Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. In the past year, Laurie Metcalf has appeared
Speaker 1: in a hit television show, Roseanne was nominated for an
Speaker 1: Oscar for her appearance in Ladybird and won two Tony's
Speaker 1: one Last Week and one the year before. Joe Mantello,
Speaker 1: who directed her in Three Tall Women, her current play,
Speaker 1: described Metcalf as a monster in the room. She was
Speaker 1: still at Illinois State when she met the actors with
Speaker 1: whom she started one of the world's great theater companies,
Speaker 1: but Steppenwolf was still just a group of friends putting
Speaker 1: on plays in a church. It took a couple of
Speaker 1: years for her to abandon her day job as a
Speaker 1: legal secretary who could type a hundred and twenty words
Speaker 1: a minute. She's best known for her role as Jackie,
Speaker 1: rose Anne's younger sister, but she has also appeared in
Speaker 1: the norm show Getting On the Big Bang Theory, to
Speaker 1: name just a few. Lorie Metcalf has been nominated for
Speaker 1: Emmy Awards ten times, winning three. But even after so
Speaker 1: many years on television sets, it's the stage that Lorie
Speaker 1: Metcalf calls home. I have a phobia of the camera. UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of people like to work with the camera,
Speaker 1: and they understand it. Actors, they know exactly how much
Speaker 1: to give the camera, and they're the camera is their friend.
Speaker 1: And to me, it just becomes this thing in the
Speaker 1: room that I have to pretend like he isn't there
Speaker 1: yes factor in which just makes me self conscious and
Speaker 1: I don't feel as free as I do on a stage.
Speaker 1: One of the joys of doing films is working with
Speaker 1: great camera people, cinematographers and their crew. And I've worked
Speaker 1: with some of the greatest cinematographers in history, you know,
Speaker 1: of of my generation, of my time. But they would
Speaker 1: say to me, we're going to do this, here's this shop,
Speaker 1: We're going to do it in this lens, And very
Speaker 1: early on I had this kind of silly habit of
Speaker 1: saying to them, I really don't care what lends you're on.
Speaker 1: It's not going to affect what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1: The thing I do, I'm gonna do it that way.
Speaker 1: Now if it should I tone it down, should I
Speaker 1: make it bigger, small, or whatever to play to the camera.
Speaker 1: And I found myself incapable of doing that. Do you
Speaker 1: feel the same way yeah, but and maybe that's what
Speaker 1: the piece that I'm missing. I've done such so few
Speaker 1: films that I've never had been able to develop that
Speaker 1: relationship with a cinematographer. So maybe that would be the
Speaker 1: missing piece that would put me more at ease. You
Speaker 1: know that I knew that somebody was watching out for
Speaker 1: it and was giving me, you know, advice, too big,
Speaker 1: too small, or I don't even know what else it
Speaker 1: would be. But I just feel pretty much that I
Speaker 1: can sort of gauge what I'm doing on a stage
Speaker 1: and in front of a camera. I can't tell at all.
Speaker 1: If the director says, well, we're moving on, or do
Speaker 1: you want one more? I always say, oh, let's just
Speaker 1: move on, because I don't know what we've got. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you know that you got it, And so I
Speaker 1: have no clue. How did the experience of shooting Ladybird
Speaker 1: come about? How that they found you? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: I was on Scott Ruden's radar and the producer and
Speaker 1: he suggested me to Greta Gerwig, and Greta sent me
Speaker 1: the script and I read it and really responded to
Speaker 1: the material, and then she and I had a quick
Speaker 1: phone conversation and hit it off over the phone, and
Speaker 1: it was very small independent movie, and so I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I haven't done a movie in about ten years, so
Speaker 1: this will be a nice little way to put my
Speaker 1: toe back in the water and see how it is.
Speaker 1: Why hadn't you made a movie in ten years? Nobody
Speaker 1: asked me, it's hard to believe. It's true. Were you
Speaker 1: living a life where you appeared unavailable? Were you traveling
Speaker 1: and doing plays and out of town? I have that
Speaker 1: part that's partly true. Yeah. I had been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of theater, and that's true. Yeah, pack my word
Speaker 1: for it. So um, and then when it exploded, when
Speaker 1: Ladybird exploded, I was unprepared for I I had no
Speaker 1: idea what that that publicity circus train was that you
Speaker 1: have to get on, you know, and ride for for
Speaker 1: for about three months, to all the awards seasons. I
Speaker 1: think I'm spoiled for life working with her. She had
Speaker 1: done all the heavy lifting on on the script itself.
Speaker 1: So the script was in such good shape that there
Speaker 1: were never those days when you get on the set
Speaker 1: and everybody's looking at each other saying this doesn't really work. Um,
Speaker 1: what would you say here? You know, there was never
Speaker 1: that scramble or that uncertainty. Everything was crystal clear from
Speaker 1: from day one, and Greta is just a natural at it.
