Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you can have
Speaker 1: a moment of ecstasy. For me, writing plays has always
Speaker 1: been very tricky. I don't know a lot. I don't
Speaker 1: have a lot to say. I mean, he said, there's
Speaker 1: only two directions days, a little more or a little less.
Speaker 1: That was it. Getting started in theater is difficult, Maintaining
Speaker 1: a career even harder. Becoming a true success is nearly impossible.
Speaker 1: Each of my guests today have accomplished that feat. All
Speaker 1: three have contributed work that has profoundly affected audiences and
Speaker 1: changed the landscape of American theater. I'll speak to a
Speaker 1: playwright and a veteran actor of stage and screen, but
Speaker 1: first a powerful performer who's most at home on the
Speaker 1: Broadway stage age, often in musicals. Last year she appeared
Speaker 1: on Broadway and David mammts The Anarchist. But she's capable
Speaker 1: of anything you starting hair, starting now. Every Patty Lapone
Speaker 1: was in the very first class of the Drama Division
Speaker 1: at Juilliard. She has twenty six Broadway credits to date
Speaker 1: and has won two Tony Awards, won for Evita and
Speaker 1: one for Gypsy. She's worked in film and on television,
Speaker 1: most notably as the mom on the ABC drama Life
Speaker 1: Goes On. So, how is your daily just fine? Thank
Speaker 1: you for asking for fun and excitement than I knew
Speaker 1: what to do it in yours, I didn't do the
Speaker 1: aning you what. Lpone's career has not been without its heartbreaks.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventies X, she was hired to replace the
Speaker 1: lead in the musical The Baker's Wife. Who Does he
Speaker 1: Think he Is? Who could be as handsome? Who could
Speaker 1: be as smart as he thinks he is? She was
Speaker 1: on the road for a grueling six months. They're rehearsed
Speaker 1: every day and performed every night. The reviews were so
Speaker 1: terrible ushers sent Candy backstage to cheer the actors up.
Speaker 1: I've always said, it's a fine line between a hit
Speaker 1: and a flop. And if you don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: you don't know why it is a hit, and you
Speaker 1: don't know why it is an you know, if it's
Speaker 1: really terrible, you know right off the bat, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to take the job. But if it has
Speaker 1: the potential to be a hit and ends up being
Speaker 1: a flop, you can't figure it out, so you do
Speaker 1: this show and when you come out of that, like,
Speaker 1: what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said
Speaker 1: to yourself? Never again am I going to know? I
Speaker 1: went into a depression for nine months. I was on
Speaker 1: valium to sleep for the six months, and I went
Speaker 1: into a valium depression for nine months, gained already pounds,
Speaker 1: woke up went what the hell just happened? And I
Speaker 1: couldn't say. You think like you? You care a lot.
Speaker 1: There's nothing casual about you. There's nothing amateurish about you.
Speaker 1: You know, you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're
Speaker 1: very hard working along with being very talented, and you
Speaker 1: feel these wounds. Why do you think that is why? Well,
Speaker 1: our business is subjective. It's all subjective, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. You talk to anybody from the baker's wife
Speaker 1: and they can remember it as if it was yesterday,
Speaker 1: and there's blood spilled and we became blood a blood family.
Speaker 1: I just ad to me Jerome, who's in Phantom now
Speaker 1: and we see each other and that what we recall
Speaker 1: is that bonding in that horrible experience, and we can
Speaker 1: talk about it as if it was yesterday. I think
Speaker 1: it's because you know it happened to us. Of course
Speaker 1: it happened to the creators, but they're not on stage.
Speaker 1: We're on stage succeeding or failing in front of an audience.
Speaker 1: We're on stage being judged by the audience. Were the messengers?
Speaker 1: Were the ones who take the hit? We take the
Speaker 1: hit all the time? Were the one This was really abusive?
Speaker 1: It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and
Speaker 1: my face was filled with what looked like white heads.
Speaker 1: The entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what it was. I went to sleep, woke up
Speaker 1: and the entire face. I maybe it was from the valley.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I was. Things were happening
Speaker 1: to us, physically happening to us. And when does the
Speaker 1: sun come out for you? When does the sun come
Speaker 1: out for Patti Lapone? Career wise? I think when I
Speaker 1: go back to work with David Mammitt, I go back
Speaker 1: and work with David, I go into and go back
Speaker 1: David and I did it play in Chicago, and that
Speaker 1: was that. The after Baker's wife was that, I see,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight.
Speaker 1: What plan does you do with him? First, the very
Speaker 1: first play I did with him was a thing called
Speaker 1: All Men or Hors Kevin Klein, Sam Chichific, and I
Speaker 1: did it at Yale Rep for one night. I said, Hey, Dave,
Speaker 1: we opened it closed in new Haven. And new Haven
Speaker 1: used to be one of the circuit. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: when you took a show out of town, your first
Speaker 1: stop was new Haven and it was a big DECI
Speaker 1: adding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed in
Speaker 1: a way. Well, and from there he gave me a
Speaker 1: play called The Woods. And what happens when you do
Speaker 1: the Woods, Well, I go back to what I was
Speaker 1: trained for, and I go back to an honest environment
Speaker 1: pretty much, and you're back to the circle of trust,
Speaker 1: having feels right. This is more like it. And it's
Speaker 1: a risk. It's a big risk. And when every time
Speaker 1: I work with David, I learned so much as a
Speaker 1: human being. And I think nineteen late nineteen seventy seventy seven,
Speaker 1: you had a relationship with him, Yes, well we met
Speaker 1: him thirty five years Yes, yes, and I will. I
Speaker 1: will drop everything to do a play by David everything.
Speaker 1: I don't care how risky it is. I learned so
Speaker 1: much from David, and I instinctually have the mam At speak.
Speaker 1: That's something that I know how to do. His his rhythms, um,
Speaker 1: and I think it's because it's someone said I cut
Speaker 1: my teeth on David is a vita. The next big
Speaker 1: thing for you, I'm trying to is the big thing
Speaker 1: that was nine? But how does that happen? I auditioned Um.
Speaker 1: Joanna Merlin is how Princess casting director, and of course
Speaker 1: directed How directed, and so I was brought in for
Speaker 1: a preliminary audition and then I was told to make
Speaker 1: myself free, make sure that I made myself free for
Speaker 1: the final callback. And as I understand it, How wanted
Speaker 1: to cast actors in the role the roles as opposed
Speaker 1: to just musical theater people. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I got in there, because he knew,
Speaker 1: they knew I was an actor. In between, there were
Speaker 1: several plays. There was stage directions by Israel Horovitz, John Glover,
Speaker 1: Ellen Green and I down at the public while Merril
Speaker 1: is doing, um, you're doing everything you can to scratch
Speaker 1: that each of yours and not become a star. Now
Speaker 1: I get it. No, No, it was it was the
Speaker 1: it was the available work. We're about to talk about
Speaker 1: the moment when perhaps one of the greatest musical stars
Speaker 1: of the last fifty years is born on Broadway. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about how that the moment this happens, how
Speaker 1: Prince wants people who can act and sing, and you
Speaker 1: go to the make yourself available to the final callback
Speaker 1: and what happened. How do you feel when you're in
Speaker 1: that room. Well, I was very mad because I was
Speaker 1: actually shooting one and there was a little issue about yes,
Speaker 1: about letting me go, and the producer said, if you're
Speaker 1: not back tomorrow or the next time, you'll never work
Speaker 1: in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood with those words
Speaker 1: ringing in my ear. And I woke up in New
Speaker 1: York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard where they're like
Speaker 1: two ft of snow on the ground. I couldn't get
Speaker 1: back to l A. No um, Christopher Reef got me
Speaker 1: on the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting.
