Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has graced
Speaker 1: some of the world's most famous stages. Of veteran of
Speaker 1: the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the
Speaker 1: illustrious Royal Shakespeare Company. He played Sebastian in Twelfth Night
Speaker 1: at the Royal Court, Andrew in Manhattan Theater Club's production
Speaker 1: of In Celebration, Johnny in Holiday at the Old Vic,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy in Look Back in Anger at the Roundabout.
Speaker 1: That's but a small sample of his many credits. It's
Speaker 1: no understatement to say that his talent and his range
Speaker 1: are remarkable, Yet most audiences around the world know him
Speaker 1: best for a single iconic character. It was the next day, Province,
Speaker 1: and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon
Speaker 1: to play it their way and sit back a hotta
Speaker 1: show cooperative Malchick in the chair of torture while they
Speaker 1: flashed nasty bits of ultra violence on the screen, though
Speaker 1: not on the soundtrack my brothers, the only sound being music.
Speaker 1: Then I noticed, in all my plain and sickness, what
Speaker 1: music it was that like cracked and boomed. It was
Speaker 1: Ludwig fan ninth Symphony, fourth Movement. That is the incomparable
Speaker 1: Malcolm McDowell playing Alex de Large, the anti heroic criminal
Speaker 1: turned victim in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. That groundbreaking
Speaker 1: film premiered some fifty years ago, and McDowell's performance in
Speaker 1: it is as riveting today as it was then. Though
Speaker 1: Clockwork made McDowell famous, it was in fact the director
Speaker 1: Lindsey Anderson, McDowell's lifelong friend and surrogate father, who got
Speaker 1: him started in movies when he cast young Malcolm as
Speaker 1: the lead in the award winning film If. Yet, for
Speaker 1: all his success, Malcolm McDowell did not grow up with
Speaker 1: acting in mind. It's so nice to see you. God,
Speaker 1: are you too? Before we get to you know, the
Speaker 1: obvious things when you grew up, because when you first
Speaker 1: started making films, and I want to talk to about
Speaker 1: your career before you meet Lindsay Anderson, before you make
Speaker 1: films and so forth. What kind of a kid were
Speaker 1: you in terms of were you like a rough and tumble,
Speaker 1: rough house kid on a soccer field or a rugby field? Yes,
Speaker 1: so you were a tough guy. My father who ran
Speaker 1: a hotel and pubs and you know, establishments way you
Speaker 1: could get drunk very easily. He sent me to a
Speaker 1: we call in England a public school, you would call
Speaker 1: a private school. You have to pay in other words,
Speaker 1: and it's a boarding school. So because I was disruptive,
Speaker 1: I was a subversive child, and so he just thought
Speaker 1: for my own salvation, and actually I don't thank god
Speaker 1: he did. He sent me to a school where the
Speaker 1: headmaster was in love with the theater. So the acting
Speaker 1: thing started when I was eleven at school with this
Speaker 1: wonderful man, Mr L. F. Baker Lance fag f A G. G.
Speaker 1: Baker No, yeah, and he I don't know. It's an
Speaker 1: old English family name. And his brother was the Air
Speaker 1: Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir John Baker,
Speaker 1: who I used to go cuss his lawn and get
Speaker 1: afternoon tea where I first tasted Lapsang Susan. I'm going,
Speaker 1: what's this perfume in the team? No more Prince of
Speaker 1: Wales for me, No more Earl Gray for me? PG tips, Yes,
Speaker 1: PG tips for me. When you say, at least in
Speaker 1: your father's eyes, it sounds that you were a subversive child,
Speaker 1: how did that benifest itself. Well the head you know this.
Speaker 1: Mr Baker said to my father that after I've been
Speaker 1: there a year, he said, yes, well Malcolm is very naughty,
Speaker 1: but he's not malicious. That were you close to your dad? No,
Speaker 1: my father was an alcoholic. I mean I loved him
Speaker 1: in many ways, but the alcoholism just towards the end
Speaker 1: of his life. I just figure, hey, come on, dad,
Speaker 1: let's go down the pub by your drink, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, he just couldn't get off it. Did he
Speaker 1: live to see your success? Yes, yes he did. He
Speaker 1: was actually a driving instructor of the time. And I
Speaker 1: still have these people in Philadelphia, right. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: taught by your dad, you know, And of course he'd
Speaker 1: always say pull over here, just gonna pop into this pub.
Speaker 1: I've got to call my son in America, and of
Speaker 1: course just go in an order quick, you know, gin
Speaker 1: and tonic or something. Now, when you leave Mr Baker,
Speaker 1: when you leave his school, where do you go for
Speaker 1: your training? I went back to Liverpool and I had
Speaker 1: this girlfriend who was taking elocution lessons because she was
Speaker 1: a receptionist. She took me to this lovely lady called
Speaker 1: Mrs Harold actually, and I went to meet with her.
Speaker 1: She was eighty two blind as about very sweet, charming, chrismatic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just listened to her, pay my ten
Speaker 1: shillings an hour and just basically listened to her talk
Speaker 1: about her time as being in a silent screen star.
Speaker 1: You know. She said, look, you've got a good voice.
Speaker 1: You could probably be an actor. Why didn't you take
Speaker 1: this lander exams? You know, and you can then teach acting.
Speaker 1: I mean, good God, I don't know anything about it
Speaker 1: because I knew a bit from school because I played
Speaker 1: all the great parts in Shakespeare before I left school.
Speaker 1: So I did these I won a gold medal. Then
Speaker 1: I went down to London and did an audition at LAMBDA,
Speaker 1: and they gave me an associateship of LAMBDA. So one
Speaker 1: of the judges there offered me a job in repertory theater,
Speaker 1: which I leapt at and did you sing? No? Not then,
Speaker 1: because there are people who don't know LAMBDA is the
Speaker 1: London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. No singing for you?