Speaker 1: She just she gives the kind of notes that, um,
Speaker 1: click with an actor and our do a bowl rather
Speaker 1: than get in your head neck and mess you up,
Speaker 1: and where you start second guessing, Well, I thought I
Speaker 1: was doing the line that way, but they're telling me
Speaker 1: to do it differently, So now what do I do?
Speaker 1: And then you just shut down, You just you just
Speaker 1: become paralyzed in your head. Whether it's television what you've
Speaker 1: done quite a bit of or film. Had you worked
Speaker 1: with a woman director before, Yeah, I have, Well no,
Speaker 1: not in film because I just haven't done that much
Speaker 1: a lot of female directors. And TV though, yeah, and
Speaker 1: uh and theater yeah, um. And the TV that I've
Speaker 1: done though has been limited also because it's been sitcoms mostly, um,
Speaker 1: you know, four camera some women directors, but just that
Speaker 1: it's just that style. You know. I've done very little
Speaker 1: single camera TV, so this four camera sitcom style is
Speaker 1: also very different, a different beast definitely from theater and film,
Speaker 1: and that was a huge learning curve for me. Also
Speaker 1: stepping into Roseanne third years ago again we did the pilot,
Speaker 1: my god, but when you when you do that, let's
Speaker 1: ease into that and the the uh. But when you work,
Speaker 1: is there a difference for you when you work with
Speaker 1: a woman director or a man director. Honestly, I think
Speaker 1: it just boils down to the person. And with this
Speaker 1: person there was a feminine vibe I will say with Greta,
Speaker 1: because she's very maternal, and you felt I think everybody
Speaker 1: in the cast and crew felt very well protected. UM cherished,
Speaker 1: UM listened to UM, but but very safe. And And
Speaker 1: I can label that, you know, because she's a woman,
Speaker 1: or I can just label it because it's Greta, you know,
Speaker 1: just the person. You grew up in Illinois, southern Illinois,
Speaker 1: and what'd your dad do? Controller at Illinois State University.
Speaker 1: And she was a librarian. And there were how many
Speaker 1: kids in your family? Just three? How many boys? How
Speaker 1: many girls? I'm the oldest, and then us sister and
Speaker 1: her brothers. I don't know. I UM used to put
Speaker 1: on UM records of musicals and lip sync to them
Speaker 1: fly through the air in the in the in the
Speaker 1: backyard on a swing set, or or just like lip
Speaker 1: syncing UM to Gypsy in the living room. Not even
Speaker 1: for anybody to watch, just to do it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I so that was in me. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: about performing it. It was sort of about a feeling
Speaker 1: of interpreting it, using their singing and just mouthing it,
Speaker 1: but feeling like I was interpreting it. Something about that
Speaker 1: clicked with me. But then I was much too practical
Speaker 1: to go into theater in college. I thought I'd never
Speaker 1: make a living at it. So um, Illinois State University.
Speaker 1: German the most practical of all because German musical Germans. Well,
Speaker 1: but I thought i'd be a translator, you know. So
Speaker 1: there was something about language German. No, I don't think so,
Speaker 1: not that I know of a swing set. She thinking German. Well,
Speaker 1: we had a choice of two languages to pick in
Speaker 1: high school. I picked that one and I liked it.
Speaker 1: I ended up liking the language. There are definite rules
Speaker 1: to it. It's very rigid, and I like that. Yeah
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, And then fell in with the group
Speaker 1: that became Steppenwolf at Illinois State. Yes, that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Jeff Perry, Terry Kinney, John Malkovich were going to school there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all those people I didn't even know this. All of
Speaker 1: them went to school down there. Jane, Terry, well Joan.
Speaker 1: Joan didn't go to school there. Harry, Jeff, Perry, and
Speaker 1: Malkovich all went there. UM Gary Sonice was up in
Speaker 1: Highland Park. He didn't go to college, so he was
Speaker 1: like our uh, our wingman for for for being up
Speaker 1: in Highland Park and scoring us you know a place
Speaker 1: wheretorcycle where we where we could do our our sad
Speaker 1: little one ax. Joane did come into the group later,
Speaker 1: she did not go to UM Illinois State. Who did
Speaker 1: you meet first? Uh, Terry Kinney and then Jeff and
Speaker 1: then John and you met them where you met him
Speaker 1: in a class, in an acting class or on the
Speaker 1: street or um. I was, does that group know they
Speaker 1: want to become Steppenwolf? Yeah? I know, I know. I
Speaker 1: was actually um dabbling in theater, but I was you know,
Speaker 1: my I was a German major, so I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to go down in the theater room. I was Terry's girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and so I got brought into the mix as the
Speaker 1: girlfriend and then and that that's how I got introduced
Speaker 1: to everybody. And what do you do first? Did you
Speaker 1: all say let's form a group? Of theater group, or
Speaker 1: we said, let's form a theater group for the summer
Speaker 1: for one summer, and we um found a church basement
Speaker 1: who charged us, you know, a dollar a month, and
Speaker 1: we built some risers and put some shares in there
Speaker 1: and did four one axe and uh, I thought well
Speaker 1: that'll be it. But then we thought, let's do another one,
Speaker 1: and then another and another. So there was no plan.
