WEBVTT - Patti LuPone and Jon Robin Baitz and Stacy Keach 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.399 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.200 When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you can have 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.760 a moment of ecstasy. For me, writing plays has always 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.480 been very tricky. I don't know a lot. I don't 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.360 have a lot to say. I mean, he said, there's 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.200 only two directions days, a little more or a little less. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:33.640 That was it. Getting started in theater is difficult, Maintaining 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:38.720 a career even harder. Becoming a true success is nearly impossible. 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.880 Each of my guests today have accomplished that feat. All 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.040 three have contributed work that has profoundly affected audiences and 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:52.680 changed the landscape of American theater. I'll speak to a 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.920 playwright and a veteran actor of stage and screen, but 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.120 first a powerful performer who's most at home on the 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:05.600 Broadway stage age, often in musicals. Last year she appeared 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.560 on Broadway and David mammts The Anarchist. But she's capable 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:29.840 of anything you starting hair, starting now. Every Patty Lapone 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.640 was in the very first class of the Drama Division 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.680 at Juilliard. She has twenty six Broadway credits to date 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.240 and has won two Tony Awards, won for Evita and 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.840 one for Gypsy. She's worked in film and on television, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.240 most notably as the mom on the ABC drama Life 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.960 Goes On. So, how is your daily just fine? Thank 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:51.960 you for asking for fun and excitement than I knew 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.000 what to do it in yours, I didn't do the 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.320 aning you what. Lpone's career has not been without its heartbreaks. 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.880 In nineteen seventies X, she was hired to replace the 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.240 lead in the musical The Baker's Wife. Who Does he 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.320 Think he Is? Who could be as handsome? Who could 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.440 be as smart as he thinks he is? She was 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.360 on the road for a grueling six months. They're rehearsed 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.960 every day and performed every night. The reviews were so 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:22.480 terrible ushers sent Candy backstage to cheer the actors up. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:26.520 I've always said, it's a fine line between a hit 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.240 and a flop. And if you don't know what it is, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.400 you don't know why it is a hit, and you 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.320 don't know why it is an you know, if it's 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.639 really terrible, you know right off the bat, and you're 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.000 not going to take the job. But if it has 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:39.799 the potential to be a hit and ends up being 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.720 a flop, you can't figure it out, so you do 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.640 this show and when you come out of that, like, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:48.760 what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.840 to yourself? Never again am I going to know? I 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.600 went into a depression for nine months. I was on 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.000 valium to sleep for the six months, and I went 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.680 into a valium depression for nine months, gained already pounds, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:06.400 woke up went what the hell just happened? And I 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.560 couldn't say. You think like you? You care a lot. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:14.239 There's nothing casual about you. There's nothing amateurish about you. 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.560 You know, you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.600 very hard working along with being very talented, and you 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.320 feel these wounds. Why do you think that is why? Well, 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.600 our business is subjective. It's all subjective, you know what 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:27.839 I mean. You talk to anybody from the baker's wife 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.200 and they can remember it as if it was yesterday, 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.320 and there's blood spilled and we became blood a blood family. 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.119 I just ad to me Jerome, who's in Phantom now 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.520 and we see each other and that what we recall 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.200 is that bonding in that horrible experience, and we can 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.120 talk about it as if it was yesterday. I think 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.720 it's because you know it happened to us. Of course 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:50.680 it happened to the creators, but they're not on stage. 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.800 We're on stage succeeding or failing in front of an audience. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.680 We're on stage being judged by the audience. Were the messengers? 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.520 Were the ones who take the hit? We take the 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.080 hit all the time? Were the one This was really abusive? 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.720 It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.160 my face was filled with what looked like white heads. 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.040 The entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.000 know what it was. I went to sleep, woke up 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.040 and the entire face. I maybe it was from the valley. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.320 I have no idea what I was. Things were happening 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.320 to us, physically happening to us. And when does the 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.640 sun come out for you? When does the sun come 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.400 out for Patti Lapone? Career wise? I think when I 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.440 go back to work with David Mammitt, I go back 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.560 and work with David, I go into and go back 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.920 David and I did it play in Chicago, and that 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:39.640 was that. The after Baker's wife was that, I see, 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.240 I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:42.840 What plan does you do with him? First, the very 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:44.400 first play I did with him was a thing called 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.800 All Men or Hors Kevin Klein, Sam Chichific, and I 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.520 did it at Yale Rep for one night. I said, Hey, Dave, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.320 we opened it closed in new Haven. And new Haven 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.640 used to be one of the circuit. Uh. You know, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:57.599 when you took a show out of town, your first 0:04:57.600 --> 0:04:59.880 stop was new Haven and it was a big DECI 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.200 adding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed in 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.160 a way. Well, and from there he gave me a 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:08.200 play called The Woods. And what happens when you do 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.360 the Woods, Well, I go back to what I was 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:16.480 trained for, and I go back to an honest environment 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.760 pretty much, and you're back to the circle of trust, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.480 having feels right. This is more like it. And it's 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:25.520 a risk. It's a big risk. And when every time 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.719 I work with David, I learned so much as a 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:33.320 human being. And I think nineteen late nineteen seventy seventy seven, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.760 you had a relationship with him, Yes, well we met 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.560 him thirty five years Yes, yes, and I will. I 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.960 will drop everything to do a play by David everything. 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.320 I don't care how risky it is. I learned so 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.960 much from David, and I instinctually have the mam At speak. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:53.920 That's something that I know how to do. His his rhythms, um, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:55.560 and I think it's because it's someone said I cut 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.279 my teeth on David is a vita. The next big 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:04.960 thing for you, I'm trying to is the big thing 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:10.200 that was nine? But how does that happen? I auditioned Um. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.600 Joanna Merlin is how Princess casting director, and of course 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.680 directed How directed, and so I was brought in for 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.920 a preliminary audition and then I was told to make 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.040 myself free, make sure that I made myself free for 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.160 the final callback. And as I understand it, How wanted 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.320 to cast actors in the role the roles as opposed 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.120 to just musical theater people. So I think that's one 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.440 of the reasons why I got in there, because he knew, 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.440 they knew I was an actor. In between, there were 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:40.279 several plays. There was stage directions by Israel Horovitz, John Glover, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.040 Ellen Green and I down at the public while Merril 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.960 is doing, um, you're doing everything you can to scratch 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:47.919 that each of yours and not become a star. Now 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.039 I get it. No, No, it was it was the 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.000 it was the available work. We're about to talk about 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.640 the moment when perhaps one of the greatest musical stars 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:01.240 of the last fifty years is born on Broadway. So 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:03.800 let's talk about how that the moment this happens, how 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.440 Prince wants people who can act and sing, and you 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.840 go to the make yourself available to the final callback 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:10.720 and what happened. How do you feel when you're in 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.640 that room. Well, I was very mad because I was 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:18.480 actually shooting one and there was a little issue about yes, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.240 about letting me go, and the producer said, if you're 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.640 not back tomorrow or the next time, you'll never work 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.520 in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood with those words 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.040 ringing in my ear. And I woke up in New 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.200 York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard where they're like 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.960 two ft of snow on the ground. I couldn't get 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.640 back to l A. No um, Christopher Reef got me 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:40.640 on the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting. 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.760 When they said howd you get here, I said, Superman. 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:49.840 I did It's exactly. So I went to the final callback, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.200 but I was really mad because I didn't want to 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.840 do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought, 0:07:54.880 --> 0:08:00.440 you didn't like it? What specifically? You're a mark women, 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.800 what specifically didn't you like? Well, I didn't like I 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.360 heard the White album the Julie Covington David Essex called 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.960 Wilkinson very rocky, weird music, but right it rocked out 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:11.480 a lot, and I thought, what's the matter a rock 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.840 I want to be a rocker. It was really really high. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.600 Didn't grab me. I mean, I grew up on Rogers 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.240 and Hammerstein. I grew up on Julie Stein, Mereth Wilson, 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.880 Stephen Sondheim. This was not a musical to me. This 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.920 was noise from Britain, you know what I mean? It wasn't. 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.600 It just didn't it did? So how did you go 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.400 out there and do it? I went out and and 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.320 the final audition, I was wet from my knees down. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.360 I was wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing it was 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.440 going to snow. Who you know, I did so stupid. 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.640 I didn't look at the weather report. I went out 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:45.000 there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow high Buenos 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.360 Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina. And there were 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.679 tears in my eyes. Apparently and there were there were 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.600 tears of rage, necessarily not tears of and I left 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.640 and um, I got I got a call on the set. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.079 I made it back and I got a call on 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.319 the set and in in the makeup trailer, and they said, 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:03.839 you've got the part. And I started to cry again 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.560 because I had promised David that I would reprise The 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:12.120 Woods at the Public Theater with Hulu grosspart directing. What 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.600 I love is that you're going to blow your Hollywood 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.559 film career to go do a musical you don't even like, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:19.439 and then that when they offer too, you're not sure 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.079 you're gonna because you gotta go do another little man 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.600 play well. I had been trained to be an actor, 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.120 and I thought my responsibility was to act at every 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:34.720 possible opportunity, and especially good opportunity, put you know, apply 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.760 your craft and if it's good material. And I David 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.360 and I forged a friendship and a bond, and I 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.840 didn't want to let him down. David and I became really, 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.320 really good friends. David lived on twenties. He'd come over 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:47.680 all the time for breakfast, we'd walk around, we'd do anty. 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.400 I'm gonna start calling you out by the way because 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.240 you keep changing the subject. What'd happy with? How? How 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.600 did the hell get you to do that material? And 0:09:57.600 --> 0:09:59.680 and it became what it became? Well, No, I knew 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.160 I had to do it. I cried because I knew 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:03.560 that I would have to. I couldn't do the woods 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:04.800 and I had to do with the tip because I 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.080 knew I wanted to work with how and I knew 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.120 that it would change the course of my career. You 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:10.680 knew going in that was going to be a hit. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.040 There was so much hype before. Had they done it 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.559 in London? Yeah? What is it? Big? Hit in London? Huge? 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:18.800 And you're in the American cash It was huge in London, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:20.720 so you knew this was a big opportunity and there 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.560 was hype. You can't believe. That was my first indication 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.240 that this was going to be a tough experience because 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:26.840 it was I went, how am I going to get 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.120 around the hype? It was the first musical that I 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.960 was aware of that had so much pre opening the 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.120 modern way, not even buzz, and it was frightening and 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:40.760 I had no vocal time. So now this thing is 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:44.000 all hyped up. You've been through everything you've been through, 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.320 You've had some good times and some tough times, and 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.480 you've worked hard, god knows four years in the row 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.960 with Holisman in that company, and you stepped out for 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.080 the Broadway opening, the opening of Avita. What was that like? 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.040 How do that evening? I had the flu perfect? Of 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:01.080 course you did. It won't be easy. You'll think it's 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:08.559 straight when I dry to explain how I fear that 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:16.040 I still need your love after all that I've done. 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.520 And I threw up in the sink before I sank. 