Speaker 1: No singing? No. At the time I think I was there,
Speaker 1: I didn't go there. I just went into the theater
Speaker 1: and did my pieces, the audition pieces, and I was
Speaker 1: offered a job to go to Shanklin in the Isle
Speaker 1: of Wight in a repertory theater for the summer season,
Speaker 1: and you do one play every week and new play.
Speaker 1: So you've had four plays in your head. They were
Speaker 1: all Agatha Christie, you know, really horrendous things. You were
Speaker 1: at LAMBDA for two years. The associates program was too
Speaker 1: No no, no, I didn't go to Lambda. I was
Speaker 1: just I just won their associate chip, got it. And
Speaker 1: between that time between the time when you are engaging,
Speaker 1: you know, Ibsen and the Aisle of White, four shows
Speaker 1: in your head at the same time, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: meet Lindsay Anderson when you're years old and was down
Speaker 1: the line for years down the line. Not only what
Speaker 1: were you doing in those intervening years you were you
Speaker 1: were at the RSC correct for a little while. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I soon got fed up with this weekly rep so
Speaker 1: I figured I wanted to get to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Speaker 1: So I went to this old actor who taught auditions,
Speaker 1: because I figured, you know, I never get past the
Speaker 1: damned audition. I so I know I can play the part,
Speaker 1: but I can't convince them. So I went to somebody
Speaker 1: that knew how to actually do auditions, and he found
Speaker 1: only a piece of Shakespeare that was so out of
Speaker 1: the run of the mill stuff. It was the prologue
Speaker 1: to Henry the Eighth. I don't even know whether the
Speaker 1: Shakespeare ready wrote this play or not, but anyway, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. The first line was I come no more
Speaker 1: to make you laugh. I don't remember anything else about
Speaker 1: it except that, of course they hadn't heard the peace,
Speaker 1: and so you know, most people were doing to be
Speaker 1: or not to be or you know, once more until
Speaker 1: the breach, so they hadn't heard. This kept them awake.
Speaker 1: They actually offered me a season, so I went there
Speaker 1: and I pretty much really hated it. Well, I found
Speaker 1: the stuff that they were doing to be. You know,
Speaker 1: even in my young youth, as a young actor, I
Speaker 1: could distinguish pretentious behavior. Who was running the show there,
Speaker 1: Pieter Hall, you know, an extraordinary director really through the years,
Speaker 1: but he was a very young man. I mean it's basically,
Speaker 1: you know, sex booze gambling the whole season. So we
Speaker 1: would literally go to the Dirty Duck pub and start gambling.
Speaker 1: This actor from Ireland, Godfrey Quigley, he actually played the
Speaker 1: priest in Clockwork Orange. He was a wonderful guy, the
Speaker 1: prison priest. Yeah, he's a wonderful actor, wonderful. He was
Speaker 1: playing you know, good parts to that. I was playing lousy.
Speaker 1: But the priests, so people who realize for people who
Speaker 1: like me are clockwork freaks. And we'll do our clockwork
Speaker 1: thing in a little bit. But the moment when Alex
Speaker 1: is envisioning himself pitching right in to the Crucifixion, I
Speaker 1: bideing myself pitching right in or whatever the words are.
Speaker 1: That's the priest who comes and interrupts your dream state.
Speaker 1: That's right by sardon, he says, the big, big, big,
Speaker 1: wonderful irish. You know my boys, he says, my boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He invented this gambling game which you turn these handles.
Speaker 1: You have these little toy horses. It was such a
Speaker 1: stupid game, but we ended up literally I think I
Speaker 1: was two and a half months behind on my I
Speaker 1: owed him everything from my checks, not that I was
Speaker 1: getting very much, but in those days and I'd see
Speaker 1: him backstage and they'd go, malcome where you owe me?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, no, no, I'm I'm getting that together.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, don't worry. Go for it. It's coming. You
Speaker 1: weren't sure if you wanted to go on another day
Speaker 1: in that condition. But let me just say that other
Speaker 1: people I've spoken to older than you, different generation. But
Speaker 1: you know, when I talked to Tony Hopkins and he
Speaker 1: talked about being at the National and always dutifully performing
Speaker 1: in the British theater and working at the feet of
Speaker 1: Olivier so to speak, not just dreaming, but knowing he
Speaker 1: was going to get the funk out of there. He
Speaker 1: said he couldn't get away from England fast enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and leave behind you know that great tradition. That did
Speaker 1: you feel the same way? I knew that I did
Speaker 1: not want to be exclusively a stage actor. In fact,
Speaker 1: when I gave my resignation to Peter Hall and he
Speaker 1: looked at me and he goes, you don't want to
Speaker 1: come back? I went no, no, He goes, well, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do? I said, well, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: going into film. He looked at me and went good luck. Yes,
Speaker 1: real condescending. It was fun when I saw him a
Speaker 1: couple of years later in the RSC. Were there people
Speaker 1: you were around who that you idolized? Were the actors
Speaker 1: you've got to be even just be around them who
Speaker 1: you loved. Yeah, the number one were beside David Warner,
Speaker 1: who was a friend, but someone that I really idolized,
Speaker 1: who wasn't necessarily a friend, was in and In Home
Speaker 1: gave I think one of the greatest performances I've still
Speaker 1: ever seen. And I was actually in the play with him.
Speaker 1: It was Henry the Fifth and you know, Ian was
Speaker 1: only five ft two or something. It was tiny. The
Speaker 1: power of this actor was extraordinary. And you know, he
Speaker 1: used to invite me out to go play tennis. A
Speaker 1: couple of us actually go play tennis because he'd rented
Speaker 1: this place that had a grass tennis court, and every
Speaker 1: Sunday we'd go and you know, kind of have doubles
Speaker 1: matches and then have cream tea. I just loved this
Speaker 1: man so much. And when I wasn't on stage, where
Speaker 1: I would go and I had a place in the
Speaker 1: wings to go watch him, and I think I watched him,
Speaker 1: you know, for nine months most nights. Yeah, yeah, right
Speaker 1: when I did a play the great great Black comic
Speaker 1: act I mean, just the ceaselessly intoxicating Joe Maher, who
Speaker 1: owned all the roles in Orton that he played Joe
Speaker 1: was Irish but raised in England and and and trained
Speaker 1: in England. And my first Broadway show was in six
Speaker 1: I did Loots. Oh my god, I love that play.
