If you go on Ed Asner’s IMDb page, be prepared to scroll for a while. After all, he has been acting for more than 60 years, winning seven Emmy Awards along the way.

“You bet your ass I can still act,” the 88-year-old told members of the media on Thursday, March 1. “I’m still very viable as a man and as an actor. My life has been so blessed. I’ve been a lucky son of a [expletive]. I’m still alive and getting occasional work, but it’s not easy.”

Asner was at the Sedona International Film Festival for a trio of films including the feature “Santa Stole Our Dog!” He’s been a regular attendee of the SIFF in recent years, appearing last year to surprise lifetime achievement award winner Cloris Leachman. The two starred together on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” and have been close ever since.

“She’s a gem. She’s nuts, but she’s a gem,” Asner said. “And she’d say I was a good kisser.”

In regard to the “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” he said, “I can’t ignore the seven years on that show, which is where I learned to do comedy.”

When told that he is a television icon, he responded by saying, “That’s what they tell me.”

On those lines he added, “You’re here today, gone tomorrow. In a few years you can end up as chopped liver. None of it means a thing, yet I continue to strive to be important.”

Asner gained an entirely new fan base with the success of 2009’s animated film “Up,” lending his voice as the main character, Carl Fredricksen.

“I captured a whole new body of bodies within that demographic. It was a lot of fun,” he said in a 2015 interview with the Sedona Red Rock News.

In that same 2015 interview, Asner talked about how his fans reacted to him playing the same character as he went from a comedy, “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” to a drama in “Lou Grant.”

“It was definitely an experiment that I don’t feel has been equaled before or since,” he said. “On the ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ we had multiple cameras and filmed before a live audience of 300 people. But on ‘Lou Grant’ we shot with one camera, and there was no audience and no laughs. At first it was a frightening experience, and I was apprehensive about changing the character of Lou Grant. But surprisingly it worked.”

Ron Eland can be reached at 282-7795 ext. 122, or email reland@larsonnewspapers.com