Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. This past year marked the seventy
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary of The Actor's Studio. As co president of
Speaker 1: the studio, along with al Pacino and Ellen Burston, I
Speaker 1: wanted to take a moment to celebrate the nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: and all of its accomplishments. This episode is the first
Speaker 1: in a series of conversations with people responsible for the
Speaker 1: studio's success. When the doors of the Actor's Studio opened
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty seven, in walked actors who would become
Speaker 1: some of the most famous names in show business. Paul Newman,
Speaker 1: James Dean, Eli Wallack and Anne Jackson and Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: They all flocked to the studio to embrace the philosophy
Speaker 1: of Russian actor director Konstantine Stanislovsky. By the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: these lessons, imparted by founders Cheryl Crawford, Bobby Lewis, Elia Kazan,
Speaker 1: and later by acting guru Lee Strassburg, have begun to
Speaker 1: influence nearly every serious actor in the world de Niro, Pacchino, Nicholson,
Speaker 1: Bancroft and Moore. Today, some seven decades since its inception.
Speaker 1: The need for truth in acting, referred to as the method,
Speaker 1: can be found to some degree in almost every acting
Speaker 1: program around the world. My guests today are two women
Speaker 1: who have made extraordinary contributions to continuing the work of
Speaker 1: the Actor's Studio and whose careers have resulted in significant recognition.
Speaker 1: Gastelle Parsons won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Bonnie
Speaker 1: and Clyde, the second film she ever made. Her time
Speaker 1: as an actor and director in the theater is no
Speaker 1: less significant. She's earned five Tony nominations and two Obie Awards.
Speaker 1: Parson's work at the studio began in nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: and includes her roles as Artistic director from nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: eight to two thousand and three and co Associate Artistic Director,
Speaker 1: a title she currently holds. But first my conversation with
Speaker 1: another leader within the organization, my co president, Ellen Burston.
Speaker 1: Burston is perhaps best known for her performances in films
Speaker 1: like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, The Last Picture Show,
Speaker 1: The Exorcist, and Requiem for a Dream. She also has
Speaker 1: the distinction of winning the Triple Crown of Acting an
Speaker 1: Oscar a Tony and two Emmys. I was curious how
Speaker 1: she first found her way to the actor's studio and
Speaker 1: how her craft changed when she began her work there. Well,
Speaker 1: I've looked at some old television shows. There's Western that's
Speaker 1: particularly amusing. Miss me in a cowboy hat on a horse.
Speaker 1: It makes me that when I look at it. You know,
Speaker 1: without studying, if you're born with a certain talent for acting,
Speaker 1: you can kind of do it. You know, you make
Speaker 1: say the words and make sense of them and cook
Speaker 1: up some bit of emotion sometimes, but it's not real,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. It's just not real. There's a
Speaker 1: nasty word in our field. Indicated I was waiting for you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was indicated acting. It was good enough to get by,
Speaker 1: to have a career and doing guest shots on television. Now,
Speaker 1: my first thing was a lead on Broadway, but they
Speaker 1: were looking for a model, and I was a model
Speaker 1: at the time, so I looked like the part and
Speaker 1: I could sort of stumble about the stage and get by.
Speaker 1: But after working for ten years without any real training,
Speaker 1: I had this sense that there were actors around who
Speaker 1: knew something I didn't know. You know. When I saw
Speaker 1: Branda went and Jimmy Dean and Joanne Paige and Kim Stanley.
Speaker 1: I went, what is it? What if they got that
Speaker 1: I can't access? What is that? And I didn't know,
Speaker 1: but I suspected that it had something to do with
Speaker 1: Lee Strassburg. And a date came when I was cast
Speaker 1: in a movie called Goodbye Charlie, starring Tony Curtis and
Speaker 1: Debbie Reynolds and Walter Mathou and I was co starring.
Speaker 1: And I was sitting on this set one day, all
Speaker 1: done up with the wig that had been chirlimit claims
Speaker 1: at one time, and a dressed designed by Edith Head
Speaker 1: and makeup done by Debbie Reynolds brother who Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I was done up, sitting on stage and I looked
Speaker 1: around and I said, well, this is it. This is
Speaker 1: the big time, next step, but I'll be playing Debbie
Speaker 1: Reynolds park and this voice that it speaks to me
Speaker 1: in my head on occasion at very important moments, said
Speaker 1: very clearly I don't want it. And that was an
Speaker 1: absolute chanting point. I packed up my house and my
Speaker 1: kid and my dog and moved back to New York
Speaker 1: and went to Lee Strassburg and basically said, teach me
Speaker 1: and you've been out there for a while. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: get out there and you do Doctor Kildare seventy seven
Speaker 1: Sunset Strip, Ben Casey, Perry Mason, Wagon Train, Gun Smoke,
Speaker 1: Big Valley, Virginian, The Time Tunnel. I mean, my god,
Speaker 1: this would be shorter of the shows you weren't on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I saw all those shows there a The
Speaker 1: Time Tunnel was we went back in time to the
Speaker 1: earthquake in Krakatoa and one of the biggest earthquakes ever
Speaker 1: until that time. And in the final scene we had
Speaker 1: run out of time and money for the producer wanted
Speaker 1: it over soon, so he came on stage with a
Speaker 1: pot and a wooden spoon and he said, when I
Speaker 1: hit the pot, you all wiggle to the right, and
Speaker 1: I'll hit it again and you will wiggle to the left.
Speaker 1: And that was the very quake. That was the earthquake?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? That's what happened. That's when you
Speaker 1: knew it was time to go home. Actually, it took
Speaker 1: the big movie, the Debbie Reynolds. Yeah, she was wonderful,
Speaker 1: nothink against sure, but it was that kind of movie,
Speaker 1: you know, It was very glossy. Yeah, and I look
Speaker 1: at it now. I looked at it recently and it's
Speaker 1: I look good. Yea, I'll give it that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was good. Mallie Reynolds was good. Yeah. He was Elvis's
Speaker 1: makeup man. Oh yeah, yeah, really was. Yeah. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was a certain kind of movie that I just
Speaker 1: didn't want to do anymore. So I won't know what
Speaker 1: to call him. But when you have a chance to
Speaker 1: do that what I call brass ring acting, you're out
Speaker 1: there and you've got a lot of shots at success
Speaker 1: and money and fame and that kind of working for
Speaker 1: the man out there, and you come home, you are
Speaker 1: you out of work for a while, and you're and
Speaker 1: you're being tested, and you would come back to New
Speaker 1: York and you wonder, have I made the right decision
Speaker 1: or did things become what you hope they would in
Speaker 1: New York relatively quickly in terms of the quality of
Speaker 1: the work. Came back to New York and what happened.