Speaker 1: And you know he got put in prison for defacing
Speaker 1: bibles in the library. Yeah, and book drawing cox all
Speaker 1: over him in the garden as well, and he was
Speaker 1: coot actor Malcolm McDowell. Another actor who has moved effortlessly
Speaker 1: from stage to film and back is Kevin Klein. I
Speaker 1: interviewed clin live at the two River Theater in Red Bank,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, where we talked about his great film career. Actually,
Speaker 1: Meryl was a tremendous help. I remember once I was
Speaker 1: making a huge meal out of just had to give Stingo,
Speaker 1: the character's name. I had to give him some money
Speaker 1: because he had been robbed, and I was doing, you know,
Speaker 1: you're a writer, you need this money in Milliba and
Speaker 1: I was just emoting, and she said, just give money.
Speaker 1: To listen to my full episode with Kevin Klein, go
Speaker 1: to our archives at Here's the Thing dot Org. After
Speaker 1: the break, we get a glimpse into his unique relationship
Speaker 1: with the great director Lindsey Anderson. McDowell says they were
Speaker 1: like a married couple with all of the ups and downs,
Speaker 1: and tells us what he learned from Anderson about acting
Speaker 1: life and the importance of not imitating Lawrence Olivier. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. We're speaking
Speaker 1: today with actor Malcolm McDowell. Now, where does Lindsay Anderson
Speaker 1: find you? Where does he find you? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's my agent Gold say, oh, I gotta go. I
Speaker 1: was actually rehearsing at the Royal Court doing um twelfth
Speaker 1: Night of Modern Dress version at the Royal Court, you know,
Speaker 1: very trendy and all that. So in the middle of
Speaker 1: the rehearsal, my agent said, go quickly, get to the theater.
Speaker 1: Whether it's a director, you know, I want you to
Speaker 1: meet because he's doing this film and what kind of film.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We don't know what kind of film. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So I go there and I was late. They were
Speaker 1: just about packing up to go to lunch, and I went,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I came on, you know, to the stage.
Speaker 1: He said, sorry, I'm being stuck rehearsing. They wouldn't let
Speaker 1: me go, and so he jumped up on the stage
Speaker 1: and we're talking, you know, I'm Lindsay and said, oh hello.
Speaker 1: He said, well what are you doing? And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm doing a twelfth Night at the Royal Court.
Speaker 1: It's a modern dress version. And Lindsay looked at him
Speaker 1: me and he went, oh, sounds awful. I went, well,
Speaker 1: and look, I mean it's not awful. I mean, I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, very happy to be working at the Royal
Speaker 1: Court of great theaters supposedly, but it is sort of actually,
Speaker 1: to be honest, it is awful. It's very pretentious. These people,
Speaker 1: I mean, who they they think they are. They've got
Speaker 1: their noses up there. Asked, it's you know. And so
Speaker 1: we spend the next twenty minutes ragging on all the
Speaker 1: people and gossiping about the Royal Court. Then there's an
Speaker 1: impasse and he just says to me, of course you
Speaker 1: do realize, Malcolm, that I'm a director of the Royal Court.
Speaker 1: I went, what, Oh no, I said, well, I suppose
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get this part then, am I?
Speaker 1: He said, not necessarily. So that was it. I read
Speaker 1: the scene very badly, I think. But he called me
Speaker 1: back in in two weeks time for a kind of
Speaker 1: final audition, and I met this girl who I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, Oh, I thought we would. I
Speaker 1: thought it was about a boy's school. He went, well,
Speaker 1: thre's other elements, you know, and you're going to be
Speaker 1: playing with this girl. And I looked over and instantly
Speaker 1: fell in love with this girl, who I thought was
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She
Speaker 1: actually played the part in the name was Christine Nonan.
Speaker 1: And we have this scene now. So I kept looking
Speaker 1: at I thinking, oh, my gods, fantastic. This is going
Speaker 1: to be fun if I gotta get this. So I
Speaker 1: read the thing and it says Mike grab's hold of girl,
Speaker 1: kisses her passionately, and it was supposed to be in
Speaker 1: the set of a coffee bar, and I pulled her
Speaker 1: over a table that was purporting to be the counter,
Speaker 1: and you know, kissed her, but our lips teeth banged together.
Speaker 1: That was blood and um. Suddenly I find myself sitting
Speaker 1: on the floor. I hadn't read the next line, which
Speaker 1: was savagely slapped Mick. But apparently she didn't slap me.
Speaker 1: She reared up a punch and punched me so hard
Speaker 1: that I literally went down, I mean, like boom out
Speaker 1: for the count and I sort of sat there for
Speaker 1: days because you know, my ears were ringing and I
Speaker 1: was started to tear up. I was just like basically
Speaker 1: crying like a baby. Overwhelmed. Yeah, I was so humiliated
Speaker 1: that I got up and I went at the screw.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to the script, and it
Speaker 1: was electric. I mean it really was. I'll never forget
Speaker 1: the moment. You know, you rarely get moments like that.
Speaker 1: That was sort of just came out of nothing. And
Speaker 1: eventually Lindsey said, okay, thank you, and the writer jumped
Speaker 1: up and he goes, we found our mick, you know,
Speaker 1: And of course he said, shut up, David, that's not
Speaker 1: what we do. You know, we will call his agent
Speaker 1: and do it in the correct way. Now sit down
Speaker 1: and shut up. But if you get back to Anderson,
Speaker 1: I want just want to say that from what I've read,
Speaker 1: I mean, you did a one man show where you
Speaker 1: play Anderson, and Anderson who embodied him? Well you embody him,
Speaker 1: and Lindsey Anderson is a famous director and those films
Speaker 1: are famous films. If a no lucky mana so for
Speaker 1: then he had a great career. But he's not Stanley.
