Bruce Dern, the Hollywood veteran known for playing loners, cranks and outsiders, is bringing his new film Northbound to the Edinburgh film festival at the age of 90, still running through a career built on decades of near-miss leading roles and vivid supporting turns. The interview finds him in typically freewheeling form, reflecting on a life spent as "the second or third banana" who nonetheless worked alongside stars from Montgomery Clift to Tom Hanks, and directors including Hitchcock and Tarantino, while insisting he doesn't feel his age.

Dern recalls milestones including his Cannes best actor win at 77 for Nebraska and this year's return to the festival for a documentary tribute, Dernsie, named after his habit of improvising lines on set, such as his memorable ad-libbed moment in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He also touches on earlier career choices, including turning down a role in Gandhi reportedly due to a fear of snakes, and describes his new film Northbound, in which he plays a nursing-home escapee named Arthur heading to a Canadian lakeside cabin, as both "scratchy" and sentimental.