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.800 Don't cry for me, Argentina. I'm sure it was a 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:27.800 combination of I got. I got extremely bad notices opening 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.480 in l a and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.800 And Al came to me and said, we're going to 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:36.680 laugh about this in twenty years, Patty. They pulled the 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.120 entire company together, and he said. There was an article 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.760 coming out in Susie Nicko Parker's column the next day 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.480 that I was going to be fired and that Actor's 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.280 Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take my place, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.240 And this was in the newspapers. Yeah, she's the one 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.000 that originated in London. I'm dealing with all of this 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.640 press of me being fired and me not being able 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.800 to sing the part and still going on from my 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.280 well that was that was opening night, and so so 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.160 you go out and do the opening of What Happens? 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.880 Bad reviews again, Actually they weren't bad. They dismissed how 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.600 and this is this was an innovative This was an 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:16.679 innovative concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:20.079 barely touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.120 you're ignored. It's one thing if they're passionate and you're 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.040 back and passionate when you're good, But when you're ignored. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.120 And Mandy and I at one point, I think I 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.360 said you want to go out for a drink? He 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:33.360 said yeah. We we were in fifty second I think 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.240 that's where the the Broadway theaters. And we walked down 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.280 Eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst into tears. I mean, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.160 we worked hard in those parts and then to be 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.719 ignored is tough. And then, of course nine months later 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.480 they give us the Tony's. When you win the Tony did, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.280 was it any vindication for you at all? Or was 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:56.040 it just a yeah, it's such a relief. It was 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:59.319 such a relief because really have you rewied everything away? 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.880 Cause I was still performing and still scared out of 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.480 my mind. Every night I envied Mandy because Mandy was 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:07.320 just all over the place. He didn't have a problem 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.800 singing it. So he literally he told me he told 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.240 me something the other day we were talking about it, Betan. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.160 He said, well, How told me to go? He wanted 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.240 me over there, and I said to how how do 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.600 I get there? He said, I don't know, just get there. 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.440 And so that's where he does a jette across the stage. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.040 And I went, I would see it every night, going 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.360 what is Mandy doing that? And it was because How 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.240 told him to get there and get there and he 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.559 didn't care. How so Mandy put it in and it 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.439 became part of his performance and and so. And I 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.079 suppose in that respect How gives the actor freedom. But 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.480 I didn't have that freedom because I was so tied up, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:47.760 and then not because I didn't think I could sing it. 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:59.040 I wanna be when that thing what I did. If 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.680 I ever thought, if I hadn't known that, we would 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:07.079 stay to aget really And you know when you in 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.880 a rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:11.480 it over and over and over again, so you're not 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.559 hitting that d in. Screw the middle classes. Once you're 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.080 not hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes, once 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.080 you're doing it over and over again. I didn't have 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.960 vocal technique to know that. I didn't have to hit 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.320 those notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.480 got it during the run by from a kid the 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:39.320 chorus who David Vossberg, I came off stage in. They 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.120 got him a piano, that put a piano in my 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:43.920 dressing room, and he worked with me an hour every 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.640 single day before the show. He would come to me 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.760 and um work out of the goodness of his heart. 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:54.480 David Vosper David vosperg he's in Ohio, he's a director 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.080 of opera. But he would um give me a vocal technique. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.560 He would warm me up. And the difficult thing was 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.400 to be to apply what he had just taught me 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:07.760 that night. Because I would do one thing right, something 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.320 else would go disastrously wrong. But at least I was 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.240 getting a technique to sing that part. He saved my job, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.480 and they knew that and they paid him. Now, you say, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:21.800 when you talk about this, you talk about the tension 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.800 and the anxiety and the fear, and you don't really 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.280 want to necessarily be doing a videocause you got another 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.320 David play and this and this and that. When did 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.840 you start to become fun for you? Oh? Anything goes 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.840 with a ball because of the material and because of 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.520 the cast, and and it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.040 And Jerry did a great job of direct Yes he is. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.080 And but however, these were the way musicals used to 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.240 be written. You'd have a joke coming and then a 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:56.480 gorgeous song. The material was so right and so beautiful. 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:58.560 If I was in a bad mood, all I had 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:04.400 to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:11.000 am tonight, just looking at the audience and seeing tears 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.760 of joy from laughter. The only thing we are as 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.000 actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct. We're delivering 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.160 the playwright's intentions through the concept of the director. And 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.600 I come on stage. If I feel confident in the role, 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.160 then I give it away. I give it away anyway. 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.040 But it's all about them, So I have to go 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.720 out there and love them, and I do. And I 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.800 think they see that they can relax with me because 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.800 they know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know, 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.720 there are some actors that don't want to be on 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.640 stage that because you just nailed it, Because because Patty 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:48.200 the pone to me as a woman who comes out 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:49.560 there when the first thing does she stopped here and 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.040 she's like, you know, how's everybody doing it? It's like 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:53.800 a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:55.760 how you all doing tonight without saying how you all 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.280 doing to it? Like just connect to them and let 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.640 them feel like there's no place else he'd rather be? 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.600 Is there than here? Right now? Well, I think our 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.320 responsibility is to relax them. You've been in an audience. 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:09.600 I've been in an audience where we're worried for the 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:15.520 performer and then we're not having experience. And if I'm 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:17.280 worried for the performer and they and they should be 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:19.239 worried for then I'm worried for me because I want 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.480 to get the f out of there. Yeah. Hello. Our 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.080 responsibility is a minute we hit the deck, is to 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.120 relax the audience, and that is what is called command. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:43.600 But the tiger's gone. The voice as soft as I 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.679 think that you can see when people care and when 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.200 you an Audiences can see when they don't care because 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.920 you see, because you see like someone in the years 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.520 I've bumped into you, run into you, known you, known 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:58.000 you better, you seem to care of the exact same 0:17:58.040 --> 0:17:59.879 amount as you used to. I love what I do, 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:04.600 and I love the audience, and I love the fact 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:06.560 that I get to do it, and I love I 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.960 love our craft very very much, and it's it's a 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.840 noble craft. We have a responsibility to it and to 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:14.920 the audience and to the play right into the message 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:27.880 I won't ever care less or Moody was gone. When 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.719 you can see Patty Lapone next in the third season 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:40.520 of American Horror Story Coven on f X. In a minute, 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.159 I'll talk with Tony nominated playwright John Robin Bates, who 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.560 said about Patty, there's an instrument in her. She's the 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.280 kind of actor that makes me feel compelled to write. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.280 I'm Alec Baldwin, and here's the thing. Take a listen 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:01.760 to our archive more in depth than honest conversations with artists, 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.520 policymakers and performers. I never was comfortable in front of 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.800 a camera. Really, I never felt I was photogenic. I 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.879 was never happy with how I looked. I became the 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.040 issue because it's about a microphone, not about a camera. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.680 Here about Billy Joel's insecurities and David Letterman's ambitions. I 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.119 really thought I could write half hours situation comedies. And 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:35.399 here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.560 you're listening to here's the thing. Whatever it is, whatever 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.880 you do, you're our daughter, and I will love. John 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.600 Robin Bates's Broadway play Other Desert Cities was nominated for 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:51.679 a Tony this year. The play is about family dysfunction 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.760 and the choices we make. There are consequences to our actions. 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:03.320 What does that mean? How could I trust? How could 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.959 I ever be in your presence? My dear Joe Mantello 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.000 directed Other Desert Cities. He and Bates were a couple 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.520 in the nineteen nineties. In the theater world, it's hard 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.000 to find someone who wouldn't want to work with Robbie. 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:21.080 He's complicated and kind. During our conversation, John Robin Bates 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.879 confessed there's been a dark side to his success on Broadway. 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.720 I'm ruined. I'm ruined from off Broadway. Now, I I 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:31.040 sort of say things like, well, that plays an off 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.800 Broadway play. It's not a Broadway play making fun of myself. 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.600 You know, you're in this great, great grand old house. 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:43.080 You know that's built for a kind of big experience, 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.520 and the drama is somehow expanded. Bates is also wary 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.000 of going back to Hollywood. In two thousand six, he 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.920 left ABC's Brothers and Sisters, a show he created and 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.119 executive produced, after the first season. Working in l A 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.320 was not for him. The guy who really ran the 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.879 entertainment division kept saying, I I don't understand why anybody 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.600 watches this show. How she would call me and scream 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:11.760 at me. I actually said to me, I don't know 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:15.040 who you think you're talking to. And I would, you know, 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.360 politely hang up and say I'm I'm leaving the conversation now. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.440 It took a while for Robbie Bates to recover, but 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.240 one day, now back on the East Coast, he got 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:28.000 the idea for other desert cities. I had forgotten how 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.399 to write that. This is the thing I think about 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.320 with other desert cities is it's the play where I learned. 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.040 I taught myself how to write again. I was sitting 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.760 at a beach with my notebook and I'm thinking about 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.840 how to get back into it and what matters to me, 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:55.320 and I just sort of self destructed. At Brothers and Sisters. 0:21:56.240 --> 0:22:00.280 I found myself very much like the character in my play, 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.199 a writer who is a dangerous creature. And I had 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:11.119 a note to myself play about daughter of a famous 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:17.200 family who writes a book about her growing up in 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.520 this family, something like that, the danger of telling the 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.639 truth that turns out to be a lie. And at 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.119 that moment, this lady of a certain age walked by me, 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:33.840 and she looked to me like um Pat Buckley, the 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:38.000 old Diane of New York conservative politics, the wife of 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.080 Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley, and I had lunch with her 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:44.720 once and found her to be charming and engaged. And 0:22:45.800 --> 0:22:48.560 this woman walked by me on this beach with her 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.920 hat and in a one piece bathing suit. I immediately 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.800 felt the mother in that play. And I suddenly remembered 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.640 old California the way it was when I was a kid, 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:03.040 and we were just in the throes of an election 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.480 at the time, too were about to be and the 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:12.359 Republicans of certainly of that period and even more so today, 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:17.000 we're very confusing to me because they didn't seem recognizable 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:21.160 to me as having a coherent, cohesive coach and argument 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.280 for their principal positions, which had to be principled in 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:28.399 some way. The play just came together in one fell swoop, 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:35.600 old California Conservatives, the old Hollywood system, Reagan nights. I 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.560 even remembered I'd gone to high school with I think, 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:41.520 the daughter of John Gavin, and I thought, you know, 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:43.920 because I love Touch of Evil, and that I think 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.160 isn't John Gavin. No, he's not in Touch of Evil. 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.639 He's in Psycho Case in all these movies. And I 0:23:48.720 --> 0:23:51.160 thought about he was the ambassador to Mexica. That's right, 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:55.280 as is the Stacy Keach character in my play. And 0:23:55.400 --> 0:24:00.600 I thought about your characters based on John gaff to 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:05.440 some extent, they're all these archetypes. At the back of 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:09.000 all this, of course, there's also Joe Mentello, who you know, 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:11.800 we're no longer a couple, but he's my family, my 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:13.800 best friends, and you see, being a couple of one 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:17.400 year two thousand and two. So it was a while, 0:24:17.800 --> 0:24:21.400 and he kept saying to me, with all possible respect, 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:25.320 nobody's waiting for the next Robbie Bates play, and you know, 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:29.440 these are chilling words because I have so much to 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:32.240 say and it's not coming out. My equivalent of that 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:34.040 is my agent said to me. He goes, it's not 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:35.679 that these people don't want to hire you because they 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:38.520 don't like you. He says, they don't want to hire 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:43.040 you because they don't think of you at all. Jesus, Well, 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:45.800 it's terrible, because the worst thing that can happen to 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:50.760 an artist, I'm invisible. I no longer matter for me. 