Speaker 1: You didn't decide to embody Stanley on stage. And my
Speaker 1: point is is that was Lindsey Anderson more of an
Speaker 1: actor's director than Stanley way more. I mean it's obvious
Speaker 1: I think from Stanley's movies that really he's not really
Speaker 1: an actor's director. But do you know, listen, why should
Speaker 1: he be. I mean he had in the main a
Speaker 1: fear of actors, and I say a fear because it
Speaker 1: was the one element he couldn't control and he was
Speaker 1: always obsessed with. Now we're on Stanley. I'll get to
Speaker 1: him in a minute. Let me just say that Lindsay
Speaker 1: Anderson the reason I did a one my show about him,
Speaker 1: because he is he has so much complexities as a
Speaker 1: human being and as an artist that he meant so
Speaker 1: much to me, you know, because it was my first
Speaker 1: movie and it was literally your first movie meeting, not
Speaker 1: even small roles before this, this was your first time
Speaker 1: on a movie. I want you to talk about that.
Speaker 1: What was it like? Well, you know, I've done television,
Speaker 1: so I knew what a camera was, so you've done
Speaker 1: some TV. I knew what I could do and what
Speaker 1: I couldn't do, and I knew that it was an
Speaker 1: internal process. Whereas most actors who are trained. Of course
Speaker 1: in England it's very external, you know, not now, but
Speaker 1: in those days there were no film actors and also
Speaker 1: film actors were looked on as scum sellouts. I mean,
Speaker 1: you you're doing it just for the rent, are you?
Speaker 1: And I know Michael Caine had that all his whole life,
Speaker 1: you know, them going but yes, but Michael, why don't
Speaker 1: you do something in the theater? You go, well, why
Speaker 1: the funk should I? When? When are we going to
Speaker 1: see your leer? Michael? Yeah, exactly, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1: But anyway, but Lindsay, you know, he was a commudgeon.
Speaker 1: He was. My relationship with him was like a marriage
Speaker 1: almost in that it was huge rows, big makeup. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just that's just the way it was. He
Speaker 1: really taught me so much about just life and being
Speaker 1: an actor and what it meant and the responsibility that
Speaker 1: you had, you know, to be a leading actor. And
Speaker 1: it's not just you know, just doing the part. It's
Speaker 1: way more than that. He meant so much to me,
Speaker 1: you know that. You know, when he died it was
Speaker 1: the saddest, one of the saddest days of my life.
Speaker 1: Way more affected me than my father. You know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: now know with Anderson, when you do the film and
Speaker 1: the film is over, I mean, you do three films
Speaker 1: in a row after you do if you did which film?
Speaker 1: I did a movie called Figures and the Landscape directed
Speaker 1: by Joe Losey, right, and they only have two actors
Speaker 1: in it, the other one being Robert Shaw. That's a
Speaker 1: whole chapter in itself. Figures in the Landscape and Raging
Speaker 1: Moon with another film you did before you wind up
Speaker 1: with Stanley. But my point is is that whether it's
Speaker 1: if Clockwork eventually caligulate with some of the content, these
Speaker 1: are films where you wonder could these films even get
Speaker 1: made today? I mean, you know, if it's very violent
Speaker 1: in the end, and the kind of swifty and satire
Speaker 1: of Clockwork and its attitude towards sex and violence, which
Speaker 1: you know, never bothered me. I mean, Clockwork Ards is
Speaker 1: a movie to me where I was with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. We were eighteen years old, and it was
Speaker 1: in a revival house or showing somewhere in a theater,
Speaker 1: uh in the heart of residential Long Island, where I
Speaker 1: grew up, and my friend and I we both smoked
Speaker 1: a joint like the size of a flashlight, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And we smoked this joint and we
Speaker 1: go in and we sit down, and the and the
Speaker 1: crushing episodic rhythms of clockwork, like when you get to
Speaker 1: certain points you go, certainly, this has to be the
Speaker 1: end of the movie. This is it. It's over. And
Speaker 1: then also they go and then then the film is
Speaker 1: gonna look at you going not yet. And then he
Speaker 1: does this, and then he goes here, and now they're
Speaker 1: going to drown him in the trough. Here he meets
Speaker 1: the boys again, and it's gonna stick his head in
Speaker 1: the trough. But my point is when you saw if,
Speaker 1: when you first saw the film, after you were finished,
Speaker 1: when it was screened for you, what were your thoughts?
Speaker 1: What did you think? I was in shock really because
Speaker 1: in those days it took almost a year to edit
Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah, you know, this is just before all
Speaker 1: those fancy editing systems. So they do it literally on
Speaker 1: a movieola, which steam on a steamback before steamback before
Speaker 1: stola with a pedal and you. So it took nine
Speaker 1: months and I had no idea. They've done a screening
Speaker 1: which I wasn't invited to, and it was for sort
Speaker 1: of public opinion people that kind of we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about it supposedly. So when I saw it, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I saw it from a very different perspective.
Speaker 1: I'm and I'd come out of the thing and I go,
Speaker 1: why did you leave that shopping where I had my tongue?
Speaker 1: And he go, it's charming, don't worry. I went, no,
Speaker 1: it's horrible. I can't even watch that damn movie again,
Speaker 1: you know. So, and then we went to the Canned
Speaker 1: Film Festival, which was mind blowing because I had no
Speaker 1: idea about any of it, and of course, um, you
Speaker 1: know that it won the ground prize it won. And
Speaker 1: was thrilled for Lindsay because he put so much. You know,
Speaker 1: he was a critic and this magazine called Sequence, and
Speaker 1: it was a brilliantly highly a sort of intellectual film magazine.