Speaker 1: When they said howd you get here, I said, Superman.
Speaker 1: I did It's exactly. So I went to the final callback,
Speaker 1: but I was really mad because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought,
Speaker 1: you didn't like it? What specifically? You're a mark women,
Speaker 1: what specifically didn't you like? Well, I didn't like I
Speaker 1: heard the White album the Julie Covington David Essex called
Speaker 1: Wilkinson very rocky, weird music, but right it rocked out
Speaker 1: a lot, and I thought, what's the matter a rock
Speaker 1: I want to be a rocker. It was really really high.
Speaker 1: Didn't grab me. I mean, I grew up on Rogers
Speaker 1: and Hammerstein. I grew up on Julie Stein, Mereth Wilson,
Speaker 1: Stephen Sondheim. This was not a musical to me. This
Speaker 1: was noise from Britain, you know what I mean? It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It just didn't it did? So how did you go
Speaker 1: out there and do it? I went out and and
Speaker 1: the final audition, I was wet from my knees down.
Speaker 1: I was wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing it was
Speaker 1: going to snow. Who you know, I did so stupid.
Speaker 1: I didn't look at the weather report. I went out
Speaker 1: there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow high Buenos
Speaker 1: Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina. And there were
Speaker 1: tears in my eyes. Apparently and there were there were
Speaker 1: tears of rage, necessarily not tears of and I left
Speaker 1: and um, I got I got a call on the set.
Speaker 1: I made it back and I got a call on
Speaker 1: the set and in in the makeup trailer, and they said,
Speaker 1: you've got the part. And I started to cry again
Speaker 1: because I had promised David that I would reprise The
Speaker 1: Woods at the Public Theater with Hulu grosspart directing. What
Speaker 1: I love is that you're going to blow your Hollywood
Speaker 1: film career to go do a musical you don't even like,
Speaker 1: and then that when they offer too, you're not sure
Speaker 1: you're gonna because you gotta go do another little man
Speaker 1: play well. I had been trained to be an actor,
Speaker 1: and I thought my responsibility was to act at every
Speaker 1: possible opportunity, and especially good opportunity, put you know, apply
Speaker 1: your craft and if it's good material. And I David
Speaker 1: and I forged a friendship and a bond, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to let him down. David and I became really,
Speaker 1: really good friends. David lived on twenties. He'd come over
Speaker 1: all the time for breakfast, we'd walk around, we'd do anty.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling you out by the way because
Speaker 1: you keep changing the subject. What'd happy with? How? How
Speaker 1: did the hell get you to do that material? And
Speaker 1: and it became what it became? Well, No, I knew
Speaker 1: I had to do it. I cried because I knew
Speaker 1: that I would have to. I couldn't do the woods
Speaker 1: and I had to do with the tip because I
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to work with how and I knew
Speaker 1: that it would change the course of my career. You
Speaker 1: knew going in that was going to be a hit.
Speaker 1: There was so much hype before. Had they done it
Speaker 1: in London? Yeah? What is it? Big? Hit in London? Huge?
Speaker 1: And you're in the American cash It was huge in London,
Speaker 1: so you knew this was a big opportunity and there
Speaker 1: was hype. You can't believe. That was my first indication
Speaker 1: that this was going to be a tough experience because
Speaker 1: it was I went, how am I going to get
Speaker 1: around the hype? It was the first musical that I
Speaker 1: was aware of that had so much pre opening the
Speaker 1: modern way, not even buzz, and it was frightening and
Speaker 1: I had no vocal time. So now this thing is
Speaker 1: all hyped up. You've been through everything you've been through,
Speaker 1: You've had some good times and some tough times, and
Speaker 1: you've worked hard, god knows four years in the row
Speaker 1: with Holisman in that company, and you stepped out for
Speaker 1: the Broadway opening, the opening of Avita. What was that like?
Speaker 1: How do that evening? I had the flu perfect? Of
Speaker 1: course you did. It won't be easy. You'll think it's
Speaker 1: straight when I dry to explain how I fear that
Speaker 1: I still need your love after all that I've done.
Speaker 1: And I threw up in the sink before I sank.
Speaker 1: Don't cry for me, Argentina. I'm sure it was a
Speaker 1: combination of I got. I got extremely bad notices opening
Speaker 1: in l a and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: And Al came to me and said, we're going to
Speaker 1: laugh about this in twenty years, Patty. They pulled the
Speaker 1: entire company together, and he said. There was an article
Speaker 1: coming out in Susie Nicko Parker's column the next day
Speaker 1: that I was going to be fired and that Actor's
Speaker 1: Equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take my place,
Speaker 1: And this was in the newspapers. Yeah, she's the one
Speaker 1: that originated in London. I'm dealing with all of this
Speaker 1: press of me being fired and me not being able
Speaker 1: to sing the part and still going on from my
Speaker 1: well that was that was opening night, and so so
Speaker 1: you go out and do the opening of What Happens?
Speaker 1: Bad reviews again, Actually they weren't bad. They dismissed how
Speaker 1: and this is this was an innovative This was an
Speaker 1: innovative concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they
Speaker 1: barely touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when
Speaker 1: you're ignored. It's one thing if they're passionate and you're
Speaker 1: back and passionate when you're good, But when you're ignored.
Speaker 1: And Mandy and I at one point, I think I
Speaker 1: said you want to go out for a drink? He
Speaker 1: said yeah. We we were in fifty second I think
Speaker 1: that's where the the Broadway theaters. And we walked down
Speaker 1: Eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst into tears. I mean,
Speaker 1: we worked hard in those parts and then to be
Speaker 1: ignored is tough. And then, of course nine months later
Speaker 1: they give us the Tony's. When you win the Tony did,
Speaker 1: was it any vindication for you at all? Or was
Speaker 1: it just a yeah, it's such a relief. It was
Speaker 1: such a relief because really have you rewied everything away?
Speaker 1: Cause I was still performing and still scared out of
Speaker 1: my mind. Every night I envied Mandy because Mandy was
Speaker 1: just all over the place. He didn't have a problem
Speaker 1: singing it. So he literally he told me he told
Speaker 1: me something the other day we were talking about it, Betan.