Speaker 1: I went to Lee, I was interviewed by him. By interview,
Speaker 1: he sat and look, he didn't look at me, and
Speaker 1: he asked me questions. He said, what kind of music
Speaker 1: do you like? And I said classical? And he sort
Speaker 1: of nodded a little. He said, what's your favorite piece
Speaker 1: of music. I said Greek's Concerto in a Minor And
Speaker 1: he said what pianist? I said, Walter easy King and
Speaker 1: he nodded, and I saw this smile at his face,
Speaker 1: and oh, that was a good answer. I got that right, yeah, right.
Speaker 1: And then I was accepted into his private classes, and
Speaker 1: I did an audition for the studio for several years,
Speaker 1: and finally one day I did it. See this has
Speaker 1: happened the actor studio in California. And afterwards Lee said
Speaker 1: to me, how long have you been studying with me? Dear?
Speaker 1: I said seven years? And he nodded and he said, yes,
Speaker 1: that's usually about what it takes. And that's when I
Speaker 1: can an auditioned for the studio. Did he teach out
Speaker 1: there as well? In the summers he go out to
Speaker 1: California and teach out there. Yeah. And when you took
Speaker 1: the private class that you say private meaning one on
Speaker 1: one or you want a couple of other people? Oh no,
Speaker 1: I meant, I meant not. The actors was a class, right,
Speaker 1: And how many people were in that class? I would
Speaker 1: say in attendance on any given day would be twenty
Speaker 1: well that meant that better class. Yeah, when you're in
Speaker 1: a room with him for the first time and he's
Speaker 1: teaching you, was it a question of him trying to
Speaker 1: push you toward things he wanted you to do, trying
Speaker 1: to push you toward things he wanted to stop you
Speaker 1: from doing. What did he say? Well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the first time I worked for the first exercise is
Speaker 1: to create your morning cup of coffee or whatever you drink.
Speaker 1: It's not there, it's imaginary. So there are five people
Speaker 1: working on the stage, at each doing a different sense memory.
Speaker 1: I'm creating my cup. I see out of the corner
Speaker 1: of his eye. He picks up the cards with our name,
Speaker 1: looks for a name, and then it says l I
Speaker 1: say yes, and I stopped working on the cup. He says, no, no,
Speaker 1: continue working on your cup, which I do. Long pause.
Speaker 1: Do you ride horses? I used to? Did you ride? Well? Well,
Speaker 1: pretty well, I had my own horse. Long pause, Well
Speaker 1: you don't have to ride that cup? What go on?
Speaker 1: Make a mistake? Do it? Make a mistake? And I
Speaker 1: start crying, And I cried for two weeks. Now what
Speaker 1: were we talking about? I'm creating a cup. He's asking
Speaker 1: about horses, And the result is I'm crying for two
Speaker 1: weeks because he sought something that was part of my
Speaker 1: conditioning that needed I needed to stop, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know how. And he was telling me it was time
Speaker 1: to give up my conditioning, that that was past, that
Speaker 1: I could be open, I could make a mistake. I
Speaker 1: didn't have to be afraid of being punished if I
Speaker 1: made a mistake. And after two weeks, actually it was
Speaker 1: my husband who said at the time, who said, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you can just consider all of that stuff a
Speaker 1: crutch that you've needed and you don't need it anymore,
Speaker 1: And I went, yeah, right. So I then went back
Speaker 1: to Lee without the crutch of my personality I had
Speaker 1: developed from my conditioning, and became open as myself whatever
Speaker 1: that was, which I didn't know, but I was willing
Speaker 1: to discover. The studio. Obviously, this is the seventy fifth anniversary.
Speaker 1: The place starts in forty seven, and you don't walk
Speaker 1: in the door till twenty years later in sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and by the time you come is it would you
Speaker 1: say not in a negative way, because these things are unavoidable,
Speaker 1: but would you say that it was like becoming like
Speaker 1: the hip thing to do. Did people I mean the
Speaker 1: fifties were a certain flock of people were there, and
Speaker 1: then in the sixties you were there. Did a lot
Speaker 1: of people were a craving the method, acting experience in
Speaker 1: order to strengthen themselves as actress. What was the traffic
Speaker 1: like there lots of people trying to get in. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I don't have that information. I do
Speaker 1: remember I wasn't passed to my first audition. I had
Speaker 1: to audition again. But when I did, Lee Grant told me,
Speaker 1: because she was judging along with me, that when I
Speaker 1: came out and sat up by dressing table and I
Speaker 1: was using the fourth walls a mirror, and I was
Speaker 1: looking at myself in the mirror, and Lee said to her,
Speaker 1: you see, when they're right, they don't even have to talk.
Speaker 1: But by then I had learned how to just do
Speaker 1: the work. You know. The real issue, I think is
Speaker 1: to be able to stay on stage doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: and not be projecting yourself out in the audience wondering
Speaker 1: how you're doing. That's really what it's about. That you
Speaker 1: can just be where you are, be present in the moment,
Speaker 1: do just what you're doing, and not be judging yourself.
Speaker 1: Would you say that before you went there and before
Speaker 1: you started that work, when you went to work, beyond
Speaker 1: that point, once you sort of to accrue these hours
Speaker 1: there and these experiences there, did to change the way
Speaker 1: you worked itself beyond job you wouldn't do. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at the Last Picture Show,
Speaker 1: which happens to be an answer in the New York
Speaker 1: Times cross robots this morning, the Last Picture Show was
Speaker 1: the first time that I was doing the work in
Speaker 1: a picture that you could see it and say that's
Speaker 1: the work, and the director allowed that. The director wanted.
