Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. When someone shines a light on what happens
Speaker 1: off screen. It's not always pretty, but director Tony Zeira's
Speaker 1: documentary Film Worker reveals the best of movie making. It
Speaker 1: tells the story of the unsung hero, the film worker,
Speaker 1: whose name appears in the credits after most moviegoers have
Speaker 1: already left the theater. The focus is Leon Vitali, who
Speaker 1: at turned his back on a promising acting career to
Speaker 1: serve as Stanley Kubrick's right hand man. Vitally, the working
Speaker 1: class kid from outside Birmingham, England, trained as an actor
Speaker 1: and got his break in Kubrick's period masterpiece Barry Linden.
Speaker 1: Mr Ridman Barry. The last occasion on which we met,
Speaker 1: you want to was me injury and dishonor in such
Speaker 1: a manner and to such an extent as to which
Speaker 1: no gentleman can willingly suffer without demanding satisfaction. However much
Speaker 1: time intervenes, I have now come to claim that satisfaction.
Speaker 1: But after that, Batali's name goes from the top of
Speaker 1: the credits to the bottom. Casting costumes and personal assistant
Speaker 1: to Mr Kubrick fatally turned his life over fully to
Speaker 1: realizing the creative vision of his visionary boss. But for
Speaker 1: actors of a certain age, his brilliant turn in Barry
Speaker 1: Linden will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Speaker 1: So that's where I started when I moderated a discussion
Speaker 1: with Leon Battali and Film Worker director Tony Sierra at
Speaker 1: the Hampton's International Film Festival. Every actor in the world
Speaker 1: is obsessed with Barry Lyndon. We all would say lines
Speaker 1: likely on the Tally, the snarkiest snark in the history
Speaker 1: of cinema, Mr Ridman, by the indignation, the condemnation. You
Speaker 1: know when he says to you in the dual scene,
Speaker 1: have you had satisfaction? And your responsive what's the exact
Speaker 1: word you say? I have not received obviously. I actually
Speaker 1: know friends of mine who have used that with people
Speaker 1: in bed. It's this great voluptuous performance in this movie
Speaker 1: Leon the Tally uh, and he got He's gone. And
Speaker 1: then as these films come out, you see his name
Speaker 1: in the cuestions like what the hell is he doing?
Speaker 1: And of course this film offers us an explanation to
Speaker 1: that of like where where did Leon the tally Uh
Speaker 1: detour into from his acting career. I would like to
Speaker 1: welcome please the director of film. Please stand up, Tony Sierra,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming, and please have a
Speaker 1: warm welcome for Leon Vitality. Yeah, the dock that became
Speaker 1: film Worker started out as something different. Zierira set out
Speaker 1: to make the definitive account of Kubrick's thirteenth and final movie,
Speaker 1: Eyes Wide Shot. The project was called SK thirteen. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sit here in the middle for Tony. I want
Speaker 1: to ask what the genesis of the film was in
Speaker 1: the idea of making Leon the protagonist. We finished filming
Speaker 1: and Leon was the last person that I went to
Speaker 1: film with um. And really the premise of SKA thirteen,
Speaker 1: which we haven't started editing yet, was about really what
Speaker 1: was going on with Stanley towards the end, because Eyes
Speaker 1: Watch is a bit controversial a little bit, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to see, like as a lot of people, well,
Speaker 1: they said that he lost it towards the end. Some
Speaker 1: people said that it was Tom and Nicole destroyed the film,
Speaker 1: and some people said he really never finished editing, and
Speaker 1: and people really surprised by casting and it just there
Speaker 1: were a lot of unanswered. Um So I figured in
Speaker 1: order to understand it, I needed to research Kubrick from
Speaker 1: all the way from the beginning to today and see why,
Speaker 1: why did he really want to make the film, because
Speaker 1: obviously he owned the book for thirty years. And so
Speaker 1: Leon was the last one because I knew he was
Speaker 1: close to Warner Brothers, and I knew he was working
Speaker 1: with the state, and I didn't want anybody to shut
Speaker 1: me down. So I left Leon last. And then when
Speaker 1: I met him at his house, I was, well, first
Speaker 1: I had this image of him that I thought I
Speaker 1: was just gonna get there and there's gonna be this
Speaker 1: nice mansion and he's you know, and and he still
Speaker 1: We're still in the UK in l a off Venice Boulevard,
Speaker 1: and I just got there and it was just like
Speaker 1: this amazing, lovely lovely and it just came out and
Speaker 1: it's like carried all my equipment with me and we
Speaker 1: just hit her off. And I was like, this is
Speaker 1: like film history lives in that little house by himself.