Speaker 1: Whether the film was considered art, yeah, yeah, he wrote
Speaker 1: this wonderful essay about why film should be considered an
Speaker 1: art and not only an entertainment. And the thing was,
Speaker 1: Lindsay was a great theater director. I mean he only
Speaker 1: made what five movies or something, but yes, but he
Speaker 1: was always directing one of David's stories plays. I mean
Speaker 1: they were literally the great plays of that the seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties, But he did I think at least ten
Speaker 1: or twelve of David's stories plays, including The Changing Room
Speaker 1: and all these great in celebration, which Alan Bates did
Speaker 1: in London and I did it in New York at
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Theater Club in the wake of all your
Speaker 1: success with IF and you win the prize it can
Speaker 1: Did Lindsey try to get you to come back to
Speaker 1: the theater with him? Did he try to cajole? You know?
Speaker 1: He wouldn't bother. He'd say to me things like you're
Speaker 1: a very Bracketian actor, aren't you. And I go, well,
Speaker 1: if you say so, what exactly are you referring to?
Speaker 1: And he'd say, because I noticed that sometimes you're telling
Speaker 1: the audience, you're showing them that you're acting this, but
Speaker 1: you're saying but you're gonna believe me anyway. I went,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. So um, he'd say things like that
Speaker 1: to me, you know, which I hadn't got a clue
Speaker 1: really what. I went to see Olivier do uh one
Speaker 1: of the O'Neill plays that went on for seven hours.
Speaker 1: But Olivier I went to see, I mean, we were
Speaker 1: shooting a lucky Man, and I noticed the way Olivia
Speaker 1: got a round of applause just by crossing his legs
Speaker 1: on a sofa. He did it in such a way
Speaker 1: he got a standing ovation, and I'm thinking himself, God,
Speaker 1: that's so brave, you know, to do that. So we're
Speaker 1: shooting a scene, no lucky man, and I did something
Speaker 1: completely off the wall, and Linda goes, cut, what on
Speaker 1: earth are you doing? And I went, he goes, I
Speaker 1: don't even tell me. I know what this is. This
Speaker 1: is because you've seen Lawrence Olivia, right, And I well,
Speaker 1: I thought it would be more interesting, you know, to
Speaker 1: try and just live on up this. He goes, Malcolm,
Speaker 1: just do what you're supposed to do. Let's have none
Speaker 1: of that nonsense. I mean, okay, okay, that's funny. I
Speaker 1: did a performance of a play I did Eques out
Speaker 1: here on Long Island at the Bass Street Theater, and
Speaker 1: Shaffild was alive and attended all of the rehearsals. And
Speaker 1: I sat down with him and I said, do you
Speaker 1: think I should go to Lincoln Center Library and watch
Speaker 1: the original performance which was taped. Chaff It says to me, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Alec you should Barbara going to see
Speaker 1: the recording, he said. None of them wanted to be recorded.
Speaker 1: He said, with button Maxwell refused to come to work,
Speaker 1: and the videotaped in the nude for the nude scene,
Speaker 1: so they brought on her understudy, and Tony and Peter
Speaker 1: didn't want to be recorded. So Tony did the entire performance,
Speaker 1: doing an impersonation of Larry Olivier, and he said, and
Speaker 1: Peter changed the dialect and made him a boy from
Speaker 1: the North Country and completely changed everything. And he said,
Speaker 1: the performance that's recorded for posterity and Lincoln cetera, he said,
Speaker 1: it isn't at all the one from the production. Then
Speaker 1: he took a long pause and looked at me and said,
Speaker 1: naughty boys, very naughty boys. And sure enough I go
Speaker 1: see it and there's Tony saying all his lines like
Speaker 1: this and this and this this, and doing Olivier. Of course,
Speaker 1: anyway I would find myself in my acting, I thought,
Speaker 1: My God, who was in my head? Like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to channel, Like I think I'm getting tricked into doing
Speaker 1: a voice here, my oh, my gable and my brand.
Speaker 1: Oh what there is something beating on the door in
Speaker 1: my head that I gotta get rid of and just
Speaker 1: try to make it, make it my own. But when
Speaker 1: you arrive, I want to get to Kubrick when you
Speaker 1: arrive on the set to shoot that from how you
Speaker 1: read Burgess's book. Stanley called me up and I was
Speaker 1: shooting out in Bournwood with Brown Forbes. So I was
Speaker 1: going out close to his house. He lived out there.
Speaker 1: He said, would I come me to him a lunchtime?
Speaker 1: I'm sure? So I went to see him with He was,
Speaker 1: you know, very pleasant, very nice, and all the rest
Speaker 1: of it, but just chit chat, you know. And at
Speaker 1: the end, I said, look, Stanley, I've got to get back,
Speaker 1: I've got to get into makeup. But it was there
Speaker 1: anything you particularly to talk to me about? Thrilled Scott
Speaker 1: to meet you, and he said, yeah, there's a book
Speaker 1: I'm thinking And they said, oh, WA's the book? And
Speaker 1: I could see he didn't want to tell me. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm the one who's going to be
Speaker 1: starring in this movie. And he didn't even want to
Speaker 1: tell me what the book was called. That was just
Speaker 1: his nature, you know, that was just the way he was.
Speaker 1: And he said, read the book? Have you heard of it?
Speaker 1: I went no. He went, really, it's a cult book.
Speaker 1: I went, no, sorry, he said, read it and call me.
Speaker 1: So I started reading this book and I found it
Speaker 1: a real struggle to get through the first time, and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, they can't make a film
Speaker 1: of this. I mean, how they're gonna do. And then
Speaker 1: I read it again and the words, the language became
Speaker 1: a little more glossary. Yeah, going the first time you
Speaker 1: read it, you got to go back to the glossary yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time. But I felt that I knew it
Speaker 1: pretty well, and I said to myself, Holy god, this
Speaker 1: could be an amazing movie. I mean, forget the Cubrick element,
Speaker 1: just on the book. And then I read it a
Speaker 1: third time before I called it, and this time I
Speaker 1: knew that this was one hell of a part. So
Speaker 1: I called him. I said, I read that book. Now
Speaker 1: there's a week had gone past. He thought I was
Speaker 1: going to call him the next day, and he goes, well,
Speaker 1: I said, look, I was very thorough. I read it
Speaker 1: three times. I wanted to make sure that when I
Speaker 1: spoke to you, I could do so with a certain
Speaker 1: amount of command of the material. Now, in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I had met in home. I said I and God,
Speaker 1: how nice. I hadn't seen him for years. He said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this thing. But
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick, you know, and I saw him kind of.
