Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influence their work. This week, we're
Speaker 1: doing something different. A couple of months back, I had
Speaker 1: the great honor of talking with Dustin Hoffman as part
Speaker 1: of the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival in Hollywood. At
Speaker 1: the festival, we screen some of the greatest films of
Speaker 1: all time, and much of Dustin Hoffman's work fits that description.
Speaker 1: We selected Lenny, the nineteen seventy four film in which
Speaker 1: Hoffman portrays the groundbreaking but troubled comedian and social critic
Speaker 1: Lenny Bruce, who had died eight years prior of a
Speaker 1: drug overdose while battling ongoing obscenity charges. We decided to
Speaker 1: show this movie about Lenny Bruce at eleven thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning. We're gonna show TUTSI at midnight. We thought
Speaker 1: we mixed it up a bit here at the TCM.
Speaker 1: Customer and Lenny, shot in black and white by director
Speaker 1: Bob Fossey, was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture,
Speaker 1: Best Director for Fossey, Best Actress for Valerie Paine, and
Speaker 1: Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman. We're all the same schmuck,
Speaker 1: and it does cracks me up that we try so
Speaker 1: desperately to be unique when we're all the same cat
Speaker 1: eyes and Howard Kennedy Johnson me you every cat has
Speaker 1: got that one chick really busted up his hand. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of speechless whenever I see this film. I've seen
Speaker 1: it a lot, which that doesn't come in handy when
Speaker 1: you have to interview somebody after the film to be
Speaker 1: manduid speechless. But I don't want to labor this too much,
Speaker 1: but you know, this is a movie actor who is
Speaker 1: un any other of the last seventy five years. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great film stars, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of great actors working, especially through the sixties and
Speaker 1: the seventies and the eighties and on beyond that, and
Speaker 1: but few of them took the chances to become a
Speaker 1: different person so many times in films and transform themselves physically, emotionally, psychologically,
Speaker 1: um their voice, you know, to inhabit a character. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's another actor alive in the film business
Speaker 1: in the last several years, who transformed themselves again and again,
Speaker 1: and then would play something very close to themselves, their
Speaker 1: own speech, their own behavior, perhaps their voice, and all
Speaker 1: the President's men and in Cramer versus Kramer. Uh but
Speaker 1: you know, please, um, but I just want to say
Speaker 1: that this is a person I've admired on the deepest
Speaker 1: level for a long long time, and it's my great
Speaker 1: pleasure to ask you to join me and welcoming Dustin Hoffmann. Yeah. Great,
Speaker 1: you're two kinds. M Thank you when you make films
Speaker 1: like this, I mean you've worked You've made so many
Speaker 1: great films and worked with so many great directors. Was
Speaker 1: Fosse some of them? Was out a goal for you
Speaker 1: too to work with Fosse? No, how was it to
Speaker 1: work with Fossey? Tough? Tough, tough? Uh. Bob was a
Speaker 1: originally a choreographer. Her and choreographers don't have dancers coming
Speaker 1: up to them saying, what's my motivation? They dances do
Speaker 1: what they're told. You know. He tried to be in
Speaker 1: a sense to collaborate, but it was tough for him
Speaker 1: and it was tough for me. We had a tough time.
Speaker 1: Did you like to do a lot of takes. Yes,
Speaker 1: both of us did the script. I thought it was problematic,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't that anxious to do it. We went
Speaker 1: into rehearsal with the principal actors, with the wonderful Valerie
Speaker 1: Paene extraordinary performance and was Valerie, myself and you know,
Speaker 1: Jane Minor and I think Stanley Beck were in New
Speaker 1: York in the room and it's going rough the rehearsal,
Speaker 1: and after five days we started Monday. After five days,
Speaker 1: we're rehearsing routines, rehearsing scenes, and on Friday, Bob Fosse says,
Speaker 1: we don't have a movie. We don't have a script.
Speaker 1: See on Monday the reverse two weeks or three weeks,
Speaker 1: and we thought it was gonna be shelved when Hallomen
Speaker 1: came back Monday and he says, I solved it, and
Speaker 1: he interspersed it. He says, I'm going to intersperse it
Speaker 1: with interviews because the scenes there's no connective tissue to them,
Speaker 1: they don't connect. So Stanley Beck, who was wonderful and
Speaker 1: at my manager, Valerie Pete, thank you. Uh uh. Stanley
Speaker 1: and I were close friends since we were beginning actors.
