Jim Belushi on Playing Ken Kesey for Kristen Stewart and the Sweet Music of the Milwaukee Accent

Jim Belushi is having another moment. The 71-year-old actor has spent December pinballing between red carpets and media hits to promote a pair of new movies. In between, he’s driven up the New Jersey coast, visiting several dispensaries to celebrate his cannabis brand’s partnership with High Grass Farms. And he capped off his east-coast adventures by sharing the stage with his daughter, Jami, and the James Montgomery Blues Band, headlining Rhode Island blues shows in Newport and Cape Cod. A very Belushi blend of family, work, and fun. “It happens every so often when everything kind of lines up,” he tells GQ , checking in from a Manhattan hotel. “I feel very lucky this year.” The “luck” started with a supporting role in The Chronology of Water , Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut, based on Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir. He pops in about halfway as Ken Kesey, the generational LSD-guru author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , who takes Lidia under his wing in a creative writing class at the University of Oregon. As a tender, goofy, pot-smoking professor, Belushi leaves a mark on the movie in a role perfectly suited for him. “When [Kristen] looks at you and directs you, it's like she can scan your body and your heart and knows where you're at and knows just what to pull out,” he says. For his second act, Belushi shows up in Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue , the impossibly tragic and inspiring true story of “Lightning and Thunder,” a.k.a. Mike and Claire Sardina, a Neil Diamond tribute band embodied by Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. (The movie is adapted from the equally fascinating 2008 documentary about the music act.) As Tom D'Amato, the duo’s manager, Belushi chews up his scenes with a thick, blubbery Milwaukee accent, and engages the waterworks more than a few times during their performances. “The scenes felt lyrical, musical,” he says. “We just sat in the same rhythm and Craig brought that rhythm to every scene in that movie.” It’s been a while since Belushi has spent this much time in the spotlight. He’s dabbled in small film roles over the last several years, but has mostly invested his time into Belushi Farms, the Oregon cannabis farm that he launched around 2015 and has grown into a formidable venture. As he discussed his latest movies and experiences, Belushi explained the rationale behind pouring himself into varieties of work at his age: “If you don't keep moving then you start thinking. You start thinking, you go into the rabbit hole and you start going through the [Instagram] reels,” he says. “That is what I'm trying to prevent.” GQ : These two movies are your highest-profile acting roles in a while. What motivated you to get off the farm and spend some in-depth time on these projects? Jim Belushi: Well, I told my manager and agents, I said, “Look, I don't want you to give me work. I want you to give me a gig ,...

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