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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you can have

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Speaker 1: a moment of ecstasy. For me, writing plays has always

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Speaker 1: been very tricky. I don't know a lot. I don't

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Speaker 1: have a lot to say. I mean, he said, there's

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Speaker 1: only two directions days, a little more or a little less.

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Speaker 1: That was it. Getting started in theater is difficult, Maintaining

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Speaker 1: a career even harder. Becoming a true success is nearly impossible.

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Speaker 1: Each of my guests today have accomplished that feat. All

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Speaker 1: three have contributed work that has profoundly affected audiences and

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Speaker 1: changed the landscape of American theater. I'll speak to a

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Speaker 1: playwright and a veteran actor of stage and screen, but

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Speaker 1: first a powerful performer who's most at home on the

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Speaker 1: Broadway stage age, often in musicals. Last year she appeared

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Speaker 1: on Broadway and David mammts The Anarchist. But she's capable

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Speaker 1: of anything you starting hair, starting now. Every Patty Lapone

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Speaker 1: was in the very first class of the Drama Division

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Speaker 1: at Juilliard. She has twenty six Broadway credits to date

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Speaker 1: and has won two Tony Awards, won for Evita and

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Speaker 1: one for Gypsy. She's worked in film and on television,

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Speaker 1: most notably as the mom on the ABC drama Life

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Speaker 1: Goes On. So, how is your daily just fine? Thank

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Speaker 1: you for asking for fun and excitement than I knew

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Speaker 1: what to do it in yours, I didn't do the

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Speaker 1: aning you what. Lpone's career has not been without its heartbreaks.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventies X, she was hired to replace the

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Speaker 1: lead in the musical The Baker's Wife. Who Does he

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Speaker 1: Think he Is? Who could be as handsome? Who could

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Speaker 1: be as smart as he thinks he is? She was

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Speaker 1: on the road for a grueling six months. They're rehearsed

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Speaker 1: every day and performed every night. The reviews were so

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Speaker 1: terrible ushers sent Candy backstage to cheer the actors up.

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Speaker 1: I've always said, it's a fine line between a hit

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Speaker 1: and a flop. And if you don't know what it is,

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Speaker 1: you don't know why it is a hit, and you

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Speaker 1: don't know why it is an you know, if it's

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Speaker 1: really terrible, you know right off the bat, and you're

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Speaker 1: not going to take the job. But if it has

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Speaker 1: the potential to be a hit and ends up being

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Speaker 1: a flop, you can't figure it out, so you do

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Speaker 1: this show and when you come out of that, like,

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Speaker 1: what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said

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Speaker 1: to yourself? Never again am I going to know? I

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Speaker 1: went into a depression for nine months. I was on

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Speaker 1: valium to sleep for the six months, and I went

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Speaker 1: into a valium depression for nine months, gained already pounds,

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Speaker 1: woke up went what the hell just happened? And I

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Speaker 1: couldn't say. You think like you? You care a lot.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing casual about you. There's nothing amateurish about you.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're

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Speaker 1: very hard working along with being very talented, and you

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Speaker 1: feel these wounds. Why do you think that is why? Well,

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Speaker 1: our business is subjective. It's all subjective, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. You talk to anybody from the baker's wife

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Speaker 1: and they can remember it as if it was yesterday,

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Speaker 1: and there's blood spilled and we became blood a blood family.

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Speaker 1: I just ad to me Jerome, who's in Phantom now

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Speaker 1: and we see each other and that what we recall

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Speaker 1: is that bonding in that horrible experience, and we can

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Speaker 1: talk about it as if it was yesterday. I think

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Speaker 1: it's because you know it happened to us. Of course

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Speaker 1: it happened to the creators, but they're not on stage.

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Speaker 1: We're on stage succeeding or failing in front of an audience.

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Speaker 1: We're on stage being judged by the audience. Were the messengers?

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Speaker 1: Were the ones who take the hit? We take the

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Speaker 1: hit all the time? Were the one This was really abusive?

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Speaker 1: It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and

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Speaker 1: my face was filled with what looked like white heads.

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Speaker 1: The entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know what it was. I went to sleep, woke up

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Speaker 1: and the entire face. I maybe it was from the valley.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea what I was. Things were happening

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Speaker 1: to us, physically happening to us. And when does the

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Speaker 1: sun come out for you? When does the sun come

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Speaker 1: out for Patti Lapone? Career wise? I think when I

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Speaker 1: go back to work with David Mammitt, I go back

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Speaker 1: and work with David, I go into and go back

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Speaker 1: David and I did it play in Chicago, and that

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Speaker 1: was that. The after Baker's wife was that, I see,

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight.

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Speaker 1: What plan does you do with him? First, the very

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Speaker 1: first play I did with him was a thing called

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Speaker 1: All Men or Hors Kevin Klein, Sam Chichific, and I

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Speaker 1: did it at Yale Rep for one night. I said, Hey, Dave,

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Speaker 1: we opened it closed in new Haven. And new Haven

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Speaker 1: used to be one of the circuit. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: when you took a show out of town, your first

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Speaker 1: stop was new Haven and it was a big DECI

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Speaker 1: adding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed in

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Speaker 1: a way. Well, and from there he gave me a

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Speaker 1: play called The Woods. And what happens when you do

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Speaker 1: the Woods, Well, I go back to what I was

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Speaker 1: trained for, and I go back to an honest environment

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Speaker 1: pretty much, and you're back to the circle of trust,

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Speaker 1: having feels right. This is more like it. And it's

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Speaker 1: a risk. It's a big risk. And when every time

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Speaker 1: I work with David, I learned so much as a

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Speaker 1: human being. And I think nineteen late nineteen seventy seventy seven,

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Speaker 1: you had a relationship with him, Yes, well we met

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Speaker 1: him thirty five years Yes, yes, and I will. I

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Speaker 1: will drop everything to do a play by David everything.

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Speaker 1: I don't care how risky it is. I learned so

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Speaker 1: much from David, and I instinctually have the mam At speak.

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Speaker 1: That's something that I know how to do. His his rhythms, um,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's because it's someone said I cut

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Speaker 1: my teeth on David is a vita. The next big

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Speaker 1: thing for you, I'm trying to is the big thing

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Speaker 1: that was nine? But how does that happen? I auditioned Um.

