Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Judith Light maybe among the world's most versatile actors. Her
Speaker 1: big break was Ibsen on Broadway, but she got famous
Speaker 1: as a housewife prostitute on One Life to Live. Shixes
Speaker 1: and Zionists, victims and villains, had a gabbler and Who's
Speaker 1: the Boss. Light is a living lesson in following the
Speaker 1: work wherever it takes you. She's got two featured actress
Speaker 1: Tony's and eighteen credits in made for TV movies. There
Speaker 1: was one period of her life when she couldn't multitask
Speaker 1: on One Life to Live. She was churning out an
Speaker 1: hour of melodrama every single day, and her life was
Speaker 1: the set and her fellow actors. That's how my husband
Speaker 1: Robert and I met. They saw the chemistry between us
Speaker 1: and they wrote he was on the show thirty seven
Speaker 1: years later, we're still here. Yeah. I know you went
Speaker 1: to Carnegie Yeah, and and and and before you got
Speaker 1: on One Life Till if you did a bunch of
Speaker 1: other things prior to One Life theater, right, and so
Speaker 1: when you and you said to your agent, no sub
Speaker 1: snow sitcom. That's right, and you had a multi year
Speaker 1: both I'm not a person work and you want to
Speaker 1: hit sitcom. Yeah, that's the way it happened. But what
Speaker 1: what what happened was I realized that I was really
Speaker 1: being very part judicial about those two forms of work.
Speaker 1: You want one life for how long? Five years? And
Speaker 1: and how would you describe those five years? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it takes up your whole life. And that's what it did.
Speaker 1: It took up my whole life. And because I had
Speaker 1: a big story a lot, it took up a lot
Speaker 1: of my life. And the script in my pocket going
Speaker 1: out and that's right, that's right on the subway next
Speaker 1: to some guy who probably had a gun in his pocket,
Speaker 1: and sure going I love you, Gret God, great, I
Speaker 1: love you. I love you. Don't you know how much
Speaker 1: I love you? And some guy next to me was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you better shut up. I stab you. This
Speaker 1: writing is terrible. I might tell me about it, but
Speaker 1: they started to write. I mean, you know, that's an
Speaker 1: hour of programming every day. How do you mean? People
Speaker 1: told me be gentle with them, but it's the toughest
Speaker 1: job in show. There's no question and daytime acting. If
Speaker 1: you're in a lot and also you know for directors too,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you don't have you don't have
Speaker 1: a life. So the five years was basically no life.
Speaker 1: And finally Robert said to me, he said, you have
Speaker 1: to leave. He said, if you don't leave, and he
Speaker 1: had been out in California. He said, if you don't leave,
Speaker 1: you're going to be here forever. And I said, I
Speaker 1: don't want to leave. I love my part, I love
Speaker 1: this show, I love these people, I love New York.
Speaker 1: I want to be in New York. And it's like,
Speaker 1: he said, you're going to be here forever. He said,
Speaker 1: you've got to get up the got so when the
Speaker 1: soap is over and you decide you're gonna move to
Speaker 1: California right away? Right? Whose decision was that? Well if
Speaker 1: ultimately became mine. I mean, Robert really was the point
Speaker 1: person for getting me to get that it was time
Speaker 1: to go, and that he know he had been on
Speaker 1: the show, went to l A, did a couple of
Speaker 1: pilots and then he said, you know, you really need
Speaker 1: to be out there and I said, why why do I? He?
Speaker 1: I said, here, I can do theater, I can do
Speaker 1: this show. He said, you'll work out there and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: so we go. So it was really him kind of
Speaker 1: before he worked well. I did a movie of the
Speaker 1: week first, and what was that? So awful? In this
Speaker 1: this is probably one of the worst things I ever did.
Speaker 1: It was called Intimate Agony. Stop stop leaving at me,
Speaker 1: Intimate Agony, the Herpies story. I'm telling you that was you.
Speaker 1: I remember that it was intimate. They were going to
Speaker 1: call it Love Sick, but Dudley Morre's movie had come
Speaker 1: out and we couldn't call it Love Sick. It was
Speaker 1: I had to tell somebody who I was about to
Speaker 1: sleep with, I think that I had herpies? Can you
Speaker 1: recreate that? Now? I cannot? I cannot steve so anyway,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I did that, and then I did Saying Elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I did an episode of Staying Elsewhere. I played a very,
Speaker 1: very pregnant woman who went into the operating room to
Speaker 1: shoot the doctor who was supposed to have given my
Speaker 1: husband a vastsect to me because I ended up pregnant.
Speaker 1: Were you about to break so? Well, I guess the
Speaker 1: idea was you molded over and you didn't want the
Speaker 1: baby to know this. I don't want the baby to
Speaker 1: see this. This was my back story. This is very good. No,
Speaker 1: that was not the back story. But what happened after
Speaker 1: that was I didn't get work for a long time.
Speaker 1: My agents called me and said, oh, they want you
Speaker 1: for this pilot for this series. And then they called
Speaker 1: me back five minutes later and said, oh, we called
Speaker 1: the wrong person. Good times. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's like my mom bought me a snow globe and
Speaker 1: I'm home and someone walked up and pulled up in
Speaker 1: a car, came into my house, grabbed my snow globe
Speaker 1: and smashed and on the floor. Does that sounds well?
