Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart. Radio actor, author, producer, playwright and
Speaker 1: game show host. Today's guest, Assif Monvy is nothing if
Speaker 1: not versatile. You'll recognize the actor from his roles in
Speaker 1: Blue Bloods, A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, and
Speaker 1: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a long term correspondent.
Speaker 1: He currently stars in Evil on Paramount Plus and host
Speaker 1: the CW panel show What I Lie to You. But
Speaker 1: there's more than meets the eye with this multifaceted performer.
Speaker 1: Nvy trained in Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov, and his theater
Speaker 1: credits include both work on Broadway and the Pulitzer Prize
Speaker 1: winning play Disgraced. In the late nineties, Assif Manvi wrote
Speaker 1: and starred in the off Broadway one man show Sachina's Restaurant,
Speaker 1: which earned him an Obie Award. MV shared with me
Speaker 1: how his level of adaptability came to be. Born in Mumbai,
Speaker 1: India and raised in Bradford, England, he lived in Bahrain
Speaker 1: for the first years of his life, separated from his parents.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what those formative years were like
Speaker 1: for him. My grandmother and my grandfather lived in Bahrain,
Speaker 1: which is right off the coast of Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 1: a little island, one of the wealthiest places in the world.
Speaker 1: My great grandfather had gone to Bahrain in the like
Speaker 1: early nine hundreds and started a business there, and my
Speaker 1: grandfather had a huge toy store in the capital city
Speaker 1: of Bahrain. So my grandparents lived there part of the year.
Speaker 1: So I went and lived with them in Bahrain when
Speaker 1: I was a year and a half old. How long
Speaker 1: until I was three? So was it over a year?
Speaker 1: Was I? Yeah? It's interesting like the times at that time,
Speaker 1: because they sent me on a plane by myself to
Speaker 1: Bahrain from London. And I was like, Dad, did you not?
Speaker 1: I asked my dad recently actually about this. I was like,
Speaker 1: we're not concerned, and and and he I think he
Speaker 1: was just like at that time, we just didn't really
Speaker 1: worry about it. We didn't We didn't think about what
Speaker 1: kind of psychological impact that would have on you, or
Speaker 1: even the danger of it. We just sort of gave
Speaker 1: you to the airline. The stewardess was very nice, she said,
Speaker 1: we'll take care of him. We didn't really think about it,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it was sort of that. It was
Speaker 1: it was like it was like the stewardess was really
Speaker 1: nice and she was going to take care of you,
Speaker 1: and and we put you on the plane. I met you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother met me on the other side. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: this is like it's been a pre and nine eleven world.
Speaker 1: There was more of that, and now post nine eleven,
Speaker 1: of course it's it's a different world. But do you
Speaker 1: recall it all what it was like when you reunited
Speaker 1: with them. Yeah, it's actually one of my very earliest
Speaker 1: memories is returning to London Heathrow with my and mother
Speaker 1: and like it's it's just a memory of shadows, and
Speaker 1: I seem to remember my mother wearing a white sorry
Speaker 1: and she's got her arms reached out. But the crazy
Speaker 1: part of it is I didn't reckon. I didn't know
Speaker 1: who she was, so in the year and a half
Speaker 1: that I was gone, I had forgotten about her and
Speaker 1: and I sort of acclimated myself to this other life.
Speaker 1: And now I was back and she was like, I'm
Speaker 1: your mom, And I just remember like that feeling of
Speaker 1: holding onto my grandmother's arm and just being like, what's
Speaker 1: going on here? You know, like, who are these who
Speaker 1: are these strangers? But then my grandparents stayed with me
Speaker 1: and my parents, they stayed with us for the next
Speaker 1: six months or so for the transition, for the transition
Speaker 1: back into the into the UK. Are both your parents
Speaker 1: alive now? My mother is not alive, my father is
Speaker 1: alive yet either one of them articulate to in your
Speaker 1: adult life their feelings about that period, with how difficult
Speaker 1: it was for them. My mother talked about it a lot.
Speaker 1: It was hard for her to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was she was a young girl who
Speaker 1: didn't have a great deal of agency around it. I
Speaker 1: think it was her father's decision to have me go
Speaker 1: back and live with him and my grandmother, and and
Speaker 1: because he just wanted my parents to get on their
Speaker 1: feet a little bit more settled. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: in India, kids are raised in large, communal families, so
Speaker 1: that kind of idea, you know, the grandparents and uncles
Speaker 1: and aunts and everybody sort of raises At least my
Speaker 1: my mother came from that kind of family where everybody
Speaker 1: lived together and it was very communal and people raised
Speaker 1: each other. So there was very much that sense of like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll send him over there. And and so
Speaker 1: my mother did talk about it later in life of
Speaker 1: how difficult it was for her in that time, when
Speaker 1: you know, she's working, she's doing this job at this
Speaker 1: television factory where she's on a conveyor belt with like
Speaker 1: you know, vis in this foreign land and her child
Speaker 1: is halfway across the world. I think it was really
Speaker 1: really difficult for her, And and and she couldn't talk
Speaker 1: about it that much. It was the one thing in
Speaker 1: her life that I think it was the first thing
Speaker 1: she would have changed in her life. I think had
Speaker 1: she been able to What's interesting, how I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's a commonality here. I find it very often the
Speaker 1: people who are asked to grow up quickly, even if
Speaker 1: only to negotiate one condition like that, you know, the
Speaker 1: transfer at a very early age to the grandparents and
Speaker 1: come back and things like that, and you have to
Speaker 1: manage your feelings about that. That gives people, I find
Speaker 1: who are performers and actors a bit of an edge.
Speaker 1: Not everyone has this, not everyone has it to the
Speaker 1: same degree, but it gives them kind of a confidence
Speaker 1: and a kind of command because they've gotten through things
Speaker 1: from an early age that we're difficult to get through.