Speaker 1: I said, what he goes? Watch that bastard. I went, really,
Speaker 1: what what he goes? That son of a bit offered
Speaker 1: me Napoleon, he said. I was out to his house
Speaker 1: for eighteen months. I was the best friends of the family,
Speaker 1: the whole deal. And then suddenly I couldn't get him
Speaker 1: on the phone. I went, oh my god, you're kidding.
Speaker 1: So when I had this call with Gubrick, I had
Speaker 1: this information because it happened just a couple of days before.
Speaker 1: So I said to Stanley, are you offering me the part?
Speaker 1: And there was a silence and he said, yeah, wait
Speaker 1: what Yeah? Because I didn't really I was a young kid.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. You don't ask great directors stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Let's have no ian the home here, shall me? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the incredible Malcolm McDowell. If you like here's the thing,
Speaker 1: don't keep it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to hear the thing on the I Heart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
Speaker 1: come back, Malcolm tells us how Alex Delarge came by
Speaker 1: his iconic look that is cod peace over trousers and
Speaker 1: such long long eyelashes, and talks about some more recent projects,
Speaker 1: playing a serial killer in the film Yva Lenko, a
Speaker 1: talent agent in HBO's Entourage, and a retired orchestra conductor
Speaker 1: in Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon. That's all after
Speaker 1: the break. This is here's the thing. I'm Alec Baldwin,
Speaker 1: and today my guest is the legendary actor Malcolm McDowell.
Speaker 1: There are performances, whether it's Humphrey Bogard and Treasure of
Speaker 1: Sierra Madre Brando in Waterfront, Meryl Streep in a variety
Speaker 1: of films you know, great actors and things. There are
Speaker 1: films in which you realize. I often say, and I've
Speaker 1: learned this as I've developed projects for me to be in.
Speaker 1: We'll reach the point where I feel the spirit of
Speaker 1: the character, or the potential spirit of the character, or
Speaker 1: the of the piece, my fondness for the piece leave
Speaker 1: my body and I'll say to them, let's move on
Speaker 1: and cast someone else. We've been talking about this fucking
Speaker 1: thing for two years now, and I realized there's very rarely,
Speaker 1: almost never one actor who can play a part, and
Speaker 1: of course you are the one actor who could play
Speaker 1: that part one of the greatest, most iconic performances. When
Speaker 1: you first saw that movie, when he screened that movie
Speaker 1: for you, how did you feel? In total shock? You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until later that I realized that really it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the performance. It was a collaboration with all
Speaker 1: of it, all of it, I mean obviously, and you know,
Speaker 1: people go, do you like him? And I go, have
Speaker 1: you seen the performance? Have you seen the film? I
Speaker 1: loved him? Are you kidding me? It's one of the
Speaker 1: great love affairs between an actor and director. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course I'd take the piss out of him. The
Speaker 1: thing was, he never understood like I did, because I
Speaker 1: had had Lindsey Anderson. He never really bothered about performance,
Speaker 1: about how a scene would progress, you know, like a
Speaker 1: graph on a patient's bed, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: so that you come on here and you lay back
Speaker 1: here like music, like like music exactly. He'd say, I
Speaker 1: need more from you here, Malc. I mean, that's that's boring.
Speaker 1: I went, good. Boring is good here give him my
Speaker 1: time to get that breath. Yes. Now, the response to
Speaker 1: the film, I mean, the film is I was joking
Speaker 1: say now that that clockwork orange is actually tearing Tino's
Speaker 1: first film. You know, we've gone so much further. But
Speaker 1: back then people were really really overwhelmed by this film.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean they did, and there was
Speaker 1: so much there was so much controversy. How did you
Speaker 1: handle that with a sort of amusement, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: for whatever. You know, the film is very complex, as
Speaker 1: you know, and it's about many things, mainly the freedom
Speaker 1: of man to choose and to choose whether he becomes
Speaker 1: an immoral man or immoral one. But it's choice, and
Speaker 1: that's what Burgess is saying basically. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: he's put it in the most incredible settings and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it with wonderful language. And but you know,
Speaker 1: let me just tell you. So, I'm standing outside getting
Speaker 1: in my car after having dinner with Stanley. This is
Speaker 1: before we should and we're just chit chatting and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm going, yeah, what are we going to wear? He goes,
Speaker 1: I don't know, what have you got? I mean, what
Speaker 1: have I got? As it standard this is a futuristic movie,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I mean, we're in the future here. What
Speaker 1: do you think I've got something in my you know,
Speaker 1: in my wardrobe that's sort of gonna be gonna fit that.
Speaker 1: I went, the only thing I've got in the car
Speaker 1: is my cricket gear. And he goes, well, let me
Speaker 1: see it. I mean really, So I get out my
Speaker 1: cricket white and he goes, and what's that And went, well,
Speaker 1: that's a protector. He goes, wear it on the outside,
Speaker 1: that's what it's. Yes, yes, yes. And then I found
Speaker 1: a yard of eyelash at the bus store, so I
Speaker 1: bought that as fun to show him. It was this long,
Speaker 1: you know this, It was great. And when I gave
Speaker 1: it to me said, oh, that's great, and he looked
Speaker 1: at it, looked at me, and he goes, put it on.
Speaker 1: I went, really, I'm the thing I know how to.
