Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Jeff Daniels is a genius of many genres, from a
Speaker 1: selfish intellectual in terms of Endearment to Dumb and Dumber's
Speaker 1: big hearted, small brained pet groomer Harry Dunn. Daniels has
Speaker 1: had one of the most varied careers in Hollywood, or
Speaker 1: in Central Michigan for that matter. He grew up in
Speaker 1: rural Washingtonaw County, raised to take over the family would business.
Speaker 1: His life changed when he was spotted in a summer
Speaker 1: program by Marshall Mason of New York's Trailblazing Circle Repertory
Speaker 1: Theater Company. Plucked from a life in lumber, he never
Speaker 1: waited tables. Jeff Daniels was a working actor from the start,
Speaker 1: even if it meant a few years of doing commercials
Speaker 1: mashed potatoes. That's unusual, so I tried tater tots. Daniels
Speaker 1: has always balanced stage and screen. He took on the
Speaker 1: lead role in A. R. Gurney's The Golden Age on
Speaker 1: Broadway the year after his Hollywood breakthrough. In James Brook's
Speaker 1: Terms of Endearment, He's back on stage now. In his
Speaker 1: brilliant reimagining of Atticas Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird,
Speaker 1: for which he's been nominated for a Tony Broadways schedule
Speaker 1: is brutal, and Daniels has been fighting a cold, but
Speaker 1: he is firmly in the school of the show must
Speaker 1: go on. When you're above the title, there's a responsibility
Speaker 1: and an obligation with that. And especially with Atticus Finch
Speaker 1: and mocking Bird, there are people who have bought tickets
Speaker 1: three months ago, and I know the choy. I know,
Speaker 1: I know what they do. I mean, if you're the
Speaker 1: star of it and you can't be a hundred percent
Speaker 1: and there might be Tony voters out there, you bag
Speaker 1: it and you just let everybody know. And you just
Speaker 1: got I'm not going to go out there less than
Speaker 1: my best. And I've gone out there and I you know,
Speaker 1: and this is this vocal thing. It was a mucous thing.
Speaker 1: It was two weeks long, and there were there were shows.
Speaker 1: I sounded like Bill Clinton in a close up. I
Speaker 1: did the whole closing argument in a close up, and
Speaker 1: and and I found a way to make it work
Speaker 1: for them, and they forgive you. They can see that
Speaker 1: you're struggling most of them go he went on versus
Speaker 1: the understudy, which which is bad for the understudy. But
Speaker 1: I've said the only way I'm not going on is
Speaker 1: if I'm bleeding out. Well, first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this on your one day off. Hardly heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: But but as every call on that one day off
Speaker 1: either you had ninety things to do or you did nothing.
Speaker 1: You ran about a million guys have come to absolutely nothing. Nothing.
Speaker 1: But what I'm what I want to begin by asking,
Speaker 1: was what was the genesis of you in the play?
Speaker 1: How did that start? In terms of you playing this part.
Speaker 1: I had done news Room with Aaron Sarkin. I had
Speaker 1: done the Jobs movie with and and it was similar
Speaker 1: with then the news certain thing was a meeting with
Speaker 1: Scott Rowden and Aaron, and by the end of the
Speaker 1: breakfast meeting I had it. Um Jobs was Aaron turning
Speaker 1: me and turning to me in the third season in
Speaker 1: the Newsroom and going, look, I'm doing jobs. Do you
Speaker 1: want to play John Scully? Sure you know, send of
Speaker 1: the script when it's ready, But I was already you
Speaker 1: know it with Aaron, I'm at It's the same thing
Speaker 1: with Mockingbird. We were doing press for Jobs and uh.
Speaker 1: Aaron and I were both there, and he just turned
Speaker 1: to me and he said, Scott Bruden is finally after
Speaker 1: years gotten the rights, and um, would you like to
Speaker 1: play at it? His finch on Broadway? I should read
Speaker 1: the book, was my response. But inside I was going,
Speaker 1: what just happened? And how hard did you have to
Speaker 1: think about that? I didn't blink. I'm too old to
Speaker 1: worry about it. And and I and I've said, you know,
Speaker 1: the last five years, ten years, maybe it's I'm not challenged,
Speaker 1: then good night. I'm done, especially in the theater anywhere anywhere.
Speaker 1: That's why I think Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and
Speaker 1: all these were all the writers are going, Oh thank god.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'd be out. I'd be out. And so this
Speaker 1: was immediately I knew it was a great challenge, and
Speaker 1: it was Broadway, and it was Aaron back to Broadway
Speaker 1: and Scott Ruden's world class producer. And I said, I'm in.
Speaker 1: I'll figure out how to do it from now on.
Speaker 1: And Gregory Peck and and everything that he accomplished with
Speaker 1: the role, not only you know, the Oscar and all
Speaker 1: of that, but also in people's mind hearts and minds.
Speaker 1: I was ready to just take that on and figured
Speaker 1: out a way to do it now. Sorkin, who I've
Speaker 1: I did this movie Malice years ago that he wrote
Speaker 1: in the early stages of his career when he was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of writing for Castle Rock and uh,
Speaker 1: and I was going to do another project that he
Speaker 1: was involved with recently that fell apart. A few Good
Speaker 1: Men live on TV for NBC everyone do it Live,
Speaker 1: but that didn't happen. But I mean, he's known as
Speaker 1: somebody who's very you know, very demanding. You know, he
Speaker 1: likes everything. His way was Newsroom. The first time you
Speaker 1: worked with him, met him at the meeting, and you know,
Speaker 1: first day on the set was a day one. What
Speaker 1: do you think someone like Sorkin, who, let's assume he
Speaker 1: could pretty much have anybody he wants. What do you
Speaker 1: the key season you? What does he wanted you for
Speaker 1: these parts that you've played for him? You know, I
Speaker 1: live in the Midwest, your knee deep in decency and
Speaker 1: honesty and respect for other people and all that kind
Speaker 1: of repressed kind of Protestant and um, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe that that permeates me. I don't know what it
Speaker 1: was about news Room. They did ask he and Scott asked.
Speaker 1: He said, I've never seen you angry. So I told
Speaker 1: a story where I ended up getting angry and I
Speaker 1: banged the table in the four seasons, you know, breakfast
Speaker 1: and people turned in look, and I had the part.
Speaker 1: I also can handle his dialogue. So there's the whole
Speaker 1: technical aspect of that. Was Sorking in the room during
Speaker 1: the rehearsals much? Uh, yeah he was, he was around.