Speaker 1: And your acting, in your performances, you have an authority
Speaker 1: to you. You could play the head of the FBI
Speaker 1: that runs into and says, okay, man, here's you know
Speaker 1: you You could do any of these things. You can
Speaker 1: kiss the girl, you can go say all right, men,
Speaker 1: code zero and we're going in. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things you can do. And I always wonder if that
Speaker 1: ephemeral quality that people have, like when people say to me,
Speaker 1: I'll play parts, and I'll play some really really tough,
Speaker 1: mean character. They always want to hire me to play
Speaker 1: the guy that straightens people out. And what I say
Speaker 1: is I say, it's acting. I say, if I don't
Speaker 1: do it, I get fired. So I go in there
Speaker 1: and it's acting, meaning it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: me and who I am. I just but but I
Speaker 1: have inside me the confidence to jump off that cliff
Speaker 1: and make those choices that are stronger choices because of
Speaker 1: a certain conditions of my own life, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Your life wasn't all candy canes and unicorns,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And and maybe that empowers you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that there was a certain level
Speaker 1: of probably some of the stuff that I dealt with,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up sort of a lot forced me sometimes,
Speaker 1: I think, to access my imagination. And you know, I
Speaker 1: was a very imaginative child that was creating like little
Speaker 1: uh we have the old cassette tapes and I would
Speaker 1: I would do like radio plays when I was like
Speaker 1: seven or eight years old, you know, and they were
Speaker 1: sort of like Monty Python esque, sort of like these
Speaker 1: little you know, and and so I was very there
Speaker 1: was a lot of escapism for me as a kid,
Speaker 1: you know, like escaping out of the sort of the
Speaker 1: depression of living in the north of England. My parents
Speaker 1: were struggling and they were very loving and they were
Speaker 1: a very loving home. But the circumstances I lived in,
Speaker 1: and I think also as an immigrant and a brown
Speaker 1: kid in a white world at that time, there was
Speaker 1: an adaptability that I had to find. I had to
Speaker 1: be able to fit in. I had to be able
Speaker 1: to like figure out how to adapt quickly and charm
Speaker 1: you and and yeah, and use whatever your humor or
Speaker 1: whatever I could. And I think that also, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I had a proclivity towards performing. Maybe you
Speaker 1: did too. From very I think that was part of
Speaker 1: my d n a, you know, like I just but
Speaker 1: I think that it was probably helped along by this
Speaker 1: idea that like I, I knew I was sort of
Speaker 1: adaptable and mutable, and I felt like I had to be,
Speaker 1: you know, to survive. There was a lot of racism
Speaker 1: when I was a kid in the north of England.
Speaker 1: No I want to talk about that. So when you
Speaker 1: get there, you come, and you're there for some brief window,
Speaker 1: you leave and go to Bahrain, and you come back.
Speaker 1: Describe Bradford at that time, you see and you yourself described,
Speaker 1: I'm a brown kid in a white world. What was
Speaker 1: it like for you there? It was you know, my
Speaker 1: dad had a corner shop what in New York you'd
Speaker 1: call it a bodega, and my mom was helped him
Speaker 1: in the store. She was also a house way, you know.
Speaker 1: And and and it was sort of a lower middle
Speaker 1: class life. It was a time when politically in England,
Speaker 1: the National Front was very powerful at that time, which
Speaker 1: was this very anti immigrant sort of political party run
Speaker 1: by this guy named Enoch Powell. And so there was
Speaker 1: a lot of of racism in the community and in
Speaker 1: the culture, and in and in the rhetoric. And I
Speaker 1: do remember getting chased home by a band of kids
Speaker 1: after school and getting you know, let's go packy bashing
Speaker 1: and all that. So I would get off the bus
Speaker 1: and and run and and and the kids would they
Speaker 1: would chase me and they and I would get caught
Speaker 1: in an alleyway and you have like four kids, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, English kids, and and and that
Speaker 1: was a semi regular sort of occurrence, you know, not
Speaker 1: say that everyone was like that, but there was that
Speaker 1: that went on. And then I went to boarding school,
Speaker 1: which the whole other level of insanity when I was
Speaker 1: a little bit older, when I was thirteen. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I looked back on it now with a
Speaker 1: certain fondness for the place and the time. But it
Speaker 1: was also like a weird hard you know. It wasn't
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the It was. It was a rough
Speaker 1: kind of upbringing. You know, when you finally leave and
Speaker 1: your father wants to go over to the United States. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was in the He wanted to get involved in
Speaker 1: some kind of textiles work, textile research. Well he was
Speaker 1: doing he was doing that in Bradford, but then he
Speaker 1: started his own business. Then he left and opened this
Speaker 1: corner shop and then he had like a little business
Speaker 1: and then he wanted to come to America and just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he was he wanted to open up a business.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it all about race, but
Speaker 1: when you leave Bradford and you have a you know,
Speaker 1: whatever amount of that you have to deal with on
Speaker 1: a day to day base us and then to come
Speaker 1: to Tampa, Florida, I'm not assuming Tampa was the East
Speaker 1: Village of New York in terms of its enlightenment. What
Speaker 1: was that like that transition? Why Tampa Because my father
Speaker 1: had a college roommate who lived in Tampa, and my
Speaker 1: dad was originally wanting to move to Canada. And he
Speaker 1: had always talked about going to Canada. This was the
Speaker 1: eighties thatchers England. It was bad unemployment. My dad had
Speaker 1: a small business. He was like, we were doing okay,
Speaker 1: but he always sort of talked about going to Canada.
Speaker 1: And then he ran. And then he called up his
Speaker 1: buddy of his who he went to school within India,
Speaker 1: and this guy said, I'm living in Tampa and Florida
Speaker 1: is the future. Man, you gotta come, you gotta come.
Speaker 1: He was like the city of right. So you know,
Speaker 1: I had grown up watching American movies, you know, Hollywood movies.
Speaker 1: That was my like escape as a kid. And so
Speaker 1: for me, the idea of living in America, I just
Speaker 1: thought my life was going to be like the movies,
Speaker 1: you know, it was gonna be. And then I get
Speaker 1: to America and and so Tampa, Florida was my I mean,
Speaker 1: I visited America when I was a kid. I'd gone
Speaker 1: to Disney World and all that, you know, but but
Speaker 1: Tampa was like my introduction to what America was. And
Speaker 1: it was very I went to high school. I was
Speaker 1: dropped right in the middle of this high school, and
Speaker 1: I just remember how white it was and and and
Speaker 1: what was amazing was there were no Indian kids, Like
Speaker 1: like Bradford had a large Indo Pakistani community. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of it did there was a lot of
Speaker 1: racial strife, but there was a large community there in Tampa, Florida.
Speaker 1: I was the only I think it was, one of
Speaker 1: two Indian kids in my high school. And the other
Speaker 1: Indian kid wouldn't talk to me because he saw me
Speaker 1: as a liability. So he was like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: having to do with this new guy. You think you
Speaker 1: and I are plotting plotting, right, exactly. He was like
Speaker 1: he was kind of popular. It was in the band,
Speaker 1: and you know what I mean. He wouldn't talk to me.