Speaker 1: And um So we decided to put the sk th
Speaker 1: team footage away and tell his story because I think
Speaker 1: he really needs to be acknowledged and honored because it's true,
Speaker 1: so we um, you know. At first, it's like because
Speaker 1: every time I would talk to someone I did a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean six years on Ice and Stanley,
Speaker 1: and the name always came up in different conversations of like,
Speaker 1: if I was talking to someone about casting, they say
Speaker 1: Leon Vitali. If I'll talk to someone about training actors,
Speaker 1: it was Leon Vitali. If I go to the lab,
Speaker 1: it's Leon Vitali. I mean, what actor that starts or
Speaker 1: starts as an actor becomes the assistant And he color
Speaker 1: corrected cha. So I was like, this is too good
Speaker 1: to be true. It can't I mean the level of
Speaker 1: of the jobs and the and the stuff that he did.
Speaker 1: So I had to actually go back to so many
Speaker 1: people who was again like is this really for real?
Speaker 1: And I really found that I was. I knew this
Speaker 1: much because he's really done a lot and he's humble
Speaker 1: about Now. Cooper begins shooting eyes wide shot when he
Speaker 1: died in nine. I think this is the autumn seven
Speaker 1: we actually started shooting shooting, I think, yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: the shooting goes on for how long, well year and
Speaker 1: a half year and half yeah, yeah. And there were
Speaker 1: there were a couple of breaks in there, but not long.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I can't do not stop for
Speaker 1: a year half, you know, you can't. But but but
Speaker 1: the uh And then he dies in March of ninety nine.
Speaker 1: So he completed principal photography before he died. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And he completed his final cart I mean, and he
Speaker 1: sent it to New York for Tom and Nicole and
Speaker 1: Terry Samuel, who was ahead of Warner Brothers in time,
Speaker 1: and just said, this is it. I mean, all that
Speaker 1: is left. He'd chosen the music, so all that was
Speaker 1: left there was to re record that and fit it
Speaker 1: in um and basically you know, just do the you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of fine modeling job on it and all
Speaker 1: the what can you say, There's so much to do
Speaker 1: in post production, especially when you get closer to finishing
Speaker 1: a movie for release. Was this film particularly difficult from him? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, he was getting tired because towards
Speaker 1: the end, of course, he didn't really spare himself. I mean,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't get back to the house until very often
Speaker 1: to three in the morning, you know, and there'd be
Speaker 1: a kind of a normal call in the you know,
Speaker 1: next morning would be you know, usual call times and
Speaker 1: what have you? Um, she stan Ye. Actually we were
Speaker 1: so looking forward to doing AI next. I was thought
Speaker 1: of so exciting, thought of working the studio, you know,
Speaker 1: and just slamming the door and focusing on just there
Speaker 1: the shots and no distractions and and nothing. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think with Eyes might chut, you know, he because
Speaker 1: working indoors is a totally different environment, as you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's there are no distractions, You're focusing on
Speaker 1: exactly what needs to be done, and there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. He preferred shooting indoors. Any difficulty about about
Speaker 1: Eyes by chill he had, I think was really more
Speaker 1: story and trying to sort of work it in a
Speaker 1: way that it would mean something to people now. But
Speaker 1: pre production took a year, and it often took that
Speaker 1: along with him. One of the interesting things about Kubrick
Speaker 1: for me, because he made films so rarely that when
Speaker 1: you saw him he had aged quite a bit in
