Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work? Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Good evening, Good evening. My guest today is
Speaker 1: film director William Friedkin. I spoke with him at the
Speaker 1: Turner Classic Movies Festival in Hollywood, where we screened his
Speaker 1: picture The French Connection. Film critic Roger Ebert called The
Speaker 1: French Connection quote all surface movement, violence and suspense unquote.
Speaker 1: Many say it has the best chase scene ever between
Speaker 1: a car and an elevated train in Brooklyn. The French
Speaker 1: Connection won five Academy Awards, but Friedkin told me it
Speaker 1: wasn't a smooth ride to the red carpet. This film
Speaker 1: had been turned down by every major studio at least twice.
Speaker 1: And my do sir, a guy named Phil D'Antoni. He
Speaker 1: and I were going to do Dirty Harry with Frank Sinatra,
Speaker 1: and we had prepared that for about six months, and
Speaker 1: then Sinatra pulled out and the project was dead. We
Speaker 1: left and did The French Connection. But We went to
Speaker 1: every studio and they all turned it down. And finally
Speaker 1: Dick Zanek, who ran twentieth Century Fox, called us one
Speaker 1: day and said, you know, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: hell this thing is that you guys are talking about doing.
Speaker 1: The scripts not very good, he said, but maybe if
Speaker 1: I just have a hunch up about it, if you
Speaker 1: can make this thing for a million and a half dollars,
Speaker 1: go ahead. And he said, you better do it right
Speaker 1: away because I'm gonna be kicked out of here in
Speaker 1: about three weeks. And he was now New York. The
Speaker 1: New York that's depicted in this movie in the in
Speaker 1: the early seven these is a steaming, feated cesspool. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's just so disgusting that there might be a couple
Speaker 1: of blocks in the sixties between Fifth and Park that
Speaker 1: might be cleaner than might have been cleaned up. But
Speaker 1: it was a pretty nasty back then, right. I liked it,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought it was I thought it was
Speaker 1: very cinematic. And I'm from Chicago, and I used to
Speaker 1: ride the subways and the elevated trains all the time,
Speaker 1: and I love the streets. I love the streets. And
Speaker 1: after this film was successful and I had another successful film.
Speaker 1: After that, I moved to California, learned how to play
Speaker 1: tennis and ruined my career. Don't ever if you're a
Speaker 1: young filmmaker, don't ever learn how to play tennis. Forget it.
Speaker 1: And you know you wanna walk the streets the way
Speaker 1: you did. You want to ride the subways, you want
Speaker 1: to see life. And so that's the way I approached
Speaker 1: this film. I came from this world. Did slumming? Did
Speaker 1: they give you your way in terms of the casting.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you casting actors back then
Speaker 1: when you made this film. Well, originally I wanted Jackie
Speaker 1: Gleason and the hell is so funny Jackie Gleason, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of the greatest actors who ever lived and
Speaker 1: uh he was known as a comedian. But Dick Zanick said, no,
Speaker 1: I will never make another film with Jackie Gleason because
Speaker 1: Gleason had just prior to this, made a film that
Speaker 1: was the biggest disaster in the history of Fox. It
Speaker 1: was a silent movie about a clown called gi Go
Speaker 1: and it was a disaster. So we went through a
Speaker 1: lot of guys and we had um a very short
Speaker 1: time left when we had this at and we had
Speaker 1: a meeting with Gene Hackman, my producer, and I. We
Speaker 1: weren't that impressed. It was one of the dullest meetings
Speaker 1: I've ever had. But we had to start the picture,
Speaker 1: and so we hired Gene. I hired Roy Scheider immediately
Speaker 1: he walked into the room. I had a casting director
Speaker 1: who was not really a casting director. He was a
Speaker 1: critic for The Village Voice and he uh had. His
Speaker 1: name was Bob Wiener, and he had discovered a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting people as a critic. He discovered Whoopie Goldberg
Speaker 1: a number of other people. And he brought me Roy Scheider,
Speaker 1: who had not made a film. And Scheider came into
Speaker 1: my office and sat down. He had a resemblance to
Speaker 1: the character he played, whose name is Sonny Grasso. He's
Speaker 1: in the film too. I never auditioned. I've never have
Speaker 1: and never will addition and actor. I think it's embarrassing,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you probably know this early in
Speaker 1: your career. A lot of actors can read but then
Speaker 1: can't act it, or vice versa. So I go on
Speaker 1: instinct and Scheider sat down. I said, so what are
Speaker 1: you doing now, Roy? He said, well, I'm in an
Speaker 1: off Broadway play by Jean Jane and I said, what
Speaker 1: part do you play? He said, I play a cigar
Speaker 1: smoking nun. And I said, it's interesting. Okay, you're hired.