Speaker 1: The director was thirsty for that. Peter said, a wonderful
Speaker 1: thing I've always treasured. I had a scene where I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in the living room reading a magazine. My boring
Speaker 1: husband has fallen asleep in front of the television set,
Speaker 1: and it's I'm just bummed out that this is my life.
Speaker 1: And I hear Cal's struck drive up, my lover, Oh good,
Speaker 1: cow's here, And I put the magazine down and I
Speaker 1: go to the door expecting to see him. And I
Speaker 1: opened the door and it's my daughter and she comes
Speaker 1: in and first of all, damn, it's not Cal. It's
Speaker 1: my daughter two that was cal struck. What is my
Speaker 1: daughter doing with Cal? Oh? My god? My daughter sleeping
Speaker 1: with my lover? And I had to do all of
Speaker 1: that without a line. And I'm sitting on the set
Speaker 1: as they're lighting, and I'm thinking about all of that,
Speaker 1: and I say to Peter, Peter, I have eight different
Speaker 1: things to go through here and no line, and he
Speaker 1: smiles like the cheshire cat and says, I know. I said, wow,
Speaker 1: am I supposed to that? He said, think the thoughts
Speaker 1: of the character, and the camera will read your mind.
Speaker 1: That's the best advice. And they director ever gave me.
Speaker 1: Who is a cinematographer? Do you remember? I think it
Speaker 1: was Bob's for tease. I want to tell you a story.
Speaker 1: He told me. It's a show bit story. He was
Speaker 1: making some movie. I don't know what the movie was,
Speaker 1: and the leading man completed his last scene. They did
Speaker 1: a close up and he died, but they hadn't shot
Speaker 1: the person he was talking to the reverse of her
Speaker 1: close up, so they propped him up. It shot over
Speaker 1: his shoulder. Is it even legal? No? Oh god, I
Speaker 1: can't even believe that. Oh god. Yeah, you've had great
Speaker 1: leading roles and have had great success in the movie
Speaker 1: business with leading roles with great directors. You go on
Speaker 1: to do The Exorcist. The two greatest horror films and
Speaker 1: from my money, are Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcism. One
Speaker 1: of them is kind of a baroque fantasy. Some of
Speaker 1: the acting gets right up to the edge and it's
Speaker 1: dripping with a kind of not an access but like
Speaker 1: the right amount of a kind of weirdness or is
Speaker 1: The Exorcist is about this incredibly awful and not necessarily
Speaker 1: authentic thing that people are possessed in this way that's
Speaker 1: played completely straight. Every actor walks in and they play
Speaker 1: the whole thing completely straight. You and bon cdo and
Speaker 1: Miller and Lee J. Cobb, Lee J. Cobb. Really, Now,
Speaker 1: when you do that movie, did you rehearse but tweeks?
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks of rehearsal. Yeah, on the set.
Speaker 1: All of the house stuff was shot on a sound
Speaker 1: stage in New York City, you know, those great movies
Speaker 1: of the seventies. We rehearsed two weeks before when we
Speaker 1: did the Last Picture Show. We were in that Texas
Speaker 1: town and all of us were staying in a motel
Speaker 1: by a highway. None of us had cars. We were
Speaker 1: all unknowns. We didn't get those kind of contracts where
Speaker 1: we had cars. So we were picked up in a bus,
Speaker 1: taken to rehearsal and then dropped back in the motel.
Speaker 1: So we only had each other. So we spent all
Speaker 1: of our time when we were working together in our hotel,
Speaker 1: you know, in one of our hotel pool Yeah, and
Speaker 1: with a guitar, you know. Jeff Bridges brought his guitar
Speaker 1: and we sang. And Chloris Leachman was going through a
Speaker 1: horrible divorce and so was I, and we sat on
Speaker 1: the floor and cried together about our divorces. But in
Speaker 1: our Texas accents, you know. And The King of Marvin Gardens,
Speaker 1: which was a wonderful movie that I was in that
Speaker 1: wasn't a big success, but it's considered a classic now
Speaker 1: with Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson. We had two weeks
Speaker 1: of rehearsal and we did with The Exorcist, that's where
Speaker 1: the creativity gets born, you know. And I think they
Speaker 1: make a big mistake in all of the movies that
Speaker 1: are made now by the corporations that have taken over
Speaker 1: the movie students to cut that out of the budget.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not important to them. Those movies in
Speaker 1: the seventies were great for a reason. They respawned from
Speaker 1: Some writers need to write that story, you know, and
Speaker 1: some directors need to bring that to life. It was
Speaker 1: an art form, you know. It wasn't something that an
Speaker 1: algorithm said, if you put these elements together, it'll make
Speaker 1: X number of dollars. What do you do when you're
Speaker 1: doing a scene and you're a person who is who
Speaker 1: works a certain way, and the other people are not
Speaker 1: doing the scene in a way that you might be
Speaker 1: able to please with, You don't say anything, And it
Speaker 1: was you know, you only keep your focus on yourself. Well, no,
Speaker 1: then that person, the character is behaving that way. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the reality I'm in. You can only take what
Speaker 1: they give you. Yeah, and if you're in this scene,
Speaker 1: if you're present, then whatever that person is doing, that's
Speaker 1: what you're dealing with. Somebody who behaves like that. Have
Speaker 1: you ever walked away from apart in film, TV or
Speaker 1: a theater that you realize at some point you thought,
Speaker 1: I'm not right for this part. Well, I've turned down
Speaker 1: a lot of films, Yeah, I mean it turned down
Speaker 1: a lot of scripts that I read and I didn't like.
Speaker 1: But then once I like a script, and I usually
Speaker 1: ask to be the director, and I feel sympatical with
Speaker 1: the director. Then what comes comes You did a sitcom
Speaker 1: and I did a sitcom, And what is the applicability
Speaker 1: of method acting in the world of sitcoms? Like when
Speaker 1: you go to a sitcom? What did you tell yourself?