Speaker 1: It's painful for the playwright. Um, but he deferred to
Speaker 1: the director. Oh yeah, he had and he would they
Speaker 1: would bring him in and uh. There were no sessions
Speaker 1: with Scott Routen and bart Shire and Aaron. I think
Speaker 1: every Saturday morning or Saturday mornings when I mean I
Speaker 1: love to have been at with a documentary camera. Oh my, Scott,
Speaker 1: eight in the morning. Yeah, there were there were, and
Speaker 1: you we got rewrites November one, first preview, previews, December
Speaker 1: opening and we had rewrites, Um, lots and lots of rewrites, restagings.
Speaker 1: It was November was a tough month. Did you do
Speaker 1: a lot of research did you feel you had to
Speaker 1: do a lot of re search to play the partner? Now? Um,
Speaker 1: I I read the book and then I read the
Speaker 1: book again and highlighted the Atticus stuff and then put
Speaker 1: it down and never looked at it again. And for
Speaker 1: people who don't know, who haven't read the book, how
Speaker 1: different is the book from the film? Um? She goes
Speaker 1: all over the place in the book, and the film
Speaker 1: is a lot more streamlined. Um, it's told. The movie
Speaker 1: is told from the kid's point of view, looking up
Speaker 1: at Atticus, the great white Savior, the white protagonist in
Speaker 1: the civil rights movie. Yeah, you know, that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that Aaron talked about. In the movie.
Speaker 1: He loses the case to Tom Robinson and then as
Speaker 1: he's packing up his briefcase, he goes out and the
Speaker 1: colored pastor stands up and tells everyone to stand up.
Speaker 1: Your father's passing. And you know, growing up, Aaron and said, oh,
Speaker 1: what a what a scene, What a scene, what a scene.
Speaker 1: But today, no, no, they wouldn't. Thanks for all for
Speaker 1: trying really hard. And he's going to go to the
Speaker 1: electric chair now. But thank you, thanks for trying. You're
Speaker 1: one of the good whites. I wouldn't cut it. So
Speaker 1: that's something you didn't miss. You everybody was of one mind.
Speaker 1: Why were the play changes dramatically from the book and
Speaker 1: the movie. I just was thinking before you got here,
Speaker 1: we're trying to think of one of the things in
Speaker 1: the movie that are not in the play. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's one of them. And then we go on what
Speaker 1: would basically be the act three of a play, and
Speaker 1: in in a lot of different directions, we take at it.
Speaker 1: We basically slap Atticus around until he realizes that maybe
Speaker 1: there isn't goodness in everyone, right. You know they say
Speaker 1: the N word a lot in this play. I mean
Speaker 1: they lay it out. Was there a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: about that or no? Um? Not really? Uh, I mean
Speaker 1: sure it was. There was some sensitivity training, you know,
Speaker 1: in early rehearsals. But basically it's actors and this is
Speaker 1: what may all. That's how she refers to him, is
Speaker 1: how bob you over for is how the shaff hectit
Speaker 1: refers to. It's common. So you know, as actors you
Speaker 1: kind of slide into that, you know, and and when
Speaker 1: you know, when you're on stage doing it, that's when
Speaker 1: it's used. And that's the only time it's used. When
Speaker 1: I did street Car, we said, you know, I'll begin
Speaker 1: to do the play or we gonna do a revisionist version.
Speaker 1: Of the play because I'm gonna smack my wife across
Speaker 1: the face and within five minutes she's back in bed
Speaker 1: with me. What are we gonna do? I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not easy to play that. Now, we
Speaker 1: get that too, We get we get a reaction from
Speaker 1: from the audience today when certain parts of the play are,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of thrown out there, and it's it's
Speaker 1: normal for four Alabama, but you can hear the reaction
Speaker 1: a little bit sometimes. So if we are going to
Speaker 1: go back in time a little bit, how come we
Speaker 1: didn't take over the lumber company? What happened? It involved
Speaker 1: caring about wood in a way that I wasn't capable of.
Speaker 1: I wasn't wired that way, and god knows, my dad
Speaker 1: tried for four summers. I drove truck in the yard.
Speaker 1: Get there seven thirty in the morning, go till five thirty.
Speaker 1: You're taken sixteen foot pieces of dry wall upstairs around corners,
Speaker 1: and when they snap, you have to take it back
Speaker 1: on the truck. You're driving around corners with two cement
Speaker 1: block on the back of a flatbed. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Almond Brothers on your little am FM. You know,
Speaker 1: seventies action version of a boom box. And you go
Speaker 1: around and you see out of the side mirror two
Speaker 1: hundred cement blocks rolling on a guy's lawn that you
Speaker 1: had just taken the corner a little too hot. I
Speaker 1: just didn't care. I just couldn't care. He put me
Speaker 1: in algebra, he putting me in trigonometry. I would study
Speaker 1: with him, we'd pull a d It's just what about
Speaker 1: your brother? What's he like? What does he do? Your brother?
Speaker 1: He runs them, He runs them, and he got quite well. Thanks.
Speaker 1: He's more of a kind of a gambler. He's kind
Speaker 1: of he understands money bar better than I do. Uh
Speaker 1: And and it should be his, it should be fate.
Speaker 1: Fate helped out my dad, so the lumber company continues
Speaker 1: on despite my dad's efforts. It would have been it
Speaker 1: just would have been one of those you're a dreamer.
Speaker 1: I I don't. It's just my mom studied majored in
Speaker 1: art at Eastern Michigan University. So that's where I get it.
Speaker 1: It's that I got to create. I gotta create. You
Speaker 1: can't the job. I can't. Once you start to understand
Speaker 1: you're creating a character in a musical in a community
Speaker 1: theater or college or whatever, and boom boom you start
Speaker 1: to go down that road. It's like the sharks. You
Speaker 1: gotta keep moving. Whether I'm doing acting or guitar or
Speaker 1: writing a play for my theater company, I know that's
Speaker 1: what I'm supposed to be doing and and luckily have
Speaker 1: done it for decades. So when you get summoned where
Speaker 1: you can describe it, to go to circle rap to
Speaker 1: a program they have in the summer, that was your
Speaker 1: first sojourn into that. Yeah, I had done musicals in
Speaker 1: high school. I had done That's all they did that.
Speaker 1: We had a summer theater program run by the same
Speaker 1: high school director where we do more and more musicals.