Speaker 1: That was it. He was perfect. He walked in the
Speaker 1: room as he was perfect. You know. Hackman had done Bonnie,
Speaker 1: done Bonnie and Clyde, but uh, you know, he was
Speaker 1: not really a lead. He was a great supporting actor,
Speaker 1: but hadn't played a leading role. And I didn't see
Speaker 1: him as Ed Egan. Let me say right away that
Speaker 1: I believe he became one of the greatest American actors ever. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have him in mind at all. And
Speaker 1: I had a shorthand with my casting director. I said
Speaker 1: to him, look, let's get that to play the part
Speaker 1: of the French guy. Let's get that guy that was
Speaker 1: in that movie belde Jure, you know, as a Louis
Speaker 1: Bonoel film, wonderful movie, Catherine Di. Let's get the guy.
Speaker 1: You know, he had a kind of a beard, um
Speaker 1: two or three day growth of beard. And he said,
Speaker 1: you mean, uh uh, I forget the name of that
Speaker 1: Pierre something. I said, no, not that guy, the other guy.
Speaker 1: The So he went out and he hired this guy
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, the guy's name is Fernando Ray.
Speaker 1: I said, we'll hire him. So I went to the airport,
Speaker 1: Kennedy Airport, met his plane and uh, in those days,
Speaker 1: you could go right to the gate, and I didn't
Speaker 1: see the guys looking for I got paged. I went
Speaker 1: to the desk and there's this guy and it's not
Speaker 1: the guy from Bell Dejure. It was not at all
Speaker 1: the guy from Bel Dejure. But his name was Fernando Ray.
Speaker 1: So I meet this Guy's got this little goatee and
Speaker 1: he's very sophisticated Spanish. He looked like a Spanish grande.
Speaker 1: And the guy who was playing was had been a
Speaker 1: longshoreman and a Corsican, you know, a real rough hewn guy.
Speaker 1: So I'm driving this guy to his hotel and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, you know you you can't have this uh
Speaker 1: goatee for this case. Oh, I could never share my goatee.
Speaker 1: I said, why not? He said, Oh, I have sores
Speaker 1: all over my face. You would never want to see
Speaker 1: the sword. He said. By the way, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not French, I'm Spanish, but I can learn enough French.
Speaker 1: I said, you weren't in Belle de Jure. No, no,
Speaker 1: I wasn't in bell Dejure. I've done other films with
Speaker 1: Louis spoonwell, but not Belle de Jure. So I get
Speaker 1: him into his hotel and I called my casting director
Speaker 1: and producer. I said, you stupid asshole, I said, this
Speaker 1: is not the guy. This is the wrong guy. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. This is the wrong guy. And so
Speaker 1: he's what are you talking about? I said, this isn't
Speaker 1: the guy from Belle de Jure. So he looked it
Speaker 1: up and indeed the guy we wanted was named Francisco Ribal.
Speaker 1: So he said, well, what do you want me to do.
Speaker 1: I said, fire this guy and hire friend Cisco Ribal.