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Speaker 1: Joanna Merlin is how Princess casting director, and of course

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Speaker 1: directed How directed, and so I was brought in for

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Speaker 1: a preliminary audition and then I was told to make

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Speaker 1: myself free, make sure that I made myself free for

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Speaker 1: the final callback. And as I understand it, How wanted

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Speaker 1: to cast actors in the role the roles as opposed

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Speaker 1: to just musical theater people. So I think that's one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons why I got in there, because he knew,

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Speaker 1: they knew I was an actor. In between, there were

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Speaker 1: several plays. There was stage directions by Israel Horovitz, John Glover,

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Speaker 1: Ellen Green and I down at the public while Merril

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Speaker 1: is doing, um, you're doing everything you can to scratch

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Speaker 1: that each of yours and not become a star. Now

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Speaker 1: I get it. No, No, it was it was the

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Speaker 1: it was the available work. We're about to talk about

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Speaker 1: the moment when perhaps one of the greatest musical stars

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Speaker 1: of the last fifty years is born on Broadway. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about how that the moment this happens, how

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Speaker 1: Prince wants people who can act and sing, and you

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Speaker 1: go to the make yourself available to the final callback

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Speaker 1: and what happened. How do you feel when you're in

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Speaker 1: that room. Well, I was very mad because I was

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Speaker 1: actually shooting one and there was a little issue about yes,

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Speaker 1: about letting me go, and the producer said, if you're

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Speaker 1: not back tomorrow or the next time, you'll never work

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood with those words

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Speaker 1: ringing in my ear. And I woke up in New

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Speaker 1: York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard where they're like

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Speaker 1: two ft of snow on the ground. I couldn't get

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Speaker 1: back to l A. No um, Christopher Reef got me

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Speaker 1: on the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting.

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Speaker 1: When they said howd you get here, I said, Superman.

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Speaker 1: I did It's exactly. So I went to the final callback,

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Speaker 1: but I was really mad because I didn't want to

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Speaker 1: do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought,

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Speaker 1: you didn't like it? What specifically? You're a mark women,

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Speaker 1: what specifically didn't you like? Well, I didn't like I

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Speaker 1: heard the White album the Julie Covington David Essex called

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Speaker 1: Wilkinson very rocky, weird music, but right it rocked out

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Speaker 1: a lot, and I thought, what's the matter a rock

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Speaker 1: I want to be a rocker. It was really really high.

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Speaker 1: Didn't grab me. I mean, I grew up on Rogers

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Speaker 1: and Hammerstein. I grew up on Julie Stein, Mereth Wilson,

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Speaker 1: Stephen Sondheim. This was not a musical to me. This

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Speaker 1: was noise from Britain, you know what I mean? It wasn't.

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Speaker 1: It just didn't it did? So how did you go

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Speaker 1: out there and do it? I went out and and

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Speaker 1: the final audition, I was wet from my knees down.

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Speaker 1: I was wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing it was

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Speaker 1: going to snow. Who you know, I did so stupid.

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Speaker 1: I didn't look at the weather report. I went out

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Speaker 1: there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow high Buenos

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Speaker 1: Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina. And there were

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Speaker 1: tears in my eyes. Apparently and there were there were

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Speaker 1: tears of rage, necessarily not tears of and I left

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Speaker 1: and um, I got I got a call on the set.

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Speaker 1: I made it back and I got a call on

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Speaker 1: the set and in in the makeup trailer, and they said,

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Speaker 1: you've got the part. And I started to cry again

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Speaker 1: because I had promised David that I would reprise The

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Speaker 1: Woods at the Public Theater with Hulu grosspart directing. What

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Speaker 1: I love is that you're going to blow your Hollywood

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Speaker 1: film career to go do a musical you don't even like,

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Speaker 1: and then that when they offer too, you're not sure

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Speaker 1: you're gonna because you gotta go do another little man

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Speaker 1: play well. I had been trained to be an actor,

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Speaker 1: and I thought my responsibility was to act at every

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Speaker 1: possible opportunity, and especially good opportunity, put you know, apply

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Speaker 1: your craft and if it's good material. And I David

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Speaker 1: and I forged a friendship and a bond, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to let him down. David and I became really,

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Speaker 1: really good friends. David lived on twenties. He'd come over

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Speaker 1: all the time for breakfast, we'd walk around, we'd do anty.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling you out by the way because

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Speaker 1: you keep changing the subject. What'd happy with? How? How

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Speaker 1: did the hell get you to do that material? And

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Speaker 1: and it became what it became? Well, No, I knew

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Speaker 1: I had to do it. I cried because I knew

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Speaker 1: that I would have to. I couldn't do the woods

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Speaker 1: and I had to do with the tip because I

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Speaker 1: knew I wanted to work with how and I knew

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Speaker 1: that it would change the course of my career. You

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Speaker 1: knew going in that was going to be a hit.

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Speaker 1: There was so much hype before. Had they done it

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Speaker 1: in London? Yeah? What is it? Big? Hit in London? Huge?

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Speaker 1: And you're in the American cash It was huge in London,

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Speaker 1: so you knew this was a big opportunity and there

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Speaker 1: was hype. You can't believe. That was my first indication

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Speaker 1: that this was going to be a tough experience because

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Speaker 1: it was I went, how am I going to get

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Speaker 1: around the hype? It was the first musical that I

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Speaker 1: was aware of that had so much pre opening the

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Speaker 1: modern way, not even buzz, and it was frightening and

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Speaker 1: I had no vocal time. So now this thing is

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Speaker 1: all hyped up. You've been through everything you've been through,

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Speaker 1: You've had some good times and some tough times, and

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Speaker 1: you've worked hard, god knows four years in the row

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Speaker 1: with Holisman in that company, and you stepped out for

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Speaker 1: the Broadway opening, the opening of Avita. What was that like?

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Speaker 1: How do that evening? I had the flu perfect? Of

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Speaker 1: course you did. It won't be easy. You'll think it's

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Speaker 1: straight when I dry to explain how I fear that

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Speaker 1: I still need your love after all that I've done.

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Speaker 1: And I threw up in the sink before I sank.

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Speaker 1: Don't cry for me, Argentina. I'm sure it was a

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Speaker 1: combination of I got. I got extremely bad notices opening

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Speaker 1: in l a and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: And Al came to me and said, we're going to

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Speaker 1: laugh about this in twenty years, Patty. They pulled the

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Speaker 1: entire company together, and he said. There was an article

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Speaker 1: coming out in Susie Nicko Parker's column the next day

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Speaker 1: that I was going to be fired and that Actor's

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Speaker 1: Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take my place,

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Speaker 1: And this was in the newspapers. Yeah, she's the one

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Speaker 1: that originated in London. I'm dealing with all of this

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Speaker 1: press of me being fired and me not being able

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Speaker 1: to sing the part and still going on from my

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Speaker 1: well that was that was opening night, and so so

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Speaker 1: you go out and do the opening of What Happens?

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Speaker 1: Bad reviews again, Actually they weren't bad. They dismissed how

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Speaker 1: and this is this was an innovative This was an

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Speaker 1: innovative concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they

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Speaker 1: barely touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when

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Speaker 1: you're ignored. It's one thing if they're passionate and you're

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Speaker 1: back and passionate when you're good, But when you're ignored.

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Speaker 1: And Mandy and I at one point, I think I

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Speaker 1: said you want to go out for a drink? He

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Speaker 1: said yeah. We we were in fifty second I think

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Speaker 1: that's where the the Broadway theaters. And we walked down

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Speaker 1: Eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst into tears. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we worked hard in those parts and then to be

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Speaker 1: ignored is tough. And then, of course nine months later

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Speaker 1: they give us the Tony's. When you win the Tony did,

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Speaker 1: was it any vindication for you at all? Or was

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Speaker 1: it just a yeah, it's such a relief. It was

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Speaker 1: such a relief because really have you rewied everything away?