Speaker 1: But it's those things that hurt in that way. I
Speaker 1: always wonder how people, in particular people now of your
Speaker 1: stature and everybody's like everybody wants you that there's this
Speaker 1: place where we go to where you got to get
Speaker 1: rid of that stuff quickly. You can't let it best.
Speaker 1: You have to let it well. Now you know, you
Speaker 1: have a family of other things that you you focus on,
Speaker 1: but there's some there's some way in which it's really
Speaker 1: important to let go of it and not hang onto it.
Speaker 1: I find I always want to know from people who
Speaker 1: are really successful, how how of course they have those
Speaker 1: things happened to them, and how do they let it go? Well,
Speaker 1: it's like it's like years ago networks and movies, they
Speaker 1: everyone really knew where they were going to go. They
Speaker 1: sit there and say, we're gonna make this movie, whether
Speaker 1: the movie was worth it, whether it was good, whether
Speaker 1: it was going to succeed. They called you up and
Speaker 1: say we're gonna pay you this fee. And here's the
Speaker 1: dates that we all went. It's not like the independent
Speaker 1: world now where people line everybody up and then we
Speaker 1: go if we can get the money, and if we
Speaker 1: don't get the money, sorry, And so you don't really
Speaker 1: know what you're gonna do. And I've talked to people now.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say anticipating problems, but I would be talking
Speaker 1: to somebody these days and I'd say, and listen, Bob,
Speaker 1: if you're financing the film and you find out that
Speaker 1: someone else comes along, who's better for you to obey
Speaker 1: his money than me, don't worry about it, like just
Speaker 1: I'll walk away. And if I do the movie, great,
Speaker 1: And if I don't do the movie, I couldn't care less.
Speaker 1: That's really kind of you. I don't get attached to
Speaker 1: any of the projects and know that that's the that's
Speaker 1: I think the larger point about our business in life
Speaker 1: is that once you're attached to something, there's this sense
Speaker 1: in which we hold on the things and we don't
Speaker 1: let them go. This is a business for that. It's
Speaker 1: a really bad business for that, and I have to
Speaker 1: It's sort of like, if you're in it, find a
Speaker 1: new context, find another way of operating within it, because
Speaker 1: that's a really gorgeous gesture that you make. And I
Speaker 1: think it's really wise people to know that that there
Speaker 1: are people of your stature who are willing to say
Speaker 1: that to somebody. It's like if you could give that
Speaker 1: information to people who are young and starting out. It's like,
Speaker 1: I think from this mind, because it spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time, waste a lot of time. I think, I
Speaker 1: know I did just sort of wanting it and needing
Speaker 1: it and and just let it go. How long were
Speaker 1: you out there and living out there before you did
Speaker 1: the sitcom? We went in January and I got Who's
Speaker 1: the Boss was the first pilot that I made um
Speaker 1: shooting the series nine months after you got there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't really stress too much in l A. No,
Speaker 1: but I did. I did. I kept going up for
Speaker 1: all these auditions. I kept going for nine months. Yes,
Speaker 1: but but but wait what I where I was coming
Speaker 1: from was, hey, I just got two Emmys for a
Speaker 1: soap opera. I mean I had a lot of this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, Where's mine? Which is a really
Speaker 1: bad ademt you realize how lucky you are that I'm here?
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, that was that was what was going
Speaker 1: on underneath covered over with Hi, how are you just
Speaker 1: want to be here? And you know that real bull
Speaker 1: and people feel it. And I said to my manager
Speaker 1: at the time, who's no longer alive, I said to her,
Speaker 1: what's going on? He said, you're enraged? I said, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What And he said, you're you're furious. You have an
Speaker 1: expectation that people should just be giving you stuff, And
Speaker 1: he said it's untenable. People feel it. You walk into
Speaker 1: a room and nobody wants to be around you. Do
Speaker 1: you think he was right? I know he was right.
Speaker 1: Why because he knew he could see something that I
Speaker 1: wasn't that I was that I was in denial about that.
Speaker 1: I was unwilling to see that about myself. And so
Speaker 1: when I walked into the audition for Who's the Boss?
Speaker 1: I was in a very different who created that show,
Speaker 1: Blake Hunter and Marty Cohen. I love talking to you
Speaker 1: because you remember all this history. Remember when you would
Speaker 1: go up for a network and you would have different
Speaker 1: shows that people were interested in you for, and you
Speaker 1: would have to put them in different positions, like for
Speaker 1: a second, third position. Well, I was up three shows
Speaker 1: at one time at ABC, and the first one, because
Speaker 1: I had just gotten off the soap, was a thing
Speaker 1: called Staff of Life, and it was about soap opera writers,
Speaker 1: and so I put that in first position, and I
Speaker 1: put this thing called You're the Boss in second position.
Speaker 1: And then I said to her, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go in for your the Boss. He said, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you go in? I said, well, you know. I put
Speaker 1: the other one and it was Jay san Rich, who
Speaker 1: was a wonderful director. I said, I want to work
Speaker 1: with j. This is good. He said, you're terrified. He said,
Speaker 1: you're afraid. I said, no, I'm not. He said, you're afraid.