Speaker 1: I went back in the office. By the time I
Speaker 1: got there, they found that, uh, Francisco Ribal was not available,
Speaker 1: did not speak a word of English, so we got
Speaker 1: stuck with Fernando Ray. I would like to tell you
Speaker 1: that it was all my genius, but I didn't. I
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with casting the two leads in
Speaker 1: this picture. Now here it was. It was really the
Speaker 1: gift of the movie God. And I think you'll bear
Speaker 1: this out. There is a movie God. You know that
Speaker 1: sometimes smiles upon you an other times I wasna. I
Speaker 1: did the movie Hunt for Red October and they offered
Speaker 1: it to Sean Connery and he was sick. He had
Speaker 1: throat cancer and orient something seriously wrong with him, and
Speaker 1: they said he can't do the film. So they cast
Speaker 1: uh Klaus Maria and Dour in the lead role. And
Speaker 1: he was casting the lead and they called me up
Speaker 1: and they said we're gonna get Las Maria. Brand said okay,
Speaker 1: and then Connery calls back, like several weeks later, he's
Speaker 1: had treatments and he's on the mend and he comes
Speaker 1: back and said, I think I can do the film.
Speaker 1: So they called Classma Brandon when they say, you know,
Speaker 1: what were the dates you said you could work? And BRANDI,
Speaker 1: I am directing an opera and I am appearing in
Speaker 1: a film in the early window, I can shoot the
Speaker 1: film as these six weeks. I have to shoot the
Speaker 1: film these six weeks. And they were like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: too bad. We're so sorry. We'd get the schedule. We
Speaker 1: can't do it during those six weeks. Were so very sorry, Klaus.
Speaker 1: And he's gone, and Sean showed up and there you go.
Speaker 1: So the casting of films can sometimes be very very
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's very strange. It was in this picture.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anyone else in that part. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: he was just great and an absolutely wonderful actor. He
Speaker 1: told me how he got his start in film. He
Speaker 1: was actually discover Herd by Louise bun Well. Um. Bun
Speaker 1: Well's producer brought Bunwell to see some movie with another actor.
Speaker 1: He wanted to look at another actor in that film.
Speaker 1: And uh, after the movie, his producer said, well, what
Speaker 1: did you think? And he said, oh, I didn't like
Speaker 1: that actor. But the guy who plays the corpse, the
Speaker 1: dead guy, which is was Fernando Ray. He had no lines.
Speaker 1: He was laying in a coffin, and boon Well hired him. Now,
Speaker 1: I wrote this down. I have it on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper, but I may have left it in my seat.
Speaker 1: But off the top of my head, I'm struggling. Who
Speaker 1: edited this film? Who cut this film for you? A
Speaker 1: guy called Jerry Greenberg? Okay, and what was that experience? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's hear it for the editing in this film? Who? Um?
Speaker 1: Jerry Greenberg edited The Boys in the Band with a
Speaker 1: man named Carl Lerner who was a very distinguished New
Speaker 1: York film editor, and Jerry was his assistant. And uh,
Speaker 1: when it came time to do this, Carl Lerner wasn't available,
Speaker 1: so I asked Jerry to do. What was that experience
Speaker 1: like for you? And him? Did it? Was he responsible
Speaker 1: for most of the cuts? Who do you get heavily
Speaker 1: involved without your song? I I work on every single
Speaker 1: aspect of editing. That's where the film is made. You know.
Speaker 1: To me, what you shoot is just raw material for
Speaker 1: the cutting room. The the when I first made films
Speaker 1: in New York, we would, uh, we'd come somewhere and
Speaker 1: you know, I think if my memory for years ago,
Speaker 1: as we'd stand inside of building and someone would say, man,
Speaker 1: this is a great lobby, and I think this is great,
Speaker 1: but you know, we can't kind of deal with them.