Speaker 1: Did you sit there and say a lot of that's
Speaker 1: going to have to go out the window. Because, of
Speaker 1: course we were joking before you came in, my producers
Speaker 1: and I about you being a sandwich in between Megan
Speaker 1: Malali and Elaine Stretch that we would love to have seen.
Speaker 1: We would love to have been a fly on the
Speaker 1: wall on that set. Yeah, I found Angie upstag. Molly
Speaker 1: the dog has decided to have puppies in Nana's closet.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt your class, Ellen, but there's something
Speaker 1: in my closet and it's growling. Excuse me? Would you
Speaker 1: said outside? I don't want to know. I am trying
Speaker 1: to teach class in there, Allen. Class is not something
Speaker 1: you teach. You either have it or you don't. Megan
Speaker 1: was my choice and it was her first show, right,
Speaker 1: She had never done anything before, and she auditioned for
Speaker 1: it and I just fell in love with her wanted
Speaker 1: her to do it. The director had another pick and
Speaker 1: I fought for Megan, and Fanny went because you know,
Speaker 1: it was called the all person show. He and I
Speaker 1: were not a happy marriage that that director. We were
Speaker 1: partners in it, and we did never have the same
Speaker 1: idea what the show ought to be. And he's very
Speaker 1: talented writer, director, and especially with comedy, but we just
Speaker 1: had different backgrounds and different training, so it didn't work.
Speaker 1: I just remember, you know, we were playing to a
Speaker 1: live audience, so it was like doing a live show,
Speaker 1: and it just never it was never gibing. I. I
Speaker 1: had a friend who was assisting me. I mean, she
Speaker 1: was being my assistant on the show, and I have
Speaker 1: this image of her standing outside my dressing room with
Speaker 1: her arms folded, keeping everybody out as I cried for
Speaker 1: a long long time. You know, she was like the
Speaker 1: guard at the door as I cried. So it was
Speaker 1: a miserable experience. Elaine as my mother, and Elaine was
Speaker 1: I think only seminary exactly, but she's a wonderful, amazing talent.
Speaker 1: So I Elaine played my mother that's the other thing
Speaker 1: we have in common, Actors Studio co president Ellen Burston.
Speaker 1: If you love conversations about creativity and craft, be sure
Speaker 1: to check out my episode with Distinguished Actors Studio member
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman. Someone said to me, if you want to
Speaker 1: know Lenny Bruce, you gotta go see Sally more his mother.
Speaker 1: She introduced me to one of his best friends, and
Speaker 1: he in turn introduced me to friends with Lenny. They
Speaker 1: all said the same thing. He was always very quiet,
Speaker 1: and suddenly he's gone because he wasn't shy guy. And
Speaker 1: he's gone, and they look around. I don't know where
Speaker 1: he is, and then they find him in the kitchen
Speaker 1: talking to the help. He loved to just talk to
Speaker 1: the people and ask questions and find out stuff. The
Speaker 1: musicians were more important to him than the audience. Lennie
Speaker 1: felt that if he could crack up the musicians than
Speaker 1: he was getting Somewhere here more of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffmann at Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break,
Speaker 1: Ellen Burston shares some of the best advice she gives
Speaker 1: to members of the Actor's Studio. I'm Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: you were listening to here's the thing. Ellen Burston began
Speaker 1: her time at the Actor's Studio in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: but quickly rose through the ranks, serving as a moderator,
Speaker 1: artistic director and now co president. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: when and how she first became a part of the
Speaker 1: leadership of the studio. Lee died in the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and there were many of us on the board who
Speaker 1: came together to, you know, keep the studio together. Al, myself,
Speaker 1: Paul Newman, Shelley Winter's, Arthur penn, A Stale Parsons, many others.
Speaker 1: And at first it was decided that there would be
Speaker 1: a troika which was me and Al and Arthur, I think,
Speaker 1: and then after a while it just got down to
Speaker 1: me and Al, and then Harvey became a co president too,
Speaker 1: and then when Harvey's term was over, you joined. So
Speaker 1: I've been involved right along. Lee started me moderating right
Speaker 1: after I won an Oscar and which was I think
Speaker 1: seventy four, So I had always been in a position
Speaker 1: of a moderator at the studio since then and on
Speaker 1: the board. So I've been deeply involved the studio since
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. You know, the times I would
Speaker 1: teach acting, not moderating. Obviously, there's a profound difference, as
Speaker 1: you will know. But when I would teach acting, which
Speaker 1: I hate it, I really didn't care for it because
Speaker 1: so much of it is you know what you bring you,
Speaker 1: how do you have it? Or don't you acting? I
Speaker 1: think lessons could make you a better actor, but can
Speaker 1: they make you a good actor? I don't really know.
Speaker 1: I can't make you a talented actor. Yeah you either
Speaker 1: yeah you have the talent or not. Now the studio now,
Speaker 1: it's seventy fifth anniversary. When I first came and was
Speaker 1: invited by Corsaro to come and attend and be an observer,
Speaker 1: many many years ago, there were people there who were members,
Speaker 1: who were older, many of them not having the same
Speaker 1: career that you had. They hadn't worked in quite a while.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were really that the studio was really their
Speaker 1: only link to the business in a way. They weren't
Speaker 1: working in film or television or theater. But I see
Speaker 1: now there was a different wave of people coming there.
Speaker 1: There are younger people coming through there now. It's like
Speaker 1: a new crop of people that are really finding this
Speaker 1: work essential for them. Do you feel that way that
Speaker 1: there's a new generation of people coming through the doors.
