How Chris Sarandon looks at ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ 40 years later

On a stultifyingly hot day in 1972, a Vietnam vet named John Wojtowicz made headlines when he and another man tried to rob a Brooklyn bank to pay for sex-reassignment surgery for Wojtowicz’s high-strung lover, Ernest Aron, who had been institutionalized after several suicide attempts.

Even before social media, the 14-hour hostage situation became a three-ring circus of police, TV cameras, journalists and looky-loos.

Three years later, Sidney Lumet directed the masterpiece “Dog Day Afternoon,� a fictionalized version of the fateful afternoon in Brooklyn. The film was nominated for six Oscars, including best film, director, actor for Al Pacino, known as Sonny in the movie; and supporting actor for newcomer Chris Sarandon as Sonny’s troubled lover, Leon; with Frank Pierson’s screenplay winning an Academy Award. (The late John Cazale also has a memorable turn as Sonny’s hapless accomplice.)

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Warner Bros. Home Entertainment just released the 40th anniversary edition of “Dog Day Afternoon.� Sarandon, 73, who is also known to animation fans as the speaking voice of Pumpkin King Jack Skellington in the 1993 Tim Burton production of “The Nightmare Before Christmas,� chatted on the phone from his home in New York about making “Dog Day Afternoon.�

“Dog Day Afternoon’� marked your film debut. How did you get the role of Leon? Had Lumet seen you in a play?

I auditioned. My agent at the time called me and said, “I just got this script, and I don’t know why I thought of you, but I would like for you to read it.� I knew Sidney slightly because my ex-wife, Susan [Sarandon], had done a picture with him called “Lovin’ Molly.� I read the script and thought this is an amazing script. “What part do they want me to read for?� He said the role of Leon, and I said, “Of course, set it up.�

What do you recall of the audition?

Al Pacino was there and [producer] Martin Bregman and Sidney. After the audition, Sidney came up to me and said that was great but a little less Blanche DuBois and a little more Queens housewife. So I came back and did it again, and that was it. I got it.

This was 40 years ago, and this was your first film. Did people tell you playing a transgender person could hurt your career?

I admit to people having said that to me. But it seemed to me to be really aside the point because first of all it was a great script, a great group of people to be working with and a great part. That is the way I looked at it. I said if people are going to perceive me one way or another, I will prove them wrong some other way. I can’t pass up this chance to do this wonderful part.

The late, great Sydney Lumet was famous for his extensive rehearsals.

He was one of those old-fashioned guys who had come up through the theater and doing live television. He was used to rehearsing. So when I walked into the rehearsal room, all the sets were taped on the floor like we were doing a play. We rehearsed it for three weeks. We did the read-through of the script several times, and then I would come back when my scenes were up. The work was very concentrated.

Did you meet and talk with members of the transgender community?

I had a very close friend who was gay and was in a show I had been in. We had remained friends. I said to him, “Do you know anybody in the tranny community?� He said, “Yeah.�

I said, “Is there someway we could set up an evening where I can sit around and talk with some people that you know?� I remember it vividly. I made a spaghetti dinner at his apartment on Barrow Street with three or four [transgender people].

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We sat around and ate spaghetti and talked for four hours. I asked questions like when was the first time you came out in drag? They were truly people who were in the wrong body. It was a real education for me in understanding what the whole transgender world was about.

Did you work with the costumer and hair and makeup people to get Leon’s “Queens housewife� look?

The look came entirely from the photographs we had of the actual event — the teased hair, the eyebrows, the fingernails.

Have members of the transgender community talked to you over the years about playing Leon?

It is interesting that has not happened. I had a number of experiences where gay men would come up to me and come on to me quite boldly right after I did the movie. But I was not sought by transgender people because maybe at that time it was such a taboo.

What have you been doing recently?

I just finished a run at the Lincoln Center Theater 3 in the highly acclaimed musical “Preludes.�

I’ve done a couple of indie movies — “I Smile Back� with Sarah Silverman. I play her father. And “Big Stone Gap,� where I play Ashley Judd’s father. I am playing a lot of fathers — the march of time!

Twitter: @mymackie