Speaker 1: This location is too expensive. And someone would make a
Speaker 1: joke and they'd say, well, we can come in here
Speaker 1: and do it Paul Morrissey style, you know. And when
Speaker 1: I was younger in the business, I turnus, I go,
Speaker 1: what does he mean, what's Paul Morrissey style? He said
Speaker 1: that means we run into the building without permits and
Speaker 1: we just start shooting till they kick us out. We
Speaker 1: kind of we go in, we stage it, and we
Speaker 1: go in. We squeeze off a couple of quick masters
Speaker 1: and some shots, and then we run out before the
Speaker 1: cops come. And I was like, wow, shoot up, miss
Speaker 1: people do that? I must say this film. Did you
Speaker 1: have permits for everything you did? For this? We didn't
Speaker 1: have a permit for for nothing except one thing. We
Speaker 1: had no permits to shoot in the streets or any
Speaker 1: of that. We just went out. But I had some
Speaker 1: actual cops with me who had badges and stuff, off
Speaker 1: duty cops and the two original French Connection cops. But
Speaker 1: I thought my producer and I thought, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: we better get permission from the subway to shoot on
Speaker 1: an elevated train. So so we went to see this guy.
Speaker 1: First of all, I asked him he was the head
Speaker 1: of the transit authority. He uh, it wasn't the CEO
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but he ran everything. We got
Speaker 1: an appointment with him, and the first thing I had
Speaker 1: to ask him was how fast can one of these
Speaker 1: trains go? Which I didn't know. I said, if a
Speaker 1: train could go at top speed at i'll say a
Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour. This chase idea would not work
Speaker 1: because the car would not be able to catch the train.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, the fastest speed that one of
Speaker 1: these trains goes as fifty miles an hour. So I
Speaker 1: the great, We've got a chase scene here. He said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean great? He said, the way you've
Speaker 1: described what you want to do. He said, if I
Speaker 1: gave you permission to do this, I would be fired.
Speaker 1: He said, we have never had a train crash, We've
Speaker 1: never had a guy hijack a train. He said, it's
Speaker 1: just you know, it really never has happened, and it
Speaker 1: would be extraordinarily difficult for me to approve anything approaching
Speaker 1: what you've just told me. So we thanked him, and
Speaker 1: I figured, well I'll steal this thing, and we started
Speaker 1: on a way out. He said, wait a minute, were
Speaker 1: you going? And my producer said, you just told us
Speaker 1: it would be extraordinarily difficult. He said, did I say impossible? No.
Speaker 1: My producer, who is a Sicilian, said to him how much?
Speaker 1: He said, New York He said forty thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: a one way ticket to Jamaica. And uh, I remember saying, well,
Speaker 1: why a one way ticket? Why don't you just go
Speaker 1: down have a nice face, he said, because if I
Speaker 1: give you permission, I will get fired and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: have to go down there and live live out my life.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. Well, we gave him forty grand
Speaker 1: which was a huge percentage of the budget, and he
Speaker 1: lived happily ever after in Jamaica. There was no chase
Speaker 1: scene in the original script, so Friedkin and its producer
Speaker 1: Phil D'Antoni added one they were determined to outdo the
Speaker 1: chase scene in Bullet, the Steve McQueen film released a
Speaker 1: few years earlier. Take a listen to the Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing Archives, Well you can hear Turner Classic Movies host
Speaker 1: Robert Osborne talk about his night with Lucille Ball. Where
Speaker 1: was the house on Roxbury right next door to Jack
Speaker 1: Benning exactly and just down the street from Ira gersh
Speaker 1: one and around the corner front celebrity back with me.
Speaker 1: You take a listen, and Here's the Thing Dot Org.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: When The Exorcist came out in it ushered in a
Speaker 1: new age of horror cinema. Audience reaction to the film
Speaker 1: was so strong that theater ushers carried smelling salts to
Speaker 1: revive those who had fainted. My guest, William Friedkin directed
Speaker 1: the movie. Warner Brothers did not want me for The Exorcist.
