with
Loggia and Marc Meyers, the director of
the film Harvest. The
film stars Robert Loggia and Barbara
Barrie and is about a family’s journey
as they deal with health care issues
such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Robert Loggia Interview
Gary Barg: We
always say that caregiving is a
family issue and it leaves no member
of the family untouched. And
in your new film, Harvest, we join
the family during the last summer of
your character, Siv’s, life. I
was really taken by the realistic
portrait the story paints of this
caregiving family. Can you tell us
something about the film and what
motivated you take on the role?
Robert Loggia: It was very
moving to me as the bike rider.
Siv’s bicycle trip is quite
significant because it’s the last
hurrah, and the relationship with
Barbara Barrie’s character.
She was wonderful in it and I
thought the entire cast fell into
the mood of the piece—how it
reflects on life for all of us.
Gary Barg: I
thought the bike riding sequence was
specifically touching because it
seemed like, as you say, Siv’s last
hurrah; he looked at his sister and
touched her. You knew Siv was in his
last moments and he wanted to have
an extraordinary, pleasant
experience before it was time to
leave.
Robert Loggia:
Yeah, I’ve been through Alzheimer’s
quite often. My wife’s mother
went the Alzheimer’s route where
they forget you. They don’t know who
you are.
Gary Barg: Did that
color your relationship with Barbara
Barrie’s character, what you went
through as a family caregiver – was
it similar?
Robert Loggia is a best known as a
character actor playing crooks, thugs,
and gravelly-voiced cops. He played
mobsters in Scarface, Prizzi’s Honor and
The Sopranos. Loggia starred in the 1966
TV action series, T.H.E. Cat as the
mega-cool acrobat, thief, and bodyguard
Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat or T.H.E. Cat
for short. In An Officer and a
Gentleman, he played Richard Gere’s
alcoholic father and he appeared in
several Pink Panther films.