Speaker 1: So we got, you know, glued. He took pictures and
Speaker 1: the next day he called me he said, one eyelashes
Speaker 1: great because you see your face and you know there's
Speaker 1: something wrong, but you don't know what it is. I went, okay, great,
Speaker 1: And that's how that all came into being. That shot
Speaker 1: at the milk bar is like an eyelash commercial started
Speaker 1: on your face and they pulled back, pulled back on
Speaker 1: you and your mates there. Now Clockwork also, it's not
Speaker 1: like it's a star studied cast now in terms of
Speaker 1: like many Hollywood films, and yet it's filled with unforgettable performances.
Speaker 1: There are actors in this film. I want to just
Speaker 1: go say that when you watch Clockwork Orange Aubrey Marris.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you just said that. Aubrey Marris. I
Speaker 1: mean if you knew how much the guy had gotten
Speaker 1: into my vascular system for years after, I would turn
Speaker 1: to my friends, we would just do Aubrey Morris, regardless
Speaker 1: of the context. I look at my friends and say,
Speaker 1: as you didn't want to go downtown and ev dinner,
Speaker 1: yes town and need something near I is, we would
Speaker 1: just do Aubrey Mars. It worked anywhere, anywhere where you
Speaker 1: wanted to have like like a tinge of confrontation with someone.
Speaker 1: Philip Stone I cost him because he was doing Lindsay
Speaker 1: Anderson play and I love Philip and I told Cubrick
Speaker 1: he's got to play my dad. So he had a
Speaker 1: man and went, oh yeah, and then he he did
Speaker 1: also that he was in The Shining too. Now, who's
Speaker 1: the guy that that played the border that live with
Speaker 1: your parents with that great scene when you come home?
Speaker 1: Brilliant prive Francis. Joe, Yes, what you love is Philip
Speaker 1: Stone is such a great actor. Just the pain. Oh
Speaker 1: he turns to you and says, well, that's Joe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Joe, and then mom stocks that's all right, I
Speaker 1: love It's all right. Now let me ask you this
Speaker 1: before we get to other later things. Who the fuck
Speaker 1: direct did caligulate? Was there a director? Oh? Yes, there
Speaker 1: was a director, and he was an extraordinary man, actually
Speaker 1: very radical. The problem is, of course that the man
Speaker 1: paying for it was Guccioni, who thought that he had,
Speaker 1: you know, great taste and all the rest of it.
Speaker 1: That's debatable, I mean, but in the end of the day,
Speaker 1: of course he did put up the money, but he
Speaker 1: put it up because of Gore sold it to him.
Speaker 1: The fact is, when I read Gorvidal script, I thought
Speaker 1: it was really rather amateurish, right, And you're referring to
Speaker 1: Tinto Brose, Yeah, tinto Browse. Yeah. Now, in more recent years,
Speaker 1: what is something you've done that really excited you, that
Speaker 1: you were really really. Oh, I played this some amazing
Speaker 1: serial killer in Russia and Soviet Union. It's called Eva
Speaker 1: Lenko Evil with Enko on the end iv Lenko. That
Speaker 1: was an amazing thing because I didn't really want to
Speaker 1: do it, but it was a friend of mine and
Speaker 1: I had urged him to write the script, then urged
Speaker 1: him to direct it, and through some extraordinary piece of luck,
Speaker 1: he actually got the money. And I went when they
Speaker 1: called me, he goes, mob, we're shooting. I have the money.
Speaker 1: I went, what, No, really, well, I think I'm busy then,
Speaker 1: oh my god. So anyway, it was amazing really to
Speaker 1: be faced with this person who I despised and was
Speaker 1: a not only a pedophile, serial killer cannibal. I mean you,
Speaker 1: I mean, just add anything on this one. So how
Speaker 1: to play through that minefield was so exciting. It was
Speaker 1: interesting that I realized I'm gonna have to do a
Speaker 1: Larry Olivier on this one and just find an external
Speaker 1: thing to take me through. And that's how I did it.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting. But anyway, I like the television,
Speaker 1: you know that Mocha in the Jungle. I had fun
Speaker 1: doing that, had a lot of fun doing Entourage, you know,
Speaker 1: and I love taking the piss out of Piven, you
Speaker 1: know who would Now I'm gonna finish with this. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. Some people accuse me of hitting the
Speaker 1: appreciation button too heavy handedly, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1: When I did the movie Hunt for Red October, they
Speaker 1: had cast Sean Connery and then he got sick and
Speaker 1: he had all kinds of throat problems and they said, uh,
Speaker 1: they said, he's not coming and uh when I when
Speaker 1: I arrived to work, they said to start rehearsing days.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know they had courted him. And they said, well,
Speaker 1: so and so, and I'll be kind and I won't
Speaker 1: mention who's so and so. Another famous European actor is
Speaker 1: going to play the part. Yeah, And then they get
Speaker 1: a phone call from Sean's agents said, Sean's better, he's
Speaker 1: feeling better and he's ready to come back to work.
Speaker 1: So Paramount, which I think has a certain gift in
Speaker 1: this department, they call up the other actor and they said, now,
Speaker 1: what were the dates you said, we're a hard no
Speaker 1: that you're gonna be directing this other project of yours.
Speaker 1: You said there were dates that you couldn't shoot with
Speaker 1: us because you must be on this set somewhere in Europe,
Speaker 1: and you must be doing this thing. And he gives
Speaker 1: the dates and they were too bad because we had
Speaker 1: to move the schedule to exactly those days. Those are
Speaker 1: exactly the dates that we're going to be shooting now.
Speaker 1: We're so sorry, and thank you and best of luck
Speaker 1: to you, goodbye, And they got rid of him, and
Speaker 1: they turned to me and they said, Sean is back.
Speaker 1: And I was so excited because I love Sean. But
Speaker 1: as John mcteeren and the director explained this toll to me,
Speaker 1: I said to myself like, go, you know, I was
Speaker 1: just a ghast and how Hollywood really worked on that
Speaker 1: level and these were top tier people. And my friend
Speaker 1: turned to me and he goes, he goes, God didn't
Speaker 1: want that guy to play the lead role in the movie.