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers UH wanted for The Exorcist either Stanley Kubrick,
Speaker 1: Arthur Penn, or Um who else? Arthur Pens, Stanley, Mike
Speaker 1: Nichols and Arthur Penn turned it down. He said he
Speaker 1: didn't want to do any more violence on film he
Speaker 1: had done Bonnie and Clyde. And Mike Nichols said, you
Speaker 1: will never be able to get a twelve year old
Speaker 1: girl to carry this film on her back and do
Speaker 1: the kind of things that are required. And Kubrick said, look,
Speaker 1: I only UH direct the films that I find and
Speaker 1: prepare myself. So all three of them turned it down,
Speaker 1: and the guy who wrote the novel in the screen
Speaker 1: play wanted me. And finally I was like the last
Speaker 1: man standing, and I had just won the Academy Award.
Speaker 1: That's how I got the exerci Now the same as
Speaker 1: with with French Connection, as with I mean, you do
Speaker 1: these two films back to back, French Connection and The
Speaker 1: Exorcist to classic films. Um what's it like in terms
Speaker 1: of you directing actors? Are you very Do you just
Speaker 1: hire them and you bring them in to do what
Speaker 1: you know they're gonna do, or do you have some
Speaker 1: kind of input with what they're like. Let me tell
Speaker 1: you how I work on a film. I I would
Speaker 1: not work this way on a play, And I direct
Speaker 1: a lot of operas, and I don't work this way
Speaker 1: on an opera. But with a film, the films that
Speaker 1: I've made, I'm more interested in spontaneity than anything else.
Speaker 1: The stuff that I do, the scripts that I've done,
Speaker 1: is not Shakespeare, you know. It's mostly street dialect, especially
Speaker 1: the French connection. So I want spontaneity, so I don't rehearse.
Speaker 1: I would talk to the actors and find the things
Speaker 1: that move them, either that caused them to laugh or
Speaker 1: cry or be frightened or whatever, and I would use
Speaker 1: those things from time to time in the making of
Speaker 1: the film to suggest, whenever it was necessary, some emotion.
Speaker 1: But I would never tell an actor really how to
Speaker 1: do it. The thing I look for more than anything
Speaker 1: else in an actor is intelligence. The actor's ability to
Speaker 1: perceive what the story is about and a way to
Speaker 1: get into it and you can find that out just
Speaker 1: by talking to an actor, you know, Roy Scheider. When
Speaker 1: I cast and he said, don't you want me to
Speaker 1: read for this part? I said, there's nothing to read.
Speaker 1: The guy goes, uh, get your hands up, Get what
Speaker 1: what is that? Who wants to listen to that? And
Speaker 1: a and a goddamn inference room? You know? Uh, He's
Speaker 1: so No, there's nothing to read. It wouldn't the Academy
Speaker 1: Award for Screenplay too exactly. But when you come, when
Speaker 1: you come into the experience of doing I'm only mentioning
Speaker 1: this because of it's because you're coming from French connection
Speaker 1: and winning the Oscar and having all the success, and
Speaker 1: you come into um the Exorcist. Was Jason Miller your
Speaker 1: first choice? It wasn't the same thing again where a
Speaker 1: whole lot of actors turned down the parts of the content.
Speaker 1: Once again, it was the movie God we had cast
Speaker 1: another first of all this for The Exorcist. The studio
Speaker 1: wanted either Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda, or Anne Bancroft, and
Speaker 1: I thought, wonderful, you know this is great. After they
Speaker 1: hired me, so they offered the part to Audrey Hepburn,
Speaker 1: and she was married to an Italian doctor living in Italy.
Speaker 1: She read the script and she called me and said,
Speaker 1: you know, I this is very interesting. It's different for me,
Speaker 1: but I'd love to do it, but you have to
Speaker 1: come to Italy to film it. And I said, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go to Italy. I don't speak Italian and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to communicate directly with the crew.