Speaker 1: Pack up your stuff and go do the taped audition
Speaker 1: with Tony Danta. Just get your ass over there. And
Speaker 1: I was like, all of these things that were coming
Speaker 1: up about my myself and the things that I hadn't
Speaker 1: really looked at before in a really deep way. We're
Speaker 1: all surfacing and he was calling me on them. And
Speaker 1: I went in and I auditioned with Tony and we
Speaker 1: had the most fabulous chemistry, and it was just when
Speaker 1: it was camera, yeah, in front of a live audience.
Speaker 1: But when I did that, I came back home and
Speaker 1: I said to her, but I said, oh, dear God,
Speaker 1: I put the wrong thing in first position. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna have to live with it. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to live with that choice. And what happened was
Speaker 1: the executives at ABC saw the tape between Tony and
Speaker 1: myself and they said, were They took care of it.
Speaker 1: They said, we're going to put her. She doesn't know
Speaker 1: what she's doing. So they called the head of staff
Speaker 1: from Life. They were sorry, and they said, putting her.
Speaker 1: We're putting her. Let go. Had you done the live thing,
Speaker 1: the four camera thing, done theater? Obviously? What was that
Speaker 1: like for that transition? It was fantastic. It's the most fun.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's like doing theater. And Tony was so
Speaker 1: great because Tony said, we're going to do this like
Speaker 1: a theater. Piece. It's going to be one act play,
Speaker 1: and that's how we're going to do it. So we
Speaker 1: didn't go back and do a lot of first series,
Speaker 1: went back then when it was a real audience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, And we came on and they put where
Speaker 1: they put us was opposite the Cosby line up on
Speaker 1: Thursday nights. That's where we started. Not a good place
Speaker 1: for us to be. So they kept moving us around
Speaker 1: all year because they had tested it. Remember when they
Speaker 1: used to really test shows, and the audience would tell them.
Speaker 1: They said, it tested off the charts, so we're going
Speaker 1: to find a place for it, and they did, and
Speaker 1: people found us in the summer rerun. That's how they
Speaker 1: found it. Came back the second says that he did
Speaker 1: a year or two years and they weren't doing well.
Speaker 1: Then finally some famous show got canceled and they gave
Speaker 1: them that slot. And then it was just like everything
Speaker 1: just same with Everybody Loves Raymond. It was the same thing.
Speaker 1: Phil Rosenthal talks about it all the time. It's like
Speaker 1: they just they knew they had something and they if
Speaker 1: you would stick with it, and today they don't really
Speaker 1: stick with anything, right, So you know, you go to
Speaker 1: carne email in grade school. You're a very bright woman,
Speaker 1: very serious about your queer. When you win to Tony,
Speaker 1: did that feel good? It did? Ivan Ivant won twice.
Speaker 1: I won first for other Desert cities and then I
Speaker 1: won for the Assembled Parties. Yeah, esecutive, it felt well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, when I want to win one day,
Speaker 1: you probably won't. But you win an Emmy, you win
Speaker 1: in a golden globe whatever. SAG awards all lovely, very grateful,
Speaker 1: not to diminish, but there was something about winning a
Speaker 1: Tony where you're like, you know, here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: know what it's like to work in the theater. You
Speaker 1: have this family, and so it expands out. You have
Speaker 1: this extended family of people that really are rooting for you.
Speaker 1: I was away from the theater for twenty two years.
Speaker 1: I came back and did WIT, which is where I
Speaker 1: was naked and shaved my head. So wait for I
Speaker 1: want to get back Tony Dan. But now we're here.
Speaker 1: What when you do the when you when you come
Speaker 1: back to the theater after twenty two years, how does
Speaker 1: that decision happen? Well, it happened out of the fact
Speaker 1: that people only thought about me as an actor who
Speaker 1: could do the soap op or the sitcom, the blonde
Speaker 1: girl with the big shoulder pads and the you know,
Speaker 1: fourteen pounds of blonde hair and extensions, and so it's
Speaker 1: like and it's funny and it's great and it's an
Speaker 1: incredible working ex turned a lot. Tony taught me so
Speaker 1: much about comedy rething practically that I learned I learned
Speaker 1: from Tony. And then it was like people didn't know
Speaker 1: where to put me. I didn't all these movies of
Speaker 1: the week, I've done all this stuff, and it was
Speaker 1: like nobody could quite get me. They didn't know how
Speaker 1: to get me. And I had to come back and
Speaker 1: show people I'm willing to be here. I want to
Speaker 1: be happened. Um, I auditioned who directed Derek Anson Jones,
Speaker 1: who was quite ill at the time, and Leah Gardner,
Speaker 1: who was his friend at Yale, actually took over and
Speaker 1: helped to put me into the show. And um, it
Speaker 1: was one of those things. It was Bernie Telsey and
Speaker 1: Daryl Roth and I, you know, I came into audition,
Speaker 1: I had if memories, so into one else explaining the park. Yes, Kathleen,
Speaker 1: she was, I was, you know, I came, She's just
Speaker 1: Angels with the originally so did I write Amazing and
Speaker 1: Joe Mandela, you know, merely the Music Center before they
Speaker 1: moved to Broadway, I know, running the gauntlet of gay
Speaker 1: men massigns saying I'm dying of AIDS. Can I have
Speaker 1: your ticket? I'm not kidding. Last weekend at the Music
Speaker 1: Center before they they were closing, I'm going to move
Speaker 1: to New York. It was. It was horrible. I mean,
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist of AIDS and angels. It was that time.