Speaker 1: And I remember in the cafeteria all the black kids
Speaker 1: would sit on on one side and all the white
Speaker 1: kids would sit on the other side. Not because that
Speaker 1: was the way it was supposed, that was just the
Speaker 1: way it divided up. And it was like there was
Speaker 1: no interaction, Like none of my sort of middle class
Speaker 1: white friends hung out with any of the black kids.
Speaker 1: So it was really interesting. But I got into um.
Speaker 1: I found my little drama click in high school and
Speaker 1: that's what really saved me. And who mentored you into that,
Speaker 1: who emboldened you, who comes to you and or or
Speaker 1: what is inside of you It says I want to
Speaker 1: hit the drama club or whatever. The first rung on
Speaker 1: the ladder is well my really, honestly, I give credit
Speaker 1: to my mother. So I had been in this very
Speaker 1: private English school when I was in England, and they
Speaker 1: didn't have drama class, but they had art. So I
Speaker 1: took art. But my mother they knew that there was
Speaker 1: always a little bit of I had sort of taken
Speaker 1: these after school drama classes and stuff. I used to
Speaker 1: be part of this like children's theater group. So my
Speaker 1: mother knew that I enjoyed performing. And when I got
Speaker 1: to Tampa, you know, you go for the orientation to
Speaker 1: high in high school and they have these electives which
Speaker 1: we didn't have in England. You know, it was all
Speaker 1: very My school was very math science, you know, biology, English,
Speaker 1: you know, and so they had these electives and you
Speaker 1: could take classes like psychology, which I was like, that
Speaker 1: was very very progressive, you know, and so on. There
Speaker 1: was a drama and I checked off art because I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's I've done that before. And and my mom looked
Speaker 1: at me and she said, are you sure you want
Speaker 1: to do art? Because they have drama here, unlike your
Speaker 1: school in England, they actually have a drama class. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: you rather do drama? I didn't even occur to me
Speaker 1: that that was a thing that you could do in school,
Speaker 1: and so I said, yeah, maybe I should do that,
Speaker 1: and so we scratched our art and we put in
Speaker 1: drama and that's how I ended up a sixth period
Speaker 1: doing drama class. And when you were there doing the
Speaker 1: drama class, what starts to take you It was the
Speaker 1: more you do with the more it deepens the more
Speaker 1: you like it. Yeah, I think it was always it
Speaker 1: was just always in me and I and I had,
Speaker 1: like I said, I've been doing sort of like I
Speaker 1: was part of a children's theater company when I was
Speaker 1: in England after school kind of thing. But just that
Speaker 1: became like my tribe, my sort of sanity, you know,
Speaker 1: like it just sort of it was where I it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think in my life, acting has always
Speaker 1: been like a savior for me, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it saved me from the sort of stuff that I
Speaker 1: dealt with in my childhood. Then landing in a new country, America,
Speaker 1: What do I make of this place that's all new,
Speaker 1: these people, you know, like I was this little English
Speaker 1: kid in America who's also I was also brown, you know,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly there I wasn't drama class, and these
Speaker 1: kids in drama class sort of like I felt like
Speaker 1: this was my pep, these are my people, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and so I again it was it was
Speaker 1: sort of like it saved me through that period of
Speaker 1: transition coming to America and the first gig you get,
Speaker 1: I think professional as you're working at Disney World, Is
Speaker 1: that correct? Yeah? So I ended up at us F
Speaker 1: University South Florida in doing theater, and uh, and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, my we still were not citizens of this country.
Speaker 1: We were still on a green card, so I couldn't
Speaker 1: get the in state tuition. And my parents were struggling,
Speaker 1: and they were, you know, and so I was paying
Speaker 1: some ridiculous amount, like I was paying it myself as
Speaker 1: a four hundred dollars a semester or some credit for
Speaker 1: for So I was taken like I was going very
Speaker 1: slowly through the curriculum. And I and I auditioned a
Speaker 1: bunch of my friends and they were opening up the
Speaker 1: MGM Studios in Orlando, which was part of like the
Speaker 1: Disney complex over there, and a bunch of my friends
Speaker 1: and drama class said, Hey, we're gonna go an audition.
Speaker 1: You know, they're looking for like improv actors. There's a
Speaker 1: comedy troupe. Great, I'll go. They wanted a monologue and
Speaker 1: I and I had been working on this Eric Bagoshen
Speaker 1: monologue in act in my scene study class Sex Drugs
Speaker 1: and rock and Roll, Sex Drugs and rock and Roll,
Speaker 1: the short order, fry Cook, what do you what do
Speaker 1: you want? Come here? Come? You know that guy who's
Speaker 1: the New Yorker guy? And so I had been working
Speaker 1: on this monologue and so we all drove out to
Speaker 1: this audition was a big open call in the Hyatt
Speaker 1: Regency in Orlando, and uh, and I auditioned and got
Speaker 1: the job. And this was eighty nine right. They're paying
Speaker 1: me four hundred and sixty dollars a week. You know,
Speaker 1: there was there was housing, and it was more money
Speaker 1: than I'd ever seen in my life. And I did
Speaker 1: a soap proper, same thing, four hundred of the day,
Speaker 1: and I was I was Rockefeller, right, and I was
Speaker 1: like four hundred sixty bucks a week. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is crazy, Like I can go make a bunch
Speaker 1: of money and come back, finish my education, go finish school,
Speaker 1: you know, get my degree. And so I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go do this. And I joined what was
Speaker 1: called Streetmosphere, which was a street improvisational comedy troupe. We're
Speaker 1: working there. Down the street was the Mickey Mouse Club,
Speaker 1: and there were the kids who later became Justin timber
Speaker 1: Lake and Christina Aguilera. They used to come and watch us.
Speaker 1: We used to have our rehearsal and in the and
Speaker 1: these little kids these twelve year olds would stand in
Speaker 1: the corner watching us, and it was Justin and Christina
Speaker 1: and Brittany and all those kids that later became big,
Speaker 1: huge superstars. And I was working with like some really
Speaker 1: funny people. It was great. More Collins was there. I
Speaker 1: remember she went on to Mad TV and other people
Speaker 1: that went on have comedy careers. We were just doing
Speaker 1: improv and then we'd go out on the street on
Speaker 1: the lot and we would just play improv games with people.