Speaker 1: It just evolved. When did it change? Probably changed, I
Speaker 1: would say like about five years later when we were
Speaker 1: able to quit our day jobs and join equity and
Speaker 1: then also move into the city into a place space
Speaker 1: you found. It became the step in Wolf Theater. We
Speaker 1: found a space first that was in a Jane Adams
Speaker 1: Hull house that we rented, and then from there we
Speaker 1: moved it took over from a group called St. Nicholas Theater,
Speaker 1: took over their space, and then by that time we
Speaker 1: had built up a really good board and with their backing,
Speaker 1: we were able to build a place from scratch, from
Speaker 1: the ground up, literally, which we're still in now. They're
Speaker 1: still there now. In New York, you hear about Stepping Wolf.
Speaker 1: I remember when that takes off, you know when in
Speaker 1: New York everybody was like they talked about stepping bof
Speaker 1: like it was heroin. I mean, like like the chicest thing. Well,
Speaker 1: the first thing that happened was that Malkovich and Gary
Speaker 1: Snee brought in um True West. That was the first one.
Speaker 1: That was the first one that traveled to New York. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then after that it was Balman Gilead, and that
Speaker 1: one came in and ran for like nine months and
Speaker 1: was everybody was talking about it and it was such
Speaker 1: a cool time to be in uh in New York.
Speaker 1: That was eight three, I think. And we had music
Speaker 1: in that show by Springsteen, Ricky Lee Jones, and Tom Waits.
Speaker 1: They all came to see the show. You know. It
Speaker 1: was wild. Where did you do Gilead off Broadway? Yeah?
Speaker 1: At Circle Rep. It's it's gone now. But the one downtown, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did to a kiss down there. Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: down on Sheridan Square, Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah, I sub
Speaker 1: let her apartment. I remember that when you were you
Speaker 1: were in New York and people couldn't stop talking about
Speaker 1: you guys. It was just a different style. It was different.
Speaker 1: It was well they called it rock and roll theater,
Speaker 1: but um, I think it was just a shared passion
Speaker 1: that we had that made us just light up on
Speaker 1: stage convention. Yes, Yes, that's what I remember about them.
Speaker 1: Yes and uh. And those plays were perfect um vehicles
Speaker 1: for that dark yes some of them. And funny. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's kind of kind of the mix of like a
Speaker 1: Martin McDonough, you know, he's a bit a bit of
Speaker 1: step In Wolf and him. Yeah, and theatrical, that's what
Speaker 1: they were. They didn't back off. It wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: be super realistic or supernatural. Paul mcgilly had had some
Speaker 1: really strong theatrical moments in it where lights would go
Speaker 1: out and a spotlight would hit a character and everybody's frozen,
Speaker 1: and you'd hear the character say two lines and then
Speaker 1: lights pop back up again and you're in a diner
Speaker 1: and it would come to life again. You know, what's
Speaker 1: a show that really stands out that you did back
Speaker 1: then that you always remember what's the performance you gave.
Speaker 1: If you close your eyes, you can remember where you
Speaker 1: were and when you're holding what you were wearing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a number of them. I think that was
Speaker 1: certainly one, and even before then was a production of
Speaker 1: Glass Menagerie that we did way back in that little
Speaker 1: basement with uh Malkovich was Tom and Terry Kinney was
Speaker 1: a gentleman caller, and we had a local woman who
Speaker 1: was played Amanda, and uh that was the production that
Speaker 1: made we were out in the suburbs, that made critics
Speaker 1: in towns sit up and take notice of the Stepping
Speaker 1: Wolf Company and they would start driving up, you know,
Speaker 1: to see our shows. It was it was, I don't
Speaker 1: know what made it different. It was like, um, John
Speaker 1: didn't try to hide that Tom was gay and desperately,
Speaker 1: you know, lonely and wanting to meet somebody. And I
Speaker 1: didn't try to hide that Laura was not um mentally ill,
Speaker 1: you know, and that there was no clearly no hope
Speaker 1: at all. It wasn't. Sometimes it can be played like
Speaker 1: a young pretty girl who if she's fragile, fragile and
Speaker 1: if yes, and if she if she had a nice dress, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: make the make the balls or choice, you know, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: Now you were you were dating Kenny, he was your
Speaker 1: boyfriend at the time. Does that end in the middle
Speaker 1: of the ascension of Uh, Well, we were a very
Speaker 1: um insular group and so there was a lot of
Speaker 1: mixing and matching, right like in a rock band like
Speaker 1: Flip with Mac. Yeah, we were all sleeping with each other, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so which made a lot of also awkward in fighting
Speaker 1: and you know like, well I can't, yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: be in that play because you know, I've just now
Speaker 1: broken up with him, so you know, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to look somewhere else. But yeah, I know, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was in that sense. It was also
Speaker 1: a very theatrical time. You know, the highs or highs
Speaker 1: and the lows were all crazy. All we wanted to
Speaker 1: do was hang out together, make each other either laugh
Speaker 1: or cry. And but we took the um the work
Speaker 1: part very seriously and that made us all better, you know,
Speaker 1: because we were having to play parts we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: cast in anywhere else because we were all the same age,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't find plays you know that would accommodate that.