Speaker 1: And I said, I so appreciate that you have that
Speaker 1: as part of your context in life and what that
Speaker 1: was for all of us, what we were doing, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the theater and how people are. So
Speaker 1: I didn't. That's one of my shames that I didn't
Speaker 1: pay enough attention to it at the time. And a
Speaker 1: couple of my friends died and I really didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't really get. I was like, you know that somebody
Speaker 1: said he's sick, and I was like, oh, well, god,
Speaker 1: I mean, what can I what can I possibly do
Speaker 1: for him other than just you know, fly back and
Speaker 1: see And they had two dear friends of mine who
Speaker 1: died of AIDS and it was all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they just died, and I was like, what that was?
Speaker 1: What we were all ready? Then they had a cancer
Speaker 1: that was treatable. Then they had that cancer and they
Speaker 1: were gone and and quickly to very ravaged in rabbage
Speaker 1: and ravaged the whole community. And that's why GOODN organization
Speaker 1: like Broadway Cares, Equity Fight AIDS came into being a
Speaker 1: really took over and really helped. So when you step
Speaker 1: out there two years after and you do that, how
Speaker 1: did you feel? I was terrifying. I thought, truly terrible.
Speaker 1: What do you do? What did you do to overcome that?
Speaker 1: I didn't. I just accepted it and included it in
Speaker 1: everything that I was doing. There was nothing else to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, if you're going to take the
Speaker 1: chance and do that, I mean I hadn't been in
Speaker 1: front of the New York critics and twenty two years,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been on a stage. I needed to go
Speaker 1: back and take take voice lessons. Again. I've been in
Speaker 1: a studio. You know what it's like to be in
Speaker 1: a studio. So so I went to an opera teacher
Speaker 1: and she never let me say. She just taught me
Speaker 1: how to read again, and it was just this terrifying experience.
Speaker 1: I mean it was almost I was almost apoplectic. And
Speaker 1: I just said to myself, you get out there and
Speaker 1: you do this. And how long did you run? In?
Speaker 1: With almost a year? Where was it? It was here
Speaker 1: at the Union Square Theater, which is no more downtown.
Speaker 1: And they wouldn't let me do it in New York
Speaker 1: unless I did it on the road. You've been on
Speaker 1: the road. I did it in Austin. I did it
Speaker 1: at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Then I did in Florida.
Speaker 1: You want to try doing a play like Wit in Florida.
Speaker 1: One night, Herb was there and I said to him,
Speaker 1: what's going on with the sound system? This is what
Speaker 1: was happening all through the play. He said, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And he said, all the people with their occident tanks
Speaker 1: were in the first row and that was the sound
Speaker 1: that I was hearing. It was really it was that
Speaker 1: was Florida was a rough place to do it because
Speaker 1: I think they thought, oh, this, it will be cute.
Speaker 1: It's called Wit. It's the girl from Who's the Ball.
Speaker 1: She's very funny. And they would get up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the show and it had continental seating, you
Speaker 1: know continental seating, there's no isle in the middle, and
Speaker 1: I would hear people say, Okay, come on, she's throwing up,
Speaker 1: let's go. She thought she was being quiet, but it
Speaker 1: was he is a hearing problem. Just really to let him.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that happened was like this character
Speaker 1: has new tropinia. I mean, she's sick and she's dying
Speaker 1: fourth stage ovarian cancer. And so the nurse puts me
Speaker 1: in the wheelchair and between the wheelchair wheels me over
Speaker 1: to the bed and she covers me over and I
Speaker 1: hear somebody scream from the theater given the other blanket.
Speaker 1: That was what it was like. What was that day
Speaker 1: like for you? Like you get to the theater when
Speaker 1: describe your process doing a play, a heavy play. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a really great question. I walk from the east
Speaker 1: side where I am across town, and purposely i'm there
Speaker 1: so that I can walk cross town. So I dropped
Speaker 1: the day. I gotta drop the day and start going
Speaker 1: over the plane in my head. I usually get to
Speaker 1: the theater about two to two and a half hours early, right,
Speaker 1: you do exactly right. Well, if I have to have
Speaker 1: a wig or such a good idea right, and then
Speaker 1: you get there and you say hello to everybody, greet everybody.