Speaker 1: Uh and Valerie Preen and Jan Minor are going. I
Speaker 1: think that's all it is, isn't Those three are going
Speaker 1: to be interviewed throughout the movie and He'll and I'll
Speaker 1: have an easier time of shooting it. By the way,
Speaker 1: that's Bob Fossey asking the questions. Now, when when you
Speaker 1: make a film like this and there, or any of
Speaker 1: the films you've made, I should say, do you have
Speaker 1: any kind of the unique relationship for a specific relationship
Speaker 1: with the cinematographer Surtease. This film was nominated for six
Speaker 1: Academy Awards and in every one of the major categories
Speaker 1: you would imagine Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress,
Speaker 1: Best Screenplay, and cinematography for Surtees, who made his reputation
Speaker 1: shooting a lot of Clint Eastwoods films for many, many years.
Speaker 1: Bob Surtees was one of the great cinematographers Robert Surtees.
Speaker 1: He was the cinematographer the graduate Bruce is a son
Speaker 1: and son. Yes, we were going with the father and
Speaker 1: son ten And when you shoot a film, do you
Speaker 1: have a specific relationship with cinematographers when you make a film?
Speaker 1: Or no, No, I don't uh, I don't want to know. Uh.
Speaker 1: Where the cameras. In terms of UH, I do ask
Speaker 1: about lenses sometimes if I want my hands to do something,
Speaker 1: and I say, where are you cutting? Where's your bottom frame?
Speaker 1: Because if if it's here, also i'd have to have
Speaker 1: my hands up here to have it in the shot.
Speaker 1: Other than that, I don't really want to know. It's
Speaker 1: interesting that you say that, Alec, because one of the
Speaker 1: things I objected to with with Bob is that he
Speaker 1: posed me. And when you see it, it's gorgeous. So
Speaker 1: he was right. I was wrong, but you know i'd
Speaker 1: be up there, and I worked so hard on these routines. Uh.
Speaker 1: I had never seen Lennie Bruce. Bob had never seen
Speaker 1: Lennie Bruce. Mike Nichols, who I talked to before I
Speaker 1: did it, because he had done the graduate. He and
Speaker 1: Elaine May were acting upstairs on Sunset Boulevard was it
Speaker 1: called a duplex or something a nightclub, and Lenny Bruce
Speaker 1: was downstairs, and in between their acts they would come
Speaker 1: downstairs and watch Bruce because no comedian, they said, would
Speaker 1: do a whole show improvising. You know, sometimes you do
Speaker 1: two minutes, three minutes, and the rest is your is
Speaker 1: your stuff. But Lenny would come out and not know
Speaker 1: what he was going to say. I think the only
Speaker 1: who comedians I know since Lenny that that do that
Speaker 1: one was Robbed Mumbles Robin Williams, and the other one
Speaker 1: was a wonderful Billy Connolly, and neither of them many
Speaker 1: times would just they would just go uh and that
Speaker 1: that takes a lot. But what was the question? Um
Speaker 1: the sorry? We're talking about cinematographers and oh and I
Speaker 1: worked hard. I got the thirty three rpm s that
Speaker 1: Lenny had made us what we called him that we
Speaker 1: didn't call them finals, and I'd lay down on the
Speaker 1: floor and I would play. I had three months. I
Speaker 1: had about three months, and I did every you know.
Speaker 1: I wrote down longhand every single line he said in
Speaker 1: all the records, and he even the ones he did over,
Speaker 1: he would always deviate and I would write them down.
Speaker 1: And then I would go to Bob Fossie and I'd say, geez,
Speaker 1: I like what he did here, because he used these
Speaker 1: sentences or he used that, and I was promised. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what I got so upset about, that
Speaker 1: I would be able to shoot it. We were going
Speaker 1: to shoot it. And I think that's what Bob wanted.
Speaker 1: We were going to shoot it in different clubs in
Speaker 1: Florida and with live audiences, and that's what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to really feel like I'm
Speaker 1: doing it with the real audience. And he'll have whatever,
Speaker 1: three or four cameras at once. He agreed, and that's
Speaker 1: what we were supposed to do. And then it's probably
Speaker 1: money wouldn't allow it. So it was quite laborious sometimes
Speaker 1: to do these routines over and over again, and he
Speaker 1: would tilt the camera, he would go, He'd be like,
Speaker 1: where you are and I'd be on the stage. He said, okay,
Speaker 1: now look a little bit this way, and I'll look up,
Speaker 1: now look down, Okay, now do the routine from here
Speaker 1: to here. And you know, it kind of broke my
Speaker 1: heart because I was trying to be the guy. You know, Foster.
Speaker 1: It was a great, great artist. And uh, it's funny
Speaker 1: because I just saw a film recently with that Alfred Hitchcock,
Speaker 1: directed with Carrie Grant, and uh. Carry Grant said he
Speaker 1: had never worked with Hitchcock again after the first picture
Speaker 1: because they didn't get along, because Hitchcock didn't like to collaborate.