Speaker 1: He said, well, How told me to go? He wanted
Speaker 1: me over there, and I said to how how do
Speaker 1: I get there? He said, I don't know, just get there.
Speaker 1: And so that's where he does a jette across the stage.
Speaker 1: And I went, I would see it every night, going
Speaker 1: what is Mandy doing that? And it was because How
Speaker 1: told him to get there and get there and he
Speaker 1: didn't care. How so Mandy put it in and it
Speaker 1: became part of his performance and and so. And I
Speaker 1: suppose in that respect How gives the actor freedom. But
Speaker 1: I didn't have that freedom because I was so tied up,
Speaker 1: and then not because I didn't think I could sing it.
Speaker 1: I wanna be when that thing what I did. If
Speaker 1: I ever thought, if I hadn't known that, we would
Speaker 1: stay to aget really And you know when you in
Speaker 1: a rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do
Speaker 1: it over and over and over again, so you're not
Speaker 1: hitting that d in. Screw the middle classes. Once you're
Speaker 1: not hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes, once
Speaker 1: you're doing it over and over again. I didn't have
Speaker 1: vocal technique to know that. I didn't have to hit
Speaker 1: those notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I
Speaker 1: got it during the run by from a kid the
Speaker 1: chorus who David Vossberg, I came off stage in. They
Speaker 1: got him a piano, that put a piano in my
Speaker 1: dressing room, and he worked with me an hour every
Speaker 1: single day before the show. He would come to me
Speaker 1: and um work out of the goodness of his heart.
Speaker 1: David Vosper David vosperg he's in Ohio, he's a director
Speaker 1: of opera. But he would um give me a vocal technique.
Speaker 1: He would warm me up. And the difficult thing was
Speaker 1: to be to apply what he had just taught me
Speaker 1: that night. Because I would do one thing right, something
Speaker 1: else would go disastrously wrong. But at least I was
Speaker 1: getting a technique to sing that part. He saved my job,
Speaker 1: and they knew that and they paid him. Now, you say,
Speaker 1: when you talk about this, you talk about the tension
Speaker 1: and the anxiety and the fear, and you don't really
Speaker 1: want to necessarily be doing a videocause you got another
Speaker 1: David play and this and this and that. When did
Speaker 1: you start to become fun for you? Oh? Anything goes
Speaker 1: with a ball because of the material and because of
Speaker 1: the cast, and and it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts.
Speaker 1: And Jerry did a great job of direct Yes he is.
Speaker 1: And but however, these were the way musicals used to
Speaker 1: be written. You'd have a joke coming and then a
Speaker 1: gorgeous song. The material was so right and so beautiful.
Speaker 1: If I was in a bad mood, all I had
Speaker 1: to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I
Speaker 1: am tonight, just looking at the audience and seeing tears
Speaker 1: of joy from laughter. The only thing we are as
Speaker 1: actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct. We're delivering
Speaker 1: the playwright's intentions through the concept of the director. And
Speaker 1: I come on stage. If I feel confident in the role,
Speaker 1: then I give it away. I give it away anyway.
Speaker 1: But it's all about them, So I have to go
Speaker 1: out there and love them, and I do. And I
Speaker 1: think they see that they can relax with me because
Speaker 1: they know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know,
Speaker 1: there are some actors that don't want to be on
Speaker 1: stage that because you just nailed it, Because because Patty
Speaker 1: the pone to me as a woman who comes out
Speaker 1: there when the first thing does she stopped here and
Speaker 1: she's like, you know, how's everybody doing it? It's like
Speaker 1: a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know
Speaker 1: how you all doing tonight without saying how you all
Speaker 1: doing to it? Like just connect to them and let
Speaker 1: them feel like there's no place else he'd rather be?
Speaker 1: Is there than here? Right now? Well, I think our
Speaker 1: responsibility is to relax them. You've been in an audience.
Speaker 1: I've been in an audience where we're worried for the
Speaker 1: performer and then we're not having experience. And if I'm
Speaker 1: worried for the performer and they and they should be
Speaker 1: worried for then I'm worried for me because I want
Speaker 1: to get the f out of there. Yeah. Hello. Our
Speaker 1: responsibility is a minute we hit the deck, is to
Speaker 1: relax the audience, and that is what is called command.
Speaker 1: But the tiger's gone. The voice as soft as I
Speaker 1: think that you can see when people care and when
Speaker 1: you an Audiences can see when they don't care because
Speaker 1: you see, because you see like someone in the years
Speaker 1: I've bumped into you, run into you, known you, known
Speaker 1: you better, you seem to care of the exact same
Speaker 1: amount as you used to. I love what I do,
Speaker 1: and I love the audience, and I love the fact
Speaker 1: that I get to do it, and I love I
Speaker 1: love our craft very very much, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: noble craft. We have a responsibility to it and to
Speaker 1: the audience and to the play right into the message
Speaker 1: I won't ever care less or Moody was gone. When
Speaker 1: you can see Patty Lapone next in the third season
Speaker 1: of American Horror Story Coven on f X. In a minute,
Speaker 1: I'll talk with Tony nominated playwright John Robin Bates, who
Speaker 1: said about Patty, there's an instrument in her. She's the
Speaker 1: kind of actor that makes me feel compelled to write.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and here's the thing. Take a listen
Speaker 1: to our archive more in depth than honest conversations with artists,
Speaker 1: policymakers and performers. I never was comfortable in front of
Speaker 1: a camera. Really, I never felt I was photogenic. I
Speaker 1: was never happy with how I looked. I became the
Speaker 1: issue because it's about a microphone, not about a camera.
Speaker 1: Here about Billy Joel's insecurities and David Letterman's ambitions. I
Speaker 1: really thought I could write half hours situation comedies. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing. Whatever it is, whatever
Speaker 1: you do, you're our daughter, and I will love. John
Speaker 1: Robin Bates's Broadway play Other Desert Cities was nominated for
Speaker 1: a Tony this year. The play is about family dysfunction
Speaker 1: and the choices we make. There are consequences to our actions.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? How could I trust? How could
Speaker 1: I ever be in your presence? My dear Joe Mantello
Speaker 1: directed Other Desert Cities. He and Bates were a couple
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties. In the theater world, it's hard
Speaker 1: to find someone who wouldn't want to work with Robbie.
Speaker 1: He's complicated and kind. During our conversation, John Robin Bates
Speaker 1: confessed there's been a dark side to his success on Broadway.
Speaker 1: I'm ruined. I'm ruined from off Broadway. Now, I I
Speaker 1: sort of say things like, well, that plays an off
Speaker 1: Broadway play. It's not a Broadway play making fun of myself.
Speaker 1: You know, you're in this great, great grand old house.