Speaker 1: There's the whole thing, and then just get in the
Speaker 1: place of the play. Have to be in that space
Speaker 1: you said, I have to drain the day out of me,
Speaker 1: exactly what you talked about, holding onto whatever you do
Speaker 1: to just get neutral. That's right, and then you begin
Speaker 1: the process of thinking about the entrance. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I would do yoga exercises. I would do a quick meditation,
Speaker 1: something that would not put me out but really put
Speaker 1: me into a centered, active place, and remembering that it
Speaker 1: is my service. You give a performance. We are in
Speaker 1: the business of giving. That's our work. The way I
Speaker 1: hold it. The very versatile Judith Light another actor who
Speaker 1: has appeared on successful TV shows, but has also left
Speaker 1: her mark on the stage. In fact, she prefers it
Speaker 1: is Laurie Metcalf. I feel more at home. I feel
Speaker 1: like I know the craft better. And I still to
Speaker 1: this day, even all those tapings of Roseanne and the
Speaker 1: movies that I've done, I have a phobia of the camera.
Speaker 1: The rest of my conversation with Lorie can be found
Speaker 1: in our archive that here's the thing, Dot Org. Judith
Speaker 1: Light is back after this. This is Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the thing. Judith Light's first Tony
Speaker 1: was for her role as the depressed and very funny
Speaker 1: failed screenwriter Silda Grauman in John Robin Bases Other Desert Cities.
Speaker 1: It came just two years after her return to the
Speaker 1: stage following twenty two years of work on screen. That
Speaker 1: first role was her brilliant, devastating turn as a professor
Speaker 1: dying of cancer in Wit Off Broadway. They were both parts.
Speaker 1: Her manager, Herb Hampshire, encouraged her to take on. He
Speaker 1: guided Light as a career adviser, but also as a friend.
Speaker 1: Hampshire was a clinical psychologist who never worked as a
Speaker 1: manager before she came along. Despite the professional risk, he
Speaker 1: supported Lights going all in on theater after sitcom stardom.
Speaker 1: Other Desert Cities. Was how long after Wits? Oh, it
Speaker 1: was quite a while afterward I had done. In between
Speaker 1: the two, I did a bunch because I came back
Speaker 1: to Broadway. Tommy Klee, director of Hamilton's, I auditioned for
Speaker 1: him for this play called Lombardi, which was about Vince Lombardi.
Speaker 1: Everybody said to me and I don't think you should
Speaker 1: go up for this, it's too small a part. I'm
Speaker 1: the girl who hasn't been on Broadway for over thirty years.
Speaker 1: I'm going in and I'm an audition for this. He
Speaker 1: gave me the part. In the room, we had his
Speaker 1: wife who Lombardi. It was Dan Lauria that the that
Speaker 1: And it was the first Tony I got nominated for
Speaker 1: Ellen Barkin one for um the revival No No of
Speaker 1: of Oh yeah yeah crazy play right that had never
Speaker 1: been produced on Broadly before? And er what is it?
Speaker 1: The Normal Heart? The Normal Heart? So I wanted to
Speaker 1: do audition for that was Joe. Joe was nominated for
Speaker 1: a Tony and Joe and I saw each other at
Speaker 1: the Fucking Joe. He's rich, she's smart, He's brilliant, he
Speaker 1: said to me before we did Other Desert Cities. He
Speaker 1: and I had been at the Tony luncheon because we
Speaker 1: had both been nominated, me for Lombardi and him for
Speaker 1: The Normal Heart. And we're sitting next to each other.
Speaker 1: And about a few weeks after that, I get this
Speaker 1: call that they're offering me the part of Other Desert
Speaker 1: Cities because I had done a play reading here's the
Speaker 1: story about Joan River said to me one time we
Speaker 1: would how Prince's Christmas party. She said to me, we
Speaker 1: were alone in the room. She said to me, she
Speaker 1: was amazing. She said, I say yes to everything. Everything.
Speaker 1: I say yes to everything. So I get a call
Speaker 1: from Bernie tells his office. He says, they want you
Speaker 1: to do a reading of a Richard Greenberg play called
Speaker 1: on the Babylonline on a Sunday matinee during Lombardi. I
Speaker 1: think it was yes, Okay, I'll be there. I do it.
Speaker 1: Joe is there because he and Richard Greenberg are good friends.
Speaker 1: Joe might be directing this play. Joe doesn't know my work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've just been doing Lombardi, and I do
Speaker 1: the reading, I leave. But it was the thing that
Speaker 1: when Joe saw me do that, he got the idea
Speaker 1: when he saw me at the Tony luncheon, that I
Speaker 1: could do other Desert cities because I was taking over
Speaker 1: for Extraordinary Linda Leavin, she was doing another play on Broadway.
Speaker 1: Are you originated on Broadway? I originated on Broadway? And
Speaker 1: so after that, Lynn Meadow commissioned Richard Greenberg to write
Speaker 1: a play for me and Jessica hacked and that was
Speaker 1: the Assembled Parties. So one year it was Other Desert
Speaker 1: Cities and I got the Tony and the next year
Speaker 1: I got Assembled Parties. But do you make my point here,
Speaker 1: which is someone gets you in the door at the party,
Speaker 1: and then what happens after that is up to you.