Speaker 1: God wanted Sean to play the lead role in that movie.
Speaker 1: It's what God wanted. Yeah, And I look at you,
Speaker 1: and I look at you and I go, God wanted
Speaker 1: you to play Alex de Large. He didn't want any
Speaker 1: but else to play that part. You had to play
Speaker 1: that part. And when you look back at that, did
Speaker 1: you ever imagine that it would be that indelible with
Speaker 1: other actors. No, but I knew that I was doing
Speaker 1: something which I which probably was new territory certainly for me,
Speaker 1: but you know, to be out there, I had decided
Speaker 1: to play it with a style my influences, if you
Speaker 1: can call him that, besides of course always Jimmy Cagney always,
Speaker 1: but Olivier doing Richard three. And also the language which
Speaker 1: is of course Shakespearean. So that was all easy. It
Speaker 1: was difficult to find, you know, the style exactly. But
Speaker 1: there again it was Lindsay Anderson who gave me the
Speaker 1: key because when I said Lindsey, I suddenly panicked. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got a week ago. I've been with cubric for
Speaker 1: eight months and he hasn't once to about the character.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, what do you think? And he goes,
Speaker 1: that's why I cast you, Okay, that's why I don't
Speaker 1: talk about that. I went, oh, excuse me, I thought
Speaker 1: you were the fucking director. Stanley is brilliant thinking on
Speaker 1: his feet, and if he sees that the movies not
Speaker 1: going down the path that he thought it was, he
Speaker 1: would swing and go another way. You know. Listen, um.
Speaker 1: When I came up with Singing in the Rain, he
Speaker 1: changed the whole thing about that being the key, you know,
Speaker 1: singing in the rain is the key to how they
Speaker 1: discover him and all the rest of it. But you know,
Speaker 1: I knew working on it that something magical was sort
Speaker 1: of happening, but I didn't really want to dissect it
Speaker 1: because I go away. You know, it was an instinct.
Speaker 1: You know what it's like when you're in the zone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're in the zone, and so it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: they do. There were certain ad libs, but I didn't
Speaker 1: had lived very much. But you know, for instance, at
Speaker 1: the end, when the minister is cutting up my steak,
Speaker 1: now he has this long speech which basically wraps up
Speaker 1: the movie, and I could see out of my periphery
Speaker 1: vision Stanley was bored, and I knew he would start cutting,
Speaker 1: you know, so to hurry the actor up, I just
Speaker 1: sort of went, yeah, yeah, exactly, I know what you did.
Speaker 1: We all know what you did, okay. But the reason
Speaker 1: was I wanted to hurry his ass up, you know,
Speaker 1: because otherwise he was gonna lose his faith. It's a metronome.
Speaker 1: And I saw Stanley stick a handkerchief in his mouth
Speaker 1: and turn away, and I saw him heaving shoulders, and
Speaker 1: he was so and tears were streaming down. It was laughing.
Speaker 1: So you knew what Stanley wanted the other actors to
Speaker 1: do as well, and tried your best to provoke that.
Speaker 1: Let me just ask one question, which is as much
Speaker 1: as the part is this seminal role. It's one of
Speaker 1: the greatest acting roles in film history ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: You are so indelible. I have all of Kubrick's library
Speaker 1: downloaded on my computer and sometimes I can't watch it
Speaker 1: because it's such a rich meal, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Because you gotta what, you gotta eat, the whole thing, whole,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, yeah, I know. But but have
Speaker 1: you as much as you've loved it and benefited from it,
Speaker 1: did you ever hate it as well? Oh? I did.
Speaker 1: For the first ten years. I was so sick of it,
Speaker 1: and you know, they wanted me to just play the
Speaker 1: same part over and over, and I kept walking away
Speaker 1: from those But then I suddenly realized, what the hell
Speaker 1: am I doing? It's made my life transform my life?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? I should get down on my knees
Speaker 1: and say thank you all the time, which I do now.
Speaker 1: And you know, I sort of remember I can go
Speaker 1: back to the actual set and the actual feeling of
Speaker 1: you know, talking to Stanley and I was basically all
Speaker 1: the time. It was my job just to tease it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of it is you know a lot
Speaker 1: of my relationship with him is me just pulling his
Speaker 1: leg alot. You know, Well, everybody wants to make a
Speaker 1: great film, and you want the work that you do
Speaker 1: to contribute to what makes it great, and those chances
Speaker 1: and if you make more than one great when if
Speaker 1: you'r Hanks or someone like that who's made who is
Speaker 1: acting has driven Spencer Tracy, all the greats, Bogart Brandon,
Speaker 1: people who they're the Nicholson of course, where the power
Speaker 1: of their acting has made the film's great films. The
Speaker 1: thing is that what you benefit from you you almost
Speaker 1: it's almost impossible to get there if you don't have
Speaker 1: the script and the director, and you were the great
Speaker 1: fortune of having the script, and you're the great fortune
Speaker 1: of having the director, but they had the great fortune
Speaker 1: of having you. It really is one of the twenty
Speaker 1: five greatest film acting performances in history. I mean you
Speaker 1: just when you watch it, you go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: look at this fucking guy. It's like you think you're
Speaker 1: gonna fly through the roof and to stink off like
Speaker 1: a rocket through the fucking roof of the set. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how alive you are. You're the most
Speaker 1: alive performance I've ever seen in my life ever. Thank you,
Speaker 1: My love to you, and thanks for doing this with me, Alec,
Speaker 1: you know how much I love you, my friend, you too.
Speaker 1: All the bust, the unforgettable Malcolm McDowell. He's still hard
Speaker 1: at work and celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his career
Speaker 1: making role in A Clockwork Orange. If you haven't seen
Speaker 1: it lately, or you haven't seen it at all, I
Speaker 1: recommend you don't delay. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is brought to you by my Heart Radio. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Russo, Sarah Evry and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Zach McNeice with help from Justin Wright, and our
Speaker 1: engineer is Frank Imperial. Four