Speaker 1: But then they made up and they made more movies,
Speaker 1: and that Lenny Bruce was not someone you had been
Speaker 1: a fan of or had a big awareness of before them.
Speaker 1: You no, No, I just I was in New York.
Speaker 1: I just never saw him. We couldn't have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean before I was successful. We couldn't afford to
Speaker 1: go to nightclubs, you know. They it was expensive. And uh,
Speaker 1: I love the jazz is what's so extorting? It was
Speaker 1: next to you. Jazz never dates. Jazz is the same
Speaker 1: now as it was that. It's like god ut to score?
Speaker 1: Oh and uh and I had time. No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I had never seen him. I had never seen I
Speaker 1: don't think any comedian. I didn't go to nightclubs much.
Speaker 1: And I went out to l A because they said.
Speaker 1: Someone said to me, if you want to know Lenny Bruce, Uh,
Speaker 1: you gotta go see Sally mar his mother, who was alive.
Speaker 1: And I went. She was very friendly. Uh. She introduced
Speaker 1: me to one of his best friends who used to
Speaker 1: shoot up with and he in turn introduced me to
Speaker 1: friends at Lenny And I had a tape recorder, you know,
Speaker 1: like a wallet, not a walan is like a pearl
Speaker 1: tape recorder, and I taped everything, and she says, you
Speaker 1: want to go to Vegas because they're all They're all
Speaker 1: his friend, Buddy Hackett other people. And I said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, yes, And I was taking all these notes.
Speaker 1: It was the best time of research I've ever had.
Speaker 1: They all said the same thing. Uh, except Buddy Hackett. Um.
Speaker 1: They said, you know, you know Broadway Danny Rose thing,
Speaker 1: will you allen? Did you know? And they used to
Speaker 1: get together, the comedians, Lenny and these guys when they
Speaker 1: were you know certainly what it was. I don't know
Speaker 1: Cantor's or And they said they'd sit around do what
Speaker 1: they did and brow it down, you know, tell jokes.
Speaker 1: And I staidly look around, and he was always very quiet.
Speaker 1: And suddenly he's gone, because he wasn't shy guy. And
Speaker 1: he's gone, and they look around. I don't know where
Speaker 1: he is. And then they find him in the kitchen
Speaker 1: talking to the people that work in the kitchen to help.
Speaker 1: He loved to just talk to the people and and
Speaker 1: ask questions and find out stuff. I think he originally
Speaker 1: this is the stuff I had heard. They kind of
Speaker 1: say it in the movie. The musicians were more important
Speaker 1: to him than the audience, because when you do show
Speaker 1: after show after show. He if you noticed the musicians,
Speaker 1: they're always sitting like that, you know, because they ing
Speaker 1: with them all chance of a Von Monroe and uh
Speaker 1: and Lenny uh Len. He felt that if he could
Speaker 1: crack up the musicians, then he was getting somewhere. I
Speaker 1: think he wanted to be in Hollywood. We wanted to
Speaker 1: be an actor. Also, I had heard you shot this
Speaker 1: movie where we shot a lot of it in Florida.
Speaker 1: The nightclubs, the stage work. Yeah, one nightclub. Basically, I
Speaker 1: think the scene when we were sitting next to each other,
Speaker 1: the scene up there where I'm in my raincoat and
Speaker 1: use Yes. When I came back after my three months,
Speaker 1: I had all this stuff to give Bob. You gotta
Speaker 1: put this in. You gotta put that in. You gotta
Speaker 1: put that. And the one thing that he kept was
Speaker 1: that scene. And the reason he did is when I
Speaker 1: was memorizing, it wasn't then. You know, this is before
Speaker 1: the kind of media. You know, you had cell phones
Speaker 1: and all the texting. Some guy heard I was doing
Speaker 1: the movie and he had been a student somewhere in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and he sent me found out my business address in
Speaker 1: New York, and he sent me a cassette and I
Speaker 1: played it word for word. It's that scene. And I
Speaker 1: got piste off at Bob because when he shot the
Speaker 1: Master from upstairs, right in the back, and when I
Speaker 1: saw it, I said, he didn't cut in. You didn't
Speaker 1: cut in? He says, no, So that's eight minutes, you know,
Speaker 1: being up there, just in one shot, and again he
Speaker 1: was he was right. Uh, it's nice of you to
Speaker 1: admit that. Actually, it's very generous. I've met a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff forty years later. But but do you think
Speaker 1: do you think in your I mean, obviously you're someone
Speaker 1: who when you I mean, I don't believe anything I read.