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Speaker 1: Cause I was still performing and still scared out of

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Speaker 1: my mind. Every night I envied Mandy because Mandy was

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Speaker 1: just all over the place. He didn't have a problem

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Speaker 1: singing it. So he literally he told me he told

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Speaker 1: me something the other day we were talking about it, Betan.

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Speaker 1: He said, well, How told me to go? He wanted

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Speaker 1: me over there, and I said to how how do

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Speaker 1: I get there? He said, I don't know, just get there.

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Speaker 1: And so that's where he does a jette across the stage.

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Speaker 1: And I went, I would see it every night, going

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Speaker 1: what is Mandy doing that? And it was because How

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Speaker 1: told him to get there and get there and he

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Speaker 1: didn't care. How so Mandy put it in and it

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Speaker 1: became part of his performance and and so. And I

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Speaker 1: suppose in that respect How gives the actor freedom. But

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Speaker 1: I didn't have that freedom because I was so tied up,

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Speaker 1: and then not because I didn't think I could sing it.

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Speaker 1: I wanna be when that thing what I did. If

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Speaker 1: I ever thought, if I hadn't known that, we would

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Speaker 1: stay to aget really And you know when you in

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Speaker 1: a rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do

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Speaker 1: it over and over and over again, so you're not

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Speaker 1: hitting that d in. Screw the middle classes. Once you're

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Speaker 1: not hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes, once

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Speaker 1: you're doing it over and over again. I didn't have

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Speaker 1: vocal technique to know that. I didn't have to hit

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Speaker 1: those notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I

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Speaker 1: got it during the run by from a kid the

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Speaker 1: chorus who David Vossberg, I came off stage in. They

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Speaker 1: got him a piano, that put a piano in my

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Speaker 1: dressing room, and he worked with me an hour every

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Speaker 1: single day before the show. He would come to me

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Speaker 1: and um work out of the goodness of his heart.

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Speaker 1: David Vosper David vosperg he's in Ohio, he's a director

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Speaker 1: of opera. But he would um give me a vocal technique.

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Speaker 1: He would warm me up. And the difficult thing was

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Speaker 1: to be to apply what he had just taught me

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Speaker 1: that night. Because I would do one thing right, something

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Speaker 1: else would go disastrously wrong. But at least I was

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Speaker 1: getting a technique to sing that part. He saved my job,

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Speaker 1: and they knew that and they paid him. Now, you say,

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Speaker 1: when you talk about this, you talk about the tension

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Speaker 1: and the anxiety and the fear, and you don't really

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Speaker 1: want to necessarily be doing a videocause you got another

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Speaker 1: David play and this and this and that. When did

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Speaker 1: you start to become fun for you? Oh? Anything goes

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Speaker 1: with a ball because of the material and because of

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Speaker 1: the cast, and and it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts.

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Speaker 1: And Jerry did a great job of direct Yes he is.

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Speaker 1: And but however, these were the way musicals used to

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Speaker 1: be written. You'd have a joke coming and then a

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Speaker 1: gorgeous song. The material was so right and so beautiful.

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Speaker 1: If I was in a bad mood, all I had

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Speaker 1: to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I

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Speaker 1: am tonight, just looking at the audience and seeing tears

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Speaker 1: of joy from laughter. The only thing we are as

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Speaker 1: actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct. We're delivering

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Speaker 1: the playwright's intentions through the concept of the director. And

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Speaker 1: I come on stage. If I feel confident in the role,

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Speaker 1: then I give it away. I give it away anyway.

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Speaker 1: But it's all about them, So I have to go

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Speaker 1: out there and love them, and I do. And I

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Speaker 1: think they see that they can relax with me because

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Speaker 1: they know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know,

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Speaker 1: there are some actors that don't want to be on

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Speaker 1: stage that because you just nailed it, Because because Patty

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Speaker 1: the pone to me as a woman who comes out

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Speaker 1: there when the first thing does she stopped here and

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Speaker 1: she's like, you know, how's everybody doing it? It's like

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Speaker 1: a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know

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Speaker 1: how you all doing tonight without saying how you all

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Speaker 1: doing to it? Like just connect to them and let

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Speaker 1: them feel like there's no place else he'd rather be?

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Speaker 1: Is there than here? Right now? Well, I think our

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Speaker 1: responsibility is to relax them. You've been in an audience.

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Speaker 1: I've been in an audience where we're worried for the

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Speaker 1: performer and then we're not having experience. And if I'm

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Speaker 1: worried for the performer and they and they should be

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Speaker 1: worried for then I'm worried for me because I want

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Speaker 1: to get the f out of there. Yeah. Hello. Our

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Speaker 1: responsibility is a minute we hit the deck, is to

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Speaker 1: relax the audience, and that is what is called command.

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Speaker 1: But the tiger's gone. The voice as soft as I

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Speaker 1: think that you can see when people care and when

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Speaker 1: you an Audiences can see when they don't care because

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Speaker 1: you see, because you see like someone in the years

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Speaker 1: I've bumped into you, run into you, known you, known

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Speaker 1: you better, you seem to care of the exact same

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Speaker 1: amount as you used to. I love what I do,

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Speaker 1: and I love the audience, and I love the fact

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Speaker 1: that I get to do it, and I love I

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Speaker 1: love our craft very very much, and it's it's a

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Speaker 1: noble craft. We have a responsibility to it and to

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Speaker 1: the audience and to the play right into the message

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Speaker 1: I won't ever care less or Moody was gone. When

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Speaker 1: you can see Patty Lapone next in the third season

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Speaker 1: of American Horror Story Coven on f X. In a minute,

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Speaker 1: I'll talk with Tony nominated playwright John Robin Bates, who

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Speaker 1: said about Patty, there's an instrument in her. She's the

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Speaker 1: kind of actor that makes me feel compelled to write.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and here's the thing. Take a listen

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Speaker 1: to our archive more in depth than honest conversations with artists,

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Speaker 1: policymakers and performers. I never was comfortable in front of

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Speaker 1: a camera. Really, I never felt I was photogenic. I

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Speaker 1: was never happy with how I looked. I became the

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Speaker 1: issue because it's about a microphone, not about a camera.

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Speaker 1: Here about Billy Joel's insecurities and David Letterman's ambitions. I

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Speaker 1: really thought I could write half hours situation comedies. And

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Speaker 1: here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and

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Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing. Whatever it is, whatever

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Speaker 1: you do, you're our daughter, and I will love. John

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Speaker 1: Robin Bates's Broadway play Other Desert Cities was nominated for

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Speaker 1: a Tony this year. The play is about family dysfunction

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Speaker 1: and the choices we make. There are consequences to our actions.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean? How could I trust? How could

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Speaker 1: I ever be in your presence? My dear Joe Mantello

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Speaker 1: directed Other Desert Cities. He and Bates were a couple

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties. In the theater world, it's hard

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Speaker 1: to find someone who wouldn't want to work with Robbie.

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Speaker 1: He's complicated and kind. During our conversation, John Robin Bates

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Speaker 1: confessed there's been a dark side to his success on Broadway.