Speaker 1: So we'd have so I'd have to be the mom
Speaker 1: in Malkovich's Mom in True West, and then I'd have
Speaker 1: to be his little niece in the fifth of July
Speaker 1: to cover the gamuts. Yes, So, so we ultimately ended
Speaker 1: up stretching ourselves into areas that we had no business
Speaker 1: going into would you say that it kind of unravels
Speaker 1: and everybody they start to come apart because stardom intervenes.
Speaker 1: Who's the first person becomes a star And what's the
Speaker 1: first thing he stars in? Oh? He We did that
Speaker 1: movie with Sally Field. He played a blind character. He
Speaker 1: made chairs Places in the Heart. That's that's the movie
Speaker 1: that took him out of the mix for a while.
Speaker 1: And believe me, I mean we were so naive and
Speaker 1: so inbread and everything at that point. It is like
Speaker 1: John had this offer to go be in a movie
Speaker 1: and we all had a big company meeting about it,
Speaker 1: deciding whether or not to let him do John had
Speaker 1: his out. Yes, yes, did anyone vote not to let
Speaker 1: him leave? Probably? I don't remember, you know, because we
Speaker 1: did our voting like little kids. We would put our
Speaker 1: heads down on the table and raise our raise our hands.
Speaker 1: And whoever had to be artistic director at that time,
Speaker 1: because that was a thankless, worthless job nobody wanted that
Speaker 1: had to count the votes. Yeah, so Jon got to
Speaker 1: go do it. But that's how how you know when
Speaker 1: he came back and what happened? Well, I think that
Speaker 1: that was before True West. I think he made that
Speaker 1: movie before it. I'm not sure the timeline of that,
Speaker 1: but we were so because we started out in a
Speaker 1: little suburb and because we very slowly made our way
Speaker 1: into the city, and because we were centered around Chicago
Speaker 1: and not l A or New York, people kind of
Speaker 1: left us alone for a lot longer that because they
Speaker 1: would have swooped in if we were on the coast
Speaker 1: and just taken everybody or access. Yes we were, yes,
Speaker 1: we were yes. So so that helped us, um, get
Speaker 1: some more traction as a group. They left us alone
Speaker 1: for a longer time. But after places in the heart
Speaker 1: that he become less and less available, well we all
Speaker 1: started to yeah, yeah, well, um, it was a big
Speaker 1: deal that we on mass took bal mc gilead to
Speaker 1: New York. That was a big learning experience for us all.
Speaker 1: And and I ended up making a movie Desperately Seeking
Speaker 1: Susan because I was in town. And but for me
Speaker 1: that didn't spiral out into um, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: more movie or a movie career obviously, but um, we
Speaker 1: were starting to very slowly as a group but also
Speaker 1: individually starting to get known and we became more available
Speaker 1: because we were adding people to the company, and that
Speaker 1: made us more available to take time off, go off
Speaker 1: and do a different project and then return. But for
Speaker 1: a decade, we all tried a lot to return and
Speaker 1: and rejuvenate, you know, get get, get our batteries charged
Speaker 1: on that stage each again. Yes, it definitely was home.
Speaker 1: Who else has come up through the ranks of there in?
Speaker 1: Anybody else I would know? And did that success replicate
Speaker 1: itself with future generations of people? Or you guys it
Speaker 1: and nobody else you ever really became famous after that? Um, boy,
Speaker 1: i'd have to do. You know John Hill, he's a
Speaker 1: young actor that you would recognize. He's um taken off
Speaker 1: after having come into the company. Sally Murphy, um has
Speaker 1: done a lot of work here in New York. She's
Speaker 1: gonna play right now called come Admissions. I think i'd
Speaker 1: have to look. You know, the list has gotten big.
Speaker 1: There's like forty people in the company now and uh
Speaker 1: it's tough for us to get I haven't been back
Speaker 1: in five years. You know, it's tough to go back
Speaker 1: and commit to uh four or five months out of
Speaker 1: a year. And because we're on a subscription season, they
Speaker 1: want to know like at least a year in advance.
Speaker 1: When you can you know, rope off that time. It's hard, right,
Speaker 1: I find segregating that time and protecting that time to
Speaker 1: do a show, it is very difficult. The last show
Speaker 1: I did was with you, when we did the show
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen, when you came to New York.
Speaker 1: What was your first show on Broadway? On Broadway? Uh,
Speaker 1: it was November written by David Man, Yeah, with Nathan Lane,
Speaker 1: directed by Joe Mantell and um it was a small
Speaker 1: part and I just wanted to um be in the
Speaker 1: room with those people, those specific it was the political one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: which I would love to revisit that now because you
Speaker 1: know it's just this idiot sitting in the set with
Speaker 1: the Oval office. I need to go back and read that,
Speaker 1: or we need to do it like as a benefit,
Speaker 1: you know, just do a one reading a reading of it.