Speaker 1: It's up to you. And you are very successful in daytime,
Speaker 1: and then you move to l A and you're very
Speaker 1: successful on a huge comedy, The Migration of That Woman,
Speaker 1: where you're standing on the set with Joe Mantello directing
Speaker 1: a play written by Robbie Bates and you're there with
Speaker 1: Stocker Channing and Stacy Keach. Do you sit there and go,
Speaker 1: how this happened? What a great joy that is to
Speaker 1: get there? People don't realize you don't stop journeying. You
Speaker 1: use the correct word. It's a migration, and it's an
Speaker 1: evolution and it's an expansion. And if you hold yourself
Speaker 1: in that framework, then you can move in those directions.
Speaker 1: You know, working now more than I ever have in
Speaker 1: my life. How did that happen? Well? I believe in
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. All of those young How do
Speaker 1: I get an agent? How going to get a manager.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's not the question. You need to stop
Speaker 1: see king and be curious. Who are you? What kind
Speaker 1: of life are you going to have? How are you
Speaker 1: going to be in the world. How do you want
Speaker 1: people to see you? Are you kind? Are you generous?
Speaker 1: Are you available to people? Do you have wonderful children?
Speaker 1: And do you create amazing citizens in the world. Yes,
Speaker 1: those are the things that are have great value. You know.
Speaker 1: The next thing you do is like, okay, it's the
Speaker 1: next thing you do is your artistic work. It's your service.
Speaker 1: You give it, you do it to the best of
Speaker 1: your ability. There's something else that holds that altogether. That's
Speaker 1: much greater, much bigger, much more important. But with the
Speaker 1: rehearsal process and those actors and Robbie sits in the
Speaker 1: room with you, I wish we were on television. The
Speaker 1: script is out, Joe is sitting with the script. The
Speaker 1: two of them are sitting next to each other, and
Speaker 1: they go forward and back and forward and back and
Speaker 1: look at it and listen and watch and think is
Speaker 1: this needed? What about that? Listening to the actor, there
Speaker 1: was one thing towards the end, and I said, what
Speaker 1: is Silda doing here? There's something that needs to be
Speaker 1: completed here, and so Robbie would be furiously writing and
Speaker 1: then if he over wrote a Joe would say it's
Speaker 1: too much, and then we would find the balance. But
Speaker 1: being with all of them, it's just so special. How
Speaker 1: did you desert cities from September until right after the
Speaker 1: Tony's Chill till June? Long time, long long run. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are things that happen you don't even
Speaker 1: understand how they happen. It's like that kyar rearguard line,
Speaker 1: which is life can only be lived going forward, it
Speaker 1: can only be understood looking backward. Could I have planned
Speaker 1: this kind of career? That's what I say to young
Speaker 1: people all the time. I say, you have this thing
Speaker 1: in your head like I did. It's like I have
Speaker 1: to do this, and I have to do this, and
Speaker 1: this is gonna get me what I want. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. That's your picture. It doesn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with the with with the real world. I know,
Speaker 1: anybody sent their crazy range of things. I mean, I
Speaker 1: have done this, like the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Speaker 1: So did you love Orphans? I have to ask you.
Speaker 1: I mean seriously, let me tell you, let me let
Speaker 1: me interesting. You know, we had this very difficult um. Yes,
Speaker 1: probably the fired child aboff and and Ben came in
Speaker 1: and uh and saved the day and Tom Sturge to
Speaker 1: the show got nominated. So Sullivan directs, and you kind
Speaker 1: of get the impression that this is a case of
Speaker 1: which he thought he wanted to do something with discovering
Speaker 1: very quickly that he didn't want to do it. Like
Speaker 1: he just did not seem you know. I mean at
Speaker 1: one point turned to me in front of the playwright
Speaker 1: and say I don't get this play, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: like in full audio range of Lyle and to me,
Speaker 1: this is very important to me. So I want to
Speaker 1: take my time and really say this carefully, and I I
Speaker 1: want to get your opinion of this too, which is
Speaker 1: in terms of acting with the capital A. I used
Speaker 1: to show up and be like O, which just was
Speaker 1: grateful to be there. Tell me what you want me
Speaker 1: to do. I'm you're I'm a puppet and you're a puppeteer,
Speaker 1: and well what do you want? I don't want to
Speaker 1: disappoint you. And then as years go by, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there going, well, I mean, here's what I think it is.
Speaker 1: I'm coming in and I'm assuming you hired me from
Speaker 1: my instincts, and I want to take you this is
Speaker 1: what I think the scenes about. I will give a
Speaker 1: director everything. I will give them the entire schmoorka sport.
Speaker 1: I will throw it out. It's like if you want
Speaker 1: a little you know candis, you want a little brisket,
Speaker 1: you want a little shrimp, take whatever you want. I'm
Speaker 1: not wedded to any of it, but I'll do the
Speaker 1: work and I'll give you everything. My job is to
Speaker 1: make it about everybody else. It's not about me. And
Speaker 1: in this business we think it's all about us. I know,
Speaker 1: to me, it's always been like music. What's what's the beat?
Speaker 1: Remember the orphans? I said, you know, just something to
Speaker 1: me about Because I lost my dad when he was
Speaker 1: very young. I was and that to cast a tremendous
Speaker 1: shadow over my life and everything. And so I said,
Speaker 1: it's about uh, mentorship and just and and and and
Speaker 1: being a father. Here's a guy who is the last
Speaker 1: act of his life. And so I said act one.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like a force. And everyone is acting.