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Speaker 1: I'm ruined. I'm ruined from off Broadway. Now, I I

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Speaker 1: sort of say things like, well, that plays an off

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Speaker 1: Broadway play. It's not a Broadway play making fun of myself.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're in this great, great grand old house.

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Speaker 1: You know that's built for a kind of big experience,

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Speaker 1: and the drama is somehow expanded. Bates is also wary

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Speaker 1: of going back to Hollywood. In two thousand six, he

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Speaker 1: left ABC's Brothers and Sisters, a show he created and

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Speaker 1: executive produced, after the first season. Working in l A

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Speaker 1: was not for him. The guy who really ran the

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Speaker 1: entertainment division kept saying, I I don't understand why anybody

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Speaker 1: watches this show. How she would call me and scream

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Speaker 1: at me. I actually said to me, I don't know

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Speaker 1: who you think you're talking to. And I would, you know,

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Speaker 1: politely hang up and say I'm I'm leaving the conversation now.

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Speaker 1: It took a while for Robbie Bates to recover, but

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Speaker 1: one day, now back on the East Coast, he got

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Speaker 1: the idea for other desert cities. I had forgotten how

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Speaker 1: to write that. This is the thing I think about

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Speaker 1: with other desert cities is it's the play where I learned.

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Speaker 1: I taught myself how to write again. I was sitting

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Speaker 1: at a beach with my notebook and I'm thinking about

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Speaker 1: how to get back into it and what matters to me,

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Speaker 1: and I just sort of self destructed. At Brothers and Sisters.

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Speaker 1: I found myself very much like the character in my play,

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Speaker 1: a writer who is a dangerous creature. And I had

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Speaker 1: a note to myself play about daughter of a famous

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Speaker 1: family who writes a book about her growing up in

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Speaker 1: this family, something like that, the danger of telling the

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Speaker 1: truth that turns out to be a lie. And at

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Speaker 1: that moment, this lady of a certain age walked by me,

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Speaker 1: and she looked to me like um Pat Buckley, the

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Speaker 1: old Diane of New York conservative politics, the wife of

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Speaker 1: Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley, and I had lunch with her

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Speaker 1: once and found her to be charming and engaged. And

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Speaker 1: this woman walked by me on this beach with her

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Speaker 1: hat and in a one piece bathing suit. I immediately

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Speaker 1: felt the mother in that play. And I suddenly remembered

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Speaker 1: old California the way it was when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: and we were just in the throes of an election

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Speaker 1: at the time, too were about to be and the

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Speaker 1: Republicans of certainly of that period and even more so today,

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Speaker 1: we're very confusing to me because they didn't seem recognizable

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Speaker 1: to me as having a coherent, cohesive coach and argument

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Speaker 1: for their principal positions, which had to be principled in

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Speaker 1: some way. The play just came together in one fell swoop,

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Speaker 1: old California Conservatives, the old Hollywood system, Reagan nights. I

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Speaker 1: even remembered I'd gone to high school with I think,

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Speaker 1: the daughter of John Gavin, and I thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: because I love Touch of Evil, and that I think

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Speaker 1: isn't John Gavin. No, he's not in Touch of Evil.

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Speaker 1: He's in Psycho Case in all these movies. And I

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Speaker 1: thought about he was the ambassador to Mexica. That's right,

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Speaker 1: as is the Stacy Keach character in my play. And

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Speaker 1: I thought about your characters based on John gaff to

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Speaker 1: some extent, they're all these archetypes. At the back of

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Speaker 1: all this, of course, there's also Joe Mentello, who you know,

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Speaker 1: we're no longer a couple, but he's my family, my

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Speaker 1: best friends, and you see, being a couple of one

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Speaker 1: year two thousand and two. So it was a while,

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Speaker 1: and he kept saying to me, with all possible respect,

427
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: nobody's waiting for the next Robbie Bates play, and you know,

428
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: these are chilling words because I have so much to

429
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: say and it's not coming out. My equivalent of that

430
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: is my agent said to me. He goes, it's not

431
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 1: that these people don't want to hire you because they

432
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: don't like you. He says, they don't want to hire

433
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: you because they don't think of you at all. Jesus, Well,

434
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: it's terrible, because the worst thing that can happen to

435
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: an artist, I'm invisible. I no longer matter for me.

436
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 1: Writing plays has always been very tricky. I don't know

437
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't have a lot to say. I

438
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 1: reached things very slowly, and I I sometimes it seems

439
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: facile and easy. And to me some of the times

440
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: that my thoughts and my sort of expressed opinions in

441
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: place seem hollow or naive, even because I know they're

442
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,440
Speaker 1: deeper truths always to be found and that I'm But

443
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: don't you think that seeking them and being aware of

444
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,719
Speaker 1: that makes you more likely to find it than anybody?

445
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: You didn't go to college. Did you know why you

446
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 1: wanted educating yourself? I wish I had gone to college.

447
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: It was a depressed and unsettled kid. And why I

448
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 1: don't I think I wasn't at peace with probably any

449
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: element of who I was, whether it was a sort

450
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: of nascent intellectual or sort of pre expressive homosexual kid,

451
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: or variously. L A from you were born where in

452
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: l A and you live there to your old seven

453
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: then Brazil for three years in Rio, and then South

454
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:09,479
Speaker 1: Africa for six and a half years until I was eighteen,

455
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: and your father was in the condensed milk business. My

456
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: father worked for a giant multinational carnation milk. Yeah, it

457
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: was a condensed milk business. So l A, Brazil, South Africa,

458
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: and then back to LA. When you finally get back

459
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: to LA. How old are you so? High school's over?

460
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: I just finished high school. I'd sort of lost time

461
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: through all the travels high school in South Africa, Like

462
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: I couldn't get used to things like cricket and corporal punishment,

463
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: you know, you get cane for like not doing well

464
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: on a spelling test, literally caned. And I think I

465
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: was so busy trying to be sly and charming that

466
00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: I forgot how to be me. That I think led

467
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 1: me to rebel against learning itself. So I was sort

468
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: of interested in the few things I was interested in. Literature, history,

469
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,639
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't apply myself to anything except escape, and

470
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: part of escape meant not going to college. I was

471
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: really lonely, and I I kind of became a depressed kid,

472
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: and that manifests itself. If you can say I think

473
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: I did you know you were gay? Then yes, I

474
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: definitely knew that. I knew that add to your depression

475
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: didn't make you feel more isolated. It wasn't proactive the

476
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: gay humanity there. Yeah. Well, um, I think my parents,

477
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: who loved me very much, were distracted by their own terrors.

478
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: There are certain families that are born in terror and

479
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 1: live in terror. Um, conceived in terror? I need you

480
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:57,440
Speaker 1: to write a player for me. I want to be

481
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: called conceived in terror? Happen? Well, No, I mean death

482
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: of a salesman is is a family that lives in terror.

483
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: You were how old when you arrived in Durban? Ten?