Speaker 1: It's wicked, funny, um and more timely now than ever.
Speaker 1: That was your first show on Badway. Yeah. Did you
Speaker 1: feel that Broadway was different? Yeah? I did. I mean
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's the same amount of work that
Speaker 1: you put in, whether it's there or at Guildhall or
Speaker 1: even a smaller space like for fifties seats. You know,
Speaker 1: the work is the same. You're still doing, you're putting
Speaker 1: in and you want wanted the best that it can be,
Speaker 1: and you never give up working on it during the
Speaker 1: whole run. But yeah, it's startling to walk out on
Speaker 1: a set that big. And we went from the rehearsal
Speaker 1: room to invited dress and it was packed with a
Speaker 1: thousand actors, you know, And that was a friend. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was quite a shock. That was my first first
Speaker 1: time there. But I got burned on a show called
Speaker 1: Brighton Beach Memoirs that was supposed to open up in
Speaker 1: REP with Broadway Bound, and I've never done REP before,
Speaker 1: so I thought, oh, this will be really interesting and
Speaker 1: it's on Broadway so I can be in New York.
Speaker 1: And it's uh, these two plays go very really well together.
Speaker 1: Neil Simon, it's the same family, but a decade later
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't think he ever yes, well he
Speaker 1: wasn't in it, No, but I don't think that that.
Speaker 1: Neil Simon never meant them to be to to go
Speaker 1: together and REP. But they just it was a natural.
Speaker 1: Everything turned out wrong about it. They opened up one
Speaker 1: and expected it to take off and it didn't. And
Speaker 1: then the other one we had fully rehearsed it, and
Speaker 1: we had the costumes, we had everything, and it never
Speaker 1: even saw the light of day. And the first one
Speaker 1: closed after three weeks, and it was that was a
Speaker 1: huge low. I had relocated, not my family, but one
Speaker 1: of my kids out, had them in school. This was
Speaker 1: a real of the material. Yes, and I was trying
Speaker 1: and and and I had signed off for a year,
Speaker 1: thinking okay, well these things are going to run for
Speaker 1: that long. And and after three weeks, well a rehearsal period,
Speaker 1: and then three weeks you know, every we have a
Speaker 1: toast on stage. You know, well this didn't work, sorry everybody.
Speaker 1: By and then I was stuck with this apartment in
Speaker 1: New York and my kid in school, and I would
Speaker 1: just like walk take him to school and then walk
Speaker 1: up and down the sidewalks, thinking what the hell am
Speaker 1: I going to do? What am I? It was really
Speaker 1: I was stuck with no work for about a month,
Speaker 1: and then for some reason, um Ethan Hawk gave me
Speaker 1: a call and said, well, there's no money here at all,
Speaker 1: but you want to come down and do a lie
Speaker 1: of the mind with us down at the Group theater.
Speaker 1: So that was something to work on, and that got
Speaker 1: me out of my head, you know. Oh. I talked
Speaker 1: to Lorie a couple of months ago, just before the
Speaker 1: recent cancelation of Roseanne. After it all happened, I called
Speaker 1: to get her take on ABC's decision. Lorie declined to comment.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we talked about what it was like to
Speaker 1: gather the team, cast and crew together. Again, this is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. Although
Speaker 1: Lori Metcalf's heart is in the theater, she's always cautious
Speaker 1: about what roles she chooses. I did a roll of
Speaker 1: the dice last year Doll's House Part two, and that
Speaker 1: went well. It went well, yes, but I didn't know,
Speaker 1: um it was a roll of the dice because when
Speaker 1: Scott Rutten sent me the script and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is either going to be really really funny and clever
Speaker 1: or really bad. The nerve that takes name's name your
Speaker 1: play a Doll's House Part two and Lucas Naith. I
Speaker 1: knew of him as a writer, but I didn't know him.
Speaker 1: And I knew of Sam Gold as a director, but
Speaker 1: I hadn't worked with him, and the play wasn't finished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was finished, but it was really raw,
Speaker 1: and that we were going to do workshops and so
Speaker 1: it's it's it's scary to go out on that limb
Speaker 1: and commit yourself to something that you have no idea
Speaker 1: how it's going to turn out. But it had got
Speaker 1: Rouden behind it, so I knew that it would be
Speaker 1: take care of. When you and I did the Miller together,
Speaker 1: you've done it a couple of times before, and one
Speaker 1: of them was in London. Correct. Was it different for
Speaker 1: you there? You find the difference between performing there and
Speaker 1: in the United States, Well, I did because it was
Speaker 1: at the National, So the National is so specific. Um.