Speaker 1: But I mean, but but involved I try to minimize
Speaker 1: that in my life of the time. But but the
Speaker 1: but but for you, obviously you know, very fastidious and
Speaker 1: very very lots of questions and lots of seeking and
Speaker 1: so forth in the work you were doing. And what
Speaker 1: do you think that comes from in terms of all
Speaker 1: the films you've made from Graduate on into Cowboy and
Speaker 1: everything like that, where you just seem so, what's the
Speaker 1: word I mean, you're so Jewish? Is that in I'll
Speaker 1: convert If that's it's that simple. I'm gonna convert tomorrow.
Speaker 1: That's what's gonna get me into your strateusy. But the but, but,
Speaker 1: but the thing is you you just seem like you
Speaker 1: always have something to prove a lot of people got
Speaker 1: where you got and they did what you did, and
Speaker 1: you scored with these performances and the originality. But then
Speaker 1: you keep going and you still feel like you have
Speaker 1: Did you feel that way? You still have something to
Speaker 1: prove again and again and again? What drove you? I
Speaker 1: guess the same thing that still drives me. Kobe Bryant
Speaker 1: was interviewed recently. It was before he had a step
Speaker 1: out for the season, because he heard himself. I saw
Speaker 1: the interview and I wrote it down. I told my son,
Speaker 1: Jake was basketball, same question. You know, all these years
Speaker 1: of great basketball playing and he still spend so much
Speaker 1: time practicing and playing whatever. Why? And he said, I
Speaker 1: guess for the challenge of every day. It's beautiful, sons.
Speaker 1: And I have only one slight personal connection to Lenny
Speaker 1: Bruce and that and that was that Marvin Worth was
Speaker 1: a dear friend. He died producer. He produced the stem
Speaker 1: he produced to Malcolm X with Spikey, produced a lot
Speaker 1: of good and he was Bruce's manager, and Marvin Worthy
Speaker 1: was from Brooklyn and his wife Jo never from Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: And he had the one of the heaviest New York
Speaker 1: accents I've never heard in my life. His voice was
Speaker 1: down here. He had a very heavy accent like this.
Speaker 1: And he said to me, I'm gonna revive Letty on Broadway,
Speaker 1: and I want you to do play Letty. I go,
Speaker 1: what and he said, uh, he goes. I got a
Speaker 1: thousand hours of tapes of Lenny. I got thought, Julian Barry,
Speaker 1: We've got so much material and Lenny's he said, there's
Speaker 1: so much stuff we could put in there. I don't
Speaker 1: worry about that. It's all gonna work like a charm.
Speaker 1: And I go and he goes, and your Dusty, he
Speaker 1: called you Dusty. Dusty's not the only one who could
Speaker 1: play that pot. By the way, He's got the only
Speaker 1: person who could play that part. I'm like, uh huh, Sarah.
Speaker 1: And he goes, and he goes, he goes, and I go,
Speaker 1: but what about the other thing? He goes, one other thing?
Speaker 1: What about the other thing? He was one other thing,
Speaker 1: one other thing. One of the things. I go, I'm
Speaker 1: not Jewish, he said, You're from Long Island, right, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you go your hand, you're half way there. The rest
Speaker 1: of the will take care of himself. O that and
Speaker 1: he would have been wonderful. But when you did this film,
Speaker 1: how involved in your films were you before? Then later
Speaker 1: in the casting? Oh, I have to tell you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're asking me. Another example of the Fosse's genius, uh,
Speaker 1: is that I met Honey Bruce. Uh and uh uh?
Speaker 1: Which came first? I met? He cast Valerie Parrain before
Speaker 1: he met Honey Bruce, and then he met her, and
Speaker 1: then I met her we you know, not together. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe Honey Bruce that Valerie was the reincarnation
Speaker 1: of Honey Bruce. Literally, I mean it could have been
Speaker 1: like mother and daughter. I was and I said, Bob,
Speaker 1: you had to have met the Honey Bruce before you
Speaker 1: cast Valeri says no, it was just this intuition. I
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with any of the casting except
Speaker 1: except Stanley. He was nice enough to have Stanley in
Speaker 1: it for my manager and all my films. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the graduate. They've been trying for two years
Speaker 1: to cast it, and Katherine Ross and myself were the
Speaker 1: last two two screen test after two years, and I
Speaker 1: heard that they were sitting in the screen room not
Speaker 1: particularly excited about our screen test, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: either we go with them or we don't do it.