Speaker 1: So it actually ended up for me weirdly being like
Speaker 1: a comedy grad school where I just got to work
Speaker 1: with all these really funny people, get paid and and
Speaker 1: I was there for a year, and then I went
Speaker 1: and worked at Universal Studios down the street when they opened,
Speaker 1: and I did that whole theme park thing for about
Speaker 1: a couple of years. I got cast in this show
Speaker 1: called The Phantom of the Opera Horror Makeup Show, and
Speaker 1: it was this stage show where they basically had an
Speaker 1: audience come in and they would do a kind of
Speaker 1: thing where they teach you how to do horror makeup
Speaker 1: in movies, right, But the whole setup of it was
Speaker 1: there was a host and a guest and the guy
Speaker 1: was the makeup artist. And what I realized was what
Speaker 1: they had actually done was take an episode of The
Speaker 1: David Letterman Show and just completely recreated on stage. So
Speaker 1: the host was David Letterman and the guest was a
Speaker 1: guy named Mark James, who was a very famous Hollywood
Speaker 1: makeup artist, and these two guys just had on all
Speaker 1: the jokes. If you go back and watch The Letterman,
Speaker 1: that's all the jokes of the same it's it's the
Speaker 1: transcript of his episode of interviewing this makeup artist that
Speaker 1: they put on stage, and we would do it five
Speaker 1: times a day for a different audience, and it was great.
Speaker 1: When did you go to New York? Early ninety one,
Speaker 1: I was dating a girl in Florida and she said,
Speaker 1: I'm moving to New York because I want to do theater.
Speaker 1: And I had nothing to do because I was sort
Speaker 1: of like hanging out in Florida, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I want to go to New York. You were doing
Speaker 1: staged versions of Letterman sketch exactly exactly for me. It
Speaker 1: was the next time. I was like, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: either go to New York or l A. And And
Speaker 1: at the time she was going to New York and
Speaker 1: I said, I'll come with you, and so I just
Speaker 1: followed it. In New York, actor Assaf mndy Mondy and
Speaker 1: I share a mutual love and respect for our former
Speaker 1: acting teacher Win Hammon, whom I had the honor to
Speaker 1: speak with in two thousand eighteen. Give us two examples
Speaker 1: who came through your doors who you just excited you.
Speaker 1: You knew they had it. They went on to become
Speaker 1: great actor. Michael Douglas. He said, you asked me if
Speaker 1: it was all right, if I could call your mother
Speaker 1: there and tell her how good you are. I knew
Speaker 1: his mother, and he was good. He was, he was
Speaker 1: very good. Right. What about a woman? What's an actress
Speaker 1: who came through your doors? Alison Janny? Alison Janny probbly talented. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just give a role. She can do it all.
Speaker 1: She can do it all. You'll hear us if MV
Speaker 1: discuss his work with Win Handman later in this episode.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with the legendary acting coach,
Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot Org after the break
Speaker 1: as if MONVI tells us how a chance encounter with
Speaker 1: Sam Shepard and John Malkovich changed the course of his career.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing asif.
Speaker 1: Nvy and I have many things in common, including our
Speaker 1: love of theater and phil him and we were both
Speaker 1: students of the late great acting teacher Win Handman. Handman
Speaker 1: was the director of the American Place Theater in New
Speaker 1: York City and helped hone the craft of actors like
Speaker 1: Christopher Walking, Alison Janny, and Mnvy himself. What I loved
Speaker 1: about working with Whin was that he took you where
Speaker 1: you were. I mean, everybody was at a certain level,
Speaker 1: but within that like you saw people who were more
Speaker 1: accomplished and had better skills certain things than some people
Speaker 1: who are Like I remember there was this one actress
Speaker 1: because she was a dancer, and this was indicative of
Speaker 1: the way Wind sort of worked where he gave her
Speaker 1: a scene and he said, look, you're a dancer, so
Speaker 1: why don't you just use the physicality of the scene,
Speaker 1: use your body, use the thing that you are comfortable
Speaker 1: with to access the character. You know, and I love
Speaker 1: that about him because he took what you were bringing
Speaker 1: and used that to help you find the character, whatever
Speaker 1: it was. If you're a dancer of your singer, if
Speaker 1: you're fun, if you were more of a dramatic you know.
Speaker 1: And and so it was. And he also was really
Speaker 1: great about like just saying, you know, trust the text
Speaker 1: and and and remember, Like a big thing he would
Speaker 1: give actors all the time was like just the stillness
Speaker 1: of like just standing there and letting the text do
Speaker 1: the world. You don't have to work so hard all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, and and and but I loved Win.
Speaker 1: And he actually made my career really because I auditioned
Speaker 1: for Win again. The same girl that I followed up
Speaker 1: to New York came home one day. We were living together,
Speaker 1: and she came home one day and she said, I'm
Speaker 1: auditioning for this guy named Win Handon and I had
Speaker 1: heard about him. And it's funny because I actually, I
Speaker 1: think two weeks after I arrived in New York, I
Speaker 1: walked down forty Street and in front of me, I
Speaker 1: see Sam Shepherd and John Malkovich, right, Malkovich and Sam
Speaker 1: Shephard walking down the street. And I'm from Florida, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, holy shit, Like what the fund is?
Speaker 1: You know? I I was so excited to see these
Speaker 1: two guys. I followed them, and I said, where are
Speaker 1: they coming out of? What building did they just leave?
Speaker 1: And I looked over and it was the American Place
Speaker 1: Theater that they which was Wins Theater that they had
Speaker 1: just walked down for. And they went down and they
Speaker 1: were in the middle of rehearsing a show, and I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, that's the place I want to I
Speaker 1: want to work a place where Malkovich and Sam Shepard
Speaker 1: walk out of on a Tuesday afternoon, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So when she said win Hammon, I said, oh, I
Speaker 1: know who he is, and I want to study with him.