Speaker 1: I loved the vibe that there's these three theaters, the big,
Speaker 1: medium and the small one, and they all feed into
Speaker 1: this communal lobby and there's a great restaurant there and
Speaker 1: everybody's having drinks before their show and then the and
Speaker 1: then the whole place just sort of uh evaporate. Everybody
Speaker 1: goes into their certain theater that they're seeing and uh
Speaker 1: and then regroups at intermission and then back again. It's
Speaker 1: got a real flow to it that way. So I
Speaker 1: felt it was cool to be a part of that
Speaker 1: specific building. British cast and mixed them with an American
Speaker 1: cast for when you did the Miller over there it
Speaker 1: was mostly British. Yeah, I difference in the way that
Speaker 1: they act rehearse. Do they have a different approach? Would
Speaker 1: you say it's the opposite of the stepping wolf approach.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it rock and roll. Um. Well yeah, quartet,
Speaker 1: yes exactly. I like to be um really uh um
Speaker 1: theatrical if I can find moments like where the characters theatrical, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: When we built yes, we built in some ourselves, you know,
Speaker 1: where there's a shove, things that aren't expected, those are
Speaker 1: theatrical if they're not expected, I guess yeah. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: we did all my sons, remember we had Chris choke me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he would choke me. Yeah, and we all thought, well, wowhoa,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we should do that. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I do too, because sometimes the trap when you're working
Speaker 1: on a classic that that is you feel like you
Speaker 1: have to treat it with kid gloves. You know, you
Speaker 1: feel like you should wouldn't make those big um choices,
Speaker 1: that you should be more reverential towards the material, but
Speaker 1: that keeps it from being alive and seeming contemporary. I
Speaker 1: always wanted to sneak a camera on stage with me
Speaker 1: for the very last moments of our play because I
Speaker 1: had the best ringside seat available to watch your last monologue.
Speaker 1: I wish I had done it because I'd like to
Speaker 1: have a record of it, But of course I never did.
Speaker 1: But I loved watching that every night. Right. It's a
Speaker 1: great ending. It's a great ending. You know. Now you
Speaker 1: did a play, You did another play right after that.
Speaker 1: You left that show to go do the Stephen King.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, And I asked your advice on that. Do
Speaker 1: you remember? Well? But when you do plays with people
Speaker 1: who this is your doing misery, misery with Bruce Willis,
Speaker 1: who hadn't done a play in how long, like thirty,
Speaker 1: He hadn't been on stage in forty years. He like,
Speaker 1: turn to you like a life preserver and say to
Speaker 1: help me leading on your baby. Was there some of that? Well?
Speaker 1: We were codependent on each other because it was basically
Speaker 1: two people. There was a sheriff that showed up, but
Speaker 1: I shot him dead, you know, towards the end he no,
Speaker 1: he's not no. So it was just the two of
Speaker 1: us and we, you know, we relied on each other
Speaker 1: very much, and Bruce worked his ass. Yes, he had
Speaker 1: a wonderful time. Yeah, thank god. I was worried because
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't know if your co lead is
Speaker 1: having a bad time, you know, it's everybody's miserable. But
Speaker 1: Bruce would show up, you know, like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half early before the shows. Of course, he had
Speaker 1: to get into a bunch of body makeup because he'd been,
Speaker 1: you know, um in an accident and he's got his
Speaker 1: head's all banged up, and he's got scar cuts and
Speaker 1: scars all over his legs. So he was always the
Speaker 1: first one there. He was. Oh, he all. We would
Speaker 1: do you know, like a seven eight hour rehearsal day,
Speaker 1: and then he would go home with uh the dialect
Speaker 1: coach and drill lines over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: He really really cared about it, and U audiences ate
Speaker 1: it up, you know. They It was a different crowd
Speaker 1: than I've ever performed for because it was a lot
Speaker 1: of first time theater goers. Because they wanted to see Bruce.
