Daryl Hannah on her film Neil Young

Fifty -seven years after his career, Neil Young has collected millions of fans – but none of these followers is more devoted than her pet dogs.

“They love music,” explains the musician’s wife, actress Daryl Hannah.

“They go to each verification of the sound and slept under the piano on the stage. Each time Neil plays, the dogs just migrate towards him and go to your feet. “”

It’s not just dogs. During the locking of 2020, Young played a live concert from La Grange on his Colorado farm, surrounded by alpacas, ducks, chickens and even a horse.

“And each of the animals came and lying down and watched it,” said Hannah. “It was so cool. I think they are really attracted to music.”

Hannah, known for her appearance in films like Blade Runner, Splash and Kill Bill, made this Livestream – and she stayed behind the camera to make a documentary on the solo tour of Young in 2023.

In large part shot on his phone (“and it is not even the most recent model”), he captures the star’s return on stage, at the age of 75, after a four -year break, with his trailer dogs.

“He was very nervous about it,” she recalls.

“There is always a point where it is like:” I don’t know if I can do that … We will see “.”

“It’s funny, because he made no rehearsal before the tour. He likes things to be real and spontaneous. But as soon as he went out on stage, he was fine.”

Playing without a group, the shows were cowardly and unpredictable. The setlist has changed every night, and even recurring songs like Heart of Gold and as a hurricane would be played in different contexts, on different instruments, without warning.

It is a configuration that caused its director some headache.

“It was really touched or missed because every day, he was going to make a sound check, and he would choose one of his three pianos and played something like expecting to fly,” said Hannah.

“So we had a camera on this piano but, when it was a question of showing time, he did not approach him. There were a lot of shows where we had literally no sequence.

“I was frustrated in the editing room, believe me.”

Despite these challenges, Hannah has captured bewitching versions and stripped of pieces rarely played as a blues vampire, if you have love and the premium of life.

More revealing, however, was the sequence it has shot from the scene.

Large sections of the film take place on a tourist bus Silver Eagle, where the young hunting rifle next to his longtime driver, Jerry Don Barden.

Together, they shoot the breeze like Vladimir and tarragon – but rather than waiting for Godot, they are waiting for the next Arena car park.

The conversations are wonderfully banal. There are many discussions on landscapes, snacks and lists (people think they want to hear the tubes, because that’s all they’ve ever heard, “observes Young.)

He is punctuated by expanses of Companion silence, where young knee drums, or interact with his son Ben, who was born with severe cerebral paralysis.

Later, the musician emerges from the bathroom, looks in the camera and the dead ends: “Now there is no risk of having to pee in the middle of the show”.

The capture of this daily normality was Hannah’s motivation from the start.

“So many performers have put a character, and Neil simply has this quality at all. Whatever speaks with his bus driver, he continues to speak with the public.

“People consider him this intimidating and impenetrable person who will make an album that the record company refuses to publish,” she continues, referring to the time that Geffen Records continued Young for having submitted two albums which he considered “musically unusual”.

Hannah says that the people who judge him on this basis were wrong.

“He just has an absolute and strange commitment to his creative muse,” she says.

“It is not motivated by financial interests, it is not motivated by self-agrandiating, it is not motivated by something other than this creative force, and it is quite incredible to assist.

“Having spent so much time with him, my perception is that he is completely safe. He has a lot of warmth and innocence, so I wanted to show it.”

Young recently made the headlines to Withdraw from the Glastonbury FestivalSaying that the BBC had asked him “to do a lot” that he was “not interested”.

He then returned back, say that he had received bad informationAnd will run the Pyramid scene bill in June (Hannah jokes of Sérenade Le cattle de Glastonbury, in the style of its locking sessions).

But his European tour is not without danger. Write on your websiteYoung shared concerns that he could be prohibited from the United States upon his return, following an increase in the number of people detained and expelled when entering the country.

“If I speak of Donald J Trump, I may be one of those who return to America who is excluded or put in prison to sleep on a cement floor with aluminum blanket,” he wrote.

Young, who holds the double Canadian-American citizenship, has long been a frank critic of President Trump, calling him “shame for my country” and the pursuer To use the Rockin ‘song’ in the free world on the campaign campaign.

Hannah reveals that her husband was harassed during the first Trump administration, when he was going through the process of becoming an American citizen.

“They tried each tip of the book to spoil it, and brought him back to be re -required and re -examined. It is ridiculous (because) he has lived in America and pays taxes here since he was in their twenties.”

Despite this, she does not think that Young will be prevented from entering the country.

“They have owned people who have green cards or visas – which is hideous and horrible – but they have not, so far, refused to leave American citizens in the country, so I do not think it will happen.”

Hannah will accompany Young to Glastonbury, and says that it will film its performance on the side of the scene (maybe the BBC can use these images, if everything else fails).

The journey fell on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its beginnings in the West End, in the seven -year -old itching. So, does she want to walk again on the boards?

“Oh my God, no,” she exclaims. “I really love the realization, because I don’t have to be at the center of things, and it’s a much more comfortable position for me.

“I mean, never say, but that’s what I’m feeling right now.”

Neil Young: Coastal will be presented in the cinemas on April 17.