Speaker 1: I did Harold Hill, I did Fagan and Oliver. I
Speaker 1: did t have you Unfiddler on the roof. O God,
Speaker 1: I would have killed to see that. If only no no,
Speaker 1: I was Big Julie and guys and dolls. Big Julie
Speaker 1: walk out stand there with the arms crossed, legs spread big,
Speaker 1: you know, guys in dolls, suit, got a fedora, got
Speaker 1: a fake cigar, and then walk off stage. Intermission, the
Speaker 1: director comes up and says, your zippers down to this day,
Speaker 1: I'm triple checking that flying. So I went to Central
Speaker 1: Michigan or University basically to do dramas. I kept being
Speaker 1: told it, you're good, you should chase it. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's go to Central. Because I didn't have the grades
Speaker 1: to get into Michigan or Michigan State. I just and
Speaker 1: a friend of mine was at Central and he needed
Speaker 1: a roommate and I'd want some awards there. And then
Speaker 1: I was in the library one day and I am had.
Speaker 1: I was reading the CM Life Daily newspaper student paper
Speaker 1: auditions at Eastern Michigan University downstate at Ipsilanti for play
Speaker 1: rep Festival, and the kids from all over the state auditioning. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go see how I do. So I'll go there,
Speaker 1: fail not get in. I got tickets to the Red
Speaker 1: Wings that night anyway in Detroit, so I'll go to Detroit,
Speaker 1: get drunk. It'll be great. And then I got called back,
Speaker 1: and I remember one of the Central Michigan guys said, uh,
Speaker 1: where are you going. I said, I got Red Wing tickets.
Speaker 1: Well you were called back, yeah, but my roommates are waiting,
Speaker 1: He goes, you idiot. You one of the directors is
Speaker 1: from New York. His name is Marshall W. Mason. He's
Speaker 1: out here, you're I came to find out doing a
Speaker 1: favor for the guy who runs the theater department Eastern.
Speaker 1: He used to go to college with a guy. The
Speaker 1: guy said, come on out direct some college kids, pick
Speaker 1: up a check. Marshall said, okay, you're called back for
Speaker 1: the lead in his play. You're not going to a
Speaker 1: hockey game, okay, went in auditioned. People would stand there
Speaker 1: with the scripts, you know, very presentational. And then Marshall said, yes,
Speaker 1: I'd just like to see one person, Jeff Daniels, come
Speaker 1: on up and um you We pointed to the girl. Okay,
Speaker 1: sitting two chairs three ft apart face each other, read
Speaker 1: the scene, you know, close ups, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: instinctively knew not to play it to a room of
Speaker 1: a hundred kids, and just played it to her. She
Speaker 1: played it to me and Marshall said thank you, said
Speaker 1: we're done, and cast me in the lead in Tennessee
Speaker 1: summer and small and Ipsilanti college kids. And and by
Speaker 1: the time we were heading up to the first performance,
Speaker 1: he took me out. I going take you out for
Speaker 1: a second. Talk to you. I'm sure yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: it's the New York director. And by this point I
Speaker 1: knew um that he was the artistic director of Circle
Speaker 1: Rep in New York City, where Lanford Wilson was, where
Speaker 1: you know, we had done one of the four plays
Speaker 1: was Hot to Baltimore, Tanya, but but it was that
Speaker 1: legendary New American play place, and I was, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: this guy's something. And he took me out and he said, basically,
Speaker 1: you know what you should do with your life, don't you.
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, I'd like to be an actor.
Speaker 1: He goes, you should come to New York and be
Speaker 1: an apprentice the Circle Rep. I'm not promising you anything.
Speaker 1: There are no obligations, nothing, but you you have the
Speaker 1: talent to try. You decide. So I went home to
Speaker 1: my lumber yard father and farmer housewife mother, but they
Speaker 1: could see that there was something going on, and they
Speaker 1: were told there was something going on. He turned to
Speaker 1: my mom and looked at me and said you should go,
Speaker 1: which meant no senior year at Central Michigan, getting the
Speaker 1: car and go to New York. I did. And you
Speaker 1: see how in your career you play what you're asked
Speaker 1: to play. The young guy, the innocent guy. You play flap,
Speaker 1: you play uh, you know the part where you're not
Speaker 1: putting all the pieces together, you're not the sharpest guy
Speaker 1: in the room, whatever, and then you turn around and
Speaker 1: you're playing attic A S. Finch On. There's there's a
Speaker 1: there's a way we moved toward a kind of integrity.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of a I don't like the word gravitas.
Speaker 1: I think that's but but there's an author of course,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it was gravitas has been you
Speaker 1: got you know, I remember some guy, I mean Maron
Speaker 1: Maxwell for Gettysburg, just I gotta find out if you
Speaker 1: got the balls the authority, and it was I really
Speaker 1: studied Jack Lemon, I really studied Dick van Dyke. They
Speaker 1: were early inspirations for me that pushed me towards the
Speaker 1: guy who walks into the wall and now is you know,
Speaker 1: dizzy and the guy who's was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: things that not the hero, not the guy with the
Speaker 1: square jaw standing there doing that. I was always that's
Speaker 1: who influenced me, and so that's what I would attack
Speaker 1: things with. Something wild is Jack Lemon and Dick Van
Speaker 1: Dyke had a baby and it was called me, that's
Speaker 1: what it is. And and and there's no gravitas in that,
Speaker 1: you know, or at least what I interpreted from them,
Speaker 1: and and ran with and I remember having those conversations
Speaker 1: with agents and stuff, and you know, and then the
Speaker 1: news room came along, which is probably the first one,
Speaker 1: probably probably the first one where you were asked to play.
Speaker 1: I mean there were others, you know, maybe certainly Gettysburg
Speaker 1: the guy came to have that kind of steel. Um.
Speaker 1: When it was definitely it took it. It was I
Speaker 1: was comfortably in the flawed hero. It goes all the
Speaker 1: way back to Flap, the flawed character, which is what
Speaker 1: all we played off Broadway. Nobody played a rock square
Speaker 1: jaw tom cruise hero. You know that you would kick
Speaker 1: that auto offer. So one of the first times you
Speaker 1: made was with me Losh in Ragtime. Did you have
Speaker 1: much of a relationship with him at all? He was
Speaker 1: very nice to me. It was my first movie. Must
Speaker 1: have been scared to death. Um Um. The only direction
Speaker 1: he gave me was you move your mouth. You're moving
Speaker 1: your mouth. You when you're not talking on a speaking
Speaker 1: moving the mouth. Don't move your mouth. That that was it.