Speaker 1: And it was that kind of a that they said
Speaker 1: that in interviews. I think Larry Terman said that the
Speaker 1: producer and uh Midnight Cowboy, uh he uh he cast Uh,
Speaker 1: he didn't cast John Floyd. He cast some someone else
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't let him out of his contract. And
Speaker 1: after that happened, I said, please see my friend John Voyd.
Speaker 1: We weren't close friends when we've been off for all
Speaker 1: way together. And he says no. John Sessinger said he
Speaker 1: read for it and he doesn't have that Texas accent.
Speaker 1: He was from Yonkers. I said, yeah, but he's an actor.
Speaker 1: He can get it, you know. And John immediately went
Speaker 1: down to Texas forgot where with the tape recorder and
Speaker 1: spent whatever time and came back and and read for
Speaker 1: it and he got the part. But he was second choice.
Speaker 1: Kate Jackson was the first choice for Cramer versus Kramer.
Speaker 1: She was in Charlie's Angels and they were saying, oh,
Speaker 1: the film will pay back itself before we started shooting,
Speaker 1: because they were so popular. And then the studio wouldn't
Speaker 1: let her out. So I kept telling them about this
Speaker 1: Meryl Streep. I had heard about it, ah, and they
Speaker 1: saw and they saw her. So there's been a few
Speaker 1: I've suggested, I've I've never demanded or you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think that works actually, unless you're directing or producing. Well,
Speaker 1: some people, there's some people they have these approvals of
Speaker 1: casting and they and they utilize that in whatever way.
Speaker 1: And those are the people who they just don't get involved.
Speaker 1: They just like they just let it that all take
Speaker 1: care of itself, and the it doesn't really change what
Speaker 1: they do. You know, Devlent Hackman and I knew each
Speaker 1: other on the early days. They're much older and and uh,
Speaker 1: we never worked together. And suddenly I'm doing this thing.
Speaker 1: A few years ago. We're shooting in New Orleans a
Speaker 1: runaway jury and I have a I think a supporting
Speaker 1: part and Gene Hackman has a leading part. And the
Speaker 1: director finds out that we knew each other. We went
Speaker 1: to the past, seen the playhouse together to kicked out
Speaker 1: after three months, they're not having any talent and h
Speaker 1: oh my god, you guys know each other for all
Speaker 1: those time, dirty years. Yeah, we gotta do a scene.
Speaker 1: So they wrote a scene. It's it's one of the
Speaker 1: last scenes in the movie. Takes place in a public bathroom.
Speaker 1: It's like an eight page dialogue scene. And afterwards, it
Speaker 1: was the last thing I shot the movie. It's over,
Speaker 1: and Gane and I say, let's go out and get drunk.
Speaker 1: And we go to an Italian restaurant in New Orleans
Speaker 1: and we're getting drunk and Hackman says, were you scared?
Speaker 1: I said, I was so scared. Man, I thought I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm going to forget my lines. He said he
Speaker 1: felt exactly the same way. You know, because you are
Speaker 1: what you are at the beginning, you don't really change.
Speaker 1: We were unemployee actors for ten years, and he said
Speaker 1: to me, and one of the great things ever said.
Speaker 1: We were just close to each other. He says, do
Speaker 1: you feel the same way I do after you finish
Speaker 1: a movie? And he probably made a hundred twenty movies.
Speaker 1: I said, what do you feel like You'll never work again?
Speaker 1: Of course, every single time that that's it. After five
Speaker 1: decades of consistently winning roles, every actor dreams of Hoffman's
Speaker 1: years of joblessness remain charming. His latest film, The Program
Speaker 1: About Lance Armstrong, will be released later this year. Listen
Speaker 1: to other episodes of Here's the Thing in our archives,
Speaker 1: like my conversation with Dick Cavitt, whose career as an
Speaker 1: iconic talk show host includes a TV interview with hot
Speaker 1: young newcomer Dustin Hoffman, fresh off his film The Graduate,
Speaker 1: the tape of which may or may not exist. There
Speaker 1: are several several versions of what really happened. I just
Speaker 1: remember being told one day, Dick, they're going to either
Speaker 1: reuse the tapes or race them or jump them. When
Speaker 1: you see what tapes that once to the ABC show
Speaker 1: and you can have them if you want to for
Speaker 1: sixty dollars. And I thought, well that's a ludicrous amount
Speaker 1: of money. Yeah. Take a listen at Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing Today, recorded live at the Egyptian Theater
Speaker 1: in Hollywood as part of the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival.