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:56.720 Writing plays has always been very tricky. I don't know 0:24:56.840 --> 0:24:59.000 a lot. I don't have a lot to say. I 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:02.879 reached things very slowly, and I I sometimes it seems 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:07.240 facile and easy. And to me some of the times 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:11.520 that my thoughts and my sort of expressed opinions in 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:16.200 place seem hollow or naive, even because I know they're 0:25:16.240 --> 0:25:19.440 deeper truths always to be found and that I'm But 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:21.800 don't you think that seeking them and being aware of 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:24.719 that makes you more likely to find it than anybody? 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:27.280 You didn't go to college. Did you know why you 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:30.840 wanted educating yourself? I wish I had gone to college. 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:37.000 It was a depressed and unsettled kid. And why I 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:44.200 don't I think I wasn't at peace with probably any 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:47.280 element of who I was, whether it was a sort 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:52.480 of nascent intellectual or sort of pre expressive homosexual kid, 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:59.000 or variously. L A from you were born where in 0:25:59.240 --> 0:26:01.600 l A and you live there to your old seven 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:05.240 then Brazil for three years in Rio, and then South 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:09.479 Africa for six and a half years until I was eighteen, 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:11.800 and your father was in the condensed milk business. My 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:17.000 father worked for a giant multinational carnation milk. Yeah, it 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:21.600 was a condensed milk business. So l A, Brazil, South Africa, 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:23.840 and then back to LA. When you finally get back 0:26:23.840 --> 0:26:26.560 to LA. How old are you so? High school's over? 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:29.520 I just finished high school. I'd sort of lost time 0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:32.000 through all the travels high school in South Africa, Like 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:35.680 I couldn't get used to things like cricket and corporal punishment, 0:26:36.680 --> 0:26:39.080 you know, you get cane for like not doing well 0:26:39.160 --> 0:26:43.520 on a spelling test, literally caned. And I think I 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:47.920 was so busy trying to be sly and charming that 0:26:48.080 --> 0:26:52.720 I forgot how to be me. That I think led 0:26:52.800 --> 0:26:57.160 me to rebel against learning itself. So I was sort 0:26:57.160 --> 0:27:01.199 of interested in the few things I was interested in. Literature, history, 0:27:02.000 --> 0:27:05.639 but I wouldn't apply myself to anything except escape, and 0:27:05.760 --> 0:27:09.080 part of escape meant not going to college. I was 0:27:09.200 --> 0:27:14.320 really lonely, and I I kind of became a depressed kid, 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:20.440 and that manifests itself. If you can say I think 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:24.240 I did you know you were gay? Then yes, I 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:27.440 definitely knew that. I knew that add to your depression 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:31.639 didn't make you feel more isolated. It wasn't proactive the 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:40.280 gay humanity there. Yeah. Well, um, I think my parents, 0:27:40.359 --> 0:27:46.200 who loved me very much, were distracted by their own terrors. 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:51.280 There are certain families that are born in terror and 0:27:51.480 --> 0:27:55.879 live in terror. Um, conceived in terror? I need you 0:27:55.960 --> 0:27:57.440 to write a player for me. I want to be 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:01.600 called conceived in terror? Happen? Well, No, I mean death 0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:04.440 of a salesman is is a family that lives in terror. 0:28:05.000 --> 0:28:07.440 You were how old when you arrived in Durban? Ten? 0:28:07.960 --> 0:28:10.760 So you were the eight years? Yeah, I was there 0:28:10.920 --> 0:28:13.280 almost eight years critical time, ten years or so all 0:28:13.359 --> 0:28:16.240 of your real back half of your childhood, your teenage 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:20.040 years especially you are in Durban. Yes, it was seventeen 0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:22.240 or something when we left, but you had finished the 0:28:22.320 --> 0:28:24.320 high school program. No, no, I finished it in l 0:28:24.400 --> 0:28:28.920 a you did. What was that? Like? I, you know, 0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:31.600 was the only kid I knew who rode their bike 0:28:31.680 --> 0:28:34.800 to school because everybody else's parents had given them a 0:28:34.920 --> 0:28:39.239 fiat literally, yeah or something. Who were your friends? Then? 0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:41.920 Who did you become friends with? Anyone? Oh? Yeah? In fact, 0:28:42.920 --> 0:28:47.920 Jenny Livingston went on to make Paris Is Burning, great documentary, 0:28:48.320 --> 0:28:53.200 Tina Landau great theater director. Gina Gershawn my oldest friend 0:28:53.240 --> 0:28:55.200 from high school. We were in place together in the 0:28:55.320 --> 0:28:58.920 drama department. So I became friends with and I say 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:02.800 this with real respect and love with fellow freaks. How 0:29:02.840 --> 0:29:05.600 are you feeling about yourself and about life that last 0:29:05.680 --> 0:29:08.800 year in Beverly Hills? I think I was scared to 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:11.120 death still. I mean, it was just a new form 0:29:11.200 --> 0:29:14.120 of foreignness, but it had the pattern of something very 0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:16.960 familiar to me. But you know, I remember being taken 0:29:17.000 --> 0:29:21.120 to a party really early on, and I had developed 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:24.080 a kind of weird eye beforehand for art. I thought 0:29:24.120 --> 0:29:25.600 maybe I was going to be a painter or an 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:30.960 artis historian. And I walked into this house and there 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:35.640 is a giant David Hackney and next to it is 0:29:35.680 --> 0:29:38.880 a giant mother. Well, I'm standing in front of this 0:29:39.120 --> 0:29:41.920 giant painting that's famous that I've looked at in books 0:29:42.440 --> 0:29:45.880 Thames and Hutson art books. While I was in Durban 0:29:45.960 --> 0:29:49.200 at the Art Library of the University. I know, the 0:29:49.240 --> 0:29:52.520 world was just very real and different, and it was 0:29:52.600 --> 0:29:55.680 easier to like have sex, and it was easier to 0:29:56.800 --> 0:30:01.000 to function. Were you writing? I guess I was sort 0:30:01.040 --> 0:30:05.720 of writing, Yeah, what were you writing? I was writing 0:30:05.880 --> 0:30:14.040 really bad short stories about alienated Paul Bull's kids adrift 0:30:14.640 --> 0:30:17.560 in foreign countries, which is basically tell you the truth. 0:30:17.600 --> 0:30:22.160 Still what I'm doing. It just looks slightly the wallpapers prettier. Now, 0:30:22.760 --> 0:30:25.480 where were you living at that age? I was living 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:31.160 um on friends sofas, like the parents of children I 0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:34.480 went to high school with. I was I was just 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:38.240 a freak, you know, and I was at odds with 0:30:38.320 --> 0:30:41.080 my family at the time, you know, and I had 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:44.680 escaped and it was just a nightmare. How do we 0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:50.000 get from there to fair Country? Gordon Davidson, you know 0:30:50.160 --> 0:30:56.200 in Pinocchio where he falls in with actors. I'm walking around. 0:30:57.040 --> 0:31:00.320 I ran into this girl I knew from Ice Cool. 0:31:00.920 --> 0:31:02.920 She said, what are you doing? And I'm sort of 0:31:03.000 --> 0:31:05.160 looking for a job. I think I'm starving to death. 0:31:05.200 --> 0:31:08.280 I'm not sure, she said to me, And I should 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:11.040 have known. She said, well, my father just fired me. 0:31:11.160 --> 0:31:17.080 He needs he needs a new assistant. And I was like, well, 0:31:17.160 --> 0:31:18.600 what does he do and she said, oh, he's a 0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:23.880 film producer. Who is the film producer. This is great guy. 0:31:24.240 --> 0:31:30.200 And he my first day at the office, he says 0:31:30.320 --> 0:31:34.760 to me, whatever you do, answer the phones, but never 0:31:34.880 --> 0:31:37.240 pick up the phone. And I was like, I don't 0:31:37.240 --> 0:31:40.520 even know what that means. And he said, you'll do fine. 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:45.160 And he had a gang of cronies, all of whom 0:31:46.200 --> 0:31:50.360 had contempt for the studio system, had done well, fallen 0:31:50.400 --> 0:31:55.479 out of favor, usually had destroyed themselves through my favorite thing, 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:59.520 their own ambivalence. I found myself at home for the 0:31:59.560 --> 0:32:02.960 first time in my life when the nest of scorpions, 0:32:03.080 --> 0:32:06.920 Yes I did, I found myself. I said this, I know, yeah, 0:32:06.960 --> 0:32:12.560 because nobody is trying to pass. It's a den of thieves, lawyer. 0:32:12.640 --> 0:32:15.320 It was still the days of speaker phone, and they 0:32:15.360 --> 0:32:18.560 would have fights. They had a tower on Sunset Boulevard. 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.480 They had a nest of rooms in a tower and 0:32:21.560 --> 0:32:23.280 they would be fighting with each other and then they 0:32:23.320 --> 0:32:28.160 would suddenly be a pause. Someone would say jeez, if 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:30.560 you could see what I see right now, that girl 0:32:30.720 --> 0:32:36.800 walking down sunset. She is so beautiful. The fight was over. Yeah, 0:32:37.560 --> 0:32:41.480 nothing meant anything of sex. That's one of the masters 0:32:41.520 --> 0:32:43.720 for a glass of waters. My first few weeks there 0:32:45.480 --> 0:32:49.240 two what do I know. I would go to the sink, 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:53.680 bring a glass of waters, spit it out like practically 0:32:53.800 --> 0:32:56.920 on me and say this isn't water. And I would say, yes, 0:32:56.960 --> 0:32:59.440 it's water. What are you talking about? That's water. It's 0:32:59.560 --> 0:33:03.760 I want affectional water. And the whole time became about 0:33:03.800 --> 0:33:11.400 professional water. How long did that last? Three or four? Like, uh, 0:33:11.680 --> 0:33:14.760 four some years? No? No, but it got you when 0:33:14.800 --> 0:33:17.040 the scorpions that's looking down of the women's asses for 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.800 four years, and I would copy everything down. And so 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:23.160 at the same time I started hanging around with these actors, 0:33:24.560 --> 0:33:30.680 there was a sort of an equally desperate contingent of 0:33:31.560 --> 0:33:36.440 avant gardists, odd playwrights living on the fringes of everything. 