Speaker 1: I do. You know. Kazan said when he started this
Speaker 1: studio that he wanted to establish a spiritual home for actors,
Speaker 1: and that's what it's become. It's a place where actors
Speaker 1: can go to work on their craft, to work on
Speaker 1: their ability to do their very best work and transcend
Speaker 1: what's naturally available to them without that kind of deep study.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd say to actors, you can't just act
Speaker 1: when you get a job. You've got to be in shape,
Speaker 1: You've got to practice, you have to be doing it. Horowitz,
Speaker 1: who is the greatest being pianist of his time, practiced
Speaker 1: eight hours a day every day of his life until
Speaker 1: he died. And that's the kind of dedication it takes
Speaker 1: to be an artist of any kind, if that's what
Speaker 1: you're interested in being. That's what interests me about acting
Speaker 1: is the art of acting, and that's what the studio
Speaker 1: is home to for young actors, old actors, any actor
Speaker 1: who wants to come and experience the art of acting,
Speaker 1: whether they get a gig or not. Who's one person
Speaker 1: you worked with who you noted that they worked most
Speaker 1: the way that you do. Someone when you were working
Speaker 1: with them, I thought, oh God, this is really a treat.
Speaker 1: Even Le Gallien, my god, subscribe. Well, you know, she
Speaker 1: had a repertory company in New York, and she was
Speaker 1: the only person who had a repertory company in New
Speaker 1: York for many years. And she was a great actress,
Speaker 1: but she had never been on film. She was only
Speaker 1: in the theater. And when I made my favorite film
Speaker 1: of all time that I made, Resurrection, I had to
Speaker 1: have a grandmother, and I invited Eva le Galliant up
Speaker 1: to lunch and I asked her if she would play
Speaker 1: my grandmother, and she did, and the experience of working
Speaker 1: with her. She had a moment where I was saying
Speaker 1: goodbye to her and she had the line, that's it,
Speaker 1: isn't it. If we could just love each other the
Speaker 1: say way we say we love him, I expect there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be such bother in the world. And every time
Speaker 1: she said the word love, I swear her voice dropped
Speaker 1: into her heart and pushed tears out of my eyes.
Speaker 1: I look, you, come on, yeah, that's it. If we
Speaker 1: could just love he shot as much as we say
Speaker 1: we love him, I suspect there wouldn't be the bother
Speaker 1: in the world. There is every take, no matter how
Speaker 1: many takes or angles we did. It came right out
Speaker 1: of her chest, her heart into my tear ducks. She
Speaker 1: was the most remarkable actor I ever worked with. And
Speaker 1: she's only been in a film once. And it's my
Speaker 1: favorite film, Resurrection, and you can now see it. It's
Speaker 1: on road. Cool, it's available. I play a healer and
Speaker 1: I put the film together as your favorite film you
Speaker 1: ever did? Yeah, okay, and nobody saw it, although it's
Speaker 1: one of the films from its nominated for. But she
Speaker 1: was the greatest startist I ever worked with acting artists.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing this with me. It's my professure.
Speaker 1: Ellen Burston, my next guest, the great Estelle Parsons has
Speaker 1: done everything from ethel Merman musicals to playing Rosanne's mother
Speaker 1: on the beloved TV sitcom to directing the Bard on stage,
Speaker 1: all within her long and illustrious career. After some false
Speaker 1: starts in both the legal and political professions. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what had eventually led her to become an actor.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any path in my life. My mother
Speaker 1: took me to There was a community theater in Lynn, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: Tavern Players. It was run just by chance by a woman,
Speaker 1: an extraordinary directing type woman. And they did plays for children.
Speaker 1: Someone wrote them in the community, and they did plays
Speaker 1: for grown ups. And it was what you now would
Speaker 1: call a really good community theater and really good people
Speaker 1: in it. I mean, I was seven. How do I
Speaker 1: know a good person a bad person? But anyway, my
Speaker 1: mother wanted to be a part of it. Every I
Speaker 1: guess her social set was a part of it. So
Speaker 1: she took myself and my sister to it. So I
Speaker 1: started acting then in children's plays. In the first thing
Speaker 1: I did, I was a frog and that was great.
Speaker 1: But then it came time for the performance and I
Speaker 1: had this frog suit and then I put on the
Speaker 1: frog head and went out on the stage to do
Speaker 1: my part. And I thought, I'm never gonna wear anything
Speaker 1: over my head on the stage again. And I never have.
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of my understanding acting acting
Speaker 1: as something that happens between people and an audience. You know,
Speaker 1: That's really what it's all about for me, theater acting.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether the other stuff people do TV
Speaker 1: films is that acting. Sure it is, but it's different.
Speaker 1: I don't want to mention just for our audience's edification
Speaker 1: here that you're one of the few actors I've ever
Speaker 1: met in my life who buy a good amount. Your
Speaker 1: Broadway credits exceed your film and television credits. So funny,
Speaker 1: isn't that funny? So you're exposed to this in this
Speaker 1: theater as you're a kid, but you go on to
Speaker 1: the Oak Grove School for Girls. Well I was boarding school.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to go to school, but I
Speaker 1: didn't think acting was something you did when you grew up.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm from New England. I'm from an old
Speaker 1: New England family. Back to sixteen thirty two. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you went on to go to Connecticut College, what was
Speaker 1: the sense of what you wanted to study there. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to study anything there. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go there. I grew up at Jack Lemon. I mean,
Speaker 1: he lived four houses from me. So he played the piano.
Speaker 1: I played the piano, and he made up all these
Speaker 1: wonderful songs, and so I had a whole routine that
Speaker 1: I could do, you know, in bars and stuff at parties.
Speaker 1: I'd just go to parties and wait for someone to say, hey,
Speaker 1: stelcom play the piano, and then I'd do my routine
Speaker 1: with these songs of Jackies and some others that I
Speaker 1: threw in myself. So that was what I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do. But it was just a natural thing to
Speaker 1: go to college. But all the time I was there,
Speaker 1: I said to my father, look, people come up from
Speaker 1: New York. They hear me, they see me. I've got cards.
Speaker 1: I can go start in New York. He said, no,
Speaker 1: you want to finish college. You'll be glad that you did.
Speaker 1: I was, of course, in the English department, and I
Speaker 1: went to the first class and they were studying Macbeth,
Speaker 1: and mister Thuram, who was head of the whole English shebang,
Speaker 1: started talking about Macbeth and I got so offended, offended
Speaker 1: so badly that they would sit there and talk about
Speaker 1: Macbeth as an intellectual thing that I went directly to
Speaker 1: the dan and said, I'm out of the English department.