Speaker 1: And it was you know nerves. It was lip movement,
Speaker 1: it was you know, smirking. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. It was just a nervous twitch or something.
Speaker 1: That was cool because it was to watch me Losh
Speaker 1: get the performance out of Cagney in his early eighties.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to do it. Woody two movies with
Speaker 1: Woody didn't talk much to you, like when I worked
Speaker 1: with him. No, no, what he no talking well? Good
Speaker 1: to hear personally it was now there was and you
Speaker 1: were told that going in. Don't try to be his friend,
Speaker 1: don't try to tell jokes, don't try to make him laugh.
Speaker 1: Don't you just do your job. Got it? And you know,
Speaker 1: and you get the script which no one can see,
Speaker 1: and you realize you're playing two leading roles in a
Speaker 1: Woody out My god, Okay, everything I've ever learned, please
Speaker 1: let me remember now go. There was one thing though,
Speaker 1: on Purple Rows. They hired me so quickly. Michael Keaton
Speaker 1: had been doing it, and I mutually agreed to not
Speaker 1: do it anymore, is what I was told. So fine.
Speaker 1: I came in auditioned, got it on a Thursday, was
Speaker 1: shooting on a Monday, fully prepared to be fired in
Speaker 1: a month wasn't, wasn't wasn't wasn't. Two months in with
Speaker 1: a month ago. Now we're in. Now they can't fire me.
Speaker 1: We do a sing where I'm singing a song in
Speaker 1: a music shop with me. No one had asked if
Speaker 1: I could sing. Jeffrey Curlin cost him director designer. Came
Speaker 1: back to the dressing room before we were going to
Speaker 1: shoot the scene or even rehearse it that morning, he goes,
Speaker 1: by the way, can you can you sing? You can sit?
Speaker 1: And I'm going they don't know, they don't know. So
Speaker 1: I went out in the rehearsal and I couldn't find
Speaker 1: the note ki of A. I'm in B flat, I'm
Speaker 1: in E flat again. I'm gonna get fired. Michael Keaton
Speaker 1: was a better singer than you. By this point, they're
Speaker 1: going no. By this point it was like he can't
Speaker 1: the guy you can't sing? Okay, well lips think it?
Speaker 1: What what he's over there going? I'm Alabama'm Alabami bam
Speaker 1: bam bound bound Where is it there? It is? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Thanks once more, please once more? And then you know,
Speaker 1: once they had sweated enough, having made me sweat for
Speaker 1: three months. Now I'm Judy Garland now you're bing Crosby.
Speaker 1: I'm bing Crosby. Yeah. Well, the the thing with him
Speaker 1: when I did I did Blue Jasmine. I had a
Speaker 1: small part in Blue Jasmine. And we're doing a scene
Speaker 1: that he later cut from the film where Kate Blanchet
Speaker 1: and I are in the kitchen, a big, big fancy
Speaker 1: kitchen of of an estate on Long Island, and uh,
Speaker 1: he says to me, and he wanted me to add
Speaker 1: lib something he said, you know, say to huh, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps you should go back to that doctor, go see
Speaker 1: that doctor that she had been seeing, you know before. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just say some name and I go Dr
Speaker 1: Fetterman and he went, nothing funny. And so when you're
Speaker 1: with him, it's the church and state. It's funny or
Speaker 1: it's ain't funny. Drama not funny, not funny. He didn't
Speaker 1: want anything funny. I mean, Kate Blanchett smokes a cigarette
Speaker 1: or I don't even know if she smoked, but that's
Speaker 1: what my memory tached down to. Espresso comes in and
Speaker 1: we have a fight, a physical fight, and he says
Speaker 1: kind of goes, I'm really sorry, but you know he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be at your wits end. He's supposed to
Speaker 1: becoming a pot and I'm just not seeing it. Take two,
Speaker 1: both a couple of espressos. But she's clawing at me.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing around the couch for having a physical fight.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry, darling, but I'm just not getting it.
Speaker 1: You're really supposed to be Look, you're going out of
Speaker 1: your mind here. And he made her do it again
Speaker 1: and again. She's like nine times, and by the ninth
Speaker 1: and tenth time, you know, we needed a straight jacket
Speaker 1: for her. She was so septemp and she won the Oscar.
Speaker 1: You know, she won the Oscar for Best Actors. They
Speaker 1: are the good ones are merciless. The good ones are merciless.
Speaker 1: They really are. What about Brooks? Uh madman, genius, in
Speaker 1: love with the next idea, in love with writing. He
Speaker 1: thinks like no one else thinks. He was one of
Speaker 1: the great writing minds I've ever met. Yeah, that that
Speaker 1: I remember just being wowed by him. Uh that brilliance
Speaker 1: which went all over the place, I mean, and sometimes
Speaker 1: in a crazy way. And then he comes back and
Speaker 1: it's only Jim Brooks would think of this, do that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of big personalities on that film. Here
Speaker 1: was he how good was he at marshaling all those
Speaker 1: people on the set or didn't even bother trying? Um?
Speaker 1: I think he did the absolute best he could in
Speaker 1: a situation where you had two titans, one at the
Speaker 1: peak of her career Deborah Winger and surely who still
Speaker 1: had it going on but was further down the road
Speaker 1: and was you know, it was about whose movie it
Speaker 1: was gonna be. I mean, this is all stuff as
Speaker 1: an off Broadway actor in one of his first movies.
Speaker 1: And just shut up and listen. Who gets the close up?
Speaker 1: You know when they put that tape measure in the
Speaker 1: old days on the close up on you and it's
Speaker 1: four ft eight inches and then turn around on her
Speaker 1: and it's three ft six even thought about the girls
Speaker 1: knew those things, you know. But I think also with
Speaker 1: Deborah Merciless, she was not going to do some gauzy
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship. It was gonna be love hate and
Speaker 1: her style of working is that, Um, if that has
Speaker 1: to occur off camera as well, then that's what we'll do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do too. She Shame a Mockingbird a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago, Very very nice of her. And she's not
Speaker 1: the only one who does that. I mean She was
Speaker 1: the first one that I was confronted with with who
Speaker 1: used that approach. I've since been around some other people
Speaker 1: who will do something in the first week of a
Speaker 1: twelve week shoot to jar our relationship without giving names,
Speaker 1: for example, how do you jar the relationship you surprise
Speaker 1: them with? And this happened to me my first day
Speaker 1: on the set. They've been shooting for two months already,
Speaker 1: and this other actor we have an adversarial relationship in
Speaker 1: the movie, and we were doing a big group photo
Speaker 1: and I put my hand on his shoulder and said,
Speaker 1: how you doing. You don't ever touch me again, and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blank blank. I mean, just in front
Speaker 1: of about ten people first day. What was his problem?