0:33:37.200 --> 0:33:39.680 And so I lived between these two worlds, one of 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:44.960 which was sort of drunk and druggy, and the other 0:33:45.280 --> 0:33:51.560 was insane megalet noma. I can't say the word megalomaniacal. 0:33:51.960 --> 0:33:54.720 Thank you, Megan. I'm here for maniacal. You just think 0:33:54.760 --> 0:33:56.760 of the words and I'll say that, thank you. I 0:33:56.840 --> 0:33:58.640 think we're gonna be in each other. I know, it's 0:33:58.680 --> 0:34:02.960 like Bluetooth up to technology Bluetooth. I had to come 0:34:03.000 --> 0:34:04.600 up with a play for one of these sort of 0:34:04.680 --> 0:34:07.960 workshop things that we would put together, and one of 0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:10.920 these playwrights said to me, so, what's your play, and 0:34:11.719 --> 0:34:15.480 me bullshitting, I said, yeah, it's called Miss Lansky Zelinski. 0:34:15.960 --> 0:34:17.600 On the spot, I just came up with the next 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:20.839 on those guys. Yeah, I said, yeah, it's called Ky, 0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:22.400 just based on the guys in the town. So it's 0:34:22.440 --> 0:34:25.480 just them talking. And I put all my notes together 0:34:25.960 --> 0:34:29.719 and we did it, and the first one you run. Yeah. 0:34:35.560 --> 0:34:39.920 Almost thirty years later, Bates continues to draw inspiration from 0:34:39.960 --> 0:34:43.760 all types of sources. With other desert cities, Bates wrote 0:34:43.800 --> 0:34:46.239 the part of the family's patriarch with one of his 0:34:46.360 --> 0:34:51.640 favorite performers in mind, Stacy Keach. I worshiped Stacy. I mean, 0:34:51.719 --> 0:34:55.680 I work. He is one of the great wild Mustangs 0:34:55.800 --> 0:34:59.719 of all theater history. He's great and I love him. So, 0:35:00.480 --> 0:35:02.320 you know, he and Joe didn't know each other, and 0:35:02.440 --> 0:35:06.280 so they got on the phone before rehearsal, and Stacy 0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:10.680 says to Chow, you know, I've worked with Robbie before. 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:14.800 We worked together before, and I know him well. And 0:35:15.680 --> 0:35:18.480 do you do you know him? Have you worked with him? 0:35:18.560 --> 0:35:22.560 And how how well do you know him? Jose? I 0:35:22.760 --> 0:35:25.680 kind of know him and we lived together for twelve years. 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:33.359 But that's Stacy. He's like, oh damn. The great thing 0:35:33.440 --> 0:35:43.040 about Stacy is he brings centuries of actors honor onto 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:47.960 that stage with him. The honor of honoring fellow actors, 0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:52.000 the honor of listening, the privilege of being an actor, 0:35:52.120 --> 0:35:55.200 the privilege of being in the theater, not missing a 0:35:55.280 --> 0:36:00.520 single show in his seventies, the rich worlds of it, 0:36:01.080 --> 0:36:03.359 The privilege of working in the theater is the thing 0:36:03.520 --> 0:36:07.200 that has been of everything that's happened to me. Just 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:10.880 the great honor of being in the American theater in 0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:14.120 some capacity is what I'm left with that it's a 0:36:14.200 --> 0:36:17.000 privilege to be in it. I'm lucky to have found 0:36:17.040 --> 0:36:21.080 my way back to it. This is Alec Baldwin coming up. 0:36:21.160 --> 0:36:24.200 I speak with the man who inspired a John Robin Bates. 0:36:24.320 --> 0:36:28.480 Stacy Keach, an artist who has influenced a generation of actors. 0:36:28.920 --> 0:36:33.120 The madness liberated me in a way and liberated Yeah, 0:36:34.320 --> 0:36:37.200 this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:36:45.400 --> 0:36:48.239 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:36:48.960 --> 0:36:54.480 Mark me. I will my hour has almost come when 0:36:54.560 --> 0:36:58.400 I just sulferis and tormenting flames, must render up myself. 0:36:58.680 --> 0:37:01.640 Stacy Keach has played such roles as Richard, the third 0:37:02.160 --> 0:37:05.880 King Lear Hamlet, as well as Hamlet's ghost Falstaff and 0:37:05.960 --> 0:37:09.319 Willie Lohman. He's also played the President of Deaf Beer 0:37:09.440 --> 0:37:12.760 in The Simpsons and sergeants Stadanko and Cheech and Chong's 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:17.759 Up in Smoke The Only Way to Catch a Doper's 0:37:17.800 --> 0:37:23.080 when you yourself become a smoker. Keach is undoubtedly the 0:37:23.200 --> 0:37:26.280 only actor in Up in Smoke who has also worked 0:37:26.320 --> 0:37:30.200 with director John Houston. Keach starred in Houston's film Fat City, 0:37:30.719 --> 0:37:34.600 But perhaps Keach is best known as the irresistible Fedora 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:40.279 wearing detective Mike Hammer. Are you for higher? My money 0:37:40.360 --> 0:37:45.120 is too dirty? A lesser performer might have found himself 0:37:45.160 --> 0:37:48.839 with limited offers after what was Keach's longest running job. 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:52.239 Not so for the seventy one year old actor. His 0:37:52.400 --> 0:37:55.360 key to career longevity is simple. He says, quote, you 0:37:55.480 --> 0:37:58.239 need television and movies to make a living, but you'll 0:37:58.239 --> 0:38:01.520 be taken more seriously if you are stage worthy. Stage 0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:05.640 worthy in Chicago and Washington, but especially New York and 0:38:05.800 --> 0:38:08.960 last year, as playwright John Robin Bates mentioned earlier in 0:38:09.080 --> 0:38:12.279 Our Show New York, audiences saw him on Broadway in 0:38:12.400 --> 0:38:16.680 Bates's other desert cities. Well, we all have our ways 0:38:16.719 --> 0:38:22.120 of coping, and mine is to be overprotectively live. Stacy 0:38:22.239 --> 0:38:26.280 keaches dedication to his craft is unwavering, but his technique 0:38:26.360 --> 0:38:29.560 has changed over the years. I think in my early days, 0:38:29.600 --> 0:38:32.200 I started pretty much as you know, from the outside 0:38:32.800 --> 0:38:35.880 and tried to get a fix on what the character 0:38:36.080 --> 0:38:40.279 looked like and then perhaps what he sounded like after that. 0:38:40.480 --> 0:38:42.920 But it wasn't the best way to start. I mean, 0:38:42.920 --> 0:38:45.040 I think it's better to start inside and work out 0:38:45.120 --> 0:38:47.480 if you can't, And in later years I've done that 0:38:47.680 --> 0:38:49.960 more and more. But I just finished a picture with 0:38:50.000 --> 0:38:55.640 Alexander Payne called Nebraska, where he called me and he said, 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:57.239 you know you, I was playing the bad guy in 0:38:57.320 --> 0:39:00.600 this uh, and he said, your teeth they're too good. 0:39:01.800 --> 0:39:05.920 So the whole character became centralized in terms of you 0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:08.040 know what I was in here, you know, and they 0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:11.239 say they made these snarly teeth for me, and which 0:39:11.520 --> 0:39:13.040 it was great, you know, and it sort of gave 0:39:13.080 --> 0:39:14.480 me a feel and I would look at myself in 0:39:14.520 --> 0:39:18.840 the mirror and make you know, facial expressions and that 0:39:19.000 --> 0:39:21.120 sort of gave me the feeling of where this guy 0:39:21.280 --> 0:39:24.359 was coming from, you know. But it varies. I mean, 0:39:24.840 --> 0:39:29.200 if you're playing like I was just down in Washington, 0:39:29.239 --> 0:39:32.360 I'm gonna do fal Staff again next year, and you know, 0:39:32.440 --> 0:39:36.560 he's just a big, fat, corpulent guy and interested me 0:39:36.719 --> 0:39:40.160 enough even with all the physical manifestations of that character, 0:39:40.880 --> 0:39:43.560 that character you you got to go inside. I mean, 0:39:43.640 --> 0:39:45.759 that's you know. And when I was not enough just 0:39:45.880 --> 0:39:48.840 to play the the look, No, not at all, not 0:39:49.000 --> 0:39:51.160 at all. When I first did it was back in 0:39:51.200 --> 0:39:56.040 the night five years ago. You did what in fal Staff? 0:39:56.080 --> 0:39:58.120 And what did they put a suit on you? Oh? Huge, 0:39:58.200 --> 0:40:00.800 just big? You're very lean guy I was, you know, 0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:03.800 and I had to wear this big fat suite the 0:40:03.920 --> 0:40:06.800 only Alder designers leather costume for me. And what do 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:08.520 they do back then in terms of your face when 0:40:08.520 --> 0:40:13.560 you're lean whiskers had a week of course, and a 0:40:13.840 --> 0:40:16.799 bulbous knows what was it about? Way too young? When 0:40:16.800 --> 0:40:18.239 I played him? I was gonna say, what was it 0:40:18.320 --> 0:40:22.040 about you that back then, when you were this athletic, 0:40:23.200 --> 0:40:26.279 lean leading man in the movie business, that you want 0:40:26.320 --> 0:40:28.120 to put a fat suit on it? Why were you 0:40:28.239 --> 0:40:30.960 running into Why were you diving into a fat suit? Well, 0:40:31.040 --> 0:40:34.759 because you know you wanted great parts, It's exactly, and 0:40:35.040 --> 0:40:38.440 that is one of the probably, I think, of all 0:40:38.480 --> 0:40:41.520 of Shakespeare's characters. I think it's probably one of the 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:44.120 you know that in Hamlin are probably the two greatest, 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:46.640 better than Lead, I think. I mean, it's a it's 0:40:46.680 --> 0:40:49.200 a greater part. It's more. It's there's much more going 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.920 on with Falstaff, I think. And you're gonna do it again. 0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.760 So you did false stuff the first time, win sixty 0:40:55.800 --> 0:40:58.479 eight in the park. Oh yeah, it makes me feel 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:02.719 very hung years later, years later, you're gonna Staff and 0:41:02.719 --> 0:41:04.480 I won't have to wear panting this. No, no, I'm tea. 0:41:04.880 --> 0:41:07.279 Who are you doing it for? Michael conn at the 0:41:07.280 --> 0:41:10.600 Shakespeare Theater in Washington, d C, d C. Yeah, we're 0:41:10.600 --> 0:41:13.120 gonna do both parts. We're gonna do part one in 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:15.960 part two, one of the great experiences of my life 0:41:16.080 --> 0:41:19.880 was doing those plays together in the park. We started 0:41:19.920 --> 0:41:22.960 at ten o'clock at night. We did Part one and 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:25.480 then Part two, and as the dawn came up in 0:41:25.560 --> 0:41:29.360 the the end of the evening was the early morning. 