Speaker 1: I can't take that. I can't listen to Macbeth being
Speaker 1: talked about that way. Why because they were just talking
Speaker 1: about it as an intellectual exercise. It's meant to be
Speaker 1: on the same okay. So I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I'd probably go into politics because I didn't think
Speaker 1: you acted well listen listening for me, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is UK, this is too whiskey. I need to go
Speaker 1: to law school. I was going to go to law
Speaker 1: school and get a real job. But eventually when you
Speaker 1: left the English department, because when you were offended by
Speaker 1: the intellectualization to Macbeth, but then you're going to be
Speaker 1: you law school, Well, I thought I'd go into politics,
Speaker 1: and so I got out of college, and then I
Speaker 1: was hanging around. I was just standing Fava Gardner and
Speaker 1: some stuff on tour. You know, they had to do
Speaker 1: long shots for some movies to just make it with
Speaker 1: the card game all. I was just hanging around after college.
Speaker 1: I didn't quite know what I wanted to do. When
Speaker 1: I was working in this. When I was a kid
Speaker 1: in that community theater, the woman who ran it saw
Speaker 1: that I had a gift, obviously, so I was playing
Speaker 1: leading roles all the time I was a kid. By
Speaker 1: the time I was fifteen, I was a perfectly professional actor. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I decided to go to law school. So I went
Speaker 1: to be You. Because Harvard didn't take women, and there
Speaker 1: were two women and like two hundred and ninety nine men.
Speaker 1: The other woman was the wife of one of the men.
Speaker 1: You went to lockobas for drink, you had to sit
Speaker 1: in the back steps because they wouldn't let you in
Speaker 1: the bar because you were a female. The next year,
Speaker 1: Harvard took women, and of course took me in the
Speaker 1: first year. Again, they wouldn't take me in the second year,
Speaker 1: even though I'd finished year. Laws transfer your year. What
Speaker 1: kind of world is this? And I didn't like competing
Speaker 1: against men all the time. I just found that I
Speaker 1: loved men, and I just didn't want to compete against
Speaker 1: them all that. I thought, if I go into this profession,
Speaker 1: I'll just be the loneliest person in the world. Which
Speaker 1: the women that I knew in the profession were, you know,
Speaker 1: a generation before or after me? When did you? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming at one point you moved to New York.
Speaker 1: I didn't really move to New York. No. A friend
Speaker 1: of my family had driven up in a Cadillac that
Speaker 1: broke down, so they had to go back on the train.
Speaker 1: And so the friend called on my mother and Saystella
Speaker 1: isn't doing anything, and she drive their Cadillac back to
Speaker 1: New York for them. So I said sure, So my
Speaker 1: mother and I got in the Cadillac and drove to
Speaker 1: New York and I stayed with some girls from college
Speaker 1: who had moved down here just for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and I went to see my roommates. Sister had married
Speaker 1: a guy who was at NBC, so I went over
Speaker 1: to say hello to him, and he said, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know they're hiring people from warning television. Why didn't you
Speaker 1: go and see this guy more Warner. He's coming from California,
Speaker 1: he's from radio, going to start morning television. There's no
Speaker 1: morning television, which because there wasn't there was nighttime television.
Speaker 1: Nobody in nighttime television wanted to go in morning television
Speaker 1: because nobody thought anybody would watch it in the morning.
Speaker 1: So I went to see this guy, said yeah, well
Speaker 1: send me yours CV or. I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: So I'm back to Marblehead with my mom and I
Speaker 1: wrote up my life story. I thought that was what
Speaker 1: he wanted, so I sent him my life story and
Speaker 1: he calls me up and says, you're hired. So I
Speaker 1: said to my father, you know, I'm going to New York,
Speaker 1: probably be gone six months. I mean, nobody's going to
Speaker 1: watch TV in the morning. So well, he said, we
Speaker 1: Parsons don't leave home, you know. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just be gone six months and I'll be back,
Speaker 1: which I thought I would. And I was with NBC
Speaker 1: for five years. Five years. Yeah, I was the first
Speaker 1: woman to do political reporting for a network. Did you
Speaker 1: do cover conventions? Were you covered Marilyn Monroe? I covered conventions.
Speaker 1: I went on the road with Keith Fover when he
Speaker 1: ran for president. Yeah. I had all kinds of good
Speaker 1: one was this, this was and then I got married
Speaker 1: and then I had twins. And then Jerry Greensid was
Speaker 1: sending you to the Grace Kelly wedding in Monico, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, Jerry, I don't want to go.
Speaker 1: And it was the you know, everybody wanted to be
Speaker 1: the person that was sent to Monica. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go. He looked to be an elect president. I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to move on. Really, that's when you knew.
Speaker 1: And my husband said, why didn't you go on the stage.
Speaker 1: You're always talking about it. So I said okay. And
Speaker 1: his friend Dave Burrows was gonna do happy hunting with
Speaker 1: Ethel Mormons, so I went and sang for Ay Burrows
Speaker 1: that he hired me nineteen fifty six, and I've been
Speaker 1: on the stage of a since. And let me ask you.
Speaker 1: You make your debut, I would imagine as the way
Speaker 1: to put it in nineteen fifty six, Happy Hunting, And
Speaker 1: you don't make a movie until nineteen sixty three, which
Speaker 1: is Ladybug, Ladybug, seven years after you start acting. And
Speaker 1: in that seven years until sixty three, you do a
Speaker 1: bunch of shows. I was on tour with Carol Channing
Speaker 1: with the Millionaires, and it was Frank Perry, whom I
Speaker 1: knew from the Actor's Studio. Along the way there, I
Speaker 1: became a member of the Actor's studio. Year did you
Speaker 1: go to the Did you first go to the studio?
Speaker 1: It was in the fifties. I heard about it, and
Speaker 1: I asked a woman who was working with me on
Speaker 1: the Today, So I said, hey, I want our audition
Speaker 1: for this place. I read about it in the Times
Speaker 1: and how all the actors were there and everything. It
Speaker 1: sounded like a good place to be. So I had
Speaker 1: a seen from our town, you know, Emily, And I
Speaker 1: asked a person who wasn't even an actress, who was
Speaker 1: working on the show Today's show with me. Come from California,
Speaker 1: with She was a writer or something. I don't know
Speaker 1: what she was, but anyway, said just take this and
Speaker 1: read it. I'm going to go audition for the studio.