Speaker 1: The characters are acting. Everyone walks on stage and they're
Speaker 1: interacting with and they're all full of ship and they're
Speaker 1: all putting on this crazy behavior to manipulate each other.
Speaker 1: And I'm playing like I'm a gangster and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to pretend I'm a big shot to intimidate them and
Speaker 1: control them and get them to do what I need.
Speaker 1: So I'm there. And then in the second act, I
Speaker 1: wanted to become completely naturalistic. All that drops away. It's
Speaker 1: I pissed the whip the boy. He goes down, curtain,
Speaker 1: curtain up, and it's like it's like it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: little house on the prairie. It's me and the boys,
Speaker 1: and now I'm going to father them. And I wanted
Speaker 1: him to be very real and take all that we
Speaker 1: don't have to put on anymore. And I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do that. And no communication with the director about that
Speaker 1: at all. No nothing coming back. Nothing. It's like you're
Speaker 1: hitting a ball and the ball never gets hit back.
Speaker 1: And uh. And I'd seen other people, you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen Orphans. Uh, because all the reviews bury us and
Speaker 1: they say, well, I mean that the original production Stepping
Speaker 1: the Wolf and that, and then that was a production
Speaker 1: of Orphans and it was dangerous and it was edgy
Speaker 1: and this is like a Alec Baldwin just you know,
Speaker 1: fucking off up there and doing all the silly comedy,
Speaker 1: this bad routine whatever. They killed us except this one review,
Speaker 1: This one guy wrote. Someone gave it to me. They said,
Speaker 1: read this review because it's very smart, and I think
Speaker 1: he kind of got what you were doing and that
Speaker 1: was what was important. Like you can say that I suck,
Speaker 1: but say I saw what you were trying to do,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it worked, but I saw that
Speaker 1: as opposed to we're not even going to discuss the
Speaker 1: worthiness of what you were trying to do. And because
Speaker 1: if there's there's your intention, and there's your execution, there's
Speaker 1: your tactics, and there's your strategy. And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you say that because I remember somebody was telling me
Speaker 1: about the berlin Er Ensemble and they did was they
Speaker 1: invited the critic to come to all the rehearsals. So
Speaker 1: that isn't that genius? So so that they could say
Speaker 1: at the end, this is what that actor was going
Speaker 1: for and whether they executed it properly or not, and
Speaker 1: that is what you're talking about. To come from a
Speaker 1: place like that is a very different place. A good
Speaker 1: critic has to have that facility. Walter was like that,
Speaker 1: what are you going for? And how well did you
Speaker 1: pull off? You can have a movie that the intentions
Speaker 1: are a name. Yeah, you can do a movie like
Speaker 1: The Hangover. It doesn't get any stupider than that. However,
Speaker 1: you pull it off. That's right. You take something that's
Speaker 1: very slight and you and you nail it. But but
Speaker 1: but just to finish, because I want to get to
Speaker 1: you with the with the one more question about the
Speaker 1: Bates play. When you were working and with these people,
Speaker 1: I always found the kind of thrilling year around these
Speaker 1: black belt actors like Stuckert. But if your context is
Speaker 1: to learn from them is to watch them and figure
Speaker 1: you know everything that they're doing and how they're doing it.
Speaker 1: It's like this is a this is a class. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's you're elevated. Your whole life is elevated,
Speaker 1: and you're you elevate the people around you too. You
Speaker 1: feel safe, right, I feel safer on stage than I
Speaker 1: do often it's spart most of us who do this do.
Speaker 1: I know, don't cry hunt It's okay, yes, because what
Speaker 1: we have is freedom within boundaries it's like great parenting.
Speaker 1: And you know this probably better than anybody. It's like
Speaker 1: when you give your kids boundaries that they have to
Speaker 1: operate within their free and they feel safe and they
Speaker 1: feel loved. Well, and I give my kids boundaries and
Speaker 1: they laugh at me. Well, satifire in my apartment. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a whole, that's a whole of the story.
Speaker 1: But but that kind of safety, that kind of freedom
Speaker 1: within that space is what we But we also do
Speaker 1: know that every night is different because you have a
Speaker 1: different audience giving you back a different kind of energy,
Speaker 1: but you still know what you're going to say and
Speaker 1: what the other person is going to say. Two questions
Speaker 1: I could do go on and on and on. Um,
Speaker 1: so what's talking about Hampshire? Meaning when did he die?
Speaker 1: Three years ago? So what was that life? You have
Speaker 1: somebody with that, To have somebody who was in your
Speaker 1: corner in this business, that is rare. He gave me
Speaker 1: a whole lot of tools before he left, and I
Speaker 1: have and you're still working with them to the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to the end. And I have in my agents who
Speaker 1: was very interesting. I mean I was with another agency
Speaker 1: and then um, Bob Girsh flew out to see me
Speaker 1: do with the people that are like that. There's that
Speaker 1: they stepped in when her passed away in the most
Speaker 1: magnificent way. And I have new managers now at Birlstein
Speaker 1: and all of them they've just they just took me
Speaker 1: and said, Okay, we're here, and so I have that
Speaker 1: experience with them. Who's your manager? I have three Danny Sassman.