Speaker 1: They want to see an action hero on stage, and
Speaker 1: and if they had to go, if they had to
Speaker 1: go to theater to see him live, then they went
Speaker 1: to the theater. So these were people that hadn't been
Speaker 1: before let alone on Broadway, and and and the play itself,
Speaker 1: you know, it stemmed from the book, and then it
Speaker 1: went through the movie version, and now they're trying to
Speaker 1: do it as a play. So it was this odd journey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it ended up being half this, half that, not
Speaker 1: not any part of that though, and it was just
Speaker 1: was its own animal. So we tried to uh will
Speaker 1: free Stephen Freer's son. We tried to make it also
Speaker 1: as funny as it could be, because there was a
Speaker 1: lot of odd ball humor in it, and audience has
Speaker 1: got to kick out of that. But I it was
Speaker 1: kind of a learning curve for me to wrap my
Speaker 1: head around the fact that, you know, if the script
Speaker 1: never was perfect, if we were never perfect in it,
Speaker 1: the audience was still having a ball and and feeling
Speaker 1: like they were getting their money's worth. I always forget
Speaker 1: all the names of yeah, really think yeah, oh yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: And and it sold well, he sold the tickets. When
Speaker 1: you think about plays, think about a moment. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's many of them, but try to think about
Speaker 1: a moment of you on stage with someone or another
Speaker 1: group of people, and in terms of what acting means
Speaker 1: to you, well, it was one that you just never
Speaker 1: can get out of here. And he thought, this is it,
Speaker 1: this is what it's about out This is what I
Speaker 1: got into this for. I don't know. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say a specific thing, but it's the feeling of
Speaker 1: being in such control that you know that you've got
Speaker 1: a moment coming up and it's like a big softball,
Speaker 1: this big coming at you and you've got to back
Speaker 1: this big and you're gonna hit it out of the park.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. It's coming and boom you
Speaker 1: get to do it, and you hear the immediate reaction
Speaker 1: from the from the audience, whether it's a laugh or
Speaker 1: whether it's a sob whatever it is, or whether it's
Speaker 1: a you can hear a pin drop. And it's that control,
Speaker 1: I think. And you've done your homework and you know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're doing in that moment, and and you
Speaker 1: know it's going to be a surprise to them, and
Speaker 1: you know you'd like to be in the audience with
Speaker 1: this thing coming up. And I love that moment. I
Speaker 1: always tell people when you when you when you see
Speaker 1: a play that I've ever been in, I ruined play
Speaker 1: people with me as I'll lean over and I go.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it that way. I had this thing
Speaker 1: I used to do with this bottle. I mean I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it that way at all. You gotta
Speaker 1: do another play. Haven't one up in the I got
Speaker 1: one open right now. You're running in three tall women,
Speaker 1: three tall women. You're doing three tall women the Alby play,
Speaker 1: which I love. And it's you and Glenda Jackson, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, and Allison Pill directed by Joe Mantello. How's
Speaker 1: that been? It was a crazy hard rehearsal period. I
Speaker 1: don't know what well. I've never done Alby, so for
Speaker 1: some reason it was very I found it very slippery.
Speaker 1: And again it's that trap. I started falling into that
Speaker 1: trap of treating a classic with kid gloves, and so
Speaker 1: I had to take those gloves off and just sort
Speaker 1: of um, play just why why? Why? Why was it different?
Speaker 1: In terms of my guesses And this is very lazy
Speaker 1: guess as it all be. His characters are very waspy
Speaker 1: and very cautious, and then and they're not and then
Speaker 1: as volatile. That's a part of it, yes, yeah, but
Speaker 1: where where it's up and running now? And it was
Speaker 1: a play that. Um, the audience taught us a lot
Speaker 1: when we finally got an audience in there. They really
Speaker 1: were the missing piece of the puzzle of this play.
Speaker 1: And now, um, it's it's been very well received and
Speaker 1: goes through June. You're never gonna get up to give
Speaker 1: up doing the theater. I not the theater. No, I
Speaker 1: could give up the other two, but not the theater.
Speaker 1: The rush is so visceral when you're when you have
Speaker 1: those moments and when you build it, you rehearse, you
Speaker 1: live it, you live it, you live it. And I'm
Speaker 1: the kind of actor where I'm fantastic four weeks after
Speaker 1: we open, you come see the show after I'm not
Speaker 1: ready by the time I rehearsal. I think that's normal.
Speaker 1: I I feel that I feel that I'm not either.
Speaker 1: I feel like I got to get a few weeks
Speaker 1: after opening under my belt. So so I appreciate a
Speaker 1: long ish run. Now, um, So, once upon a time
Speaker 1: you did a TV show, and you did this TV show,
Speaker 1: and I mean the Norm McDonald show. That that was
Speaker 1: a great show. I love him, by the way, Yes,
Speaker 1: you did the show with Roseanne bar and that ran
Speaker 1: for how many seasons? Nine? You ran for nine seasons. Now,
Speaker 1: that's old school sitcommun If nobody you're like, if you
Speaker 1: get five, especially at the old schedule, Yes, how would
Speaker 1: you describe that experience? And you're much younger then, and
Speaker 1: the show is a big phenomenon then and then you
Speaker 1: come back. What was it like when you did the
Speaker 1: show the first time? The first time, well, the first
Speaker 1: time job, I didn't know what if it was going
Speaker 1: to succeed or not. I got offered this pilot. I
Speaker 1: knew Roseanne is a stand up I knew John Goodman
Speaker 1: had done a lot of theater, but we all didn't
Speaker 1: know each other. There's three kids on it, you know,
Speaker 1: and the writers didn't necessarily know how to write for
Speaker 1: each character. And that was the combination of us doing
Speaker 1: some initial shows and the writers watching what our strengths
Speaker 1: were created those characters. They saw the strengths, they started
Speaker 1: writing towards the strengths. Someone pointed that out to me
Speaker 1: about Will and Grace when I went on that show.
Speaker 1: They said, you know, in the first season, if you
Speaker 1: watched uh footage, if you watch old episodes of the
Speaker 1: first season, none of them are really hitting those notes
Speaker 1: that they hit later. They're finding those that first year,
Speaker 1: they're stretching and trying to find out what they want
Speaker 1: to do in terms of the crazy. That's what it took.