Speaker 1: And I went in and I had written these monologues
Speaker 1: because I wanted to do a solo show and I
Speaker 1: was doing a little bit of stand up before that,
Speaker 1: which I didn't really love. But I started writing characters
Speaker 1: and I brought in these characters into the audition for
Speaker 1: his class. I got into his class, and then I
Speaker 1: would bring in these characters and he helped me develop
Speaker 1: my one man show, Sakinas Restaurant, which then years later,
Speaker 1: how did that evolve? So that evolve basically me coming
Speaker 1: in twice a week into Winds class and writing stuff
Speaker 1: and bringing it in and performing it. And when just
Speaker 1: given me direction. I remember when I've written this character
Speaker 1: that was based on my dad, he was talking to
Speaker 1: his daughter and he was kind of brating her about
Speaker 1: the outfit that she was wearing. She was about to
Speaker 1: go out with her friends, and he was sort of
Speaker 1: talking about and it was about the culture and the
Speaker 1: immigrant and he was an immigrant father. And and I
Speaker 1: remember when saying to me, like this, this monologue is fine,
Speaker 1: He's like, but it needs some dramatic tension. He put
Speaker 1: a phone next to me and he said, Okay, so
Speaker 1: you you're in your restaurant and the phone keeps ringing,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to have this very like private emotional
Speaker 1: conversation with your daughter, but the phone keeps ringing and
Speaker 1: you have to keep picking up the phone to answer
Speaker 1: because customers are calling to make reservations. And so he
Speaker 1: did that, and I'd be in the middle of the model.
Speaker 1: Then he would go the phones were go, go answer
Speaker 1: the phone, answer the phone, and I answer, and then
Speaker 1: he would pretend to be the customer on the other line, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'd like a table for three tonight, you know, And
Speaker 1: then I have to be polite on the phone, and
Speaker 1: he'd be like Okay, hang up, now go back to
Speaker 1: your daughter. Where were you? You You forgot what you wor?
Speaker 1: So now what we were? What we you know? And
Speaker 1: so we would do this and it was it sort
Speaker 1: of taught me how to write for the stage as
Speaker 1: well as just working on my own stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and over the course of several years we
Speaker 1: kind of worked on different characters and developed it. And
Speaker 1: then I ended up working with the director who helped
Speaker 1: me shape the whole show and put it together. And
Speaker 1: then when came and saw it. I did it at
Speaker 1: the West Bank Downstairs Theater and then he said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get this up at the American Place Theater. And
Speaker 1: then he did. He put it up at the American
Speaker 1: Place Theater. And this is the story I told that
Speaker 1: his memorial. So I'm doing the show. This is the
Speaker 1: New York Times comes to review it. We get this
Speaker 1: love letter in the New York Times. And it was
Speaker 1: the greatest day of my life. It was like I
Speaker 1: woke up that morning, there's a love letter in the Times.
Speaker 1: So the show, you know, we're selling tickets. It's a
Speaker 1: small theater, less than a hundred seats, and we've been
Speaker 1: running for about a month. And I get an offer
Speaker 1: to go do another play at the Manhattan Theater Club.
Speaker 1: And it was a play by Terence McNally called Corpus
Speaker 1: Christie and it was about the gay Jesus and it
Speaker 1: was getting all of this attention in the media. People
Speaker 1: were really up in arms about the Christian Right was
Speaker 1: protesting the theater. Terence McNally was, you know, and it
Speaker 1: was a kind of a sexy group of young actors
Speaker 1: who were going to be in this thing, and they
Speaker 1: wanted me to play one of the disciples. My agents
Speaker 1: called me in and they said, listen, you you got
Speaker 1: the review, You've run the show for four weeks. Now
Speaker 1: you've got this other thing. Let's go do it. You
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be a big It's the cover of
Speaker 1: Time magazine. It's gonna be you know, it's gonna be huge.
Speaker 1: And I called when and I said when, you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's telling me I should close my show and go
Speaker 1: do this other play. And I remember he just said,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? This is your show, this is the
Speaker 1: show that you wrote, that you created. It's you, it's
Speaker 1: all you. You're doing seven characters, Like, why would you
Speaker 1: close that to go be part of an ensemble with
Speaker 1: a bunch of other guys, you know, with a small
Speaker 1: part or whatever. I said, well, you know it's gonna
Speaker 1: be sexy. It's gonna be on the cover of Time magazine.
Speaker 1: Reporters are outside, and he said, don't worry about that.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm telling you right now, this will be
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake of your life if you do this.
Speaker 1: And I remember him saying that to me, and he
Speaker 1: said to me, he said, look, Austin, if here's what
Speaker 1: I'll do, I will keep And I still get emotional
Speaker 1: when I think about this, because nobody does this in
Speaker 1: our business. The show had been running since June. It
Speaker 1: was July. He said, I will keep you open until
Speaker 1: January of next year. Whether I'm making money or I'm
Speaker 1: not making money. I guarantee I will keep you open.
Speaker 1: I won't close you. And he goes, you won't get
Speaker 1: that guarantee from those guys. He goes, I will keep
Speaker 1: you open. And he did, and and the other show
Speaker 1: closed in two weeks. Terence McNally closed in two weeks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he closed in two weeks. The New York Times killed it.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing about nothing against that show. They all
Speaker 1: you know, it was had great Michael Hall was in it,
Speaker 1: like a lot of great actors were in it. But
Speaker 1: for me, in that moment, it would have been the
Speaker 1: wrong decision. And when made that promise to me, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I went to my agents and I said, look,
Speaker 1: he's gonna keep me open for six months, Like how
Speaker 1: am I? You know he's not gonna And he did
Speaker 1: and he kept his word. And what happened in those
Speaker 1: six months were that word got around that there was
Speaker 1: this young Indian kid who was doing this play about
Speaker 1: an Indian family and this Indian restaurant, and no one
Speaker 1: had done that on the New York stage. There was
Speaker 1: no shows that were about a South Asian immigrant family
Speaker 1: written and performed by South Asians. And people got word
Speaker 1: of it, and the word of mouth start to spreading.
Speaker 1: People started coming from all over Long Island and New
Speaker 1: Jersey and upstairs, you know, from all over the borrows.
Speaker 1: We have bus loads of people coming to see the
Speaker 1: play because there would never been a play about the
Speaker 1: South Asians, Indians, Pakistani's, Bangladesh's, even other immigrants. They've never
Speaker 1: seen this play before. They've never you know, and so
Speaker 1: it's such a specific thing. So we stayed open, our
Speaker 1: audiences grew, we want to oh b Awards, and I
Speaker 1: got a movie out of it. So you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, We all, I think we all have a
Speaker 1: similar thing where there's a fork in the road. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and what I always tell people is, if the
Speaker 1: circumstances present themselves, they may come to me and say, oh,
Speaker 1: what what should I do? And I'll say, I suggest
Speaker 1: that because your instincts have gotten you here thus far,
Speaker 1: you stick with those instincts. The business will always ask
Speaker 1: you at some point, or typically we'll ask you at
Speaker 1: some point to abandon your instincts. I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: got to a place where I did a show off
Speaker 1: Broadway and we had a love letter from the Times,
Speaker 1: and they were going to move the show to Broadway,
Speaker 1: and instead I was offered my first million dollar pay
Speaker 1: day in the movie business. And my agent looked at me.