Speaker 1: You know that's built for a kind of big experience,
Speaker 1: and the drama is somehow expanded. Bates is also wary
Speaker 1: of going back to Hollywood. In two thousand six, he
Speaker 1: left ABC's Brothers and Sisters, a show he created and
Speaker 1: executive produced, after the first season. Working in l A
Speaker 1: was not for him. The guy who really ran the
Speaker 1: entertainment division kept saying, I I don't understand why anybody
Speaker 1: watches this show. How she would call me and scream
Speaker 1: at me. I actually said to me, I don't know
Speaker 1: who you think you're talking to. And I would, you know,
Speaker 1: politely hang up and say I'm I'm leaving the conversation now.
Speaker 1: It took a while for Robbie Bates to recover, but
Speaker 1: one day, now back on the East Coast, he got
Speaker 1: the idea for other desert cities. I had forgotten how
Speaker 1: to write that. This is the thing I think about
Speaker 1: with other desert cities is it's the play where I learned.
Speaker 1: I taught myself how to write again. I was sitting
Speaker 1: at a beach with my notebook and I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: how to get back into it and what matters to me,
Speaker 1: and I just sort of self destructed. At Brothers and Sisters.
Speaker 1: I found myself very much like the character in my play,
Speaker 1: a writer who is a dangerous creature. And I had
Speaker 1: a note to myself play about daughter of a famous
Speaker 1: family who writes a book about her growing up in
Speaker 1: this family, something like that, the danger of telling the
Speaker 1: truth that turns out to be a lie. And at
Speaker 1: that moment, this lady of a certain age walked by me,
Speaker 1: and she looked to me like um Pat Buckley, the
Speaker 1: old Diane of New York conservative politics, the wife of
Speaker 1: Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley, and I had lunch with her
Speaker 1: once and found her to be charming and engaged. And
Speaker 1: this woman walked by me on this beach with her
Speaker 1: hat and in a one piece bathing suit. I immediately
Speaker 1: felt the mother in that play. And I suddenly remembered
Speaker 1: old California the way it was when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and we were just in the throes of an election
Speaker 1: at the time, too were about to be and the
Speaker 1: Republicans of certainly of that period and even more so today,
Speaker 1: we're very confusing to me because they didn't seem recognizable
Speaker 1: to me as having a coherent, cohesive coach and argument
Speaker 1: for their principal positions, which had to be principled in
Speaker 1: some way. The play just came together in one fell swoop,
Speaker 1: old California Conservatives, the old Hollywood system, Reagan nights. I
Speaker 1: even remembered I'd gone to high school with I think,
Speaker 1: the daughter of John Gavin, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: because I love Touch of Evil, and that I think
Speaker 1: isn't John Gavin. No, he's not in Touch of Evil.
Speaker 1: He's in Psycho Case in all these movies. And I
Speaker 1: thought about he was the ambassador to Mexica. That's right,
Speaker 1: as is the Stacy Keach character in my play. And
Speaker 1: I thought about your characters based on John gaff to
Speaker 1: some extent, they're all these archetypes. At the back of
Speaker 1: all this, of course, there's also Joe Mentello, who you know,
Speaker 1: we're no longer a couple, but he's my family, my
Speaker 1: best friends, and you see, being a couple of one
Speaker 1: year two thousand and two. So it was a while,
Speaker 1: and he kept saying to me, with all possible respect,
Speaker 1: nobody's waiting for the next Robbie Bates play, and you know,
Speaker 1: these are chilling words because I have so much to
Speaker 1: say and it's not coming out. My equivalent of that
Speaker 1: is my agent said to me. He goes, it's not
Speaker 1: that these people don't want to hire you because they
Speaker 1: don't like you. He says, they don't want to hire
Speaker 1: you because they don't think of you at all. Jesus, Well,
Speaker 1: it's terrible, because the worst thing that can happen to
Speaker 1: an artist, I'm invisible. I no longer matter for me.
Speaker 1: Writing plays has always been very tricky. I don't know
Speaker 1: a lot. I don't have a lot to say. I
Speaker 1: reached things very slowly, and I I sometimes it seems
Speaker 1: facile and easy. And to me some of the times
Speaker 1: that my thoughts and my sort of expressed opinions in
Speaker 1: place seem hollow or naive, even because I know they're
Speaker 1: deeper truths always to be found and that I'm But
Speaker 1: don't you think that seeking them and being aware of
Speaker 1: that makes you more likely to find it than anybody?
Speaker 1: You didn't go to college. Did you know why you
Speaker 1: wanted educating yourself? I wish I had gone to college.
Speaker 1: It was a depressed and unsettled kid. And why I
Speaker 1: don't I think I wasn't at peace with probably any
Speaker 1: element of who I was, whether it was a sort
Speaker 1: of nascent intellectual or sort of pre expressive homosexual kid,
Speaker 1: or variously. L A from you were born where in
Speaker 1: l A and you live there to your old seven
Speaker 1: then Brazil for three years in Rio, and then South
Speaker 1: Africa for six and a half years until I was eighteen,
Speaker 1: and your father was in the condensed milk business. My
Speaker 1: father worked for a giant multinational carnation milk. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a condensed milk business. So l A, Brazil, South Africa,
Speaker 1: and then back to LA. When you finally get back
Speaker 1: to LA. How old are you so? High school's over?
Speaker 1: I just finished high school. I'd sort of lost time
Speaker 1: through all the travels high school in South Africa, Like
Speaker 1: I couldn't get used to things like cricket and corporal punishment,
Speaker 1: you know, you get cane for like not doing well
Speaker 1: on a spelling test, literally caned. And I think I
Speaker 1: was so busy trying to be sly and charming that
Speaker 1: I forgot how to be me. That I think led
Speaker 1: me to rebel against learning itself. So I was sort
Speaker 1: of interested in the few things I was interested in. Literature, history,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't apply myself to anything except escape, and
Speaker 1: part of escape meant not going to college. I was
Speaker 1: really lonely, and I I kind of became a depressed kid,
Speaker 1: and that manifests itself. If you can say I think
Speaker 1: I did you know you were gay? Then yes, I
Speaker 1: definitely knew that. I knew that add to your depression
Speaker 1: didn't make you feel more isolated. It wasn't proactive the
Speaker 1: gay humanity there. Yeah. Well, um, I think my parents,
Speaker 1: who loved me very much, were distracted by their own terrors.
Speaker 1: There are certain families that are born in terror and
Speaker 1: live in terror. Um, conceived in terror? I need you
Speaker 1: to write a player for me. I want to be
Speaker 1: called conceived in terror? Happen? Well, No, I mean death
Speaker 1: of a salesman is is a family that lives in terror.
Speaker 1: You were how old when you arrived in Durban? Ten?
Speaker 1: So you were the eight years? Yeah, I was there
Speaker 1: almost eight years critical time, ten years or so all
Speaker 1: of your real back half of your childhood, your teenage
Speaker 1: years especially you are in Durban. Yes, it was seventeen
Speaker 1: or something when we left, but you had finished the
Speaker 1: high school program. No, no, I finished it in l
Speaker 1: a you did. What was that? Like? I, you know,
Speaker 1: was the only kid I knew who rode their bike
Speaker 1: to school because everybody else's parents had given them a
Speaker 1: fiat literally, yeah or something. Who were your friends? Then?