Speaker 1: We'd have to bring every actor over to Italy because
Speaker 1: you know it's set in Georgetown. And I said, miss Hepburn,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you just come over for a little while and
Speaker 1: do this. No, so she was out. We then went
Speaker 1: to Anne Bancroft, who said, I think this is terrific.
Speaker 1: So I love to do this, but I have to
Speaker 1: tell you I'm in my first month of pregnancy. And
Speaker 1: she said, if you guys want to wait for me now,
Speaker 1: I said to her, look, I think when you have
Speaker 1: your child, you are not gonna want to go right
Speaker 1: back to work. Nor do we want to wait nine months. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: so we had a let her go. We then sent
Speaker 1: it to Jane Fonda, who sent us all the same
Speaker 1: telegram that said, why would I want to be in
Speaker 1: a piece of capitalist rip off? Bullshit like this. Now
Speaker 1: I've seen her since and she doesn't remember having sent that,
Speaker 1: but I haven't. That was her response. That I don't
Speaker 1: know how she really felt, but that was her response, honest. Yeah. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Ellen Burston was hockeing me all the time. I had
Speaker 1: seen the Last Picture Show, but I didn't know Ellen
Speaker 1: Burston from Claris Leachman. I didn't know which was which.
Speaker 1: But Ellen said to me, do you believe in destiny?
Speaker 1: Has anyone ever asked you that before? Uh? Well, she
Speaker 1: was the only one who ever asked me that. And
Speaker 1: I said, I guess I believe. And she said, I'm
Speaker 1: destined to play this part. I said, look, with the
Speaker 1: studio wants Jane Fonda and Bancroft or Audrey Hepburn, this
Speaker 1: was all going on. She said, I don't care. I'm
Speaker 1: destined to play this part. And it came about that
Speaker 1: she was the last person standing, and so we cast
Speaker 1: her against the wishes of the studio. They did not
Speaker 1: they wanted a big star for that um. Then we
Speaker 1: cast Stacy Keach to play Father Cares. He was a
Speaker 1: great is a great actor. He was the go to
Speaker 1: Eugene O'Neill actor on Broadway, and what happened. I went
Speaker 1: to New York and maybe it was that No but no,
Speaker 1: we cast her. I went to New York and I
Speaker 1: saw the opening night of a play called That Championships Season.
Speaker 1: And it was written by a man named Jason Miller.
Speaker 1: Never heard of him. Uh I thought the play was great.
Speaker 1: It was it really reeked of lapsed Catholicism. It was
Speaker 1: a play about a group of high school guys who
Speaker 1: won a championship under their coach, but cheated to win
Speaker 1: and they were suffering this guilt and the stage was
Speaker 1: just filled with Catholic guild. I felt so I I
Speaker 1: said to my casting director, who was this guy that
Speaker 1: wrote this? I'd love to talk to him, just to
Speaker 1: talk to him. It turned out that he had studied
Speaker 1: for the priesthood three years at Catholic University in Georgetown.
Speaker 1: He came up to meet me in and I was
Speaker 1: staying at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel and I had the
Speaker 1: flu and I had a lot of pills. He thought
Speaker 1: I was a pill freak, and uh, I thought he
Speaker 1: was a drunk. And he didn't know what the hell
Speaker 1: he was doing up there. And I asked him a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about studying for the priesthood and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I was a horrible meeting. And I went back
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles and about two weeks later, as we're
Speaker 1: starting to prepare the picture, he called me at Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers and he said, hey, you know that that book
Speaker 1: you were telling me about that You're going to film
Speaker 1: that Exorcist? He said, I said yeah. He said, I
Speaker 1: am that guy. He said, I am that character. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you're not. Stacy keach is that he's going to play
Speaker 1: the part. He said, I'm telling you, man, I am
Speaker 1: this guy. And he said, have you ever done anything
Speaker 1: like a screen test? And I said no, I've never
Speaker 1: shot a screen test. And what's the point. I told you,
Speaker 1: we've cast this. He had never made a film, never
Speaker 1: been in a movie, only played very small acting roles
Speaker 1: in a road road companies. He was delivering milk in Flushing,
Speaker 1: New York when he wrote Championship Season, and so he said,
Speaker 1: you gotta test me. You have to give me a
Speaker 1: screen test. I said, why, what a waste of time?