484
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: So you were the eight years? Yeah, I was there

485
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: almost eight years critical time, ten years or so all

486
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: of your real back half of your childhood, your teenage

487
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 1: years especially you are in Durban. Yes, it was seventeen

488
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: or something when we left, but you had finished the

489
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: high school program. No, no, I finished it in l

490
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: a you did. What was that? Like? I, you know,

491
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: was the only kid I knew who rode their bike

492
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: to school because everybody else's parents had given them a

493
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,239
Speaker 1: fiat literally, yeah or something. Who were your friends? Then?

494
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 1: Who did you become friends with? Anyone? Oh? Yeah? In fact,

495
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: Jenny Livingston went on to make Paris Is Burning, great documentary,

496
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: Tina Landau great theater director. Gina Gershawn my oldest friend

497
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: from high school. We were in place together in the

498
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: drama department. So I became friends with and I say

499
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: this with real respect and love with fellow freaks. How

500
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: are you feeling about yourself and about life that last

501
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: year in Beverly Hills? I think I was scared to

502
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: death still. I mean, it was just a new form

503
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: of foreignness, but it had the pattern of something very

504
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: familiar to me. But you know, I remember being taken

505
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 1: to a party really early on, and I had developed

506
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: a kind of weird eye beforehand for art. I thought

507
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: maybe I was going to be a painter or an

508
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 1: artis historian. And I walked into this house and there

509
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:35,640
Speaker 1: is a giant David Hackney and next to it is

510
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: a giant mother. Well, I'm standing in front of this

511
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: giant painting that's famous that I've looked at in books

512
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: Thames and Hutson art books. While I was in Durban

513
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: at the Art Library of the University. I know, the

514
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: world was just very real and different, and it was

515
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: easier to like have sex, and it was easier to

516
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: to function. Were you writing? I guess I was sort

517
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: of writing, Yeah, what were you writing? I was writing

518
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: really bad short stories about alienated Paul Bull's kids adrift

519
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: in foreign countries, which is basically tell you the truth.

520
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: Still what I'm doing. It just looks slightly the wallpapers prettier. Now,

521
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: where were you living at that age? I was living

522
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: um on friends sofas, like the parents of children I

523
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: went to high school with. I was I was just

524
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: a freak, you know, and I was at odds with

525
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: my family at the time, you know, and I had

526
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: escaped and it was just a nightmare. How do we

527
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: get from there to fair Country? Gordon Davidson, you know

528
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: in Pinocchio where he falls in with actors. I'm walking around.

529
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: I ran into this girl I knew from Ice Cool.

530
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: She said, what are you doing? And I'm sort of

531
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: looking for a job. I think I'm starving to death.

532
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,280
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, she said to me, And I should

533
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: have known. She said, well, my father just fired me.

534
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: He needs he needs a new assistant. And I was like, well,

535
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: what does he do and she said, oh, he's a

536
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: film producer. Who is the film producer. This is great guy.

537
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: And he my first day at the office, he says

538
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: to me, whatever you do, answer the phones, but never

539
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. And I was like, I don't

540
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 1: even know what that means. And he said, you'll do fine.

541
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: And he had a gang of cronies, all of whom

542
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: had contempt for the studio system, had done well, fallen

543
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:55,479
Speaker 1: out of favor, usually had destroyed themselves through my favorite thing,

544
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: their own ambivalence. I found myself at home for the

545
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: first time in my life when the nest of scorpions,

546
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: Yes I did, I found myself. I said this, I know, yeah,

547
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: because nobody is trying to pass. It's a den of thieves, lawyer.

548
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: It was still the days of speaker phone, and they

549
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: would have fights. They had a tower on Sunset Boulevard.

550
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: They had a nest of rooms in a tower and

551
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: they would be fighting with each other and then they

552
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: would suddenly be a pause. Someone would say jeez, if

553
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: you could see what I see right now, that girl

554
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: walking down sunset. She is so beautiful. The fight was over. Yeah,

555
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: nothing meant anything of sex. That's one of the masters

556
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: for a glass of waters. My first few weeks there

557
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: two what do I know. I would go to the sink,

558
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: bring a glass of waters, spit it out like practically

559
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 1: on me and say this isn't water. And I would say, yes,

560
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: it's water. What are you talking about? That's water. It's

561
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: I want affectional water. And the whole time became about

562
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: professional water. How long did that last? Three or four? Like, uh,

563
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: four some years? No? No, but it got you when

564
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: the scorpions that's looking down of the women's asses for

565
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: four years, and I would copy everything down. And so

566
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: at the same time I started hanging around with these actors,

567
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: there was a sort of an equally desperate contingent of

568
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: avant gardists, odd playwrights living on the fringes of everything.

569
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: And so I lived between these two worlds, one of

570
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: which was sort of drunk and druggy, and the other

571
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: was insane megalet noma. I can't say the word megalomaniacal.

572
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan. I'm here for maniacal. You just think

573
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: of the words and I'll say that, thank you. I

574
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: think we're gonna be in each other. I know, it's

575
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: like Bluetooth up to technology Bluetooth. I had to come

576
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: up with a play for one of these sort of

577
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: workshop things that we would put together, and one of

578
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: these playwrights said to me, so, what's your play, and

579
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: me bullshitting, I said, yeah, it's called Miss Lansky Zelinski.

580
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: On the spot, I just came up with the next

581
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: on those guys. Yeah, I said, yeah, it's called Ky,

582
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: just based on the guys in the town. So it's

583
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: just them talking. And I put all my notes together

584
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: and we did it, and the first one you run. Yeah.

585
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: Almost thirty years later, Bates continues to draw inspiration from

586
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 1: all types of sources. With other desert cities, Bates wrote

587
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: the part of the family's patriarch with one of his

588
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: favorite performers in mind, Stacy Keach. I worshiped Stacy. I mean,

589
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: I work. He is one of the great wild Mustangs

590
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: of all theater history. He's great and I love him. So,

591
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,320
Speaker 1: you know, he and Joe didn't know each other, and

592
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 1: so they got on the phone before rehearsal, and Stacy

593
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: says to Chow, you know, I've worked with Robbie before.

594
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,800
Speaker 1: We worked together before, and I know him well. And

595
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: do you do you know him? Have you worked with him?

596
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: And how how well do you know him? Jose? I

597
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: kind of know him and we lived together for twelve years.

598
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: But that's Stacy. He's like, oh damn. The great thing

599
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: about Stacy is he brings centuries of actors honor onto

600
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: that stage with him. The honor of honoring fellow actors,

601
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: the honor of listening, the privilege of being an actor,

602
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: the privilege of being in the theater, not missing a

603
00:35:55,280 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: single show in his seventies, the rich worlds of it,

604
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 1: The privilege of working in the theater is the thing

605
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: that has been of everything that's happened to me. Just

606
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: the great honor of being in the American theater in

607
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: some capacity is what I'm left with that it's a

608
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 1: privilege to be in it. I'm lucky to have found

609
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: my way back to it. This is Alec Baldwin coming up.

610
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: I speak with the man who inspired a John Robin Bates.

611
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: Stacy Keach, an artist who has influenced a generation of actors.