Speaker 1: My my agent was like, come on, your schmuck. They're
Speaker 1: offering you a million dollars here, and it's it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, we're gonna tank the Broadway production
Speaker 1: of this precious little dark comedy. This was prelude to
Speaker 1: a kiss, and I'm gonna go off and do this movie,
Speaker 1: And I wrote in my memory, I said, that's when
Speaker 1: I knew I had made the mistake that changed my career,
Speaker 1: because once I allowed people to push me into a
Speaker 1: corner where it was about chasing money, and it was
Speaker 1: about a type of movie start and where people are like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just gonna keep throwing it against the
Speaker 1: wall till something sticks. Who cares if you've got to
Speaker 1: spend the next two years doing four movies that are
Speaker 1: complete steaming piles of ship and you're never gonna have
Speaker 1: any creative nutrition for the next two years. You're playing
Speaker 1: a different game. Now you have been asked to come
Speaker 1: and play a different game. And I look back at
Speaker 1: that time of my life just like you with your play,
Speaker 1: and I go, I made the wrong choice, and I
Speaker 1: made the wrong choice. So you did Disgraced and Link
Speaker 1: he said, they want they won the Poetzer Prize. Man.
Speaker 1: That was another one of those things that So I
Speaker 1: had actor who wrote Disgraced, who is one of my
Speaker 1: close friends to this day. He is a brilliant writer.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I read the first draft of it.
Speaker 1: He sent it to me. I was at the Daily
Speaker 1: Show and and he sent it to me, and he said,
Speaker 1: I want you to read this thing. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do a reading of it. And I read this play
Speaker 1: that he had written, and I thought it was one
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous things that I had ever read.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you can't do like, you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't do this play? What are you what are
Speaker 1: you nuts? And he was like, no, no, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. And I was I
Speaker 1: was like, I was so terrified and excited to do
Speaker 1: this reading of this play. I didn't know that there
Speaker 1: was gonna be a production or anything. I was just like,
Speaker 1: even just the reading, I was like, this is this
Speaker 1: character is saying things and doing things that is just
Speaker 1: we haven't seen this perspective at anywhere. It was post
Speaker 1: nine eleven. He had written this character that was a
Speaker 1: a Pakistani lawyer who who sounded who was speaking the
Speaker 1: words of the conservative right. It was a self hating
Speaker 1: Muslim um and it was one of the most amazing roles.
Speaker 1: So ultimately we ended up doing it at Lincoln Center
Speaker 1: and uh and I got and it won the Pulitzer
Speaker 1: there and it was one of the most other than
Speaker 1: Sakina's restaurant. It was maybe the other most satisfying theatrical
Speaker 1: experience I've ever had in my life, just playing that role,
Speaker 1: because there were no roles written like that. It was
Speaker 1: it was a complex brown man living in a post
Speaker 1: nine eleven America, dealing with really complicated issues of identity.
Speaker 1: And I add wrote it beautifully and dangerously. And you know,
Speaker 1: he's gone on to become a very successful American playwright,
Speaker 1: and that was I think his first real play that
Speaker 1: got a lot of attention. And then I was supposed
Speaker 1: to do it on Broadway and it was one of
Speaker 1: the great heartbreaks of my career. I had signed on
Speaker 1: to do this HBO series. It was called The Brink,
Speaker 1: Tim Robbins and Jack Black and Yeah, and we did
Speaker 1: it and it was great and I love all the
Speaker 1: people involved with that. But I had signed on to
Speaker 1: do it and we couldn't make the dates work, and
Speaker 1: we couldn't the producers of the Broadway production, and so
Speaker 1: I had to bow out of the Broadway show. And
Speaker 1: it was one of the great heartbreaks for me of
Speaker 1: career wise, because I would have given anything to have
Speaker 1: done it on Broadway. Remember, like the debates that we
Speaker 1: would have with the audience. You know you're doing something
Speaker 1: amazing when you walk out of the theater and the
Speaker 1: audience all feels like they saw something different. Like you
Speaker 1: have a family. If people come up to me and
Speaker 1: they go, when know your character was the villain, they go,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, no. The and the husband would argue
Speaker 1: with this, No, no, she was the villain. No are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? Like, no, the other this guy was.
Speaker 1: It was the debate of like of like, who was
Speaker 1: the bad guy in this play? And I remember like
Speaker 1: it being and I had said it to me when
Speaker 1: we were rehearsing. He said, I want the audience to
Speaker 1: constantly shift allegiances and to never know, like once they
Speaker 1: decide that one person is bad, it shifts and they go, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, no, this person is actually the person
Speaker 1: I agree with. Oh no, that person is the person
Speaker 1: I agree. When you're dealing with that kind of writing,
Speaker 1: it's really rich and amazing. Actor Asaf Mundy. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you your podcasts. When we come back, ass Off
Speaker 1: MV shares how becoming a father later in life has
Speaker 1: changed him. Really, I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing from My Heart Radio. After starring on Broadway
Speaker 1: and winning an Obie ass Off, Monvy showcased his comedic
Speaker 1: Chops as a daily show correspondent for almost a decade.
Speaker 1: It was the result of an audition he almost dismissed.
Speaker 1: August nine, two thousand and six, I get a call
Speaker 1: from my manager. She says, the Daily Show is auditioning.
Speaker 1: They want to see you. And I thought this was
Speaker 1: going to be some stupid thing where I go down
Speaker 1: there and I, you know, pretend to be the voice
Speaker 1: of Saddam Hussein and some stupid thing or something, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. So they called me and I and I
Speaker 1: remember that day. I was happened to be writing a
Speaker 1: letter to my ex girlfriend, who I just found out
Speaker 1: had gotten engaged. And I was having one of those
Speaker 1: days where I was like sitting there writing a letter
Speaker 1: to her because I realized we were never going to
Speaker 1: get back together. And so that's the day I'm having.
Speaker 1: I get this call. I said, can I not go today?
Speaker 1: Can they see me tomorrow? Because I'm I'm in kind
Speaker 1: of an emotional state today. I don't feel much like.