Speaker 1: He said, Man, I'm telling you so. I had great
Speaker 1: respect for him as a writer. I said, you want
Speaker 1: to shoot a screen test? Okay? You come out here
Speaker 1: on your own. You get out here. It was like,
Speaker 1: let's say it was a Tuesday. I said him, get
Speaker 1: out here by Thursday, and i'll shoot a screen test
Speaker 1: with you and i'll take it out of the camera
Speaker 1: and give it to you so you can show it
Speaker 1: to your kids. And Uh, he said, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: get out there Thursday. I said, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: He said, I don't fly. He said, I'll take the train.
Speaker 1: I'll be out there in a week, all right. So
Speaker 1: I set up an empty stage with a great cinematographer
Speaker 1: named Bill Freaker, and I had cast Burston and I said, look,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a test to this guy, and let's
Speaker 1: do the scene where you first meet him in a
Speaker 1: little park in Georgetown and you tell him that you
Speaker 1: think your daughter is possessed. And she said, what why
Speaker 1: are we doing this? You've got a great actor. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're doing this. And I swear
Speaker 1: to God, I didn't We shoot the test, no sets,
Speaker 1: just Bill Freaker lighting in an empty studio, and they
Speaker 1: did that scene one take. And then I had Ellen
Speaker 1: Uh interview Jason with the camera over her shoulder on him,
Speaker 1: where she just asked him questions about his life, who
Speaker 1: he was, what his background was, his family, everything, And
Speaker 1: then I shot a very tight close up of him
Speaker 1: saying the Mass, but not saying it the way you
Speaker 1: used to hear it. Maybe you still do in church
Speaker 1: where the priest just rattles it off. You know the
Speaker 1: name of the Father a little book. I said, I
Speaker 1: would say the words of the Mass as though you
Speaker 1: really mean them, and well, you mean every word, and
Speaker 1: and say it, uh, with as much conviction as you can,
Speaker 1: and take your time. And I shot that in a
Speaker 1: close up. And we did that, and I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: about anything. But Burston came over to me and said,
Speaker 1: you're not going to hire this guy, are you? And
Speaker 1: I said, well why not? She said he can't act.
Speaker 1: He said he's not an actor. He can't act. And
Speaker 1: she said, when I tell Father Caress this story, worry
Speaker 1: about my daughter. I have to break down and collapse
Speaker 1: in his arms, and I need a big strong man
Speaker 1: to do that. It happened that she had was going
Speaker 1: with a big strong man at that time who was
Speaker 1: an actor that she wanted me to consider. But uh,
Speaker 1: she said, this guy is about five six. I said,
Speaker 1: you're probably right. And the next morning I saw the
Speaker 1: dailies and the camera just loved this guy. The camera
Speaker 1: just loved him. He looked great, he was real. And
Speaker 1: I went to Warner Brothers and I said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pay off Stacy Keach and hire this guy. And they said,
Speaker 1: you're out of your mind. What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: You're crazy, but you're possessed, Yes, something like that. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it. The writer didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it. Uh, nobody wanted to do it. But I said,
Speaker 1: this is what we're gonna do, and that's what we did.
Speaker 1: And he was brilliant, incredible. You said that Nichols said,
Speaker 1: no twelve year old could carry that film. How did
Speaker 1: you solve that problem? You yourself with Linda Blair. Nichols
Speaker 1: was wrong because he had not met Linda Blair. We
Speaker 1: we had cat We had auditioned several thousand girls. They
Speaker 1: were put on tape from all across the country by
Speaker 1: casting directors, and I must have looked at five hundred
Speaker 1: of them myself, just a minute or two and then out.