Speaker 1: Who did you become friends with? Anyone? Oh? Yeah? In fact,
Speaker 1: Jenny Livingston went on to make Paris Is Burning, great documentary,
Speaker 1: Tina Landau great theater director. Gina Gershawn my oldest friend
Speaker 1: from high school. We were in place together in the
Speaker 1: drama department. So I became friends with and I say
Speaker 1: this with real respect and love with fellow freaks. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling about yourself and about life that last
Speaker 1: year in Beverly Hills? I think I was scared to
Speaker 1: death still. I mean, it was just a new form
Speaker 1: of foreignness, but it had the pattern of something very
Speaker 1: familiar to me. But you know, I remember being taken
Speaker 1: to a party really early on, and I had developed
Speaker 1: a kind of weird eye beforehand for art. I thought
Speaker 1: maybe I was going to be a painter or an
Speaker 1: artis historian. And I walked into this house and there
Speaker 1: is a giant David Hackney and next to it is
Speaker 1: a giant mother. Well, I'm standing in front of this
Speaker 1: giant painting that's famous that I've looked at in books
Speaker 1: Thames and Hutson art books. While I was in Durban
Speaker 1: at the Art Library of the University. I know, the
Speaker 1: world was just very real and different, and it was
Speaker 1: easier to like have sex, and it was easier to
Speaker 1: to function. Were you writing? I guess I was sort
Speaker 1: of writing, Yeah, what were you writing? I was writing
Speaker 1: really bad short stories about alienated Paul Bull's kids adrift
Speaker 1: in foreign countries, which is basically tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: Still what I'm doing. It just looks slightly the wallpapers prettier. Now,
Speaker 1: where were you living at that age? I was living
Speaker 1: um on friends sofas, like the parents of children I
Speaker 1: went to high school with. I was I was just
Speaker 1: a freak, you know, and I was at odds with
Speaker 1: my family at the time, you know, and I had
Speaker 1: escaped and it was just a nightmare. How do we
Speaker 1: get from there to fair Country? Gordon Davidson, you know
Speaker 1: in Pinocchio where he falls in with actors. I'm walking around.
Speaker 1: I ran into this girl I knew from Ice Cool.
Speaker 1: She said, what are you doing? And I'm sort of
Speaker 1: looking for a job. I think I'm starving to death.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, she said to me, And I should
Speaker 1: have known. She said, well, my father just fired me.
Speaker 1: He needs he needs a new assistant. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what does he do and she said, oh, he's a
Speaker 1: film producer. Who is the film producer. This is great guy.
Speaker 1: And he my first day at the office, he says
Speaker 1: to me, whatever you do, answer the phones, but never
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. And I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. And he said, you'll do fine.
Speaker 1: And he had a gang of cronies, all of whom
Speaker 1: had contempt for the studio system, had done well, fallen
Speaker 1: out of favor, usually had destroyed themselves through my favorite thing,
Speaker 1: their own ambivalence. I found myself at home for the
Speaker 1: first time in my life when the nest of scorpions,
Speaker 1: Yes I did, I found myself. I said this, I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: because nobody is trying to pass. It's a den of thieves, lawyer.
Speaker 1: It was still the days of speaker phone, and they
Speaker 1: would have fights. They had a tower on Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 1: They had a nest of rooms in a tower and
Speaker 1: they would be fighting with each other and then they
Speaker 1: would suddenly be a pause. Someone would say jeez, if
Speaker 1: you could see what I see right now, that girl
Speaker 1: walking down sunset. She is so beautiful. The fight was over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing meant anything of sex. That's one of the masters
Speaker 1: for a glass of waters. My first few weeks there
Speaker 1: two what do I know. I would go to the sink,
Speaker 1: bring a glass of waters, spit it out like practically
Speaker 1: on me and say this isn't water. And I would say, yes,
Speaker 1: it's water. What are you talking about? That's water. It's
Speaker 1: I want affectional water. And the whole time became about
Speaker 1: professional water. How long did that last? Three or four? Like, uh,
Speaker 1: four some years? No? No, but it got you when
Speaker 1: the scorpions that's looking down of the women's asses for
Speaker 1: four years, and I would copy everything down. And so
Speaker 1: at the same time I started hanging around with these actors,
Speaker 1: there was a sort of an equally desperate contingent of
Speaker 1: avant gardists, odd playwrights living on the fringes of everything.
Speaker 1: And so I lived between these two worlds, one of
Speaker 1: which was sort of drunk and druggy, and the other
Speaker 1: was insane megalet noma. I can't say the word megalomaniacal.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Megan. I'm here for maniacal. You just think
Speaker 1: of the words and I'll say that, thank you. I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna be in each other. I know, it's
Speaker 1: like Bluetooth up to technology Bluetooth. I had to come
Speaker 1: up with a play for one of these sort of
Speaker 1: workshop things that we would put together, and one of
Speaker 1: these playwrights said to me, so, what's your play, and
Speaker 1: me bullshitting, I said, yeah, it's called Miss Lansky Zelinski.
Speaker 1: On the spot, I just came up with the next
Speaker 1: on those guys. Yeah, I said, yeah, it's called Ky,
Speaker 1: just based on the guys in the town. So it's
Speaker 1: just them talking. And I put all my notes together
Speaker 1: and we did it, and the first one you run. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Almost thirty years later, Bates continues to draw inspiration from
Speaker 1: all types of sources. With other desert cities, Bates wrote
Speaker 1: the part of the family's patriarch with one of his
Speaker 1: favorite performers in mind, Stacy Keach. I worshiped Stacy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I work. He is one of the great wild Mustangs
Speaker 1: of all theater history. He's great and I love him. So,
Speaker 1: you know, he and Joe didn't know each other, and
Speaker 1: so they got on the phone before rehearsal, and Stacy
Speaker 1: says to Chow, you know, I've worked with Robbie before.
Speaker 1: We worked together before, and I know him well. And
Speaker 1: do you do you know him? Have you worked with him?
Speaker 1: And how how well do you know him? Jose? I
Speaker 1: kind of know him and we lived together for twelve years.
Speaker 1: But that's Stacy. He's like, oh damn. The great thing
Speaker 1: about Stacy is he brings centuries of actors honor onto
Speaker 1: that stage with him. The honor of honoring fellow actors,
Speaker 1: the honor of listening, the privilege of being an actor,
Speaker 1: the privilege of being in the theater, not missing a
Speaker 1: single show in his seventies, the rich worlds of it,
Speaker 1: The privilege of working in the theater is the thing
Speaker 1: that has been of everything that's happened to me. Just
Speaker 1: the great honor of being in the American theater in
Speaker 1: some capacity is what I'm left with that it's a
Speaker 1: privilege to be in it. I'm lucky to have found
Speaker 1: my way back to it. This is Alec Baldwin coming up.