Speaker 1: Can you believe how dumb and naive. It's hard to
Speaker 1: believe how dumb and naive one is when one as
Speaker 1: young as me. So I go into Kauzanne and Bobby Lewis,
Speaker 1: who started the studio with this person who's not an actor,
Speaker 1: and I'd do my little acting about Emily in our town.
Speaker 1: And Kazanne said, you know, Lee Strasburg has acting classes,
Speaker 1: and he said, I think you ought to go over
Speaker 1: and see Lee Strasbourg. So I did, and I made
Speaker 1: an appointment and I got there and he came out
Speaker 1: and there was a chair in the hall. I was
Speaker 1: sitting there and he said why didn't want to be
Speaker 1: an actor? And I started crying, and I cried for
Speaker 1: about five minutes. But you see, everything going on with
Speaker 1: me was purely subconscious. I didn't have any conscious drive
Speaker 1: to do anything. I was just living my life. I
Speaker 1: thought that's what life was about. You just kind of
Speaker 1: live it and nobody cared what I did. So I
Speaker 1: didn't know you was supposed to do this supposed to
Speaker 1: do that or whatever other people do. Now, what I'm
Speaker 1: curious about is that was Strasburg, someone who when you
Speaker 1: met him and you first started working with him, were
Speaker 1: you impressed by his gifts as a teacher right away?
Speaker 1: I know one thing, I never wanted to study acting
Speaker 1: with anybody ever. You know, there were all these places
Speaker 1: people were going to study acting. I didn't nobody had
Speaker 1: anything to teach me. I still feel that way. Nobody
Speaker 1: had anything to teach me at all. I knew all
Speaker 1: about it. I'd been doing it since I was seven.
Speaker 1: What is it that you get up there? You have
Speaker 1: something to do lines? Yeah, you have to remember your
Speaker 1: lines and say them loud enough for our five hundred
Speaker 1: people to hear it. And that's the job. What's the
Speaker 1: big deal about acting? Right? Everybody was in there, George
Speaker 1: Bippard and the Wenttonio and all these people went on
Speaker 1: to do things, and Marilyn Monroe by the way, later on.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the private classes were great. This is before
Speaker 1: I got into the studio. You see, That's why Kazan
Speaker 1: had sent me there to do those classes and then
Speaker 1: get into the studio. But you see, what he created
Speaker 1: was a space where he had to really give your all.
Speaker 1: You see, it was not good. It was not get
Speaker 1: up and be good. It was not get up and
Speaker 1: do what you remember. It was get up and be great.
Speaker 1: At least that was my impression of it, because I'd
Speaker 1: gone to all these other classes in and I couldn't
Speaker 1: stand it. But with him, it was just a space
Speaker 1: where you had to get up and the stakes were
Speaker 1: so high. You just had to be great. You had
Speaker 1: to aim at greatness. Estelle Park, If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: don't keep it to yourself, tell a friend and follow
Speaker 1: Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. When we come back, Astell Parsons
Speaker 1: shares how living out of the trunk of her car
Speaker 1: with her children led to her winning an oscar. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. Actors Studio
Speaker 1: co Associate artistic Director. Astell Parsons has a deep relationship
Speaker 1: with the theater, including numerous roles on and off Broadway.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know if earning an oscar so early.
Speaker 1: For her second film, Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven sparked a desire for more work in cinema.
Speaker 1: I have no interest. That's why I didn't do any
Speaker 1: before that, because they had no interest. I had lots
Speaker 1: of opportunity to do films and TV, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I wanted to work in the theater, but
Speaker 1: then I wanted to work for Arthur. So I didn't
Speaker 1: care where Arthur was or what he was doing. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to do that. Because he said. We
Speaker 1: were working at the Berkshire Drama Festival and he said,
Speaker 1: I've got a movie i'd like you to read, and
Speaker 1: I said, I don't do movies. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to read it. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll read it. But I'm telling you I'm going to
Speaker 1: San Francisco. I've left New York. I've got my kids
Speaker 1: with me. I'm joining a company out there that John
Speaker 1: Hancock has started. So I'm making a whole new life
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. So I'm not going to do your
Speaker 1: movie because I'm going to be in a rep company.
Speaker 1: So all they've ever wanted to do in my life
Speaker 1: is being a rep company. So that's where I'm going.
Speaker 1: She said, Well, read it. So I started reading, Oh,
Speaker 1: for God's sake, it's a madel In Sherwood part. Why
Speaker 1: am I bothering to read this thing? And then as
Speaker 1: it went on, I thought, Jesus, this is a really
Speaker 1: interesting thing. But I was on my way to San
Speaker 1: Francisco and my kids and the dog and the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Then I get a call from John Hancock that the
Speaker 1: money fell apart and we weren't going to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I had already sublet my apartment in New York. I
Speaker 1: was living out of a trunk with my two kids.
Speaker 1: So I called Arthur and said, I can do your movie.
Speaker 1: So I went to the library because I had months
Speaker 1: to sit around and do nothing, waiting for this movie
Speaker 1: and rearranging my life because my rep company dream fell apart,
Speaker 1: and I knew more about Bonnie and Clyde and everything
Speaker 1: they did in their lives and any other person on earth.
Speaker 1: By the time I got to that to make that movie,
Speaker 1: I just knew everything. Who was The first project you
Speaker 1: directed was a stage play. The first play I really
Speaker 1: directed Huzanne and Cleopatra. And the reason I directed it
Speaker 1: was that there was this thing called the Women's Into
Speaker 1: Art theater, and she said, I want you to do something.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, And I had prepared Cleopatra and Media
Speaker 1: and Lady Macbeth. I had prepared those at the studios.