Speaker 1: And it appeared that there was nobody who could play
Speaker 1: this part who was twelve years old. And I had
Speaker 1: reached a point where I felt like that we couldn't
Speaker 1: make the picture. You could not find a twelve year
Speaker 1: old girl who a would understand all this stuff or
Speaker 1: be not be scarred by it, maybe for the rest
Speaker 1: of her life. And I didn't see that possibility in
Speaker 1: any of the audition tapes. We started to look at
Speaker 1: sixteen year olds who looked younger, and fifteen year olds,
Speaker 1: and one day my assistant in New York said, there's
Speaker 1: a woman out here who's brought her daughter. Her name
Speaker 1: is Eleanor Blair, and she doesn't have an appointment. Would
Speaker 1: you see her? And I said, okay, why not? Because
Speaker 1: we were striking out all over the place. In came
Speaker 1: this little girl with her mother. She was twelve, and
Speaker 1: I knew immediately that she was the girl instantly she
Speaker 1: sat down. She had never acted. She had done those
Speaker 1: things that you see like in the New York Daily News,
Speaker 1: in these newspapers with girls model coats and little dresses
Speaker 1: or shoes or something. She had done that, but no acting.
Speaker 1: So she sat down with her mother and I am
Speaker 1: She was a straight A student in Westport, Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: she was had one blue ribbons showing horses at Madison Square. Garden,
Speaker 1: but had never acted. But I said to her, Linda,
Speaker 1: do you know anything about this story? Do you know
Speaker 1: anything about the the Exorcist story? And she said, oh yes,
Speaker 1: I read the book as she did. She said yes,
Speaker 1: and I looked at her mother. Mother nodded, and I said,
Speaker 1: what what is it about? And she said, well, it's
Speaker 1: about a little girl who gets possessed by a devil
Speaker 1: and she does a whole bunch of bad things. I said, well,
Speaker 1: like what and she said, well, she hits her mother
Speaker 1: across the face, and she pushes a man out of
Speaker 1: her bedroom window, and she masturbates with a crucifix. And
Speaker 1: I said uh. I looked at her. Mother was smiling,
Speaker 1: and I said you know what that means. She said
Speaker 1: what I said to to to masturbate? And she said
Speaker 1: it was like jerking off, isn't it? And I said yes.
Speaker 1: Her mother was still smiling, and I said to her,
Speaker 1: have you ever done that? Have you ever done what
Speaker 1: you just said? She said, sure, haven't you? And so
Speaker 1: I hired her A kindred spirit. A kindred spirit. When
Speaker 1: I look at your career, it said you you make
Speaker 1: these films in the early seventies, and by the time
Speaker 1: you go to make Sorcerer. The movie business has changed.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that that you feel was changing underneath
Speaker 1: your face? Yes, I would tell my younger self or
Speaker 1: anybody who is starting in the film business at any time,
Speaker 1: do not escalate your expectations. Learn as much as you
Speaker 1: can from watching the works of filmmakers you admire. For
Speaker 1: the most part, they are the masters now. I never
Speaker 1: studied film. I never spent one day in a classroom
Speaker 1: learning about film technique. I never studied the camera. I
Speaker 1: started in live television in the mail room of a
Speaker 1: television station and work my way up. In today's world,
Speaker 1: if you're of any age, you can go out. You
Speaker 1: can buy a little digital camera. You can go out
Speaker 1: and shoot your own film and learn from what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You don't need to go to a film school or
Speaker 1: a film class. I think you just need to practice.
Speaker 1: If I was starting today, I would get it together
Speaker 1: by a camera, shoot something that represented how I felt
Speaker 1: about things, cut it and now. Then you can also
Speaker 1: put it on the internet. You can watch William Friedkin's
Speaker 1: movie The Exorcist right now on Netflix. X. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's the thing