Speaker 1: He's method, he's got he had some missues. But but
Speaker 1: I was also it was I'd read that he was
Speaker 1: a method and all that, so I so I didn't
Speaker 1: know which it was. He's either got anger issues or both,
Speaker 1: or or it's you know, and I a method asshole,
Speaker 1: but that's the relationship in the movie. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know, done, good, thanks for the help. I said
Speaker 1: it was just a joke and walked past him. Didn't
Speaker 1: speak to him for two months on the set in
Speaker 1: the makeup trailer, I'm walking down towards hair. You need
Speaker 1: to move, you know, just walking towards him. And he
Speaker 1: would go out the other door and then come around
Speaker 1: the other door and go into the makeup je I
Speaker 1: used it, and so did he. And if that's if
Speaker 1: that's if that's the rule on this movie, that's the
Speaker 1: rule I've had the opposite with Nichols. Nicholas was so
Speaker 1: kind to me. He was so kind to me. And
Speaker 1: really the scenes, he he loved them and seemed to
Speaker 1: take time with them. What was your experience with him?
Speaker 1: Another genius? Uh, it was a scene with Meryl and
Speaker 1: and and and Mike, you know, like as he should those.
Speaker 1: It was Meryl's movie in Jack's movie was called Hartmurk
Speaker 1: and so I was supporting in it and that that,
Speaker 1: and so he was He was very kind, very respectful,
Speaker 1: and but it was about Meryl, and I knew it
Speaker 1: was about Meryl. And don't don't don't I have a question.
Speaker 1: You don't have a question, No, you don't. Um uh So,
Speaker 1: but to be around him and just to listen to him,
Speaker 1: work with Meryl in a two shot and try this,
Speaker 1: try that, try that, and it's the same thing that
Speaker 1: that Jonathan Demi had, that Jim Brooks had, and would
Speaker 1: he has that that you would you you only they
Speaker 1: would think to do that. Only the great directors think
Speaker 1: of that thing. You've thought of everything, and then they
Speaker 1: think of something and go try this, and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have thought of that. And that's the one that's the choice.
Speaker 1: Nichols was like that. And to see Mike and Meryl
Speaker 1: try things and miss swing and miss. What an education?
Speaker 1: The great gift do you mentioned? What do? What do
Speaker 1: you learned? Supporting Wills? The great gift you get is
Speaker 1: what you just said, is to observe, to watch other
Speaker 1: people observe, learn how to behave on camera and off
Speaker 1: and time get it into and if you can get
Speaker 1: it in one even better. And the two shot with
Speaker 1: Meryl and heartburn, when we're both on the couch and
Speaker 1: she can't figure out what to do and it's Mike
Speaker 1: is not working and Mike's going, I know it isn't
Speaker 1: and what it is and it's six and at seven
Speaker 1: and you're sweating bullets because you know the two shot
Speaker 1: we're gonna use. The take we're gonna use is the
Speaker 1: one where she's great. So you've got to be great
Speaker 1: eight times, she's got to be great once. This is
Speaker 1: film acting class, folks. Jeff Daniels says there are both
Speaker 1: challenges and opportunities in playing second fiddle. Besides Heartburn, he
Speaker 1: also took us porting role in The Hours, starring Julianne
Speaker 1: Moore as a miserable housewife and mother. I spoke to
Speaker 1: more about her own very different experience of motherhood. We
Speaker 1: have an incredibly tolerant business toward women with children. I
Speaker 1: have to say thank goodness for the movie business. I
Speaker 1: remember my son was when I was doing Psycho. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, my son was nine months old
Speaker 1: and I was still getting used to having a baby,
Speaker 1: and he was always with me and stuff, and he
Speaker 1: was hysterical in the trailer One day and I was
Speaker 1: nursing him and trying to him to calm down. They
Speaker 1: knocked the trailer door and they said, you know, we
Speaker 1: need you. And I was like, come, and this adorable
Speaker 1: p a said, no, worries, man, take your time, and
Speaker 1: I was like, holy cow, I'm the luckiest woman in
Speaker 1: the world. The rest of that interview at Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing dot Org more Jeff Daniel's Coming up. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Jeff
Speaker 1: Daniels and I both worked on The Looming Tower, Alex
Speaker 1: Gibney's series about the lead up to nine eleven. Each
Speaker 1: episode had a different director, something Daniel said he was
Speaker 1: used to. I think I learned it on Newsroom because
Speaker 1: I knew there was a revolving door of directors. Five
Speaker 1: words or less. If you can't tell me what you
Speaker 1: want in the next stake and five words less, stay
Speaker 1: in the chair, don't come near me, because I'll do it.
Speaker 1: I've been a supporting actor. I know how to direct myself.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come in with some choices that I think
Speaker 1: this might be what it is, and you might want
Speaker 1: to see those. I'm not gonna talk about him. I
Speaker 1: don't talk about them. Well five words or less and
Speaker 1: they did that, And I'll do anything you want. You
Speaker 1: want me to get angry on take four just to
Speaker 1: see who knows. Absolutely all you'll hear from me is okay. Oh,
Speaker 1: don't ever say to me. Give me one that I
Speaker 1: don't want to do, just so I can have it.
Speaker 1: And then I said, well, what have you? You? Is it?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, there are directors I've worked
Speaker 1: with who I would do. I would acquiesce if Wood
Speaker 1: he tell me, I would do whatever would he asked me.
Speaker 1: I do whatever Marty asked me. But there are directors
Speaker 1: who they haven't earned that. And I'm like you, you know,
Speaker 1: I want you to have what you want. I want
Speaker 1: to get it. I want to get your part on
Speaker 1: Newsroom and Looming Tower and God, listen all that tuff.
Speaker 1: I come in ready. I come in prepared. So usually
Speaker 1: if I've done my homework and and prepped it and
Speaker 1: all that, it's kind of what it should be in
Speaker 1: the first one or two or three, and so then
Speaker 1: it's just a matter. And I want to usually get
Speaker 1: is do you want to do another one? No, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm done. And the best ones are that takes that
Speaker 1: you don't remember what you just did, where it's you
Speaker 1: chasing impulses. I don't. I really don't try to freeze it.