Speaker 1: I speak with the man who inspired a John Robin Bates.
Speaker 1: Stacy Keach, an artist who has influenced a generation of actors.
Speaker 1: The madness liberated me in a way and liberated Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Mark me. I will my hour has almost come when
Speaker 1: I just sulferis and tormenting flames, must render up myself.
Speaker 1: Stacy Keach has played such roles as Richard, the third
Speaker 1: King Lear Hamlet, as well as Hamlet's ghost Falstaff and
Speaker 1: Willie Lohman. He's also played the President of Deaf Beer
Speaker 1: in The Simpsons and sergeants Stadanko and Cheech and Chong's
Speaker 1: Up in Smoke The Only Way to Catch a Doper's
Speaker 1: when you yourself become a smoker. Keach is undoubtedly the
Speaker 1: only actor in Up in Smoke who has also worked
Speaker 1: with director John Houston. Keach starred in Houston's film Fat City,
Speaker 1: But perhaps Keach is best known as the irresistible Fedora
Speaker 1: wearing detective Mike Hammer. Are you for higher? My money
Speaker 1: is too dirty? A lesser performer might have found himself
Speaker 1: with limited offers after what was Keach's longest running job.
Speaker 1: Not so for the seventy one year old actor. His
Speaker 1: key to career longevity is simple. He says, quote, you
Speaker 1: need television and movies to make a living, but you'll
Speaker 1: be taken more seriously if you are stage worthy. Stage
Speaker 1: worthy in Chicago and Washington, but especially New York and
Speaker 1: last year, as playwright John Robin Bates mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: Our Show New York, audiences saw him on Broadway in
Speaker 1: Bates's other desert cities. Well, we all have our ways
Speaker 1: of coping, and mine is to be overprotectively live. Stacy
Speaker 1: keaches dedication to his craft is unwavering, but his technique
Speaker 1: has changed over the years. I think in my early days,
Speaker 1: I started pretty much as you know, from the outside
Speaker 1: and tried to get a fix on what the character
Speaker 1: looked like and then perhaps what he sounded like after that.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't the best way to start. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's better to start inside and work out
Speaker 1: if you can't, And in later years I've done that
Speaker 1: more and more. But I just finished a picture with
Speaker 1: Alexander Payne called Nebraska, where he called me and he said,
Speaker 1: you know you, I was playing the bad guy in
Speaker 1: this uh, and he said, your teeth they're too good.
Speaker 1: So the whole character became centralized in terms of you
Speaker 1: know what I was in here, you know, and they
Speaker 1: say they made these snarly teeth for me, and which
Speaker 1: it was great, you know, and it sort of gave
Speaker 1: me a feel and I would look at myself in
Speaker 1: the mirror and make you know, facial expressions and that
Speaker 1: sort of gave me the feeling of where this guy
Speaker 1: was coming from, you know. But it varies. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're playing like I was just down in Washington,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do fal Staff again next year, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's just a big, fat, corpulent guy and interested me
Speaker 1: enough even with all the physical manifestations of that character,
Speaker 1: that character you you got to go inside. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's you know. And when I was not enough just
Speaker 1: to play the the look, No, not at all, not
Speaker 1: at all. When I first did it was back in
Speaker 1: the night five years ago. You did what in fal Staff?
Speaker 1: And what did they put a suit on you? Oh? Huge,
Speaker 1: just big? You're very lean guy I was, you know,
Speaker 1: and I had to wear this big fat suite the
Speaker 1: only Alder designers leather costume for me. And what do
Speaker 1: they do back then in terms of your face when
Speaker 1: you're lean whiskers had a week of course, and a
Speaker 1: bulbous knows what was it about? Way too young? When
Speaker 1: I played him? I was gonna say, what was it
Speaker 1: about you that back then, when you were this athletic,
Speaker 1: lean leading man in the movie business, that you want
Speaker 1: to put a fat suit on it? Why were you
Speaker 1: running into Why were you diving into a fat suit? Well,
Speaker 1: because you know you wanted great parts, It's exactly, and
Speaker 1: that is one of the probably, I think, of all
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare's characters. I think it's probably one of the
Speaker 1: you know that in Hamlin are probably the two greatest,
Speaker 1: better than Lead, I think. I mean, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a greater part. It's more. It's there's much more going
Speaker 1: on with Falstaff, I think. And you're gonna do it again.
Speaker 1: So you did false stuff the first time, win sixty
Speaker 1: eight in the park. Oh yeah, it makes me feel
Speaker 1: very hung years later, years later, you're gonna Staff and
Speaker 1: I won't have to wear panting this. No, no, I'm tea.
Speaker 1: Who are you doing it for? Michael conn at the
Speaker 1: Shakespeare Theater in Washington, d C, d C. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do both parts. We're gonna do part one in
Speaker 1: part two, one of the great experiences of my life
Speaker 1: was doing those plays together in the park. We started
Speaker 1: at ten o'clock at night. We did Part one and
Speaker 1: then Part two, and as the dawn came up in
Speaker 1: the the end of the evening was the early morning.
Speaker 1: It was just when Falstaff was being demposed by Prince
Speaker 1: Ol played by Sam Waterston. Yeah. Yeah, you grew up
Speaker 1: where I grew up in southern California, and your dad
Speaker 1: was in the business. Dad was in the business. What
Speaker 1: do He was an actor, director, producer. He did a show,
Speaker 1: a radio show called Tales of the Texas Rangers with
Speaker 1: Joel McCrae, and that when I was twelve years old.
Speaker 1: He used to take me down to NBC studios and
Speaker 1: I would watch these actors do their thing was a
Speaker 1: live radio broadcast with all the folly and the sound
Speaker 1: effects and the horses and you know, and that was
Speaker 1: magic for me. And radio was how I sort of
Speaker 1: got it in. Yeah, that was his thing. That was
Speaker 1: his thing. And what did he say to you? What
Speaker 1: was his uh program with you? So to speak in
Speaker 1: terms of your career? Did he want you to do this?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. He said, no, you know, acting is not
Speaker 1: something you should do. You want to be. You wanted
Speaker 1: me to be a lawyer, and he want my brother
Speaker 1: to be a doctor. He said, you know it's it's
Speaker 1: to this business is two fraught with wants to do that.
Speaker 1: Did you think about, well, you know what when I
Speaker 1: gradually I started acting in high school junior high school,
Speaker 1: was doing plays, and every time I would get apart
Speaker 1: in a play, my dad would get very excited. He
Speaker 1: would get very animated, and he wanted to show me, like,
Speaker 1: for example, I was doing the stage Manager in our
Speaker 1: town in high school and he would come in and
Speaker 1: he was his favorite play, and he showed he said,
Speaker 1: not when you're when you're describing that, He said, you
Speaker 1: describe that big butternut tree. You've got to see that tree.