0:41:30.080 --> 0:41:33.640 It was just when Falstaff was being demposed by Prince 0:41:33.680 --> 0:41:37.920 Ol played by Sam Waterston. Yeah. Yeah, you grew up 0:41:37.960 --> 0:41:40.879 where I grew up in southern California, and your dad 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:42.719 was in the business. Dad was in the business. What 0:41:42.719 --> 0:41:47.399 do He was an actor, director, producer. He did a show, 0:41:47.760 --> 0:41:51.040 a radio show called Tales of the Texas Rangers with 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:53.719 Joel McCrae, and that when I was twelve years old. 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:56.800 He used to take me down to NBC studios and 0:41:57.200 --> 0:42:00.160 I would watch these actors do their thing was a 0:42:00.239 --> 0:42:02.959 live radio broadcast with all the folly and the sound 0:42:03.040 --> 0:42:05.640 effects and the horses and you know, and that was 0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:07.560 magic for me. And radio was how I sort of 0:42:07.600 --> 0:42:10.200 got it in. Yeah, that was his thing. That was 0:42:10.280 --> 0:42:12.640 his thing. And what did he say to you? What 0:42:12.880 --> 0:42:15.960 was his uh program with you? So to speak in 0:42:16.080 --> 0:42:17.600 terms of your career? Did he want you to do this? 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:22.279 Absolutely not. He said, no, you know, acting is not 0:42:22.440 --> 0:42:24.239 something you should do. You want to be. You wanted 0:42:24.239 --> 0:42:26.319 me to be a lawyer, and he want my brother 0:42:26.360 --> 0:42:28.200 to be a doctor. He said, you know it's it's 0:42:28.280 --> 0:42:30.640 to this business is two fraught with wants to do that. 0:42:30.760 --> 0:42:32.600 Did you think about, well, you know what when I 0:42:33.200 --> 0:42:35.880 gradually I started acting in high school junior high school, 0:42:36.280 --> 0:42:39.000 was doing plays, and every time I would get apart 0:42:39.760 --> 0:42:41.880 in a play, my dad would get very excited. He 0:42:41.920 --> 0:42:44.200 would get very animated, and he wanted to show me, like, 0:42:44.280 --> 0:42:46.359 for example, I was doing the stage Manager in our 0:42:46.480 --> 0:42:48.640 town in high school and he would come in and 0:42:48.719 --> 0:42:51.399 he was his favorite play, and he showed he said, 0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:54.040 not when you're when you're describing that, He said, you 0:42:54.200 --> 0:42:57.359 describe that big butternut tree. You've got to see that tree. 0:42:57.480 --> 0:43:00.360 And when you're when you're working in the in the 0:43:00.840 --> 0:43:03.440 drug store and you're getting ice cream out of the 0:43:04.880 --> 0:43:06.759 out of the ice cream box, you've got to reach 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:08.680 your hand weight down and then put it. I mean, 0:43:08.719 --> 0:43:11.960 he was so animated and he came a specific, very 0:43:12.000 --> 0:43:15.040 specific and very much alive. So all of his b 0:43:15.160 --> 0:43:17.279 asked about not do this, You're not gonna do this. 0:43:17.320 --> 0:43:19.680 You're gonna be a lawyer. But did he live long 0:43:19.800 --> 0:43:23.600 enough to see you what did he Well, then that 0:43:23.680 --> 0:43:25.560 was the good part. And then you're a genius. Yeah, 0:43:25.600 --> 0:43:26.840 well and then and then it was a good thing 0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:29.440 because it wasn't until I got to Berkeley and I 0:43:29.560 --> 0:43:32.080 was I started, you know, I was given an edict, 0:43:32.600 --> 0:43:35.800 You're not going to be in in any place. First 0:43:35.880 --> 0:43:40.320 year as a freshman, I was studying political science and economics. 0:43:40.360 --> 0:43:41.879 I mean, that was it. You know, I was gonna 0:43:42.000 --> 0:43:43.719 I was gonna do the same thing. So at the 0:43:43.840 --> 0:43:46.360 end of the first year, I got a play finally, 0:43:46.400 --> 0:43:49.719 and I passed. I got through the first year, and 0:43:49.760 --> 0:43:51.759 he said, okay, if you want to do a play, 0:43:51.920 --> 0:43:53.440 you can do a play. So I did a play 0:43:53.600 --> 0:43:56.200 and and that was it. It was a play called 0:43:56.280 --> 0:43:58.880 to Learn to Love was written by one of the professors, 0:43:58.960 --> 0:44:01.120 and it was about these navy guys and it was 0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:04.160 a big hit on campus. Professor cast me the next 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:08.759 semester as to Flores and the Change lea Jacobean play 0:44:08.960 --> 0:44:13.200 written by Thomas Middleton Middleton and Raleigh, great great piece, 0:44:13.480 --> 0:44:15.360 sort of a Richard the Third type of character. And 0:44:15.560 --> 0:44:17.840 I had, you know, success with that, and my my 0:44:17.960 --> 0:44:20.960 parents came and saw me and they said, well, I 0:44:21.040 --> 0:44:23.120 guess you know, you may have some talent, so maybe 0:44:23.160 --> 0:44:25.040 if this is what you want to do, we'll support you. 0:44:25.239 --> 0:44:27.839 So they came and you had some talent. At least 0:44:27.880 --> 0:44:29.960 they thought that you're you're onto something. Yeah, and I 0:44:30.080 --> 0:44:32.960 loved it. I mean, and I couldn't stand economics and 0:44:33.040 --> 0:44:37.399 put a little science. Man. I was terrible at USC Berkeley. Yeah. 0:44:37.400 --> 0:44:39.800 I went for a degree in drama. I got a 0:44:39.880 --> 0:44:41.680 degree in drama English. Yeah. And then what did you 0:44:41.719 --> 0:44:44.080 do after that? Then I went I went to Yale 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:47.040 Drama School for a year. What was the program that was? It? 0:44:47.200 --> 0:44:49.000 Was it longer than me year? Or you finished? It was? 0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:51.239 You know? It was a three year program. I only 0:44:51.280 --> 0:44:54.040 stayed a year. I didn't like it at all. Well, 0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:58.279 in those days, Constance Welsh was the acting teacher, and 0:44:58.400 --> 0:45:02.319 she was pretty much the very much old school learning 0:45:02.360 --> 0:45:05.480 all these fonetic signs and symbols, and I mean, this 0:45:05.560 --> 0:45:07.080 had nothing to do with what I was interested in. 0:45:07.360 --> 0:45:09.640 I had done two summers at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival 0:45:09.719 --> 0:45:12.160 between my junior and senior year. In between my senior 0:45:12.239 --> 0:45:14.920 year and my first year Yale and play some pretty 0:45:14.920 --> 0:45:16.920 good part Henry the Fifth and ri Cure Show and 0:45:17.000 --> 0:45:19.640 Baron sort of I was getting my feet wet with 0:45:19.760 --> 0:45:23.120 Shakespeare and these big wonderful ships. You're a part of 0:45:23.200 --> 0:45:26.680 your your childhood and me, why are you so? You're 0:45:26.680 --> 0:45:30.200 pretty much steeped in shakespeare early stage gear. Why this 0:45:30.360 --> 0:45:33.520 is just your own passion. Oregon Shakespeare Festival that was 0:45:33.560 --> 0:45:35.960 responsible for that's went there and you were at home. 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:38.320 That's right, That's where it started. That's where it started. 0:45:38.640 --> 0:45:40.600 And then when I came back East, I was at Yale, 0:45:40.800 --> 0:45:44.440 and I wasn't crazy about Yale because no more fonetic symbols, right, 0:45:44.520 --> 0:45:46.600 no more for you know? And Joe after that year 0:45:46.640 --> 0:45:50.479 where Joe found you, Joe, Joe Papa and well, thanks 0:45:50.480 --> 0:45:53.080 the Oregan Shakespeare Festival. You were ready, Yeah, I think so. 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:56.919 Henry Hughes Saturday he was. He was a drama critic 0:45:57.000 --> 0:45:59.680 for the Saturady Review. Wrote a nice review of me 0:46:00.000 --> 0:46:03.319 doing Henry the Fifth. Joe had read that, And when 0:46:03.360 --> 0:46:05.719 I got to Yale, I called the New York Chase 0:46:05.760 --> 0:46:08.080 Professional one day audition. He said, come on now. So 0:46:08.200 --> 0:46:10.560 I went and I met Joe pat And in this 0:46:10.719 --> 0:46:14.399 smoke field office and here in Manhattan. I sat down 0:46:14.400 --> 0:46:15.640 and he said, Okay, what are you gonna do it 0:46:15.680 --> 0:46:17.719 for me. Let's just I'll do a little piece from 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:20.600 Henry the Fifth, Upon the King and I started reading. 0:46:20.880 --> 0:46:23.360 I got three, I got upon the King, let us 0:46:23.400 --> 0:46:26.600 our lives and that's it. Are you remember of equity? 0:46:26.640 --> 0:46:29.319 I said, no, you're going to be. You're gonna play 0:46:29.400 --> 0:46:33.360 Marcellus in my production of Hamlet this summer. Julie Harris 0:46:33.480 --> 0:46:36.560 is going to be playing Ophelia. Alfred Ryder is going 0:46:36.600 --> 0:46:39.560 to be playing Hamlet. We'll see you this summer. That 0:46:39.719 --> 0:46:42.800 was it. I walked down there. I was floating on it. 0:46:43.280 --> 0:46:46.040 I mean, that was it, you know. And then summer 0:46:46.080 --> 0:46:52.520 of sixty three, sixty sixty four, and then I went 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:55.120 to England after that on a Fulbright scholarship to the 0:46:55.160 --> 0:46:58.719 London Academy Music and Dramatic Art. Just study for a year. 0:46:59.000 --> 0:47:01.400 Why did you stop? And now you've got I mean, 0:47:02.320 --> 0:47:04.240 I wonder if this is the beginning of a pattern 0:47:04.360 --> 0:47:07.239 where you get the hot hand here and Joe Pap 0:47:07.400 --> 0:47:09.439 wants you, and then you say, okay, hold on those 0:47:09.440 --> 0:47:10.839 I gotta go over to London for a year. Well 0:47:10.880 --> 0:47:12.640 that's it. And he was not happy about that, Joe, 0:47:12.719 --> 0:47:15.400 and interestingly enough he was also I didn't realize this 0:47:15.520 --> 0:47:18.280 was just a coincidence. He was on the screening committee 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:20.759 for the full Bright guys, and when I came in, 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:22.759 he said, what are you here for it? I said, 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:25.279 I'm antitioning for you. And he said, don't do upon 0:47:25.360 --> 0:47:27.719 the King again. I've seen it, you know, do something else. 0:47:27.800 --> 0:47:29.800 And he was tough, and he was tough, and I 0:47:29.880 --> 0:47:32.160 did not. I was not given a Fullbright. I was 0:47:32.280 --> 0:47:38.000 chosen as an alternate. I was really depressed that summer. 0:47:38.760 --> 0:47:41.359 I got a note from the full Bright commission say, 0:47:41.760 --> 0:47:44.000 the guy who was supposed to go dropped out, so 0:47:44.160 --> 0:47:46.680 you're in. So I made it by the skin of 0:47:46.719 --> 0:47:50.040 your You know why, Lamba were you could have trained 0:47:50.320 --> 0:47:54.800 for the musical theater. No, no, for classical theater. And 0:47:54.880 --> 0:47:56.440 you were there for a year? Was there for a year? 0:47:56.480 --> 0:47:58.839 What did you benefit from that? Well? First of all, 0:47:58.920 --> 0:48:01.680 the exposure to the English theater in that year was 0:48:01.920 --> 0:48:05.279 unbelieved and comparable, unbelievable. And I got to see I 0:48:05.360 --> 0:48:08.800 saw Olivier do not only Othello, I saw him do 0:48:09.160 --> 0:48:12.800 the Master Builder, saw his production that he directed of 0:48:12.960 --> 0:48:16.400 the of the of the Crucible. It was. It was 0:48:16.400 --> 0:48:18.759 an amazing year. Were you ever tempted to stay there, 0:48:19.640 --> 0:48:23.040 did you feel you belonged there? No Americans doing classical 0:48:23.160 --> 0:48:26.560 theater still has looked on a little bit of skance 0:48:26.800 --> 0:48:29.160 by the English. I mean, you know, just like we don't, 0:48:29.480 --> 0:48:31.600 you know, I don't want them to touch William was exactly. 