Speaker 1: I really don't try to. Even mocking bird Is moves
Speaker 1: around and bart Share the director has given me some
Speaker 1: little latitude on that. Um uh, don't deviate from the
Speaker 1: story or the direction, but stay in the lane. But
Speaker 1: you can weave around a little bit and I do.
Speaker 1: And that's film one is different than two, is different
Speaker 1: than three, than different than four. That comes from not
Speaker 1: being in the editing room. How do I control that?
Speaker 1: I've seen stars go yeah, yah, yeah, I need to
Speaker 1: see I need to see the cut. I need to
Speaker 1: see all right, I know I'm not sure. Video playback, playback,
Speaker 1: good god. I remember doing a movie and she the star,
Speaker 1: you know again. I'm was brought in to help make
Speaker 1: her better, and um, take one and then she goes
Speaker 1: to playback and it's three minutes and take two, and
Speaker 1: then she goes to playback and it wasn't going well anyway.
Speaker 1: And she came back. She was, why didn't you go
Speaker 1: to watch playback? I said, we don't have playback on Broadways.
Speaker 1: I love playback, and we're flipping a car. But it's
Speaker 1: between and and editor. They're all going to decide it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be where we think it is. Any of
Speaker 1: gourney Weaver told me that great lesson the movie you
Speaker 1: have in your head is not going to be the
Speaker 1: movie that you see. And the sooner you learn that,
Speaker 1: the easier this career will be. Um the Farrelly Brothers
Speaker 1: and he won the OUs exactly exactly. There either is
Speaker 1: a god or there isn't. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: You're going, you guys are Harry and Lloyd. You're Harry
Speaker 1: and Lloyd. I would work with him again tomorrow. Sure,
Speaker 1: their energy, Pete and Bobby's energy on a side. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just a great day on a great day
Speaker 1: at work when you go with them. In number two,
Speaker 1: I walk into my trailer and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: there's Bill Murray sitting in my trailer. Bill, how are you? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm coming in here to do a cameo. Are you hey?
Speaker 1: We're sharing a dressing room? Yeah, yeah, Well now he
Speaker 1: would just being nice. And then he went over and
Speaker 1: but we went in and it's it's Harry and Lloyd
Speaker 1: back in their apartment and the worm farm and all
Speaker 1: of that. But the kitchen has now been turned into
Speaker 1: a meth lab, and there's Bill Murray and a has
Speaker 1: met suit. You can't see him. Great came the cameos,
Speaker 1: going to get de Niro for a cameo and letting
Speaker 1: him play a dead guy on the sidewalk with his
Speaker 1: face down on the sidewalk. That's what the Fairly Brothers
Speaker 1: were doing. Now you moved back to Michigan, you had
Speaker 1: a two year old, and what was the thinking? Where
Speaker 1: were you at career wise? Then? I didn't want fame.
Speaker 1: I didn't want stardom. I was scared. What do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? That demands an explanation. I wasn't comfortable
Speaker 1: in situations with a lot of famous people making career moves.
Speaker 1: At a party, I couldn't schmooze. I was the guy
Speaker 1: against the wall. Just put me in the audition room
Speaker 1: and I'll beat you. But I can't do fame you.
Speaker 1: I can't out fame. I can't. I can't do this.
Speaker 1: So now I get to quit or I I think
Speaker 1: I just realized that if that's what it takes, then
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to the lumber company. But
Speaker 1: that's that's essential. So at the time you move back,
Speaker 1: what had you just made and what was the impact
Speaker 1: you just shot? What I had just shot? Uh and
Speaker 1: probably been released. The Purple Rosa Cairo in terms of
Speaker 1: endearment was out. Maybe Marie was sissy space, right, So
Speaker 1: you want to streak movies that we're making your career, Yeah,
Speaker 1: movies that were making your career. And like although many
Speaker 1: people myself included, have that failure is much more familiar
Speaker 1: to me than success. So when everything is going really,
Speaker 1: really well is when especially you sit there and go,
Speaker 1: I don't think I really really want this. I didn't
Speaker 1: want the start. Um, I didn't want to fame. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be a really good actor. That's all I
Speaker 1: wanted to be. I knew that was I later learned
Speaker 1: that's all I could control. I can't control all this
Speaker 1: other thing. I have a wife, I have a two
Speaker 1: year old boy. What'd your wife say? She's from Michigan.
Speaker 1: Both of our families are back there in this little town.
Speaker 1: We had gone back the previous three summers leading up
Speaker 1: to the move back. We went back for a month
Speaker 1: in the summer. The next summer, went back from Memorial
Speaker 1: Day to Labor Day. The third summer, I was there
Speaker 1: mid April Patrick's almost Halloween October. I said, we just
Speaker 1: spent six months in Michigan. And I answered the phone
Speaker 1: and occasionally I got in an airplane, went to New
Speaker 1: York and met somebody, Um, why do I have to
Speaker 1: live in New York where I can afford the apartment?
Speaker 1: And m M, what did your wife think about what
Speaker 1: you were doing she's your wife who you've been with.
Speaker 1: Either one of us knew she supported you. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and more importantly, the agents supported me to ask you that.
Speaker 1: The agents said, you want to what I said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to move to Michigan and just do the
Speaker 1: movie career out of there. Now you can't, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you know I wasn't you know, I wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise on the cover of news Week. But there
Speaker 1: were offers. They said, if you're willing to get on
Speaker 1: an airplane at your own expense from Detroit to l
Speaker 1: A just to do meetings and we can couch him
Speaker 1: in a week, then okay, live wherever you want. I said, okay, deal.
Speaker 1: And early on, for about three years, they came my way.
Speaker 1: To have movie people sitting on my little boat on
Speaker 1: this little lake, you know, driving around trying to talk
Speaker 1: me into doing a movie. Was like wow. I remember
Speaker 1: getting a FedEx from Woody Allen script for radio days. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yours is a very dramatic version of this, which is
Speaker 1: there's people who they self immolate. People will ask me
Speaker 1: about commerce versus the artistic, and I'll say movie started
Speaker 1: missing for everybody. But a lot of people. Then they
Speaker 1: stay in l A and they stay there where someone's
Speaker 1: walking up, pulling your pants down, sticking a thermometer if
Speaker 1: you're asked, and taking your temperature of a fifteam and
Speaker 1: say how hot you are or not, which is why
Speaker 1: I don't want to live there, why I don't want
Speaker 1: to live there, And I just can't handle you know that.
Speaker 1: And then the l A drives me insane that way.