Speaker 1: And when you're when you're working in the in the
Speaker 1: drug store and you're getting ice cream out of the
Speaker 1: out of the ice cream box, you've got to reach
Speaker 1: your hand weight down and then put it. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was so animated and he came a specific, very
Speaker 1: specific and very much alive. So all of his b
Speaker 1: asked about not do this, You're not gonna do this.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be a lawyer. But did he live long
Speaker 1: enough to see you what did he Well, then that
Speaker 1: was the good part. And then you're a genius. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well and then and then it was a good thing
Speaker 1: because it wasn't until I got to Berkeley and I
Speaker 1: was I started, you know, I was given an edict,
Speaker 1: You're not going to be in in any place. First
Speaker 1: year as a freshman, I was studying political science and economics.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was it. You know, I was gonna
Speaker 1: I was gonna do the same thing. So at the
Speaker 1: end of the first year, I got a play finally,
Speaker 1: and I passed. I got through the first year, and
Speaker 1: he said, okay, if you want to do a play,
Speaker 1: you can do a play. So I did a play
Speaker 1: and and that was it. It was a play called
Speaker 1: to Learn to Love was written by one of the professors,
Speaker 1: and it was about these navy guys and it was
Speaker 1: a big hit on campus. Professor cast me the next
Speaker 1: semester as to Flores and the Change lea Jacobean play
Speaker 1: written by Thomas Middleton Middleton and Raleigh, great great piece,
Speaker 1: sort of a Richard the Third type of character. And
Speaker 1: I had, you know, success with that, and my my
Speaker 1: parents came and saw me and they said, well, I
Speaker 1: guess you know, you may have some talent, so maybe
Speaker 1: if this is what you want to do, we'll support you.
Speaker 1: So they came and you had some talent. At least
Speaker 1: they thought that you're you're onto something. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: loved it. I mean, and I couldn't stand economics and
Speaker 1: put a little science. Man. I was terrible at USC Berkeley. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I went for a degree in drama. I got a
Speaker 1: degree in drama English. Yeah. And then what did you
Speaker 1: do after that? Then I went I went to Yale
Speaker 1: Drama School for a year. What was the program that was? It?
Speaker 1: Was it longer than me year? Or you finished? It was?
Speaker 1: You know? It was a three year program. I only
Speaker 1: stayed a year. I didn't like it at all. Well,
Speaker 1: in those days, Constance Welsh was the acting teacher, and
Speaker 1: she was pretty much the very much old school learning
Speaker 1: all these fonetic signs and symbols, and I mean, this
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with what I was interested in.
Speaker 1: I had done two summers at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Speaker 1: between my junior and senior year. In between my senior
Speaker 1: year and my first year Yale and play some pretty
Speaker 1: good part Henry the Fifth and ri Cure Show and
Speaker 1: Baron sort of I was getting my feet wet with
Speaker 1: Shakespeare and these big wonderful ships. You're a part of
Speaker 1: your your childhood and me, why are you so? You're
Speaker 1: pretty much steeped in shakespeare early stage gear. Why this
Speaker 1: is just your own passion. Oregon Shakespeare Festival that was
Speaker 1: responsible for that's went there and you were at home.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's where it started. That's where it started.
Speaker 1: And then when I came back East, I was at Yale,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't crazy about Yale because no more fonetic symbols, right,
Speaker 1: no more for you know? And Joe after that year
Speaker 1: where Joe found you, Joe, Joe Papa and well, thanks
Speaker 1: the Oregan Shakespeare Festival. You were ready, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Henry Hughes Saturday he was. He was a drama critic
Speaker 1: for the Saturady Review. Wrote a nice review of me
Speaker 1: doing Henry the Fifth. Joe had read that, And when
Speaker 1: I got to Yale, I called the New York Chase
Speaker 1: Professional one day audition. He said, come on now. So
Speaker 1: I went and I met Joe pat And in this
Speaker 1: smoke field office and here in Manhattan. I sat down
Speaker 1: and he said, Okay, what are you gonna do it
Speaker 1: for me. Let's just I'll do a little piece from
Speaker 1: Henry the Fifth, Upon the King and I started reading.
Speaker 1: I got three, I got upon the King, let us
Speaker 1: our lives and that's it. Are you remember of equity?
Speaker 1: I said, no, you're going to be. You're gonna play
Speaker 1: Marcellus in my production of Hamlet this summer. Julie Harris
Speaker 1: is going to be playing Ophelia. Alfred Ryder is going
Speaker 1: to be playing Hamlet. We'll see you this summer. That
Speaker 1: was it. I walked down there. I was floating on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was it, you know. And then summer
Speaker 1: of sixty three, sixty sixty four, and then I went
Speaker 1: to England after that on a Fulbright scholarship to the
Speaker 1: London Academy Music and Dramatic Art. Just study for a year.
Speaker 1: Why did you stop? And now you've got I mean,
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is the beginning of a pattern
Speaker 1: where you get the hot hand here and Joe Pap
Speaker 1: wants you, and then you say, okay, hold on those
Speaker 1: I gotta go over to London for a year. Well
Speaker 1: that's it. And he was not happy about that, Joe,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough he was also I didn't realize this
Speaker 1: was just a coincidence. He was on the screening committee
Speaker 1: for the full Bright guys, and when I came in,
Speaker 1: he said, what are you here for it? I said,
Speaker 1: I'm antitioning for you. And he said, don't do upon
Speaker 1: the King again. I've seen it, you know, do something else.
Speaker 1: And he was tough, and he was tough, and I
Speaker 1: did not. I was not given a Fullbright. I was
Speaker 1: chosen as an alternate. I was really depressed that summer.
Speaker 1: I got a note from the full Bright commission say,
Speaker 1: the guy who was supposed to go dropped out, so
Speaker 1: you're in. So I made it by the skin of
Speaker 1: your You know why, Lamba were you could have trained
Speaker 1: for the musical theater. No, no, for classical theater. And
Speaker 1: you were there for a year? Was there for a year?
Speaker 1: What did you benefit from that? Well? First of all,
Speaker 1: the exposure to the English theater in that year was
Speaker 1: unbelieved and comparable, unbelievable. And I got to see I
Speaker 1: saw Olivier do not only Othello, I saw him do
Speaker 1: the Master Builder, saw his production that he directed of
Speaker 1: the of the of the Crucible. It was. It was
Speaker 1: an amazing year. Were you ever tempted to stay there,
Speaker 1: did you feel you belonged there? No Americans doing classical
Speaker 1: theater still has looked on a little bit of skance
Speaker 1: by the English. I mean, you know, just like we don't,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want them to touch William was exactly.
Speaker 1: It's the same deal, you know. So you finished there
Speaker 1: and you came right home. I came back. Then I
Speaker 1: came to Lincoln Center and I auditioned for Jules Irving
Speaker 1: and Herbert Blah who were just coming from the Actor's
Speaker 1: workshop in San Francisco. And they said, you're you know,
Speaker 1: come on in, you're the you know you're in the company.