Speaker 1: Do you know Danny. Yeah, Danny and SHAWNA. Wexler and
Speaker 1: ken Lee is a good company. Yeah, I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: to be there and yeah, yeah said it. What happened
Speaker 1: very sad. But I mean but even when he was there,
Speaker 1: even after he left and still a hell of a company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love Bernie. He was so he come see me
Speaker 1: on Broadway, Bernie Brillstein, come in from l A. Go
Speaker 1: see shows, write me notes backstage. You a sensational kid.
Speaker 1: That's what Danny Sman fly in see you, be there
Speaker 1: for you. But those are the people you're talking about
Speaker 1: in this business that when you find them, like Bob
Speaker 1: Gersh and Jason Coupman at the Gerci Agency, they are
Speaker 1: one thousand percent there for me, and particularly since Herb died,
Speaker 1: they just all went okay, rallying the troops all just
Speaker 1: grabbed onto me. I have great publicists too. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing. You know, you you know how to have
Speaker 1: great people because you have great people in your life.
Speaker 1: I've got some, yeah, yeah, and that that also comes
Speaker 1: from you. So do you look back now? I think
Speaker 1: there's just things that I wouldn't do again. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: do anymore. And someone came to you with a great
Speaker 1: for camera half hour, would you do a sitcom again?
Speaker 1: I never say never about anything ever. I said, I'll
Speaker 1: never do a soap opera, I'll never do a sitcom,
Speaker 1: I'll never marry an actor, and I'll never move to California.
Speaker 1: I am. So it's not really working well for me.
Speaker 1: So it's like, don't you know the universe is listening.
Speaker 1: It's like, what stupid woman at this point in time,
Speaker 1: in my age, in this career would say, you don't
Speaker 1: know how it's going to work out. Who would expect
Speaker 1: that a woman from day daytime television would end up
Speaker 1: with two Tony's. You can't or strate that stuff. You cannot.
Speaker 1: That's a migration, got it. But I want to ask
Speaker 1: you because this is something people say and I don't
Speaker 1: think about it too much, but it does come up.
Speaker 1: I said to Paccino once when I I interviewed Pacino
Speaker 1: to graduate from college. Love him. I did a play
Speaker 1: with him. We did. It's an interesting play for you
Speaker 1: to know about. It's called God Looked Away and it's
Speaker 1: the story of the last few years of Pasadena Playhouse.
Speaker 1: What was that? Like? It was he did inside the
Speaker 1: to studio less again, like we pleased with Ellen Burston
Speaker 1: interviewing him. They took for two and a half hour.
Speaker 1: He's just you did that with him? I did? I did?
Speaker 1: What was that? Like? I value him so profoundly. I
Speaker 1: mean I was shooting Transparent at the time, and then
Speaker 1: it would get in a car and I would go
Speaker 1: over to the Pasadena Playhouse and do the play. And
Speaker 1: I didn't come on until the second act, but I
Speaker 1: would watch him and I would observe him, could not
Speaker 1: take my eyes off him, and and we would do
Speaker 1: the scenes over and over and over, and the nuance
Speaker 1: and the things that we would find and that he
Speaker 1: would find. And then I would react off of, um,
Speaker 1: that's Zoe Ryan Murphy works. I'm doing the politician dropping
Speaker 1: to men, say that's that's our last topic. Which is
Speaker 1: how did you get contacted to do the Politician? What
Speaker 1: what a cast? You're back on You're back doing other
Speaker 1: Desert Cities with the heavyweights. It's Middler, who else Ben Platt?
Speaker 1: It's Bet and Me and Ben and Lucy Boyton, a
Speaker 1: couple of others in this second season, and the first
Speaker 1: season was worts cast Gwyneth, Gwyneth, jes Lang, Ben Right.
Speaker 1: I got it because Bryan Murphy put me in the
Speaker 1: assassination of Johnny VERSACCEI and I love Ryan Murphy even
Speaker 1: though he and I did, even even though he made
Speaker 1: me the greatest promise I was ever made. I played
Speaker 1: the the the surgeon who the two guys in Niptuck.
Speaker 1: I was their mentor. He called me up to the phone, goes,
Speaker 1: I want you to be the Obi wan Kenobi of
Speaker 1: plastic surgery. I felt the chill grew up my spider
Speaker 1: and we went in one episode that I never heard
Speaker 1: from him again. He didn't call me back. But I
Speaker 1: still love Ryan. I love you Ryan. He's a visionary.
Speaker 1: He sees the world very differently, like like nobody else.
Speaker 1: And Jill Soloway has that capacity as well. There are
Speaker 1: two of them that I've had the great good fortune
Speaker 1: to work with also So transparent. How many seasons? This
Speaker 1: is the fifth seasons, So Transparent over well, you know
Speaker 1: they say it's a finale, and the look, you know,
Speaker 1: another finality. You know it's you know, it's my my
Speaker 1: farewell tour. But you know in every ending, there's a beginning.
Speaker 1: That was the very funny, very wise Judith Light. The
Speaker 1: Transparent Finale and the Politician are both out. Now this
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,
Speaker 1: m