They were both denizens of Hollywood in the countercultural 1960s: rebellious, free-wheeling, hugging the fringe.

Yet David Carradine and Bruce Dern never really knew each other until they were cast as shipmates, as it were, in the independent film “The Golden Boys,” opening in limited release today.

“I don’t know how we missed each other,” Carradine says.

Says Dern, “The first time I met David was at an event in Hollywood a couple of years ago where they were honoring some famous families: the Derns, the Carradines, the Keaches.”

Continues Carradine, “On this thing, we turned into blood brothers. I wish I’d known him all these years. We have a lot of the same connections.”

Talking recently upstairs in a private room of a theater-district eatery and watering hole, Carradine and Dern made themselves at home. The room was equipped with a commercial bar, at which Carradine casually poured himself a little something to sip, then lit a filterless oval-shaped cigarette from a silver case.

Dressed in charcoal pin-striped suit and black shirt, his gray hair swept back, Carradine had the presence of an aging gambler, taking his time, sizing up the situation. By contract, Dern, in a black shirt and jeans, black leather jacket and white baseball cap (with “GET IT DONE” emblazoned on it), looked like what he is: a senior-class runner, one who has powered through the complete collapse of his quadracep muscle in one leg to return to marathon running.

Both men are 72 and neither had any qualms about turning 70. Dern noted that, having rehabbed his leg, he has returned to his running obsession and participates in the annual Senior Olympics.

“Hey, I look forward to aging,” Dern says. “Every four years in the Senior Olympics, I get to move up an age group – and then I’m the youngest guy in my group. I can run hard now, though there’s a hitch in my giddy-up. I can run all out, although others think I‘m just walking fast.”

Carradine assumed that the parts he didn’t get as a youngster would come his way as he aged: “I always figured I’d outlive all of my competition,” he says. “When I was younger, I had guys 10 years older than me getting parts for guys my age. In fact, I lost a role to Charles Bronson that was written for me . It was ‘Red Sun,’ that movie he did with Toshiro Mifune – but Bronson was a star and I was a hopeful. So I figured I’d be here to get the parts from guys who were 10 years younger. But no, I’m just getting my parts. I get parts nobody but me is right for.”

“Acting is a marathon,” Dern notes. “You never think about finishing a marathon until you’ve run at least 16 miles. Then you start thinking about it.”

In “The Golden Boys,” Carradine, Dern and Rip Torn play a trio of retired sea captains who share a house in 1905. Tired of cooking and cleaning for themselves, they hit upon the idea of advertising for a wife, which one of them will marry but who will take care of the three of them.

It’s the rare opportunity for the three actors to share a lead in a film. Carradine and Dern both talked about the fact that they usually were considered only for supporting roles – if that. Not that they don’t keep busy: Dern is a regular on HBO’s “Big Love” and takes roles in two or three films a year. Carradine’s filmography on the Internet Movie Database lists more than 30 roles from the beginning of 2007 – including a role in “Crank: High Voltage,” which also opens today.

“I don’t feel I’ve ever become a member of the industry,” Carradine says. “I do a studio picture every 10 years. In between, I just do independent films. The indy directors love me. Directors will say to the studios, ‘I want David Carradine,’ and the studios will say no.”

“Hey, you worked for Ingmar Bergman,” Dern points out. “That’s something Jack (Nicholson) and me never did.”

“Well, that’s something you have to do when you’re asked,” Carradine says. “I guess my métier is being the outsider. There’s something between me and the studios that doesn’t quite work. Once in a while somebody has battled for me. Hal Ashby did (in “Bound for Glory”). The guy who was casting ‘Kung Fu’ did. Otherwise, nobody wanted me. It always took somebody else’s courage to say, ‘You’re the guy.’”

Dern nods, then says, “It only takes one. Mine was Douglas Trumbull on ‘Silent Running.’ My problem is that my showy roles were so fucking sick. I killed John Wayne (in “The Cowboys”). Then I steered the Goodyear blimp into the Super Bowl and tried to blow it up (in “Black Sunday”).”

Carradine, the son of noted character actor John Carradine (and brother of Keith and Robert), got his initial break starring on Broadway in “The Royal Hunt of the Sun,” opposite Christopher Plummer. But he quickly decided that he wasn’t crazy about stage work.

“I never thought about making movies when I was young. I was going to be a Shakespearean actor,” he says. “But I had to rethink everything when I went to work in movies. You can’t do this (he projects his voice loudly and gestures theatrically). You’ve got to be absolutely real, instead of being an actor.”

Dern, father of actress Laura Dern, nods, then says, “Yeah, that was a lesson I learned when I went to film. It’s really a test of your courage: You really have to think you’re interesting enough to just let the camera watch you. That takes a lot of courage. As someone said, acting is the ability to be publicly private.”

“My father told me never to believe in acting teachers because they’re all failed actors – so what can they teach you?” Carradine says. “Acting is something about which there is an enormous amount to be learned but none of which can be taught.”

Says Dern, “When I go to the set, I’m the oldest guy there. I feel I have a job. Aside from playing a role, it’s to make other people understand what went before me, what I was lucky enough to see. Like: You don’t hide in your trailer. You’re not late. You’re not afraid to rehearse. My first movie (Elia Kazan’s “Wild River”), the leading man didn’t even stay for my close-up. Montgomery Clift – he was just too out of it to be there to be any help. He was unable to finish a sentence.”

Adds Carradine, “My dad told me about working with Jimmy Stewart. In those days, you’d do a scene and, the next day, you’d do the reverse. Jimmy Stewart might have the day off but he would insist on coming in to sit there in full wardrobe and make-up for the other guy. I figure the least I can do is show up.”

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