Speaker 1: She said, no, no, it's today. Three o'clock is the
Speaker 1: cut off. Either you go today or it's done. And
Speaker 1: I said, okay, fine, I put on a suit and tie.
Speaker 1: I walked down to the Daily Show and I I
Speaker 1: go in and and and the girl there says, you know,
Speaker 1: here the sides, and she gives me you know, and
Speaker 1: I and I, you know, I had this kind of
Speaker 1: cockiness where I was like, I've been on Broadway, I've
Speaker 1: done TV movie, you know, like this is of course
Speaker 1: the show, right, yeah, of course. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: and so and so I'm looking over all this stuff
Speaker 1: I gotta say and and she comes in and she says,
Speaker 1: John's ready to see you. And I said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: can I have a few more minutes to work on
Speaker 1: this machine? She goes, no, no, it's on the telepromt.
Speaker 1: Do you don't need to memorize it? And I remember
Speaker 1: just being like, oh, fucking, this is teleprompted? What is this?
Speaker 1: This is? This is for amateurs, you know. So I
Speaker 1: go in there and I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I meet John Stewart. He's lovely, very friendly. I remember
Speaker 1: he said, have you ever performed in front of a
Speaker 1: live audience before and I said, I looked at him
Speaker 1: and I said, dude, I've been on Broadway and he
Speaker 1: was like, okay, all right, Mr Broadway and that's Mr Broadway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mr Broadway. And I just did my best Stephen Colbert impression.
Speaker 1: That's all I knew to do, and I read it
Speaker 1: off the thing I get done. John turns to me,
Speaker 1: he says, that was great, Welcome to the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: and he shook my hand, and I was on the
Speaker 1: show that very evening. Jesus. And the crazy thing is,
Speaker 1: and it so happened that Bruce Springsteen came to see
Speaker 1: the show that night and he was sitting in the
Speaker 1: audience and he came backstage after the show to say
Speaker 1: hi to John On and I got to meet him
Speaker 1: and he congratulated me and he said, who it was
Speaker 1: your first time. You're really good. And so my day
Speaker 1: went from like writing this letter and sitting there like
Speaker 1: in this kind of you know, funk, to being on
Speaker 1: The Daily Show meeting Bruce Springston, best of luck in
Speaker 1: your future. Mary. At the end of the day, it's Mary,
Speaker 1: who yeah, exactly. So it was one of those crazy
Speaker 1: things where my day just and then John, you know,
Speaker 1: said look, this is a one off, but I want
Speaker 1: you back. I'm going to call you back. And so
Speaker 1: he just kept calling me back for about four or
Speaker 1: five months, which is sort of like where he was
Speaker 1: kind of, I think, really kind of auditioning me. And
Speaker 1: then after about a few months he offered me a
Speaker 1: contract to be on the show. And then that was
Speaker 1: just again talk about getting to work with some of
Speaker 1: the funniest, smartest people in the business. You know, I got.
Speaker 1: I got to work with some great kind of on
Speaker 1: an island of his own really even yeah, and and
Speaker 1: also just the writers on that show and all the
Speaker 1: with Oliver and Sam and you know, all those guys
Speaker 1: and the writers and the producers and and and many
Speaker 1: of them I still speak to you today, and I'm
Speaker 1: still friends with and and they are some of the
Speaker 1: funniest people and smartest people in the business. But I
Speaker 1: loved about Stewart. What I love was he had this
Speaker 1: kind of energy feel to him, which was the audience
Speaker 1: is screaming, and the audience is cheering. I remember that
Speaker 1: studio was somewhat smaller, and it wasn't a very big crowd,
Speaker 1: and everyone's screaming and cheering for him, and he'd sit
Speaker 1: there at the desk with almost this demeanor like can
Speaker 1: I talk now? Yeah? Can I get Like he wasn't
Speaker 1: there to get bathed in love and take a bow
Speaker 1: and yes, everyone, it's me. He almost had this funny
Speaker 1: attitude like, you know, are you finished? Can we get
Speaker 1: on with my monologue now? Please? I mean I thought
Speaker 1: he just played it perfectly. Now beyond acres of TV
Speaker 1: shows and films, and but you worked with Merchant Ivory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I met with Merchant and Ivory in New York, like
Speaker 1: in the eighties, I'll never forget. In the old days,
Speaker 1: you'd sit in a casting call and every actor in
Speaker 1: Manhattan that was your competition was in a folding chair
Speaker 1: down that road. Here's Kevin Bacon, and here's this guy,
Speaker 1: and here's this guy, and you're all in a row
Speaker 1: to get to audition for eight men out for John Sales.
Speaker 1: You know, you would have cut your hand off to
Speaker 1: be in a John Sales movie back then, and all
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. And you worked with Merchant every
Speaker 1: what was that experience? Like? It was amazing? You know,
Speaker 1: that was the movie that I got after seeking his
Speaker 1: restaurant when that New York Times review came out. It's
Speaker 1: Smile Merchant came to see the show the next The
Speaker 1: following week, I wonderfully get cast in a great film
Speaker 1: from a play. Yeah, well, he came to see it
Speaker 1: and he shook my hand after the show, and you know,
Speaker 1: It's Smile was this god. You know, especially as a
Speaker 1: young South Asian actor. This guy had made it in
Speaker 1: a way that very few people in Hollywood had made it,
Speaker 1: you know, of my background, and he was in so
Speaker 1: I remember he came up to me and he said, hello,
Speaker 1: my name is a Smiling Merchant, and I would like
Speaker 1: to take you out to dinner. And I said, yeah, terrific,
Speaker 1: and then he took me to a restaurant. So a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later he called. You know, he kept
Speaker 1: in touch and called me and he said, I want
Speaker 1: to take you this. And he took me to this
Speaker 1: restaurant that he claimed that he owned, yet nobody knew
Speaker 1: him there secret all the restaurants I owned, to keep
Speaker 1: it a secret. Yeah exactly. So we went there and
Speaker 1: he didn't even love the Raider's Day. We kept getting
Speaker 1: it wrong and then and everybody's like I own this place,
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, He gave me this book called The
Speaker 1: Mystic Massure and he said, I'm making this into a
Speaker 1: film and I want you to play the lead. And
Speaker 1: now imagine this is me having done nothing. I've done
Speaker 1: no like movies. At this point, I don't comes guest
Speaker 1: spots on Law and Order and you know, and let
Speaker 1: me schedule here. Yeah, and he said, I want you
Speaker 1: to play the lead in this movie. We're gonna shoot
Speaker 1: it in Trinidad, and it's going to be amazing and
Speaker 1: the legendary actor Owned Puri is going to be in it,
Speaker 1: one of the great character actors of Indian cinema. And
Speaker 1: he said, uh, it's based on this vs. Nightball novel
Speaker 1: and uh, I want you to play the main character.