612
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: The madness liberated me in a way and liberated Yeah,

613
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

614
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

615
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: Mark me. I will my hour has almost come when

616
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 1: I just sulferis and tormenting flames, must render up myself.

617
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: Stacy Keach has played such roles as Richard, the third

618
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: King Lear Hamlet, as well as Hamlet's ghost Falstaff and

619
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: Willie Lohman. He's also played the President of Deaf Beer

620
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,760
Speaker 1: in The Simpsons and sergeants Stadanko and Cheech and Chong's

621
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: Up in Smoke The Only Way to Catch a Doper's

622
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: when you yourself become a smoker. Keach is undoubtedly the

623
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 1: only actor in Up in Smoke who has also worked

624
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: with director John Houston. Keach starred in Houston's film Fat City,

625
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: But perhaps Keach is best known as the irresistible Fedora

626
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: wearing detective Mike Hammer. Are you for higher? My money

627
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: is too dirty? A lesser performer might have found himself

628
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:48,839
Speaker 1: with limited offers after what was Keach's longest running job.

629
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 1: Not so for the seventy one year old actor. His

630
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,360
Speaker 1: key to career longevity is simple. He says, quote, you

631
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: need television and movies to make a living, but you'll

632
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: be taken more seriously if you are stage worthy. Stage

633
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: worthy in Chicago and Washington, but especially New York and

634
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: last year, as playwright John Robin Bates mentioned earlier in

635
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 1: Our Show New York, audiences saw him on Broadway in

636
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: Bates's other desert cities. Well, we all have our ways

637
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: of coping, and mine is to be overprotectively live. Stacy

638
00:38:22,239 --> 00:38:26,280
Speaker 1: keaches dedication to his craft is unwavering, but his technique

639
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: has changed over the years. I think in my early days,

640
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: I started pretty much as you know, from the outside

641
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:35,880
Speaker 1: and tried to get a fix on what the character

642
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:40,279
Speaker 1: looked like and then perhaps what he sounded like after that.

643
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the best way to start. I mean,

644
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: I think it's better to start inside and work out

645
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: if you can't, And in later years I've done that

646
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 1: more and more. But I just finished a picture with

647
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 1: Alexander Payne called Nebraska, where he called me and he said,

648
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 1: you know you, I was playing the bad guy in

649
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: this uh, and he said, your teeth they're too good.

650
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: So the whole character became centralized in terms of you

651
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: know what I was in here, you know, and they

652
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: say they made these snarly teeth for me, and which

653
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: it was great, you know, and it sort of gave

654
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: me a feel and I would look at myself in

655
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 1: the mirror and make you know, facial expressions and that

656
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: sort of gave me the feeling of where this guy

657
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 1: was coming from, you know. But it varies. I mean,

658
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: if you're playing like I was just down in Washington,

659
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do fal Staff again next year, and you know,

660
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: he's just a big, fat, corpulent guy and interested me

661
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: enough even with all the physical manifestations of that character,

662
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 1: that character you you got to go inside. I mean,

663
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: that's you know. And when I was not enough just

664
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: to play the the look, No, not at all, not

665
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: at all. When I first did it was back in

666
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 1: the night five years ago. You did what in fal Staff?

667
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: And what did they put a suit on you? Oh? Huge,

668
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,800
Speaker 1: just big? You're very lean guy I was, you know,

669
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,800
Speaker 1: and I had to wear this big fat suite the

670
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,800
Speaker 1: only Alder designers leather costume for me. And what do

671
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: they do back then in terms of your face when

672
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: you're lean whiskers had a week of course, and a

673
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: bulbous knows what was it about? Way too young? When

674
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: I played him? I was gonna say, what was it

675
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: about you that back then, when you were this athletic,

676
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: lean leading man in the movie business, that you want

677
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: to put a fat suit on it? Why were you

678
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 1: running into Why were you diving into a fat suit? Well,

679
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: because you know you wanted great parts, It's exactly, and

680
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 1: that is one of the probably, I think, of all

681
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's characters. I think it's probably one of the

682
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: you know that in Hamlin are probably the two greatest,

683
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: better than Lead, I think. I mean, it's a it's

684
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 1: a greater part. It's more. It's there's much more going

685
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 1: on with Falstaff, I think. And you're gonna do it again.

686
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: So you did false stuff the first time, win sixty

687
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,479
Speaker 1: eight in the park. Oh yeah, it makes me feel

688
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: very hung years later, years later, you're gonna Staff and

689
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: I won't have to wear panting this. No, no, I'm tea.

690
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: Who are you doing it for? Michael conn at the

691
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: Shakespeare Theater in Washington, d C, d C. Yeah, we're

692
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: gonna do both parts. We're gonna do part one in

693
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: part two, one of the great experiences of my life

694
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 1: was doing those plays together in the park. We started

695
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock at night. We did Part one and

696
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: then Part two, and as the dawn came up in

697
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: the the end of the evening was the early morning.

698
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: It was just when Falstaff was being demposed by Prince

699
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: Ol played by Sam Waterston. Yeah. Yeah, you grew up

700
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,879
Speaker 1: where I grew up in southern California, and your dad

701
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: was in the business. Dad was in the business. What

702
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: do He was an actor, director, producer. He did a show,

703
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: a radio show called Tales of the Texas Rangers with

704
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: Joel McCrae, and that when I was twelve years old.

705
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 1: He used to take me down to NBC studios and

706
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: I would watch these actors do their thing was a

707
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:02,959
Speaker 1: live radio broadcast with all the folly and the sound

708
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: effects and the horses and you know, and that was

709
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: magic for me. And radio was how I sort of

710
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: got it in. Yeah, that was his thing. That was

711
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: his thing. And what did he say to you? What

712
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: was his uh program with you? So to speak in

713
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: terms of your career? Did he want you to do this?

714
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. He said, no, you know, acting is not

715
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: something you should do. You want to be. You wanted

716
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 1: me to be a lawyer, and he want my brother

717
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: to be a doctor. He said, you know it's it's

718
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: to this business is two fraught with wants to do that.

719
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: Did you think about, well, you know what when I

720
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: gradually I started acting in high school junior high school,

721
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: was doing plays, and every time I would get apart

722
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: in a play, my dad would get very excited. He

723
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: would get very animated, and he wanted to show me, like,

724
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 1: for example, I was doing the stage Manager in our

725
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: town in high school and he would come in and

726
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: he was his favorite play, and he showed he said,

727
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: not when you're when you're describing that, He said, you

728
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: describe that big butternut tree. You've got to see that tree.

729
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 1: And when you're when you're working in the in the

730
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: drug store and you're getting ice cream out of the

731
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: out of the ice cream box, you've got to reach

732
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: your hand weight down and then put it. I mean,

733
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: he was so animated and he came a specific, very

734
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,040
Speaker 1: specific and very much alive. So all of his b

735
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: asked about not do this, You're not gonna do this.