Speaker 1: But but but the actually happens, by the way, I've
Speaker 1: got video footage to prove it. But but my point
Speaker 1: is for you, when you decided that you wanted that change,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to chase that thing, and you move
Speaker 1: and you're still there. You still live there. I do.
Speaker 1: We have a wonderful apartment here in New York. But
Speaker 1: that's it. That's that's that's the two of them, the
Speaker 1: families back there, what are your kids? Didn't trust it.
Speaker 1: I didn't trust Hollywood. I didn't trust the movie career.
Speaker 1: I had three four great movies there, movies that were
Speaker 1: you know, of importance and um, but I didn't trust
Speaker 1: that it would last. You know, Goodman, I've read somewhere
Speaker 1: John Goodman said the limo that you're riding in tonight
Speaker 1: is rented. You know somebody else's ass is going to
Speaker 1: be in it tomorrow. And I always you know it
Speaker 1: was all so temporary. Well, I mean, I said this
Speaker 1: in this book I wrote I started making movies in
Speaker 1: eighty six, because I go through the eighties, I'm getting
Speaker 1: to be four or five years sober. All of it
Speaker 1: has the width of like of getting high. It's another high.
Speaker 1: I'm chasing, very intoxicating. Look at social media. Now, look
Speaker 1: at the YouTube stars. Now, look at all the people.
Speaker 1: You can just see them chasing, and see them wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting,
Speaker 1: and you learn as you grow older. I'm off and asked,
Speaker 1: when did you know that you made it? One of
Speaker 1: my answers is it's when you're at the Golden Globes
Speaker 1: for Purple Rows and Michael J. Fox is up for
Speaker 1: Back to the Future and you're both up in the
Speaker 1: same category, and I don't want to be there. I'm
Speaker 1: I got the guard up. I just I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is the last place I want to be. I want
Speaker 1: to be. This is everything I don't want um And
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there and Michael J. Fox and there's a
Speaker 1: few stars that have done this walked across and said, Hi, Michael,
Speaker 1: nice to meet you. Oh yeah, nice to meet you. Goes.
Speaker 1: I said, you're you're what back to the future. How
Speaker 1: great for you? And he goes, I'm the star, but
Speaker 1: you're the actor, you know, And that's not on a billboard,
Speaker 1: That's not something you're gonna see, you know, uh in
Speaker 1: the star school book of how what what you mad?
Speaker 1: How what making it is? And Michael's a terrific actor.
Speaker 1: And but but for him to say something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, that mattered, and then it, you know, went away,
Speaker 1: And then I just scrambed. When did it go away?
Speaker 1: In your mind? I made a bunch of movies no
Speaker 1: one saw for the dough No no scool as you
Speaker 1: believed in and not even you know, later on Squid
Speaker 1: in the Whales, things like that, This would Love Hurts
Speaker 1: with Bud York and nice Comedy that Bent went belly
Speaker 1: up checking out with David Leland. Joe Westerhouse wrote the
Speaker 1: first draft of it, and you know, nine great Little Independent.
Speaker 1: I fell in love with independent movies and they didn't
Speaker 1: make any money. And so then I had to scramble,
Speaker 1: and I said, I need to do a movie that
Speaker 1: someone sees and we got a rachnophobia. Frank Marshall directed.
Speaker 1: It was his first directing thing. Uh. You know, the
Speaker 1: studio didn't think it would do much, and then it
Speaker 1: tested great and they said it's gonna make a hundred
Speaker 1: million and then huh you and John right Goodman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: John was in it, and um he brought star power
Speaker 1: to it and uh and then it ended up making
Speaker 1: about eighty million, and you know it was like enough
Speaker 1: back then, it was enough to like get back in.
Speaker 1: But then I was still scrambling, and uh, I got Gettysburg,
Speaker 1: which was really just a four hour to night TV
Speaker 1: thing Ron Maxwell. But then it was I need to
Speaker 1: shake this up. And that's when I went out and
Speaker 1: I auditioned for about three movies, one of which was
Speaker 1: Dumb and Dumber, which made two fifty million dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. I'm to felt good. That was the
Speaker 1: transition from going through an airport from who are you
Speaker 1: to Jeff Daniels. Suddenly they knew my name. And when
Speaker 1: you came back to do the sequel to that, which
Speaker 1: was how many years later, I think it was twenty.
Speaker 1: Whose idea was that we were like, how did the
Speaker 1: sequel I did come up twenty years later and they
Speaker 1: get the two of you to do it, well, you
Speaker 1: have a lot going on. They get Jim to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, call me when you're ready. So I love
Speaker 1: the Fairlies. I love Jim. So with me, it was just, uh,
Speaker 1: we were doing Newsroom I think second season, and uh,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden is real and it's comment. Now
Speaker 1: we're doing deals and it's like, okay, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: shoot it this summer or in the fall. Whenever it
Speaker 1: was gonna shoot. I'm going, I'm all in. This is great,
Speaker 1: this is great. I won the Emmy, the surprise win surprise.
Speaker 1: Why why do you say that? Up against you had
Speaker 1: Spacey and House of Cards, you had Damian Lewis and Homeland,
Speaker 1: you had Brian in uh breaking bad? Who am I
Speaker 1: forgetting Jon Hamm Madman and they cancel each other out.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But Newsroom and HBO said, just be glad,
Speaker 1: you're going just just be really, you know, enjoy the
Speaker 1: fact that you get to go sitting in the balcony.
Speaker 1: You got a nice seat. Enjoy the seat because you
Speaker 1: know Candelfoeni not until the third year did he win.
Speaker 1: So just it's your first year. Just don't get your hopes.