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman has been nominated for the Oscar for Best
Speaker 1: Actor seven times. He's won the award twice. Actors Strive
Speaker 1: for depth and range in their work. Hoffman makes this
Speaker 1: appear effortless. There's obviously roles you played, like Cramer versus
Speaker 1: Cramer and all the President's men, and you seem it's,
Speaker 1: I don't know what word to use. It seems close
Speaker 1: from who you are, your voice and your appearance and
Speaker 1: your psychologic stuffing. You're paying playing a contemporary character. You're
Speaker 1: not playing somebody with some disability or what have you.
Speaker 1: It's not rain Man or someone who's damaged and broken
Speaker 1: like Cowboy and so forth like that. But you've done both.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a theatricality of the roles and a
Speaker 1: vividness to them, and you're not afraid to do that.
Speaker 1: Where does that come from? From being in the theater? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I where are you from? From? Long as?
Speaker 1: I'm from fucking long Asland, fuckings long with two? So
Speaker 1: how first of all, I wish we lived in the
Speaker 1: same city. How old were you when you started studying act?
Speaker 1: And when they sent you out? They sent you out
Speaker 1: for certain kinds of parts, young leading men, the young
Speaker 1: guys who could cried a lot or whatever. I'm the
Speaker 1: short Jew and uh still with some acne, and I
Speaker 1: come to New York and night to study, and I
Speaker 1: always said leading men, young leading men, Juvenile's character juveniles.
Speaker 1: That's what I was designed as. I couldn't get an agent,
Speaker 1: and that's just code for Semitic, you know, because in
Speaker 1: those days the leading man was white Anglo Saxon Protestant
Speaker 1: and the ethnic person was character juvenile or character us.
Speaker 1: It really was that way anyway. So I went out
Speaker 1: a few times. I could, you know, go to open auditions,
Speaker 1: because if you're not equity then you can't go to
Speaker 1: a regular audition, and you can't go to a regular
Speaker 1: audition until you get your equity card, and you can't
Speaker 1: get an equity card until you get a job, so
Speaker 1: you know, catch twenty two. So the few times that
Speaker 1: I could go, it was the character Juvenile and by
Speaker 1: Hooker Crook, uh Nichols casts Cassan Ross and I in
Speaker 1: a graduate and I'd been just starting to get somewhere
Speaker 1: off Broadway doing you know, my own style of stuff,
Speaker 1: hunchbacked German, gay guy with a limp, you know, first
Speaker 1: thing that I got mentioned for in the in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and uh Nichols had heard about it,
Speaker 1: and uh and I got to you're not kidding. You
Speaker 1: played a hunchback Germany, German homosexual with a limb Ronald ribbon.
Speaker 1: What was the production Harry Noon and Night? And the
Speaker 1: other actor was what's this Joel Joel Gray? Sorry Joe? Uh, yes,
Speaker 1: that was accurate. So uh he brings me out to
Speaker 1: test me, and I didn't want to test. I was doing,
Speaker 1: for the first time in my life, doing well off Broadway.
Speaker 1: I won an award, and I thought, I'll have a career,
Speaker 1: you know, do I'll do off Broadway. And you know
Speaker 1: this as well as I do. Uh. You know, if
Speaker 1: God has said, look Alec, you'll never be in the movies,
Speaker 1: you'll never get leading roles. If you're struggling for years,
Speaker 1: you won't even be on Broadway. I will guarantee you
Speaker 1: a good part Broadway for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: You'd sign you would, you know? Uh? And so would
Speaker 1: Hackman who moved Fronture and down you know, six flights,
Speaker 1: and do Val who worked midnight to eight in the
Speaker 1: post office. And I was doing waiter jobs and a
Speaker 1: little acting teaching if I could. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's never changed as actors here. You know the pain
Speaker 1: of that um and uh, here. He is now taking
Speaker 1: me out into l A and testing and can we
Speaker 1: do anything about his nose? I remember, and I mean,
Speaker 1: well the guy is He said, you don't and he
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I mean, he's the hottest director from
Speaker 1: Neil Simon Broadway and also Virginia Wolf. He did, Uh,
Speaker 1: there was no hotterer director at that moment in time.
Speaker 1: He was Spielberg. And he said, what do you mean
Speaker 1: you don't want to do this part? I said, I
Speaker 1: read the book of Mr. Nichols. Was on the phone.
Speaker 1: He's in l A m in New York doing a play.
Speaker 1: I said, ben hi been Braddock in the book. He's
Speaker 1: five ft eleven, blonde hair. I says, it's Redford. I said,
Speaker 1: you don't want me and he said no. He says,
Speaker 1: I I would like to test you. He said, you
Speaker 1: mean he's not Jewish. I said, right, it's Benjamin Braddock
Speaker 1: and he said something I've never forgotten this is well,
Speaker 1: maybe he's Jewish. Inside years later he's from Berlin, Mike.