736
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: You're gonna be a lawyer. But did he live long

737
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: enough to see you what did he Well, then that

738
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: was the good part. And then you're a genius. Yeah,

739
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:26,840
Speaker 1: well and then and then it was a good thing

740
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 1: because it wasn't until I got to Berkeley and I

741
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: was I started, you know, I was given an edict,

742
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 1: You're not going to be in in any place. First

743
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:40,320
Speaker 1: year as a freshman, I was studying political science and economics.

744
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:41,879
Speaker 1: I mean, that was it. You know, I was gonna

745
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: I was gonna do the same thing. So at the

746
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 1: end of the first year, I got a play finally,

747
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 1: and I passed. I got through the first year, and

748
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: he said, okay, if you want to do a play,

749
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:53,440
Speaker 1: you can do a play. So I did a play

750
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: and and that was it. It was a play called

751
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: to Learn to Love was written by one of the professors,

752
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: and it was about these navy guys and it was

753
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: a big hit on campus. Professor cast me the next

754
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 1: semester as to Flores and the Change lea Jacobean play

755
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: written by Thomas Middleton Middleton and Raleigh, great great piece,

756
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 1: sort of a Richard the Third type of character. And

757
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: I had, you know, success with that, and my my

758
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: parents came and saw me and they said, well, I

759
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: guess you know, you may have some talent, so maybe

760
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: if this is what you want to do, we'll support you.

761
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 1: So they came and you had some talent. At least

762
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 1: they thought that you're you're onto something. Yeah, and I

763
00:44:30,080 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: loved it. I mean, and I couldn't stand economics and

764
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:37,399
Speaker 1: put a little science. Man. I was terrible at USC Berkeley. Yeah.

765
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 1: I went for a degree in drama. I got a

766
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: degree in drama English. Yeah. And then what did you

767
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: do after that? Then I went I went to Yale

768
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: Drama School for a year. What was the program that was? It?

769
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: Was it longer than me year? Or you finished? It was?

770
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 1: You know? It was a three year program. I only

771
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: stayed a year. I didn't like it at all. Well,

772
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: in those days, Constance Welsh was the acting teacher, and

773
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: she was pretty much the very much old school learning

774
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: all these fonetic signs and symbols, and I mean, this

775
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with what I was interested in.

776
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: I had done two summers at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

777
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,160
Speaker 1: between my junior and senior year. In between my senior

778
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 1: year and my first year Yale and play some pretty

779
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: good part Henry the Fifth and ri Cure Show and

780
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: Baron sort of I was getting my feet wet with

781
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: Shakespeare and these big wonderful ships. You're a part of

782
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: your your childhood and me, why are you so? You're

783
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: pretty much steeped in shakespeare early stage gear. Why this

784
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: is just your own passion. Oregon Shakespeare Festival that was

785
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: responsible for that's went there and you were at home.

786
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: That's right, That's where it started. That's where it started.

787
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: And then when I came back East, I was at Yale,

788
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: and I wasn't crazy about Yale because no more fonetic symbols, right,

789
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: no more for you know? And Joe after that year

790
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,479
Speaker 1: where Joe found you, Joe, Joe Papa and well, thanks

791
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: the Oregan Shakespeare Festival. You were ready, Yeah, I think so.

792
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,919
Speaker 1: Henry Hughes Saturday he was. He was a drama critic

793
00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: for the Saturady Review. Wrote a nice review of me

794
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: doing Henry the Fifth. Joe had read that, And when

795
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: I got to Yale, I called the New York Chase

796
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: Professional one day audition. He said, come on now. So

797
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: I went and I met Joe pat And in this

798
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,399
Speaker 1: smoke field office and here in Manhattan. I sat down

799
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: and he said, Okay, what are you gonna do it

800
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: for me. Let's just I'll do a little piece from

801
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: Henry the Fifth, Upon the King and I started reading.

802
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 1: I got three, I got upon the King, let us

803
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: our lives and that's it. Are you remember of equity?

804
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 1: I said, no, you're going to be. You're gonna play

805
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: Marcellus in my production of Hamlet this summer. Julie Harris

806
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: is going to be playing Ophelia. Alfred Ryder is going

807
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: to be playing Hamlet. We'll see you this summer. That

808
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 1: was it. I walked down there. I was floating on it.

809
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that was it, you know. And then summer

810
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: of sixty three, sixty sixty four, and then I went

811
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: to England after that on a Fulbright scholarship to the

812
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: London Academy Music and Dramatic Art. Just study for a year.

813
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 1: Why did you stop? And now you've got I mean,

814
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,240
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is the beginning of a pattern

815
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: where you get the hot hand here and Joe Pap

816
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:09,439
Speaker 1: wants you, and then you say, okay, hold on those

817
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 1: I gotta go over to London for a year. Well

818
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: that's it. And he was not happy about that, Joe,

819
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough he was also I didn't realize this

820
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 1: was just a coincidence. He was on the screening committee

821
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: for the full Bright guys, and when I came in,

822
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,759
Speaker 1: he said, what are you here for it? I said,

823
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: I'm antitioning for you. And he said, don't do upon

824
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 1: the King again. I've seen it, you know, do something else.

825
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 1: And he was tough, and he was tough, and I

826
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 1: did not. I was not given a Fullbright. I was

827
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: chosen as an alternate. I was really depressed that summer.

828
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 1: I got a note from the full Bright commission say,

829
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: the guy who was supposed to go dropped out, so

830
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,680
Speaker 1: you're in. So I made it by the skin of

831
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: your You know why, Lamba were you could have trained

832
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,800
Speaker 1: for the musical theater. No, no, for classical theater. And

833
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: you were there for a year? Was there for a year?

834
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,839
Speaker 1: What did you benefit from that? Well? First of all,

835
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 1: the exposure to the English theater in that year was

836
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: unbelieved and comparable, unbelievable. And I got to see I

837
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 1: saw Olivier do not only Othello, I saw him do

838
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: the Master Builder, saw his production that he directed of

839
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: the of the of the Crucible. It was. It was

840
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: an amazing year. Were you ever tempted to stay there,

841
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: did you feel you belonged there? No Americans doing classical

842
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: theater still has looked on a little bit of skance

843
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 1: by the English. I mean, you know, just like we don't,

844
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want them to touch William was exactly.

845
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: It's the same deal, you know. So you finished there

846
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: and you came right home. I came back. Then I

847
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: came to Lincoln Center and I auditioned for Jules Irving

848
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: and Herbert Blah who were just coming from the Actor's

849
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: workshop in San Francisco. And they said, you're you know,

850
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:49,240
Speaker 1: come on in, you're the you know you're in the company.

851
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: So I was married at the time. Why did you

852
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: do that? I know? That was that was And then

853
00:48:58,239 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: the longest run you've ever done as an actor on

854
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 1: days um about nine months about and that was well

855
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: no other Desert cities ran for about almost a year.

856
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: I think that's that's about it for me. I play

857
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 1: the role you've been the most connected to. Well. I

858
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: did Hamlet three times to try to get it right.

859
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,000
Speaker 1: I never did. I never got why do you say that?

860
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: Three different productions? What was the first one? Long war theater?

861
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: Irvin Brown directed it one year. Let me see if

862
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: I can remember the it was. It had to be seventy.