Speaker 1: And you know what was I gonna do? I went
Speaker 1: home and I read the book in like literally an afternoon.
Speaker 1: I devoured the book and then I called his office
Speaker 1: and I said, yes, I'm doing it. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1: Was it a good experience? It was. It was a
Speaker 1: tremendous experience. We went to Trinidad, we shot this movie.
Speaker 1: It was chaos. The way a Smile worked was he
Speaker 1: would find a beautiful location and then just say we're
Speaker 1: gonna shoot a scene here. And I was and of
Speaker 1: course I'm this young actor coming from theater and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm sort of mary. I'm holding my script like this,
Speaker 1: you know. And he would say, it is a beautiful
Speaker 1: we shoot a scene right here. We're going to shoot it.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, smile, I said, you know what.
Speaker 1: He said, You're going to get on your bicycle and
Speaker 1: you're gonna ride down. They're gonna get a beautiful shot
Speaker 1: of this beautiful trees and this thing. And so I
Speaker 1: said to him, and of course I'm this is my
Speaker 1: first movie, and I'm trying. I'm using all of my craft,
Speaker 1: you know, like everything I know about being an actor.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, I said it, smiles, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is great. This is not in the script, by
Speaker 1: the way, the scene it's not. It's nowhere in the scream.
Speaker 1: He said. Don't worry about the script. He said, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. It's just I would go to and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, script is a mere suggestion. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I said to me, I said, small, just tell me this.
Speaker 1: I said, tell me this. Where am I coming from?
Speaker 1: Just tell me where I'm coming from? He said, you're
Speaker 1: coming from your house. I said, okay, great, I said great, great,
Speaker 1: And where am I going? Just so I know that
Speaker 1: for my motivation, He said, you are going. And there's
Speaker 1: a character the owned POORI played in the movie called
Speaker 1: rom Logan. He said, you're going to rom Logan's shop.
Speaker 1: That's where you're going. And I said okay, And then
Speaker 1: I looked at him and I said it smile. In
Speaker 1: this movie, it has been well established that rom Logan's
Speaker 1: shop is across the street from my house. And he said,
Speaker 1: you are taking the cynic rout. Just get on the
Speaker 1: bike and ride it. It was always very like running
Speaker 1: and gunning like. There was one scene where he wanted
Speaker 1: me and s Jeeb Bosker, who was another actor in
Speaker 1: the film. He wanted us to be under this hatch
Speaker 1: roof during the scene and above us he wanted these
Speaker 1: chickens and he wanted these chickens just to be hanging
Speaker 1: out above the roof. And he thought it was very
Speaker 1: funny to have these chickens. But the chickens wouldn't stay
Speaker 1: on the roof. They kept running away. So he got
Speaker 1: the guy, one of the kids on the set. He
Speaker 1: got him with a staple gun. Oh god, he got
Speaker 1: a string. He tied the string to the chickens, and
Speaker 1: then he stapled the string to the roof, and the
Speaker 1: chickens were like kicking and they were trying to get out,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't get away, and he got a shot.
Speaker 1: He got a shot. Now, I just want to finish
Speaker 1: by saying that the thing I'm most grateful for or
Speaker 1: or I'm the most admiring of, is that why you
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to access great material, when you have
Speaker 1: that opportunity to present it to you, you didn't squander
Speaker 1: that opportunity. And that's really really really amazing to me
Speaker 1: and really impressive, because when that material comes your way,
Speaker 1: you don't know when it's gonna come again. Like when
Speaker 1: like when Wynn said to you, don't pass this up
Speaker 1: and go off and do this, and then Corpus Christie
Speaker 1: dies in two weeks. You know he knew, which is
Speaker 1: that when you have something good in front of you,
Speaker 1: that other stuff is gonna take care of itself. Where
Speaker 1: we want to believe that now you've done all this
Speaker 1: important work and all this great dramatic work, and you've
Speaker 1: driven it right off a cliff by hosting a game show.
Speaker 1: Um uh, you and I have that profound thing in common.
Speaker 1: And then add to that the fact that you had
Speaker 1: children at the age of fifty four, that yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sixty four and we've had six kids in eight years. Man, Wow,
Speaker 1: you've just got You've got a flock of him and I,
Speaker 1: you know, we had him, and and honestly after say,
Speaker 1: he's the greatest thing that happened to me. Like he
Speaker 1: gave me a kind of talk about an access to
Speaker 1: like humanity and just like as you know, as an
Speaker 1: artist and just filling up your just your being. You know,
Speaker 1: there's certain things in life which you don't know that
Speaker 1: you need until you get them, and then you go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what my soul has been craving. And now
Speaker 1: he is one of the funniest, smartest little guys. And
Speaker 1: he just helped. And I realized that, like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: glad I did it now. I'm not one of those
Speaker 1: people that says I wish I'd done it ten years ago,
Speaker 1: because because I'm mentally ready for it now, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like I like when I was like
Speaker 1: in my thirties, I wouldn't have been able to do this.
Speaker 1: I would have sucked it up. I would have just
Speaker 1: been like too much of a mess trying to do
Speaker 1: other you know, like like I feel like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: place in my career now where I'm feeling I'm feeling
Speaker 1: more settled. I feel like, Okay, you know, I can
Speaker 1: do this. I can pay attention to him in a
Speaker 1: way that I couldn't have if I had done it
Speaker 1: much earlier. And what you also are is a man
Speaker 1: that can keep his family home. You don't have to
Speaker 1: send your kid to Bahrain to live with his grandparents.
Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, it's true. You have a home, and
Speaker 1: you've got a steady amount of work, and you've got
Speaker 1: the respect of people in the business, and things are
Speaker 1: good to go, and your family is together, and yeah,
Speaker 1: well listen, this was really a joy. Thank you, my
Speaker 1: thanks to Assaf Munvey. This episode was recorded at CDM
Speaker 1: Studios in New York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Zach McNeese, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is brought to you by My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Oh up me BA need to