Speaker 1: He came here in the early thirties and Uh, he
Speaker 1: had his own pain because he didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of hair. He had scarlet fever and uh, he not
Speaker 1: too long ago, just a few years ago. I read
Speaker 1: in the paper that he never understood why he cast me,
Speaker 1: and then he finally did through the analysis or something,
Speaker 1: and he said, because I was like an alter ego
Speaker 1: of him. He felt like he was me in uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on the periphery, you know, out of it,
Speaker 1: and he was casting himself the funny looking guy. Do
Speaker 1: you know that that movie was shot and I went
Speaker 1: back to New York to collect unemployment. It was a lot,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's fifty bucks a week is getting
Speaker 1: the mostly to get and they're cutting the movie again.
Speaker 1: I read this in the newspapers and Lawrence Turman, I
Speaker 1: think it was a New York trrens, a producer. They're
Speaker 1: showing it all over the bell Air circuit, every Hills, Bellair, Brentwood,
Speaker 1: on the movie theaters they have in the homes, and
Speaker 1: over and over again, Turman said before it opened, and
Speaker 1: over and over again, people in the industry would come
Speaker 1: up to Larry, why brilliant film you almost had if
Speaker 1: you hadn't a miscast the league And that was a perception.
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting because speaking of that casting thing,
Speaker 1: he and I have had a little there was a
Speaker 1: whiff of this, of this, of my appreciation of his career,
Speaker 1: and you wind him mind. I remember this. I doubt
Speaker 1: you remember this. But I go to the old Westwood
Speaker 1: Marquis Hotel because I get called to go an audition
Speaker 1: for the movie Hero and Stephen Friers is the director,
Speaker 1: and the phone rings, and this is back when I
Speaker 1: was making films in the nineties and everything, and I'm
Speaker 1: lighting one off the other and I'm gonna meet this guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, God, I'm in my car. I'm like God,
Speaker 1: masically gonna go to the Westwood Marquis and they just
Speaker 1: lay out the facts. They're like, you know, snap out
Speaker 1: of it. You're gonna go to the Westwood Marquis. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be Stephen Friers, and you're gonna have a meeting
Speaker 1: with Dustin Huff. And I'm like, I love this guy.
Speaker 1: I want to bring this movie where this guy and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like twenty minutes goes by and
Speaker 1: Stephen Fiers. If you know the movie Hero, where someone
Speaker 1: commits this actor, there's a case of mistake and identity,
Speaker 1: and Andy Garcia played the other role, so there has
Speaker 1: to be this case of mistaken identity between the two actors.
Speaker 1: Stephen Fiers literally twenty minutes in. I mean my dream
Speaker 1: is just take flight, my wings. I'm flying over the
Speaker 1: West Food Blocky Hotel. I'm gonna make my first movie
Speaker 1: with Dustin eff and Hoffman and Stephen Fears looks at me.
Speaker 1: He goes, you know, I just realized that you don't
Speaker 1: look anything like Dustin at all. And it was like there,
Speaker 1: I'm flying. Also, he shoots my balloon like crash onto
Speaker 1: Westwood Boulevard. I'm dead on the highway there. I'll never
Speaker 1: figure to talk about. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. Our dreams,
Speaker 1: our dreams, how they how they escape us. But I'll
Speaker 1: call the Emma right right right in west But the
Speaker 1: exactly when you do, when you show up and you
Speaker 1: work with Slushranger and you do Cowboy, do you you
Speaker 1: come up with all that and you show him did
Speaker 1: he help you? Did you Cowboy? Very briefly, he didn't
Speaker 1: want It's very similar to Friars and You. He did
Speaker 1: not want to see me because he had seen a
Speaker 1: graduate and that's the only thing he'd ever seen me
Speaker 1: in and he was an artist in a ship that
Speaker 1: I was in a big hit and suddenly an instant star.
Speaker 1: He wanted the right person, and he refused to see me.
Speaker 1: And I heard about this, and I had read the book.
Speaker 1: I thought the script was okay. It was Waldos. He
Speaker 1: actually came in a room with John votnite when we
Speaker 1: did it near a wall instide tape recorder. We improvised
Speaker 1: everything everything. The Slessener was great at that, and he
Speaker 1: would go home, uh Waldo well and write the improvisations
Speaker 1: into the scenes that he had already written. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't see me, and I said, please, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta see him. He's got to see me. And he agreed.
Speaker 1: I know we're running out of time, so go quick.
Speaker 1: Uh forty second Street. What are they called those things
Speaker 1: where you you go when you put the quarter in?
Speaker 1: I can't remember the automat the automat, thank you, And
Speaker 1: I said, the automa. I'm gonna directed movie of him playing.