863
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,879
Speaker 1: I think it was seventy seventy. Oh, yeah, I was, yeah,

864
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: I was actually, well, they say Hamlet's thirty, you know,

865
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:38,880
Speaker 1: so that was about it was about thirty when I

866
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: did it. And so you're up in New Haven. I

867
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:44,879
Speaker 1: was up in New Haven, and you know, the first

868
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 1: time you play that part, I was so intimidated by

869
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: the fact of all the other actors who played it,

870
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: and you know, it's intimidating. I mean, you know, and

871
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: I once I said you were Hamlets, that's right, becomes

872
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,760
Speaker 1: you're Hamlets. And most of the time I was concerned

873
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: about getting the lines and getting you know, just getting

874
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:03,960
Speaker 1: the moves right, just putting it all together and figuring

875
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: and then trying to figure it out. That summer, Joe

876
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: Pappy kind of came and saw it and said, come

877
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:11,240
Speaker 1: into the park and we'll do it a different production.

878
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: And I got it. I got closer to it. I

879
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: got closer to I felt I never had the perfect show,

880
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 1: but I got closer to it. And then that was

881
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 1: right after new Haven, right after and then two years

882
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 1: later Mark Taper for him in Los Angeles, totally different production,

883
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 1: Gordon Davison directing, and I had one night where I

884
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: got close, where I really got close, and then I

885
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 1: don't know what happened something. I think it was in

886
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 1: the very last scene. I think the hardest thing about

887
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,800
Speaker 1: Hamlet is is, you know, is after that amazing duel

888
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:45,279
Speaker 1: in the last act, but when he dies, you know,

889
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: it is not to be called breathing on stage. That's

890
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: the hardest, one of the hardest things to do, I

891
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,399
Speaker 1: think in that particular play. I mean, anyway, talk about

892
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 1: Houston and was it like, oh god, well, the first

893
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I met him, he came

894
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: to visit me on the set of doc. We were

895
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: shooting a western in Spain with Fay down away in

896
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 1: Harristuland and we were in this script Fat City written

897
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: it was a very popular book written by Leonard Gardner,

898
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: but boxing and and he came to see me personally

899
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,319
Speaker 1: on the set. I mean, to have John Houston visit

900
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,239
Speaker 1: me on the set of a movie, I mean, it was,

901
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 1: you know, and he was very gracious and he just

902
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: stays high, I've got a part for you, and I

903
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: think you want to take a look at this. And

904
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 1: he treated me as if I was his son right

905
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,279
Speaker 1: from the word go. I mean he and I just

906
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: he was so warm, welcome to you. Yeah, it's rare

907
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:44,440
Speaker 1: of the business. Oh yeah, but he and he was

908
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: larger than life. He didn't make any apologies for that.

909
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: I mean, and and he loved to gamble, loved to gamble,

910
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 1: and we wondered what that was about. Well, it's very

911
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 1: interesting because we and I love to gamble too, you know,

912
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: and mean, what's your game? Well, with him it was backgammon.

913
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: We would play backgammon between scenes on the hundred bucks

914
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: a game. No, no, no doctor dollar point. Yeah. He

915
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 1: just so he disliked it for the for the for

916
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:14,840
Speaker 1: the fun. Yeah. But he wasn't a gamble trying to

917
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: make money. No, not and not with me, no, you know,

918
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: but but we I would remember we went to we

919
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: were London together and he would, you know, he let's

920
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: go to the Castino. He love you know, he got

921
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: a little gaming. You had a little gaming. Very good.

922
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: I don't know what is it about a gamble. It's

923
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: the dust asky thing, I mean, the challenge of I

924
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: mean they say that people gamble to lose, they don't

925
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 1: really gamble to win. How to compensate for the feeling

926
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: of loss. You know, I think there's something to that.

927
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 1: I mean, that was you know anyway. I love the

928
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,240
Speaker 1: was the lions that went tell me the people gambled

929
00:52:48,280 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: to find that if God favors them or not. They

930
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: want to know, does God favor me today? Well, you

931
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: know I win, and that that that's my sign that

932
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: God favorite me. I like that because I still I

933
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 1: get on I get on my iPhone and I'll know

934
00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: and I there's a game called be Jeweled. It's a

935
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 1: little bit like Angry Birds, right, and I feel like

936
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: if I can get it right, then God looking good. Yeah,

937
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I love it. I mean, you know,

938
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: it was like in the movie with you. So what

939
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 1: was he like as a director? Was he insightful for you?

940
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 1: Did he? Absolutely? He was, Oh yeah, well he's an

941
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: actor first of course, you know, and he know but

942
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: he and he always wanted to give you your space.

943
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: He never I mean, he said, there's only two directions days,

944
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 1: a little more or a little less. That was it.

945
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: He would let us block the scenes. He would he

946
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: would Susan Terrell and I got lover. We would he

947
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: would say, go in there and you you stage the

948
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: scene the way you feel like it should be staged

949
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 1: in a domestic seat, at a kitchen or something like that,

950
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,839
Speaker 1: and we would going there and we would stage the scene.

951
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: We work out the moves a lot of trust to

952
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 1: having his actors tremendous. He come in and look at

953
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: it and then we move things around a little bit,

954
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: make a tweak here, tweak there, and that's the way

955
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: he worked. The thing that really fascinated me about Houston

956
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: was at the very end of the movie I'll Know

957
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 1: your Jet. Bridges and I were sitting in this kid

958
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: this um cafe and it's the very last thing in

959
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: the movie, and in the background there were these people

960
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: sitting at tables, smoke rising, and they were they were gambling,

961
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: and they were playing cards and they were talking to

962
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 1: each other. And he said, all right, I want everybody

963
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:33,919
Speaker 1: in the background to just freeze. And you could see

964
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: the smoke rising up, so you knew it was not

965
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: freeze frame that was done technically by the editors. It

966
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,960
Speaker 1: was something that he directed. And I said, John, why

967
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: did you do that? And he said, because you what

968
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 1: you said when Billy Tully looks over there and sees nothing.

969
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 1: He said, I just want there to be the feeling

970
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: that God is intervening here in some way. I said, well,

971
00:54:57,600 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 1: why how did you come up with this idea? And

972
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 1: should the devil made me do it? Wherever John Houston is,

973
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 1: I want him to know that when the time comes

974
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 1: for me and Stacy will be more than ready to

975
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:21,080
Speaker 1: join him for backgammon and cigars. I'm Alec Baldwin and

976
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:24,399
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. Take a listen to our archive more

977
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: in depth conversations with artists, policymakers, and athletes like Dwight Gooden.

978
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 1: My mom was very strict, you know, very directly stuff

979
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: where my dad kind of gave me a pass without

980
00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:37,319
Speaker 1: things as long as I was playing baseball. Here from

981
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: Dwight Gooden and NFL quarterback Andrew luck At Here's the

982
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: Thing dot Org. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily

983
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 1: Botine and Kathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, Ed Herbsman,

984
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon Machihi Luelkowski, and

985
00:55:56,280 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: Joshua Gozen. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's

986
00:56:00,719 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: the Thing.