0:48:32.200 --> 0:48:35.080 It's the same deal, you know. So you finished there 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:37.480 and you came right home. I came back. Then I 0:48:37.560 --> 0:48:41.160 came to Lincoln Center and I auditioned for Jules Irving 0:48:41.200 --> 0:48:44.000 and Herbert Blah who were just coming from the Actor's 0:48:44.040 --> 0:48:46.600 workshop in San Francisco. And they said, you're you know, 0:48:46.760 --> 0:48:49.240 come on in, you're the you know you're in the company. 0:48:49.400 --> 0:48:52.440 So I was married at the time. Why did you 0:48:52.520 --> 0:48:58.080 do that? I know? That was that was And then 0:48:58.239 --> 0:48:59.880 the longest run you've ever done as an actor on 0:49:00.080 --> 0:49:04.319 days um about nine months about and that was well 0:49:04.360 --> 0:49:07.759 no other Desert cities ran for about almost a year. 0:49:07.880 --> 0:49:10.319 I think that's that's about it for me. I play 0:49:10.320 --> 0:49:12.440 the role you've been the most connected to. Well. I 0:49:12.520 --> 0:49:15.279 did Hamlet three times to try to get it right. 0:49:15.680 --> 0:49:18.000 I never did. I never got why do you say that? 0:49:18.200 --> 0:49:21.759 Three different productions? What was the first one? Long war theater? 0:49:21.880 --> 0:49:26.080 Irvin Brown directed it one year. Let me see if 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:29.160 I can remember the it was. It had to be seventy. 0:49:30.239 --> 0:49:33.879 I think it was seventy seventy. Oh, yeah, I was, yeah, 0:49:34.040 --> 0:49:36.960 I was actually, well, they say Hamlet's thirty, you know, 0:49:37.239 --> 0:49:38.880 so that was about it was about thirty when I 0:49:38.960 --> 0:49:42.080 did it. And so you're up in New Haven. I 0:49:42.160 --> 0:49:44.879 was up in New Haven, and you know, the first 0:49:44.920 --> 0:49:47.799 time you play that part, I was so intimidated by 0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:49.560 the fact of all the other actors who played it, 0:49:49.640 --> 0:49:51.960 and you know, it's intimidating. I mean, you know, and 0:49:52.080 --> 0:49:55.400 I once I said you were Hamlets, that's right, becomes 0:49:55.480 --> 0:49:58.760 you're Hamlets. And most of the time I was concerned 0:49:58.760 --> 0:50:01.680 about getting the lines and getting you know, just getting 0:50:01.680 --> 0:50:03.960 the moves right, just putting it all together and figuring 0:50:03.960 --> 0:50:06.680 and then trying to figure it out. That summer, Joe 0:50:06.719 --> 0:50:09.120 Pappy kind of came and saw it and said, come 0:50:09.160 --> 0:50:11.240 into the park and we'll do it a different production. 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:14.160 And I got it. I got closer to it. I 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:17.040 got closer to I felt I never had the perfect show, 0:50:17.600 --> 0:50:19.680 but I got closer to it. And then that was 0:50:19.880 --> 0:50:22.359 right after new Haven, right after and then two years 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:26.840 later Mark Taper for him in Los Angeles, totally different production, 0:50:26.880 --> 0:50:31.920 Gordon Davison directing, and I had one night where I 0:50:31.960 --> 0:50:35.200 got close, where I really got close, and then I 0:50:35.280 --> 0:50:36.840 don't know what happened something. I think it was in 0:50:36.880 --> 0:50:39.200 the very last scene. I think the hardest thing about 0:50:39.239 --> 0:50:42.800 Hamlet is is, you know, is after that amazing duel 0:50:43.440 --> 0:50:45.279 in the last act, but when he dies, you know, 0:50:45.320 --> 0:50:48.279 it is not to be called breathing on stage. That's 0:50:48.320 --> 0:50:50.200 the hardest, one of the hardest things to do, I 0:50:50.280 --> 0:50:53.399 think in that particular play. I mean, anyway, talk about 0:50:53.440 --> 0:50:55.960 Houston and was it like, oh god, well, the first 0:50:56.120 --> 0:50:58.000 I remember the first time I met him, he came 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:00.520 to visit me on the set of doc. We were 0:51:00.520 --> 0:51:04.600 shooting a western in Spain with Fay down away in 0:51:04.640 --> 0:51:09.400 Harristuland and we were in this script Fat City written 0:51:09.480 --> 0:51:12.560 it was a very popular book written by Leonard Gardner, 0:51:12.640 --> 0:51:17.040 but boxing and and he came to see me personally 0:51:17.120 --> 0:51:19.319 on the set. I mean, to have John Houston visit 0:51:19.440 --> 0:51:22.239 me on the set of a movie, I mean, it was, 0:51:22.360 --> 0:51:26.320 you know, and he was very gracious and he just 0:51:26.400 --> 0:51:28.160 stays high, I've got a part for you, and I 0:51:28.239 --> 0:51:29.920 think you want to take a look at this. And 0:51:31.560 --> 0:51:33.759 he treated me as if I was his son right 0:51:33.840 --> 0:51:37.279 from the word go. I mean he and I just 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:40.960 he was so warm, welcome to you. Yeah, it's rare 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:44.440 of the business. Oh yeah, but he and he was 0:51:45.040 --> 0:51:47.200 larger than life. He didn't make any apologies for that. 0:51:47.360 --> 0:51:51.320 I mean, and and he loved to gamble, loved to gamble, 0:51:51.880 --> 0:51:54.960 and we wondered what that was about. Well, it's very 0:51:55.000 --> 0:51:58.880 interesting because we and I love to gamble too, you know, 0:51:58.960 --> 0:52:03.319 and mean, what's your game? Well, with him it was backgammon. 0:52:03.960 --> 0:52:07.279 We would play backgammon between scenes on the hundred bucks 0:52:07.320 --> 0:52:10.920 a game. No, no, no doctor dollar point. Yeah. He 0:52:11.000 --> 0:52:12.719 just so he disliked it for the for the for 0:52:12.800 --> 0:52:14.840 the fun. Yeah. But he wasn't a gamble trying to 0:52:14.920 --> 0:52:18.120 make money. No, not and not with me, no, you know, 0:52:18.239 --> 0:52:21.600 but but we I would remember we went to we 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:23.640 were London together and he would, you know, he let's 0:52:23.640 --> 0:52:26.080 go to the Castino. He love you know, he got 0:52:26.120 --> 0:52:28.960 a little gaming. You had a little gaming. Very good. 0:52:29.520 --> 0:52:31.640 I don't know what is it about a gamble. It's 0:52:31.680 --> 0:52:34.200 the dust asky thing, I mean, the challenge of I 0:52:34.280 --> 0:52:36.680 mean they say that people gamble to lose, they don't 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:39.840 really gamble to win. How to compensate for the feeling 0:52:39.880 --> 0:52:43.160 of loss. You know, I think there's something to that. 0:52:43.239 --> 0:52:45.600 I mean, that was you know anyway. I love the 0:52:46.000 --> 0:52:48.240 was the lions that went tell me the people gambled 0:52:48.280 --> 0:52:51.719 to find that if God favors them or not. They 0:52:51.800 --> 0:52:54.040 want to know, does God favor me today? Well, you 0:52:54.120 --> 0:52:57.440 know I win, and that that that's my sign that 0:52:57.560 --> 0:53:00.560 God favorite me. I like that because I still I 0:53:00.640 --> 0:53:03.800 get on I get on my iPhone and I'll know 0:53:04.200 --> 0:53:07.239 and I there's a game called be Jeweled. It's a 0:53:07.280 --> 0:53:11.400 little bit like Angry Birds, right, and I feel like 0:53:11.440 --> 0:53:14.319 if I can get it right, then God looking good. Yeah, 0:53:14.480 --> 0:53:17.960 I think, yeah, I love it. I mean, you know, 0:53:18.040 --> 0:53:19.520 it was like in the movie with you. So what 0:53:19.640 --> 0:53:21.680 was he like as a director? Was he insightful for you? 0:53:21.800 --> 0:53:24.160 Did he? Absolutely? He was, Oh yeah, well he's an 0:53:24.200 --> 0:53:27.160 actor first of course, you know, and he know but 0:53:27.239 --> 0:53:30.120 he and he always wanted to give you your space. 0:53:30.719 --> 0:53:35.040 He never I mean, he said, there's only two directions days, 0:53:35.560 --> 0:53:38.719 a little more or a little less. That was it. 0:53:39.320 --> 0:53:42.239 He would let us block the scenes. He would he 0:53:42.280 --> 0:53:45.440 would Susan Terrell and I got lover. We would he 0:53:45.480 --> 0:53:47.600 would say, go in there and you you stage the 0:53:47.680 --> 0:53:49.600 scene the way you feel like it should be staged 0:53:49.640 --> 0:53:52.160 in a domestic seat, at a kitchen or something like that, 0:53:52.320 --> 0:53:54.839 and we would going there and we would stage the scene. 0:53:54.840 --> 0:53:56.640 We work out the moves a lot of trust to 0:53:56.680 --> 0:53:59.239 having his actors tremendous. He come in and look at 0:53:59.280 --> 0:54:00.960 it and then we move things around a little bit, 0:54:01.040 --> 0:54:03.239 make a tweak here, tweak there, and that's the way 0:54:03.280 --> 0:54:08.160 he worked. The thing that really fascinated me about Houston 0:54:08.400 --> 0:54:11.880 was at the very end of the movie I'll Know 0:54:12.080 --> 0:54:13.879 your Jet. Bridges and I were sitting in this kid 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:17.680 this um cafe and it's the very last thing in 0:54:17.719 --> 0:54:21.520 the movie, and in the background there were these people 0:54:21.640 --> 0:54:25.640 sitting at tables, smoke rising, and they were they were gambling, 0:54:25.760 --> 0:54:27.600 and they were playing cards and they were talking to 0:54:27.680 --> 0:54:29.880 each other. And he said, all right, I want everybody 0:54:29.920 --> 0:54:33.919 in the background to just freeze. And you could see 0:54:34.280 --> 0:54:36.200 the smoke rising up, so you knew it was not 0:54:37.719 --> 0:54:40.719 freeze frame that was done technically by the editors. It 0:54:40.880 --> 0:54:43.960 was something that he directed. And I said, John, why 0:54:44.000 --> 0:54:46.600 did you do that? And he said, because you what 0:54:46.760 --> 0:54:50.000 you said when Billy Tully looks over there and sees nothing. 0:54:50.360 --> 0:54:53.360 He said, I just want there to be the feeling 0:54:53.440 --> 0:54:57.560 that God is intervening here in some way. I said, well, 0:54:57.600 --> 0:54:59.880 why how did you come up with this idea? And 0:55:00.040 --> 0:55:08.080 should the devil made me do it? Wherever John Houston is, 0:55:08.360 --> 0:55:10.440 I want him to know that when the time comes 0:55:10.480 --> 0:55:12.960 for me and Stacy will be more than ready to 0:55:13.080 --> 0:55:21.080 join him for backgammon and cigars. I'm Alec Baldwin and 0:55:21.160 --> 0:55:24.399 Here's the Thing. Take a listen to our archive more 0:55:24.600 --> 0:55:29.880 in depth conversations with artists, policymakers, and athletes like Dwight Gooden. 0:55:30.280 --> 0:55:32.920 My mom was very strict, you know, very directly stuff 0:55:32.920 --> 0:55:34.759 where my dad kind of gave me a pass without 0:55:34.800 --> 0:55:37.319 things as long as I was playing baseball. Here from 0:55:37.440 --> 0:55:41.560 Dwight Gooden and NFL quarterback Andrew luck At Here's the 0:55:41.680 --> 0:55:45.680 Thing dot Org. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily 0:55:45.760 --> 0:55:50.560 Botine and Kathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, Ed Herbsman, 0:55:50.920 --> 0:55:56.120 Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon Machihi Luelkowski, and 0:55:56.280 --> 0:56:00.680 Joshua Gozen. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's 0:56:00.719 --> 0:56:01.000 the Thing.