Speaker 1: between films. Kubrick is round and kind of full bodied
Speaker 1: and a thick mane of brown hair. Then you cut
Speaker 1: the five and six and seven years later at a
Speaker 1: different Kubrick and then a different coupric and he and
Speaker 1: it looks whether it. He looks hired, you know, he
Speaker 1: looks older. Yeah, he wasn't a health none, is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, No doubt about that. Um, but I think
Speaker 1: just this, uh what can I say? This ongoing it's
Speaker 1: almost like a grind, but not in a negative way,
Speaker 1: but everything it's like a hab Yeah, yeah, you know exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's interesting in the film that I love about the
Speaker 1: film is that this film reveals that there's things he
Speaker 1: couldn't do or wouldn't do, and that's what fell to
Speaker 1: you to do. You know, he he if there's ten
Speaker 1: things you need a director, and a director who's producing
Speaker 1: and so hands on it his own or her own films,
Speaker 1: that individual is so hands on it, there's ten things
Speaker 1: they're gonna do. He would do five or six of
Speaker 1: them on the deepest level. Then the other four of
Speaker 1: them he relied on someone else to do. And that
Speaker 1: felt to you to take care of the little boy
Speaker 1: and to to to and to and to do it
Speaker 1: a myriad of jobs. Forget all the technical jobs. Forget
Speaker 1: about you as a as his curator of his of
Speaker 1: his film stock and so forth. In the documentary film Worker,
Speaker 1: my Guest, Leon Vitali describes what a taskmaster, Director Stanley
Speaker 1: Kubrick was if anything, you even went home, you said,
Speaker 1: it is your responsibility to make sure they understand exactly
Speaker 1: what you want. And I could take two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: six tries to get it right if I felt like
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting any response or people were kind of
Speaker 1: for one of the better phrases, digging me around, you know,
Speaker 1: saying they're gonna send something you never get sent, and
Speaker 1: you've got to chase him up, and chase him up.
Speaker 1: He'd say, Okay, Leon, tonight you get on the phone
Speaker 1: and you say to them, if they're talking like that
Speaker 1: to you, they're talking like that to me. It really
Speaker 1: felt like there was a kind of a loyalty there.
Speaker 1: So sometimes did you did you when you came on
Speaker 1: the first job with him, after you did Barry Lyndon?
Speaker 1: You shot Barry Lyndon? Of what period? You shot that
Speaker 1: up for nine years? I'm kidding, Um, you shot that
Speaker 1: what years? Um? I was actually told i'd got the
Speaker 1: role and I went down to Salisbury where they were
Speaker 1: shooting in the January of god, what was it seventy
Speaker 1: three something like that? Um, time time has no meaning
Speaker 1: when you've worked with him, you know, um seventy three
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to be there for um thirteen
Speaker 1: days or eight weeks, and in the end I was
Speaker 1: there until the end of July seventy three. So um.
Speaker 1: After that, of course, there was an incredibly long cutting
Speaker 1: period and what heavy um. And then he he rang
Speaker 1: me because I'd actually done another film job. I think
Speaker 1: we saw it. They went back to acting. I went,
Speaker 1: I went to acting, and I thought I could use
Speaker 1: what little clout I had to calm my way into
Speaker 1: Did you say, yeah, so you would. We were in
Speaker 1: the editor for Frankistan Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does he
Speaker 1: make next? After after after a barrel, Linda? What does
Speaker 1: he make? I should know? The Shining Shining? And he
Speaker 1: sent me that book. He sent me a book. I
Speaker 1: told him what I was doing that I love that.
Speaker 1: So it was an actor you can make ten films.
Speaker 1: What he's thinking of his next film? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And he said he'll come with me make my next film.