Speaker 1: So I was prepared to play those parts. But I
Speaker 1: didn't know a director who would you know, like work
Speaker 1: for ten cents where the theater was located. So she
Speaker 1: kept saying, well, you do whatever you want to do here,
Speaker 1: you do it. And then you know who says that
Speaker 1: to an actor? Do what you want to do. Somebody thought,
Speaker 1: oh gosh. I said, well, I'm going to direct it
Speaker 1: myself because I can't get anybody directed. And the Shakespeare
Speaker 1: Quarterly called it the best Shakespeare since Oh Rapturous. If
Speaker 1: you would read the Shakespeare Quarterly what Arthur Holmberg said
Speaker 1: about me in that production and how it looked at
Speaker 1: it was going to be so terrible and it was
Speaker 1: really so wonderful, And where did I get the courage
Speaker 1: to do that kind of work? And always things, you know.
Speaker 1: But then we adopted a boy and I went off
Speaker 1: to I was over in Ireland and I got a
Speaker 1: call in a sauna somewhere on the Dingle Peninsula, and
Speaker 1: I got a call from Joe pavsing, I'd like you
Speaker 1: to start a Shakespeare company for me, a multicultural Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: just the kind of work you didn't Annie and Kleopatra.
Speaker 1: So I said, okay, And when we got back, I
Speaker 1: had a Shakespeare company for him for two years and
Speaker 1: eighty six you direct as you like it and Scottish
Speaker 1: Play and Romeo and Juliet. I knew the director of
Speaker 1: all three. Yeah. That was a theater company. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was my Shakespeare New York Shakespeare Festival Players. We played
Speaker 1: for the entire school system. I did Scottish Play and
Speaker 1: it was this really, really incredible learning experience. There were
Speaker 1: two times in my life, one in the theater and
Speaker 1: one in the movies. I said I'm going to put
Speaker 1: myself in the hands of the director. And we did
Speaker 1: Scottish Play, and I just said to myself, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do whatever George asks me to do. I'm going to
Speaker 1: find a way to make that work, even if I
Speaker 1: don't agree with him. I'm going to stuff down my
Speaker 1: feelings and try to find a way to address what
Speaker 1: he's saying. I did that in a film as well,
Speaker 1: and I was so fucking miserable both times because when
Speaker 1: we did Scottish, but I love George. George was very
Speaker 1: sick at the time, he was about to get a
Speaker 1: kidney trans George c Wolf. Oh yeah, George was running
Speaker 1: in the public then, and then he directed the play.
Speaker 1: I did the play with Angela Bassett and Leef Schreiber.
Speaker 1: Remember there was one scene where I knew what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. I knew what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have that much experience with Shakespeare. I
Speaker 1: really didn't. But I knew what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't let me. He really really. We just
Speaker 1: clashed and clashed and clashed. But I learned you got
Speaker 1: to make me understand. You gotta make me understand. I'm
Speaker 1: begging you make me you want me to do what
Speaker 1: and why? You know? Now, when you won an Academy Award,
Speaker 1: did that change your filming about making movies? Did you
Speaker 1: sit there and go, hey, this is nice. Your second
Speaker 1: film only your second film? Well, the first film was
Speaker 1: half an afternoon shoot, so I didn't really count that
Speaker 1: as a film. Lady Buck, Lady Buck, Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: your first full film and you wanted Body and Clyde
Speaker 1: and there was my first film because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do film, so there was also my last film.
Speaker 1: But after that, I did do a few more. I
Speaker 1: don't know how many, but a few only because I
Speaker 1: did one because it was the first black man to
Speaker 1: do a movie in Hollywood. As don't do it, don't
Speaker 1: do it. Tis that I'm doing it. He wanted me
Speaker 1: to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to help him out, Melvin Van Peebles. I did that,
Speaker 1: and then I did two or three others because I
Speaker 1: wanted to put my kids through college. The winning didn't
Speaker 1: motivate you. I kept my mouth shut because I know
Speaker 1: how important it is to people wanted movie careers, but
Speaker 1: I just didn't want one. Sorry, sorry, I just didn't
Speaker 1: want it. I had no use for in that, for
Speaker 1: my life, for me in that life. And not only that,
Speaker 1: I hated it because you know, it'd go out of
Speaker 1: the house and there'd be people standing on the sidewalk
Speaker 1: out of my house to waiting for me. I can't
Speaker 1: have a life like this. Yeah, I mean other people
Speaker 1: can have a life like this. They want a life
Speaker 1: like this, fine, let them have it. I can't have
Speaker 1: a life like this. I got to be able to
Speaker 1: go through life. You know, as a person, I've got
Speaker 1: to be able to have my life. I can't do
Speaker 1: this success thing. What's the less thing you saw in
Speaker 1: the theater that you enjoyed, that you liked well? Of course,
Speaker 1: Adrian's play is on and I love Adrian. I commissioned
Speaker 1: a play from her. When I run the studio. What's
Speaker 1: the play? Ohio State Murders that's running now? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: keeps you connected to the studio? Oh, I'm doing wonderful
Speaker 1: stuff at the studio because I can do anything I
Speaker 1: want there. I've always been able to do. It's an
Speaker 1: empty pace. Come on, what do you want to do? Well?
Speaker 1: I have things I want to do, and I get
Speaker 1: up and do them. I have directed so many things there.
Speaker 1: I have a devised piece that I'm sending all over.
Speaker 1: I have two one man shows, one with an Hispanic
Speaker 1: actor and one with a black actor. For years they
Speaker 1: are going around the country and even around the world
Speaker 1: with their one man shows about growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: in the ghetto and so on, or coming from Dominican
Speaker 1: Republican stuff. I have those shows out. I have three
Speaker 1: or four other shows out. I'm selling here and not selling,
Speaker 1: but you know, not a lot of money changes hands,
Speaker 1: but I don't really have an interest in money. So
Speaker 1: can I come carry a spear for you in one
Speaker 1: of your productions? Can I have some lunch out? Don't
Speaker 1: ask that because I'm liable to call you right out
Speaker 1: this afternoon. You should my thanks to Estelle Parsons and
Speaker 1: Ellen Burston. This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in
Speaker 1: New York, York City. We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice,
Speaker 1: and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social
Speaker 1: media manager is Danielle Gingwich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.