Speaker 1: And so going back to it literally thirty years later,
Speaker 1: I mean from the first preview from them, from the
Speaker 1: first pilot, it was thirty years ago. From when it
Speaker 1: went off the air was twenty years ago. So going
Speaker 1: back to it, and we half of the writing crew
Speaker 1: was the same, and with some new people thrown in.
Speaker 1: So great people, but like Norm had been on the
Speaker 1: show and uh, and so they knew those voices. Well,
Speaker 1: everybody knew him. What am I saying? Even the new
Speaker 1: writers knew those voices. And so that was like riding
Speaker 1: a bike again. So everybody came back, Yeah, everybody. Everybody
Speaker 1: was happy to come back. Was a young woman's name
Speaker 1: wol played the daughter who was on the talk show
Speaker 1: when I was forgetting her name, Sarah Gilbert. She came back. Oh,
Speaker 1: she initiated the whole thing. She she had John on
Speaker 1: her show at the talk and they did a little sketch,
Speaker 1: like a twenty second sketch of them. They recreated the
Speaker 1: couch with the afghan and it was Darlene and John,
Speaker 1: and Darlene was trying to come out to him and
Speaker 1: he just wanted to watch baseball on TV or something
Speaker 1: like that, and the and the audiences thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: And then they asked John on the show afterwards, would
Speaker 1: you ever do a reunion show? And he said, of
Speaker 1: course I would. And then Sarah took the ball and
Speaker 1: ran with it, called Everybody, and it turned in from
Speaker 1: a reunion show into a little nine episode arc. Obviously
Speaker 1: people who have made a big deal, which to me,
Speaker 1: it's kind mystifying to me about Rosanne Bars politics and
Speaker 1: that she's a big Trumpian and that her characters a
Speaker 1: Trumpian on the show. When you're doing the show, I
Speaker 1: would imagine I get the impression none of that comes
Speaker 1: up on the set of the show. Everybody just having
Speaker 1: a good time. Yeah, let's just get the work done,
Speaker 1: let's keep the funny going. Exactly doesn't bring it up,
Speaker 1: and they had to address it, you know, how can
Speaker 1: you not in the pilot, this new pilot, and I
Speaker 1: thought they did it really well because, um, I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't talk about names, but we talk about there's
Speaker 1: a rift in the family because of how how we
Speaker 1: all voted. The sisters haven't talked to each other for
Speaker 1: a year, which is something that's really going on, you know,
Speaker 1: across the country. That's that's uh, totally legit and honest,
Speaker 1: I think to explore and and then and then what
Speaker 1: they it was the same as what they all used
Speaker 1: to do with all of the stories. They would take
Speaker 1: a big issue and then shrink it down to the family.
Speaker 1: So the rift becomes what is it between these two
Speaker 1: sisters set aside from the election that causes them to,
Speaker 1: you know, to dysfunction like that. So when you come
Speaker 1: back and you have the same group of people, and
Speaker 1: everybody's older, and I mean significantly older. It was many
Speaker 1: years ago you did the show. You mentioned the writers.
Speaker 1: What about the directors? I mean, did you get some
Speaker 1: of the directors you had? We have some of the
Speaker 1: same directors. Yeah. And the coolest thing is that I
Speaker 1: thought I would sit on the side watching a scene
Speaker 1: like between Sarah Gilbert and her kid now who's on
Speaker 1: the show, do a scene in the on the kitchen set,
Speaker 1: which is a set that Sarah really did grow up
Speaker 1: on and now she's parenting her kids on that same set,
Speaker 1: and Rosanne is in the scene watching her parents, you know,
Speaker 1: and being very judgmental about it. It's the kind of
Speaker 1: history between characters that you can't buy. You can cast
Speaker 1: people together as a family, and they did thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: but because we spent that decade together, we really did
Speaker 1: become one. And now as we revisit it, there's these
Speaker 1: built in layers because we're back in the same house
Speaker 1: and we've had all that time together. So it's I
Speaker 1: think it's weirdly deeper the second time around. And the
Speaker 1: way that Roseanne had always set up that show is that,
Speaker 1: um it was the writing she wanted, a kind of
Speaker 1: writing that was able to support heavy issues for a sitcom,
Speaker 1: for a multi cam sitcom, I don't think of I
Speaker 1: don't know of any other one that could go to
Speaker 1: the places that she did, you know, and bring in
Speaker 1: a darkness sometimes and really address things and not have
Speaker 1: it be really jarring for the audience. You know. She
Speaker 1: just that that was set up perfectly, I think, so
Speaker 1: that she could address issues that she wanted to as
Speaker 1: as seasons went by, until, of course, Rosanne was can
Speaker 1: at the end of May. In an interview, Lori said
Speaker 1: Roseanne should do a play quote. I'd like to watch
Speaker 1: her do something dramatic like Tennessee Williams or Edward Alby.
Speaker 1: She'd be brilliant unquote, while we stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1: Lorie Metcalf herself can be seen in Albi's Three Tall
Speaker 1: Women on Broadway until June. This is Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: you were listening to Here's the Thing.