Speaker 1: I've got it, got it, and the winner is yeah,
Speaker 1: and did you want it? On a Sunday night, was
Speaker 1: on a plane Monday morning for Atlanta and was dressed
Speaker 1: as Harry Dunn in Dumb and Dumber Tuesday morning, day
Speaker 1: one of shooting. That's this business. Yeah. Do you feel
Speaker 1: that in some sense everything you've done and the choices
Speaker 1: you made and the things you didn't do have led
Speaker 1: to where you are now with this play? Yeah? Everything,
Speaker 1: it's the role of Atticus Finch is the role of
Speaker 1: a lifetime. And in order to pull off everything that
Speaker 1: the entire team pulled off, including me at least, having
Speaker 1: someone at a version of Atticus Finch that isn't beneath
Speaker 1: Gregory Pecks, doesn't stand next to him. That's all I
Speaker 1: ask um, everything you've ever learned, all the stage technique
Speaker 1: that's taken decades to learn, when to how to pull
Speaker 1: an audience in, when to push him away, the timing,
Speaker 1: how to read different audiences or you're listening tonight, got it? Quiet? Right?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull you in even further. It varies, it changes,
Speaker 1: and the other actors watch. You know, there and they
Speaker 1: go with me, you know, and this it can only
Speaker 1: come from having done this for decades decades. What's the
Speaker 1: toughest part of the play for you acting wise? What's
Speaker 1: the part of the player where you think, I really
Speaker 1: gotta find something here. There are a series of scenes
Speaker 1: that start with the closing argument that become this kind
Speaker 1: of um tumble down the hill towards the bottom for Atticus,
Speaker 1: where he finally gives up and says, yes, I know
Speaker 1: you're all right and I'm wrong. So that's a tumble,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the part of the play I enjoy
Speaker 1: the most because I don't know what I'm gonna find.
Speaker 1: The closing argument is different every night. Every night. It's
Speaker 1: been wildly ferocious, it's been quiet. I chase impulses inside it,
Speaker 1: and that's when that's when acting is fun. That's between
Speaker 1: action and cut. You are you. It's pulling you this way,
Speaker 1: and you go, and you chase it, and you go
Speaker 1: and you go. Now you're with Tom Robinson. Now you're
Speaker 1: turning to the other lawyer and you're chewing him out.
Speaker 1: Maybe you might want to think about what you're doing
Speaker 1: for a living, because this isn't a shame on you
Speaker 1: you know, and then you talk to the audience and
Speaker 1: you you know, and it's it's alive. It's a line
Speaker 1: almost six months into the run and it's still that way.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to see if it sustains for the year
Speaker 1: that I'm in this. I'm so appreciative of what the
Speaker 1: opportunity I've got. Everybody wanted this part. Everybody, they made
Speaker 1: phone calls everybody. How great that you could do it
Speaker 1: for a year. That's amazing, that's right, old school do
Speaker 1: it for a year. Yeah, it's Atticus finch Haw Fonda
Speaker 1: did Mr. Roberts for a year. Lee Jacob did Death
Speaker 1: of a Salesman. I think for over. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what the old guys used to do. And I've done
Speaker 1: those eighteen weekers, you know, which is that's terrific. But
Speaker 1: this one kind of demanded that you stay in it
Speaker 1: at least, you know, seven months to get to the
Speaker 1: because you know there's going to be a drive for
Speaker 1: the Tony's uh. And so now you're seven months and
Speaker 1: the Mockingbird Summer Family Show. Yeah, if it wins Best
Speaker 1: Play and then I can okay, all right, summer in
Speaker 1: New York, why not? But in all your nine months,
Speaker 1: and let's not let's make it a year and see
Speaker 1: if you can do it, see if you can sustain
Speaker 1: it and keep it alive without veering all over the
Speaker 1: road in months six, seven, eight nine. I'm interested to
Speaker 1: see that there is there something you need to do physically,
Speaker 1: are you there's some kind of regimen you're doing. You're
Speaker 1: on your feet the whole goddamn think it's almost three hours. Well,
Speaker 1: there's that. That's so, there's the half hour walk. You
Speaker 1: don't need to do. It is an endurance test, and
Speaker 1: so that means you have to treat it like an athlete.
Speaker 1: You have to not train so much physically. But your
Speaker 1: voice needs to be able to last eight weeks eight
Speaker 1: shows a week, So how do we do that? And
Speaker 1: you work with the vocal thing and you have learned
Speaker 1: how to throw it up in nasally and all that
Speaker 1: like singers do. Even though we're miked. Um, you eat right,
Speaker 1: I don't go out. I don't drink. I'm trying. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about September and October. You never go to dinner
Speaker 1: after the show, No, you don't. I go home, go home,
Speaker 1: that's it. I go home. It's the obligean. I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad. I don't drink. I don't come in
Speaker 1: hungover and try to get you know, and get through it.
Speaker 1: You know. And they're paying how much a ticket? Well,
Speaker 1: what do I care? A lot? Yeah, a lot. And
Speaker 1: and you know, we do student matinees. We've done a
Speaker 1: couple of them where it's four hundred kids and that
Speaker 1: it's a whole different show. They listen, they're great. Um
Speaker 1: they you know when I have a fight scene with
Speaker 1: Bob Yule later on and I grabbed him by the hair. Um,
Speaker 1: it's thirty seconds of whoa, whoa, oh oh oh kick.
Speaker 1: That's a big change from the med. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: but they're into it. But there was also the student
Speaker 1: I don't have to do those. I can call in,
Speaker 1: Let Tom do it, let the understudy do give me
Speaker 1: a chance to do it. But I do the student matinees.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason I do it is not
Speaker 1: just for the kids, but the teachers. My daughter is
Speaker 1: a public school teacher, and those teachers are bringing these kids.
Speaker 1: They can't afford a Broadway ticket, and this is their
Speaker 1: chance to see Mockingbird. On a Thursday at one o'clock,
Speaker 1: at a student to forget it rock and roll? Who
Speaker 1: can you know? Everybody be quiet for a little bit, audience,
Speaker 1: and you do it for them. They're never going to
Speaker 1: forget it. No, young people, they take them to the theater,
Speaker 1: they never forget it. I'm the first place I saw
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I'll never forget it. And
Speaker 1: these kids in the last third of the play, they're
Speaker 1: right with us, right with us, so they're listening. It's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I did street Car on Broadway, and I'm
Speaker 1: in my room and I never thought about Brando, never,
Speaker 1: And then Opening night comes at the mid my room
Speaker 1: and I go, what the fuck have I done? And
Speaker 1: Greg Mosha walks in and says, Marlon Brando is three
Speaker 1: hundred pounds and he's in the house up on Muholland Drive,
Speaker 1: and he's not coming down here to do street Car
Speaker 1: on Broadway tonight. Because if this audience that pay these
Speaker 1: tickets wants to see street Car on Broadway and see
Speaker 1: have Live, it's you you're at now, and for a
Speaker 1: whole generation of people, You're going to be at kas Finch,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a cool thing. How do you
Speaker 1: feel about that? Honored? I really am, Thank you I'm
Speaker 1: honored to that means I pulled it off with his fresh, subtle,
Speaker 1: and emotionally grounded performance. Jeff Daniels does indeed pull it off.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that, Tony Voters, I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing, M two