Speaker 1: He started. The Shining went like nineteen no, nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: I was sent out here to America to look for
Speaker 1: Danny and then he called me. Towards the end of
Speaker 1: that process, I mean it took seven months during she
Speaker 1: not to find him, but to make sure there wasn't
Speaker 1: anyone better than him, because I found him very early
Speaker 1: in the process, funny enough. And so just towards the
Speaker 1: end of that process, he said, well, while you're there,
Speaker 1: go and take some interior photographs of hotels. And I
Speaker 1: started doing that and that got you know, that wasn't
Speaker 1: I thought it would just be going and take a
Speaker 1: snap of a room, you know, but it wasn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were talking about exposures and you've got to do this,
Speaker 1: you got to do that night. But the only thing
Speaker 1: I've never had was an instematic, you know. But it
Speaker 1: was wonderful because he sort of stepped me through it
Speaker 1: step by step, and he said, by the time life
Speaker 1: series photography photography books, and so I did that and
Speaker 1: so kind of reading those and learning and then he
Speaker 1: was telling me and so towards the very end, just
Speaker 1: before we came home, he rang me and uh, and
Speaker 1: he said, what are you planning on doing after you
Speaker 1: finished here? And I said I don't know. He said, okay,
Speaker 1: then you're coming to London and that was it. I mean,
Speaker 1: suddenly i I've got a job again. So there's some
Speaker 1: people who are missing from the film in my mind,
Speaker 1: or we don't appear in the film either Tom or
Speaker 1: in the cold to talk about the eyes Watch experience,
Speaker 1: or members of Kubrick's family, We did you approaching them
Speaker 1: to do the film. Um, I'll be honest and UM
Speaker 1: say that it's really hard. If you watched, I mean
Speaker 1: you just saw the film. Um. Ryan O'Neil is there
Speaker 1: because Leon was his co star le Ermie obviously always
Speaker 1: pretty much everything he has for Leon and and he's
Speaker 1: always working. Um. We go into the status issue and
Speaker 1: a lot of people are not interested in filming with
Speaker 1: you to talk about an assistant, and so obviously Ryan
Speaker 1: would do it because they were co actors. UM. A
Speaker 1: lot of people UM in Hollywood either it's either not
Speaker 1: going to get the truth or they didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going on on the set. And big stars are
Speaker 1: like they're wrapped up in their own world. They're really
Speaker 1: not aware of what's happening because they show up obviously
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work to do. UM, so very
Speaker 1: little they would really know what's going on with UM
Speaker 1: the assistant who's running around and UM doing a billion things. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and families is the same thing, because, um, I don't
Speaker 1: think they were going to sit with me again and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know why, Yes, Stanley was really difficult and he
Speaker 1: tortured ly on and I mean again, and you have
Speaker 1: to be objective. It's I did approach some I wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, some wan't say who. But some felt that,
Speaker 1: like you know, they'll be undermining Stanley if they appear
Speaker 1: they knew the truth. But they just not going to
Speaker 1: sit in front of the camera and say, yes, this
Speaker 1: man done all this stuff. So in the end, he
Speaker 1: finished his eyes wide shot, he cuts eyewat eyes watching.
Speaker 1: It's his final cut, and he dies soon after that.
Speaker 1: And the controversy is about about what not the final
Speaker 1: It was it about protecting the final cut, or was
Speaker 1: about that I was going to be printed the film?
Speaker 1: The technology of that were you stepped in and helped
Speaker 1: to ensure what well, Fritzical we this um We were
Speaker 1: in the midst of running tests with stocks, different stocks
Speaker 1: of films for printing and what have you. Uh So
Speaker 1: we resolved that impost. We talked about it, and we'd
Speaker 1: favored we already sort of favoring one UM one kind
Speaker 1: of film in particular, and we started sort of working
Speaker 1: with and experimenting it. So I knew that was the
Speaker 1: line we were going to be taking there and things
Speaker 1: like all the rest of it, with the foot's and
Speaker 1: the folio and the list and that, you know, all
Speaker 1: those things. I followed the same pattern as we did
Speaker 1: on full metal Jackets as close as we could, you know,
Speaker 1: different films and what have you. But it was just
Speaker 1: to follow a pattern, you know. I hate people to
Speaker 1: think that. I just think, you know, wow, came up
Speaker 1: with all these ideas, and you know, it was a
Speaker 1: standy sort of had a way of working. And I
Speaker 1: was able to stick with it because it was so clear,
Speaker 1: you know, and it sounds crazy, but the criteria was
Speaker 1: to you wipe out whatever ideas you might have had
Speaker 1: about it. Was just shocked, could it be more this,
Speaker 1: or more beautiful, or or contrast e and get it right?
Speaker 1: You just stick with what I knew he wanted whereabouts.
Speaker 1: He wanted it to be here again. Tony Zaira's documentary
Speaker 1: film Workers that people think called somebody's in a system
Speaker 1: for someone. You're doing layouts, you're you know, you're working
Speaker 1: with lass, you're working with restoration, you're casting people, you're
Speaker 1: working with the actors, and sometimes I was that the
Speaker 1: title you were happy with, or was that you didn't
Speaker 1: make any difference. You know something, when I traveled abroad
Speaker 1: and I used to have to fill in these visas,
Speaker 1: they used to say occupation. I always used to write
Speaker 1: film worker. I mean, I'm a film worker. I'm a
Speaker 1: That's what I do. So assistant to me is nothing
Speaker 1: other than I am assisting somebody to fulfill what it
Speaker 1: is they want to get up on a screen. I
Speaker 1: was Donald coj. But but seeing what you do to
Speaker 1: kind of barnacle yourself to that ship to work with
Speaker 1: someone like that, I'm for one, look at this film
Speaker 1: and I was just in tears when I watched this
Speaker 1: film the first time in my computer because it was,
Speaker 1: like God, it was worthy. You said the goal was
Speaker 1: to got it right. Do you think you guys got
Speaker 1: it right with the movies that you made. The answer
Speaker 1: is yes, yes, you got it right. That's Leon de
Speaker 1: Tally and the man who made a movie about him,
Speaker 1: Tony Zeira. The documentary is called film Worker. Another director
Speaker 1: with a reputation for respecting the men and women behind
Speaker 1: the scenes is Chris Columbus, maker of many of America's
Speaker 1: favorite family films, from Adventures in Babysitting to Harry Potter
Speaker 1: and The Sorcerer's Stone. That respect has deep roots. My
Speaker 1: future was basically working at either my father's aluminum factory
Speaker 1: or my mother's automotive factory in the Only Escape. Really,
Speaker 1: we're movies back then, and I would watch whatever film
Speaker 1: came into town over and over, and I remember something
Speaker 1: clicked when I saw Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.
Speaker 1: Here the rest of my conversation with Chris Columbus that
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing dot org coming up, more of my
Speaker 1: conversation with Stanley Kubrick's assistant Leon the Tally on the
Speaker 1: lack of women in many of his films. I'm Alec Baldwin,
Speaker 1: and you were listening to Here's the Thing. In his
Speaker 1: new movie Film Worker, Tony Ziera has documented the whole
Speaker 1: messy pro says of making a Kubrick film. A man
Speaker 1: as obsessed as Stanley with controlling the shot might not
Speaker 1: have been pleased. Even though Zeira's documentary Film Worker is
Speaker 1: an inspiring story. There's one thing I and others have
Speaker 1: noticed about Kubrick's uber One thing I want to ask
Speaker 1: both of your opinion of which is, of course, there
Speaker 1: are almost no women in Kubrick's films and uh women
Speaker 1: without when you look at Lolita, obviously one is a
Speaker 1: young uh sexual object tormenting him and the other is
Speaker 1: his kind of silly her silly mother. There has to
Speaker 1: be dealt with a certain way. And from Paths of
Speaker 1: Glory on, you know, you've got some flight attendants as
Speaker 1: they're taking the space shuttle up to the in two
Speaker 1: thousand one. You don't have a lot of women in
Speaker 1: future role. Then you get to Nicole obviously and the
Speaker 1: big featured roman eyes watching. Well, what do you think
Speaker 1: that was about with him? Actually, you know, researching and
Speaker 1: talking to Leon he said the greatest thing to me,
Speaker 1: which is he said that Lulita would she was that
Speaker 1: she is the one that actually she was the hero
Speaker 1: at then she's the one that walked away and got
Speaker 1: her all figured out. And you could elaborate on that afterwards. Um.
Speaker 1: But even the past the glory, the last scene with
Speaker 1: Christiana Kubrick's wife, I think when the women came in
Speaker 1: they were there for a very strong um message and
Speaker 1: they kind of turned things around you could see obviously
Speaker 1: in I but I think Leon Ready had he could
Speaker 1: really talk about that a lot better than me. What
Speaker 1: do you think that? Do you have any movies on
Speaker 1: the drawing board that were from a woman's point of view? Ever?
Speaker 1: Or no? Uh no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say he.
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever thought about making a movie
Speaker 1: about you know, a man or a woman, or a
Speaker 1: man's world or a woman's world or whatever. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was always a story. First they called him, and
Speaker 1: then very often, sadly, you know, the protagonists in most
Speaker 1: literature up until recently have been it shall be male basically,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But this is what I've always I've
Speaker 1: always said. You know, if you do look at Lolita
Speaker 1: and you do think about what that poorgo went through
Speaker 1: and even you know she wasn't in great harmony with
Speaker 1: her mother either, Um, but she came through it all.
Speaker 1: She got through it all. She was pretty tough at
Speaker 1: the end of it, if you look at it and
Speaker 1: you think about it. And she walked out for all
Speaker 1: of a better word, a winner. He died in prison,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. You know Seller's characters who one was
Speaker 1: shot and the other she escaped from too um in shining,
Speaker 1: who survives? I mean Shelley. She survived with a little boy,
Speaker 1: and um and and so I and I think the
Speaker 1: when you think about Barry Lindon, you know who survived
Speaker 1: and kept you know, even though he wanted, he tried
Speaker 1: his best to destroyed, she has, she kept her standing
Speaker 1: and her you know her what can you call it?
Speaker 1: A position in life of status and whatever? You so,
Speaker 1: you know, I really do. I don't think you thought
Speaker 1: about it in a sort of feminine, chauvinistic sort of terms.
Speaker 1: And when you come to eyes right shut is definitely
Speaker 1: it's definitely Nicole's rule. Who is the stronger one? I
Speaker 1: mean from the very off, you know, when he's getting
Speaker 1: ready to go to the party, and the first thing
Speaker 1: she does is, you know, she tells him where his
Speaker 1: keys are and blah blah blah. And as they're leaving,
Speaker 1: she looks up and down like just like that, and
Speaker 1: he sort of told me everything just that one gesture.
Speaker 1: You know that she she's she's looking at him, she's
Speaker 1: checking him out, and she's the one who thinks about
Speaker 1: things and blah blah blah. You know it's I never
Speaker 1: thought about his films as being chauvinistic at all. Was
Speaker 1: giving a good performance in a Kubrick film A difficult
Speaker 1: thing to do, uh, in terms of the pressure and
Speaker 1: the intensity of it, because some of them ever coming
Speaker 1: without naming names, ever coming to find you and say,
Speaker 1: what the funk am I going to do? Well? I'll
Speaker 1: start off and say, very briefly, know, there's a scene
Speaker 1: there where I talk about how he used to rehearse us.
Speaker 1: I mean, you need to kick everybody off. The said,
Speaker 1: just keep the actors and just go over it. While
Speaker 1: he was trying to find his first angle, and from
Speaker 1: that first angle everything else would flow from that. But
Speaker 1: to find that first angle was so difficult for him.
Speaker 1: It really well, the first shot was so difficult, and
Speaker 1: because he was finding so difficult, we were running it
Speaker 1: and running it and running it and running it and
Speaker 1: running it. And gradually what happens is you drop all
Speaker 1: pretense about acting. You're getting there in a really normal,
Speaker 1: natural kind of way, and and the way people don't
Speaker 1: always stand there and think through every word before they
Speaker 1: say it in life and order, these people not at all.
Speaker 1: So the acting process starts to go away in new
Speaker 1: road and you just start to be, You start to become.
Speaker 1: And then of course we shot a lot of takes
Speaker 1: and so you know, you would get pushed into that direction,
Speaker 1: which was working with Stanley thought you were ready to
Speaker 1: shoot um. And I know that a lot of actors
Speaker 1: don't like the thought of doing that. I mean they
Speaker 1: want to come in and do it straight off there.
Speaker 1: Jack was someone who could do that, but always they
Speaker 1: had long discussions. They go off for walks around the
Speaker 1: set and talk and talk about, you know, what they
Speaker 1: were doing. And I think you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at the shining and then you look at which is
Speaker 1: of east Wick, which he made quite soon after that,
Speaker 1: you kind of see that. I think Jack was sort
Speaker 1: of he'd kind of east that feeling of being able
Speaker 1: to not act mad but eccentric, but to be mad
Speaker 1: and eccentric. I mean it was an enacting job, not really,
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the reasons why you
Speaker 1: understands his actors ever got any kind of Oscar recognition
Speaker 1: or or even nominations, because they weren't exactly acting, they
Speaker 1: were actually being You done it a million times and
Speaker 1: you didn't remember your dialogue. You knew your dialogue because
Speaker 1: it was right inside your soul. You got what you say,
Speaker 1: that idea of that repetition thing is so real because
Speaker 1: that you see actors who have that insecurity and that
Speaker 1: fear and they know that time is like a hand
Speaker 1: at your throat and you're sitting there shooting and you
Speaker 1: want to get it right. Do you think that when
Speaker 1: you talk to him that I don't want to go
Speaker 1: too far on this limb, but do you think when
Speaker 1: you talk to him and spend time with him and
Speaker 1: you around him, could you see little moments throughout the
Speaker 1: arc of the post Barylndon career that you think he
Speaker 1: missed acting? Does he ever have doubts about giving up acting? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did talk a lot of the well, I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: well he got his gift and eyes ye child when
Speaker 1: he got the phone call that he is Red Cloak
Speaker 1: and and a lot of people didn't know he was
Speaker 1: actually that was leon Um, but as he said, he
Speaker 1: just the phone call came in and it's like you're
Speaker 1: doing it. And I also talked to other people that
Speaker 1: he was supposed to dub his voice because it's just
Speaker 1: impossible to get this amazing voice behind the mask. And
Speaker 1: Stanley called and said, nope, I'm keeping that voice's original voice.
Speaker 1: It's not dubbed. It's just as le undone it because
Speaker 1: Stanley just loved how he delivered it. So yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: Leon we did talk about that and he said that
Speaker 1: actually the one time he missed acting where the few
Speaker 1: times was, um, the scene on the stairs you could
Speaker 1: take it from there. No, yeah, the scene but it
Speaker 1: was shining and yeah, give it a bat when And
Speaker 1: that's a real It's another example of where you know,
Speaker 1: Stanley had taken him through the process so much, so
Speaker 1: much that when Jack started it looked as if he
Speaker 1: was over playing it a little. But the more he
Speaker 1: did it, the more he felt he could relax, and
Speaker 1: he became more terrifying for it. You know. It's quite incredible.
Speaker 1: And just a little point here, a little thing here,
Speaker 1: which um, well, I was living with a girlfriend and
Speaker 1: and I was doing a lot of television work, and
Speaker 1: she would keep on saying, what time are you going
Speaker 1: for practice? And I thought, now, Darlin, it's rehearsal. It's
Speaker 1: called rehearsal. Yeah, but she never stopped calling it practice.
Speaker 1: What time are you going to be back from practice?
Speaker 1: And I suddenly kind of thought, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: Especially in television, it becomes a little bit there. If
Speaker 1: you're not careful, you know, you you learn the lines
Speaker 1: and you set it up and it has to do
Speaker 1: with time as well time and everything else. But people
Speaker 1: do arrive sometimes this is how they're going to do it,
Speaker 1: and that's you know what's going to happen. And nothing
Speaker 1: can happen that will change it will make it surprising
Speaker 1: or and it can happen with stay on stage. He
Speaker 1: could happen anywhere. But it is that thing that you know,
Speaker 1: a process is different to some people don't need it.
Speaker 1: I mean, some people don't need I was raised standard
Speaker 1: SASKI one of a better word, you know, um. But
Speaker 1: some people don't need it. And you don't always need
Speaker 1: it for you know, a sitcom at last thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: but you know it's there and it's SIT's it's SIT's deep.
Speaker 1: And so that you know, ability to be able to
Speaker 1: shift and and immerse yourself in that way is just wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's it's a wonderful thing to be able to do. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's that's really it's so hard to explain,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, we're talking about acting
Speaker 1: really not the most thing in the world, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and for a few years and we would do the second,
Speaker 1: we'd say, our job is to get right up to
Speaker 1: the edge as close as we can to really bad
Speaker 1: acting as far as we can. I must take a
Speaker 1: couple of questions while we have a little bit with
Speaker 1: the sjucer right here. Did you ever think about directing yourself? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I did. And I found stories that I
Speaker 1: thought I'd really like to have time, you know, to
Speaker 1: really get into this and research it and and write
Speaker 1: it and you know so, um, but it's a time thing.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I know for me, you see, I know,
Speaker 1: my focus has to be one on what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and uh it's I hate the thought of him to
Speaker 1: work at anything piecemeal. Um. But as time has gone on,
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized that there's a lot of times has
Speaker 1: gone by and a project like that. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course I thought about it a lot,
Speaker 1: and I think about it now. Did Cooper ever believe
Speaker 1: that that living in England hurt his career? That if
Speaker 1: if he had lived in New York or in the
Speaker 1: States and could really go to dinners and go to
Speaker 1: meetings and pressure these people so he wouldn't be having
Speaker 1: the shitty full metal jacket display at the video store,
Speaker 1: and he could have things more his way. That it's
Speaker 1: a squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Did you ever
Speaker 1: feel that way? Uh No, And we talked about We
Speaker 1: did talk about that a lot. I mean, he he
Speaker 1: just said, Leon, I'm not one for going back, you know.
Speaker 1: And he liked England because simply because he could push
Speaker 1: all that away from him. You know, he kept or
Speaker 1: he kept all the visits to a minimum and he
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be having to turn up at a
Speaker 1: meeting or a meeting turn up at his place. He
Speaker 1: could more as dictate his timetable. Okay, over here right
Speaker 1: when this gentleman right here? Oh yeah, there's this lady.
Speaker 1: Here we go. Sorry. He talked in the film about
Speaker 1: the set designers. Something was breakdown, and I was just
Speaker 1: wondering how part you got with the setting side. When
Speaker 1: you're talking about about intensing means that happened that he
Speaker 1: set designers of yourself. I can't say I was actually
Speaker 1: deeply involved in in that side of it. I was
Speaker 1: there with Standy, but the detail is so important, and
Speaker 1: with Standy or you always felt if there wasn't a
Speaker 1: detail there, it's because he didn't want it there. Because
Speaker 1: that's how you get this continuity thing to you know,
Speaker 1: Stanley one, there's a shot of Jack in in a
Speaker 1: room time writing and there's a chair and in a
Speaker 1: shot there isn't a chair, and that's got to mean something,
Speaker 1: and it's no, because he changed his angles and he
Speaker 1: thought the chair funked up his job he started, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it was as simple as that basic. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think for people like Anton First, who
Speaker 1: was set you know, production designer on full metal jacket,
Speaker 1: and and you know, I think all of them very
Speaker 1: exacting because actually had to take material and shape it
Speaker 1: into something. Shot at something like the bombed down ghetto
Speaker 1: of London full medal, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It
Speaker 1: was like some distress. It was the gas station. And
Speaker 1: the beautiful thing about it was that a lot of
Speaker 1: the buildings were designed by the same French architects who
Speaker 1: did a lot of work in into China, and so
Speaker 1: we just went around and they grew in defunct, and
Speaker 1: they were going to put build a freeway through it,
Speaker 1: and so he just said, do what you like, So
Speaker 1: we went rund and blew it up. It's like one
Speaker 1: last question right here. I never thought of that put
Speaker 1: the glasses. Let's let's do a quick question here we go.
Speaker 1: Did you know his show fur and what did you
Speaker 1: think of his documentary? Oh? Yeah, I knew, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: knew media of course, but I haven't seen the documentary.
Speaker 1: What does he say that driving to work in the morning,
Speaker 1: he gave Stanley all the ideas in the car. I
Speaker 1: needed to put a forty on their Stanley and gotta
Speaker 1: come right. Actually, the troops, like actually everybody I shot with,
Speaker 1: they all think they were the only ones that did
Speaker 1: everything for Stanley, and they all feel or felt that
Speaker 1: they're the ones that were tortured. But literally, honestly, like
Speaker 1: from here to England to Sweden, this man was really
Speaker 1: came across constantly. H he was the guy that really
Speaker 1: pretty much did everything. And sometimes it makes other people
Speaker 1: that were there furious, but he really deserves it because
Speaker 1: it is the truth. Well, let me just say that
Speaker 1: on behalf let's hear around the post, I mean half
Speaker 1: of the film festival that has been our anniversary year.
Speaker 1: I saw this film a link that they generously sent
Speaker 1: to me to watch this film a while back, and
Speaker 1: I fell in love with this film. I've been a
Speaker 1: great admire of yours. I love you in that movie.
Speaker 1: I've worship you in that movie, and I want to
Speaker 1: say once again thank you both to Tony, thank you,
Speaker 1: and and to and to Leon for coming well. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. MM. Whether or not Kubrick's approach
Speaker 1: to directing actors was more method than madness is something
Speaker 1: Leon and I could argue about Tony Zeerira's documentary film Worker.
Speaker 1: It's about Samley Kubrick and Leon Vitally and everyone who
Speaker 1: sacrifices sleep and sanity to make great art, whether their
Speaker 1: names get remembered or not. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to hear. Is the thing