Speaker 1: So I was married at the time. Why did you
Speaker 1: do that? I know? That was that was And then
Speaker 1: the longest run you've ever done as an actor on
Speaker 1: days um about nine months about and that was well
Speaker 1: no other Desert cities ran for about almost a year.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's about it for me. I play
Speaker 1: the role you've been the most connected to. Well. I
Speaker 1: did Hamlet three times to try to get it right.
Speaker 1: I never did. I never got why do you say that?
Speaker 1: Three different productions? What was the first one? Long war theater?
Speaker 1: Irvin Brown directed it one year. Let me see if
Speaker 1: I can remember the it was. It had to be seventy.
Speaker 1: I think it was seventy seventy. Oh, yeah, I was, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually, well, they say Hamlet's thirty, you know,
Speaker 1: so that was about it was about thirty when I
Speaker 1: did it. And so you're up in New Haven. I
Speaker 1: was up in New Haven, and you know, the first
Speaker 1: time you play that part, I was so intimidated by
Speaker 1: the fact of all the other actors who played it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's intimidating. I mean, you know, and
Speaker 1: I once I said you were Hamlets, that's right, becomes
Speaker 1: you're Hamlets. And most of the time I was concerned
Speaker 1: about getting the lines and getting you know, just getting
Speaker 1: the moves right, just putting it all together and figuring
Speaker 1: and then trying to figure it out. That summer, Joe
Speaker 1: Pappy kind of came and saw it and said, come
Speaker 1: into the park and we'll do it a different production.
Speaker 1: And I got it. I got closer to it. I
Speaker 1: got closer to I felt I never had the perfect show,
Speaker 1: but I got closer to it. And then that was
Speaker 1: right after new Haven, right after and then two years
Speaker 1: later Mark Taper for him in Los Angeles, totally different production,
Speaker 1: Gordon Davison directing, and I had one night where I
Speaker 1: got close, where I really got close, and then I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened something. I think it was in
Speaker 1: the very last scene. I think the hardest thing about
Speaker 1: Hamlet is is, you know, is after that amazing duel
Speaker 1: in the last act, but when he dies, you know,
Speaker 1: it is not to be called breathing on stage. That's
Speaker 1: the hardest, one of the hardest things to do, I
Speaker 1: think in that particular play. I mean, anyway, talk about
Speaker 1: Houston and was it like, oh god, well, the first
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I met him, he came
Speaker 1: to visit me on the set of doc. We were
Speaker 1: shooting a western in Spain with Fay down away in
Speaker 1: Harristuland and we were in this script Fat City written
Speaker 1: it was a very popular book written by Leonard Gardner,
Speaker 1: but boxing and and he came to see me personally
Speaker 1: on the set. I mean, to have John Houston visit
Speaker 1: me on the set of a movie, I mean, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, and he was very gracious and he just
Speaker 1: stays high, I've got a part for you, and I
Speaker 1: think you want to take a look at this. And
Speaker 1: he treated me as if I was his son right
Speaker 1: from the word go. I mean he and I just
Speaker 1: he was so warm, welcome to you. Yeah, it's rare
Speaker 1: of the business. Oh yeah, but he and he was
Speaker 1: larger than life. He didn't make any apologies for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, and and he loved to gamble, loved to gamble,
Speaker 1: and we wondered what that was about. Well, it's very
Speaker 1: interesting because we and I love to gamble too, you know,
Speaker 1: and mean, what's your game? Well, with him it was backgammon.
Speaker 1: We would play backgammon between scenes on the hundred bucks
Speaker 1: a game. No, no, no doctor dollar point. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: just so he disliked it for the for the for
Speaker 1: the fun. Yeah. But he wasn't a gamble trying to
Speaker 1: make money. No, not and not with me, no, you know,
Speaker 1: but but we I would remember we went to we
Speaker 1: were London together and he would, you know, he let's
Speaker 1: go to the Castino. He love you know, he got
Speaker 1: a little gaming. You had a little gaming. Very good.
Speaker 1: I don't know what is it about a gamble. It's
Speaker 1: the dust asky thing, I mean, the challenge of I
Speaker 1: mean they say that people gamble to lose, they don't
Speaker 1: really gamble to win. How to compensate for the feeling
Speaker 1: of loss. You know, I think there's something to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was you know anyway. I love the
Speaker 1: was the lions that went tell me the people gambled
Speaker 1: to find that if God favors them or not. They
Speaker 1: want to know, does God favor me today? Well, you
Speaker 1: know I win, and that that that's my sign that
Speaker 1: God favorite me. I like that because I still I
Speaker 1: get on I get on my iPhone and I'll know
Speaker 1: and I there's a game called be Jeweled. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit like Angry Birds, right, and I feel like
Speaker 1: if I can get it right, then God looking good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I love it. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like in the movie with you. So what
Speaker 1: was he like as a director? Was he insightful for you?
Speaker 1: Did he? Absolutely? He was, Oh yeah, well he's an
Speaker 1: actor first of course, you know, and he know but
Speaker 1: he and he always wanted to give you your space.
Speaker 1: He never I mean, he said, there's only two directions days,
Speaker 1: a little more or a little less. That was it.
Speaker 1: He would let us block the scenes. He would he
Speaker 1: would Susan Terrell and I got lover. We would he
Speaker 1: would say, go in there and you you stage the
Speaker 1: scene the way you feel like it should be staged
Speaker 1: in a domestic seat, at a kitchen or something like that,
Speaker 1: and we would going there and we would stage the scene.
Speaker 1: We work out the moves a lot of trust to
Speaker 1: having his actors tremendous. He come in and look at
Speaker 1: it and then we move things around a little bit,
Speaker 1: make a tweak here, tweak there, and that's the way
Speaker 1: he worked. The thing that really fascinated me about Houston
Speaker 1: was at the very end of the movie I'll Know
Speaker 1: your Jet. Bridges and I were sitting in this kid
Speaker 1: this um cafe and it's the very last thing in
Speaker 1: the movie, and in the background there were these people
Speaker 1: sitting at tables, smoke rising, and they were they were gambling,
Speaker 1: and they were playing cards and they were talking to
Speaker 1: each other. And he said, all right, I want everybody
Speaker 1: in the background to just freeze. And you could see
Speaker 1: the smoke rising up, so you knew it was not
Speaker 1: freeze frame that was done technically by the editors. It
Speaker 1: was something that he directed. And I said, John, why
Speaker 1: did you do that? And he said, because you what
Speaker 1: you said when Billy Tully looks over there and sees nothing.
Speaker 1: He said, I just want there to be the feeling
Speaker 1: that God is intervening here in some way. I said, well,
Speaker 1: why how did you come up with this idea? And
Speaker 1: should the devil made me do it? Wherever John Houston is,
Speaker 1: I want him to know that when the time comes
Speaker 1: for me and Stacy will be more than ready to
Speaker 1: join him for backgammon and cigars. I'm Alec Baldwin and
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Speaker 1: My mom was very strict, you know, very directly stuff
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Speaker 1: the Thing.