Speaker 1: You heard it? Go ahead? And I used to go
Speaker 1: there and we all did you know too, three in
Speaker 1: the morning whatever, uh, and get coffee or whatever. And
Speaker 1: it was all kind of trance people there. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'll meet him in the automat and I want to
Speaker 1: do it about one or two in the morning, because
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll dress accordingly, which is what I did.
Speaker 1: It kind of like I wore in that scene at
Speaker 1: rain Co and I didn't shave a few days and
Speaker 1: I greased my hair. I was auditioning and I came
Speaker 1: in and I just said, met him there, sat there,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me, and he looked at you know,
Speaker 1: sparsely crowded, you know, people around. He says. Oh. He says, yes,
Speaker 1: I think you'll do quite well. So the voice and
Speaker 1: all of it, you just throw that out there. You
Speaker 1: come up with that. Oh well, yeah, you keep trying
Speaker 1: to meet my friend Bill Daniel. My friend Bill Daniel.
Speaker 1: You two kinds. Where do you find this? You get desperate? Um,
Speaker 1: but I and I didn't. I that's my bob. I
Speaker 1: wasn't desperate enough. And uh, we we're rehearsing and then
Speaker 1: uh a pressing dra hastic shoot some exteriors before we
Speaker 1: started shooting, uh, principal photography because he's got winter and
Speaker 1: he needed winter. So John Voight and I go and
Speaker 1: he says, well, you don't have to talk. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't have a character. I don't have a voice,
Speaker 1: I said, I can't I barely have a walk. No,
Speaker 1: we'll have the camera cross the street. You guys just
Speaker 1: gotta walk. We're not starting for a month, but we
Speaker 1: just need the weather, you know, the smoke com on
Speaker 1: whatever was right? Okay, So John and I were walking.
Speaker 1: John Boyd and I knew each other for years. I
Speaker 1: was the assistant director, which is like, you know, sharpening
Speaker 1: pencils in the off Broadway when he was in From
Speaker 1: the Bridge with Bob du Valley was brilliant and he
Speaker 1: was up and coming star and uh, and you know
Speaker 1: we were competitive. Actors are always competitive and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're walking on the street, you got a script,
Speaker 1: you have a reading, or you did the read, you
Speaker 1: see another actor coming up, you've always put it behind
Speaker 1: your back, you know. But no, it's just something you
Speaker 1: because you don't want the competition. Uh. Anyway, So we're
Speaker 1: across the street walking and says after divorce, says, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm supposed to cough. We're at that point in
Speaker 1: the movie where you know he's got you're gonna find
Speaker 1: out he has t B or whatever. He says, Yes,
Speaker 1: says this says, alway, you do some coughing, do something
Speaker 1: not going but you don't have to talk. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: rehearsing out of panic, you know, trying on he's limps
Speaker 1: or whatever. And uh, I said, shouldn't be shooting. We
Speaker 1: got a month ago. I haven't found him yet. And
Speaker 1: suddenly we're walking and we paused, and I'm trying the
Speaker 1: cough and I threw up literally on John Void's cowboy boots,
Speaker 1: and afterwards such as as, I think we've got it,
Speaker 1: you do, and John, because he's an actor and you know,
Speaker 1: we're competitive. He Plessenger told me later he went up
Speaker 1: to pless and Journey. He said, John, let me just
Speaker 1: ask you something. Is he going to do that all
Speaker 1: throughout the over? He says, because I'm not even in
Speaker 1: the scene if he tells, Well, let me just say
Speaker 1: this because obviously, I mean, I got another forty five
Speaker 1: questions I could ask, but they do have a schedule
Speaker 1: here for the festival. But I do want to say,
Speaker 1: I mean, as as u as sappy as this sounds
Speaker 1: on behalf of everybody here, I want to say thank
Speaker 1: you to you because I mean, I really, from the
Speaker 1: bottom of my heart, from the bottom of my heart,
Speaker 1: you are one of the greatest movie actors that has
Speaker 1: ever lived in the sort of well I wanted to
Speaker 1: during us act really actors ever and you know somebody, gonnas,
Speaker 1: please help me in factory Dustin Happen. Dustin Hoffman has
Speaker 1: gained some hard won wisdom during his career, and despite
Speaker 1: turning seventy eight this summer, he's embracing a very new
Speaker 1: way to share it. He's teaching an acting class online.
Speaker 1: The description reads, Dustin teaches you everything he wishes someone
Speaker 1: had taught him. You can sign up at masterclass dot com.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin. Thanks this week to Shaun Cameron
Speaker 1: and everyone at Turner Classic Movies you're listening to. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing