Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from my Heart Radio. The war in Ukraine has
Speaker 1: been raging for nearly nine months now, but the conflict
Speaker 1: between Ukraine and Russia has much deeper roots. In late
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen and early two thousand fourteen, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets in protests against
Speaker 1: their own governments pro Russian policies. The movement, known as
Speaker 1: the Mid Uprising, led to the deaths of more than
Speaker 1: one hundred people in Kiev and the ousting of President
Speaker 1: Viktor Yanukovich. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March two
Speaker 1: thousand fourteen, driving the region into an ongoing conflict that
Speaker 1: would culminate in a full scale invasion of Ukraine. On
Speaker 1: February two thousand two, My Guest Today, actor writer and
Speaker 1: rector Leev Schreiber was just one of the millions of
Speaker 1: Americans watching the war unfold on television until he decided
Speaker 1: to turn his grief into action. Schreiber is a co
Speaker 1: founder of the nonprofit Blue Check Ukraine. The group's mission
Speaker 1: is to fast track financial resources directly to organizations providing
Speaker 1: support and life saving aid to Ukrainians on the front lines.
Speaker 1: With such an impressive effort, I wanted to know more
Speaker 1: about Schreiber's advocacy work. What's an example of other things
Speaker 1: you were involved with? Not much, you know, I did.
Speaker 1: I worked with the Feeding Him Harvest Feeding America. Just
Speaker 1: because I like to take the kids to on Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: we had this ritual where we'd go to the you know,
Speaker 1: the soup kitchen, the soup kitchen on Bowerie and it
Speaker 1: was fun for the kids and it was great for me,
Speaker 1: and it was a way of sort of showing them
Speaker 1: give yeah, right, give something back. But this was the
Speaker 1: first one where I felt like I had to do
Speaker 1: it or I was gonna lose my mind. Why. You know,
Speaker 1: the story is that I have Ukrainian ancestry, right like
Speaker 1: my grandparents. That's that's what gets me in the room.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, i was watching the war on
Speaker 1: the couch with the kids, and I'm looking at my kids,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking a about my own legacy as a person,
Speaker 1: as a man, as a father, and all those things
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. I'm looking at these guys who are
Speaker 1: you know, like painters and graphic designers, and custodians who
Speaker 1: are you know, kissing their wives and children goodbye and
Speaker 1: getting on a bus to go fighting the war in
Speaker 1: which they're wildly outnumbered and outgunned. And I'm I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: those are Ukrainians, and and am I Ukrainian at all?
Speaker 1: Could I say goodbye to my kids if I had to,
Speaker 1: if I were in some existential fight for our homes
Speaker 1: and our lives? And the answer was not, like I
Speaker 1: couldn't do that, And it's like, no, I'm I'm not Ukrainian.
Speaker 1: And then what am I am? American? Right? And And
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about how much I'd take for
Speaker 1: granted as an American that my grandparents didn't, that they
Speaker 1: fought for the freedoms and the liberties that we have today,
Speaker 1: and their desire to live in a country where their
Speaker 1: children could aspire to become what I've become and do
Speaker 1: the things that I've been able to do. I owe
Speaker 1: them a debt for that. And it's that fights being
Speaker 1: fought again in Ukraine. And the other thing that really
Speaker 1: captured my imagination about is that the thing I struggle
Speaker 1: with here is that the incredible polarization we've got going
Speaker 1: in in this country in politics and the partisanship and
Speaker 1: the disinformation and the misinformation. And nowhere is that struggle
Speaker 1: clearer to me than in Ukraine, the disinformation that's coming
Speaker 1: about the disinformation in American media. Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: feels like, with the decline of higher education in this country,
Speaker 1: politics had become like a team sport. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the reds and the blues and policy and all of
Speaker 1: the things that actually really matter to the people who
Speaker 1: go to the polls to vote are irrelevant. It's just
Speaker 1: did my team win or did your team win? And
Speaker 1: that's a that seems like a terrible place to send
Speaker 1: my children, you know, And it's not how our democracy
Speaker 1: should function. And I think what's going on in Ukraine
Speaker 1: is is an existential fight for democracy and those values
Speaker 1: that those values that we share, which which are the
Speaker 1: right to be who you want to be, to speak
Speaker 1: with language you want to speak, to go to what
Speaker 1: church you want to go to to to raise your
Speaker 1: children the way you want to raise them. And for
Speaker 1: those people who don't know that when Ukraine was a
Speaker 1: part of the Soviet Union before they break up, there
Speaker 1: were tremendous limitations and abuses there about what people's freedoms
Speaker 1: were in the Ukraine, there were there were independently Krainian
Speaker 1: religious beliefs there under the Soviet system, they were pressed
Speaker 1: and I think arguably until my dawn, the Russians were
Speaker 1: very much controlling the Ukrainian government. I think that's why
Speaker 1: my dad happened. And I think once that uprising occurred
Speaker 1: and hundreds of thousands of people from every walks of
Speaker 1: life went to that square and said, no, we want
Speaker 1: to be part of the European community. We were we
Speaker 1: reject what this puppet dictator is is proscribing for us
Speaker 1: putin an ex crimea. He was like, okay, it's trouble,
Speaker 1: I've got it. You know. As part of the the
Speaker 1: Salt Talks and you know, anti nuclear periforation, Russia and
Speaker 1: the US signed an agreement with Ukraine that if they
Speaker 1: were the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and
Speaker 1: we signed an agreement with them that we pledged to
Speaker 1: protect their borders and their sovereignties, both America and Russia,
Speaker 1: which is part of why we're still in this. Russia
Speaker 1: rat find that again in two thousand nine, and as
Speaker 1: you know, in two thousand so so basically Ukraine gave
Speaker 1: up its entire nuclear arsenal and its ability to protect itself,
Speaker 1: which was always the design I suppose, or at least
Speaker 1: it seems that way in retrospect looking at what Putin's done,
Speaker 1: And so in two thousand nine Putin ratified that, and
Speaker 1: then after my dawn annex Crimea, and here we are now.
Speaker 1: I don't want to state the obvious, which is that
Speaker 1: in America people either who don't really care, or they
Speaker 1: don't care enough, or they don't have good information. And
Speaker 1: how would you describe the historic and maybe even spiritual
Speaker 1: connection between the Ukrainians and the Russians? And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is not the Russian leadership. Do the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians feel any kinship with the Russian people between the
Speaker 1: two people and they hate Putin and the government? Or
Speaker 1: are they indifferent or actively hostile toward the Russian people.
Speaker 1: I'm no expert on this by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: You know, I got a guy who's really really smart
Speaker 1: about this is Timothy Snyder. From what I know from
Speaker 1: traveling to Ukraine over the past year, there's a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of ill will from the average Ukrainian to the
Speaker 1: average Russian Having said that, I think there are plenty
Speaker 1: of Russians, as we can see from the little bit
Speaker 1: of news that's that makes its way out of Moscow,
Speaker 1: who are profoundly against what's happening in Ukraine. And I
Speaker 1: suppose the tragedy of all of this is they are brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, they aren't so closely related, so closely tied. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the reality is that for for many, many years,
Speaker 1: most Ukrainians, well most people in Eastern Europe, they spoke
Speaker 1: Russian and they inter mixed and all of that until
Speaker 1: they're I think, really my don was a kind of
Speaker 1: defining moment where people said, we want to be Ukrainian,
Speaker 1: we want a Ukrainian government, we want sovereignty, and we
Speaker 1: want to speak our own language. Because you you want
Speaker 1: to believe, with the limit information I have, you kind
Speaker 1: of sit there in a very armchair way and go, God,
Speaker 1: the Russians could probably go into Ukraine and just flatten
Speaker 1: the whole place. Like a month, they turn the whole
Speaker 1: place into an ash tray, and uh, you know, start
Speaker 1: changing the signs into cyrillic and we're on our way.
Speaker 1: And then you realize, is it a case of fully
Speaker 1: engaged Ukrainians they're in this and the Russians are kind
Speaker 1: of coming down there. A lot of them are pretty
Speaker 1: half hearted about that, a a lot of them don't want
Speaker 1: to go. And you're and and Putin is now reaping
Speaker 1: what he sews in this department, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these Russian fighters. You're like, I got no problem. It's
Speaker 1: like Muhammad Ali, I got no problem with the Vietnamese.
Speaker 1: Is that what's happening? Absolutely? You know, Ukrainians are in
Speaker 1: an existential fight. Russians don't know what they're doing. You know,
Speaker 1: they remember they intercepted all of those telephone calls between
Speaker 1: those soldiers and their mothers. And he was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe the carpentry here. The toilet seats are amazing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And these Ukrainians they've got
Speaker 1: no choice. They win or they die. They win or
Speaker 1: they have no home. They went and they have nowhere
Speaker 1: to live. They don't they can't raise their children, they
Speaker 1: can't do anything. It's over. It's their end of their country.
Speaker 1: You started Blue Check with some partners. The war starts
Speaker 1: in February. You start Blue Check in March, Yeah, lead
Speaker 1: Marchia and what what how did that happen? Like, who
Speaker 1: do you call first? How do you start blue check? Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm not the brains behind this. I had. There's two
Speaker 1: guys with thirty years of experience in humanitarian aid. A
Speaker 1: friend of mine from dramas Yale Drama School called me,
Speaker 1: Harris Fisherman, and he wanted He asked me if I
Speaker 1: would do a live stream like podcasting thing with Ukrainians
Speaker 1: that they could tell their stories and what they were experiencing.
Speaker 1: And it just didn't feel right to me. I just
Speaker 1: I didn't like the idea of, you know, I was
Speaker 1: just seeing too much of that on the news, the
Speaker 1: idea of exploiting people's emotions to kind of show what's
Speaker 1: going on, and it felt wrong, and I thought I
Speaker 1: would be nervous and uncomfortable on that situation. So I
Speaker 1: sort of gruffly said to my friend Harris, if you
Speaker 1: want to help them, just give him some money. And
Speaker 1: I got off the call, and uh so these guys
Speaker 1: called me back. One of them's named Jason Cohne. He's
Speaker 1: the chief public policy officer for robin Hood Now and
Speaker 1: he used to be one of the executive directors of
Speaker 1: Doctors Without Borders. And another guy that he works with,
Speaker 1: Michael Goldfarb, was the communications person for doctors about borders
Speaker 1: as well. And this guy, Murphy Poindexter, who is, as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, like deep in the IC
Speaker 1: community in Washington, UM but was working at a place
Speaker 1: called the US Ukraine Foundation. And they said were you
Speaker 1: serious about what you said that you wanted to raise
Speaker 1: money for Ukraine? And I was like, oh, ship, someone's
Speaker 1: just called my bluff and I said, yeah, I am
Speaker 1: and uh. We quickly put together a plan that I mean,
Speaker 1: these guys had just a ton of between between them,
Speaker 1: thirty years of experience and humanitarian aid. And the idea
Speaker 1: was that we were going to identify the people on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ukraine, boots on the ground NGOs who
Speaker 1: were doing the work to provide humanitarian aid and get
Speaker 1: the money directly to them. I had heard of a
Speaker 1: philanthropy app called give Well, and I thought that's a
Speaker 1: good model. Why don't we try to do something like
Speaker 1: that where people can see, where everything we do is
Speaker 1: transparent And we wouldn't exist without Ropes and Gray, who
Speaker 1: is the international law firm that agreed to do all
Speaker 1: of our verification and vetting pro bono and they came
Speaker 1: on and had just been amazing. And so a few
Speaker 1: days after that, I bought a plane ticket and I
Speaker 1: went to Poland. I started working. I was insane. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing, but I called Jose Andreas,
Speaker 1: who's a friend. I was working at his spot in
Speaker 1: Poland on the border World Central Kitchen making you know,
Speaker 1: rectual stern giant. I see how Jose andres and some
Speaker 1: loud cacaphitist thing and he's like, yeah, are you doing,
Speaker 1: my friend, when are you coming over? You're coming? And
Speaker 1: I went and and then and and we sort of
Speaker 1: I just bought the plane ticket and then we figured
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. Once I got there, and Murphy,
Speaker 1: who was working at US Ukraine Foundation, and Michael and
Speaker 1: Jason have all of these connections because of their humanitarian
Speaker 1: aid work, and they set up all these meetings for
Speaker 1: me with NGOs and people who were doing work on
Speaker 1: the ground in Ukraine, and I just went in and
Speaker 1: I met them, and it was extraordinary. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just the resilience and the courage of these people, the
Speaker 1: fighting spirit of these people's extraordinary. It's no wonder to
Speaker 1: me that there they're kicking ass and taking names. Frankly,
Speaker 1: just what that's what I saw, and I saw. I
Speaker 1: I brought a cameraman with me because I knew that
Speaker 1: the next step was going to be go home and
Speaker 1: raise money, right, and we filmed people like yllant to
Speaker 1: Brishalik at the Leviv National Symphony, who's got this, you know,
Speaker 1: seventy piece orchestra who can't do concerts anymore because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic and because of the war, and so they're rehearsing.
Speaker 1: They rehearse at night and during the day they've feared
Speaker 1: out all the seats in the theater and then places
Speaker 1: stacked to the ceiling with boxes of medical aid and
Speaker 1: food and clothing and things like that. And the day
Speaker 1: that I arrived there with a camera, I opened the
Speaker 1: doors to that theater and they're rehearsing Mozart's Requiem and
Speaker 1: you can imagine that site as just like eight ft
Speaker 1: high boxes of aid and these people playing Mozart's Requam,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite pieces of music. And
Speaker 1: it was just extraordinary footage. And brought it home and
Speaker 1: we started raising money. We did a benefit in d
Speaker 1: C where we we had the Washington National Opera orchestra
Speaker 1: playing and they played along in sync with my video.
Speaker 1: Was fantastic. It was just fantastic. Yeah, And that kind
Speaker 1: of got us on our way, and you know, doing
Speaker 1: a couple of CNN interviews and things like that, and
Speaker 1: getting the word out there and having friends like you
Speaker 1: and being able to do things like this is just
Speaker 1: made it work. Your flu over there the first time
Speaker 1: when April and you were there for how long, two
Speaker 1: or three weeks and they Polish Ukrainian border. You're on
Speaker 1: the Polish side initially, and and and you go into
Speaker 1: Ukraine obviously because you go to the concert hall and
Speaker 1: what did you see? You know what, There wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot happening in Leviv. And I didn't go past Leviv
Speaker 1: at that point, so I didn't I didn't see much
Speaker 1: refugees fleeing exactly. Well, I saw a lot of refugees
Speaker 1: because I was on the border. I went to a
Speaker 1: bunch of field hospitals that were unfortunately too far away
Speaker 1: from the action. I met with health ministers, and I
Speaker 1: met with a few of the NGOs that we were
Speaker 1: eventually going to sign on and give grants to. And
Speaker 1: I saw this, you know, it's a beautiful country. It's
Speaker 1: a really beautiful place. And the thing that I couldn't
Speaker 1: I have a video that I'll play for you of
Speaker 1: these like nineteen and twenty year olds in a bar.
Speaker 1: First of all, everybody's out drinking, having like celebrating their
Speaker 1: spirit because it's extraordinary year olds singing these like hundred
Speaker 1: year old Ukrainian folk songs drunk in this bar was
Speaker 1: just extraordinary. Yeah, that's the spirit of the country. And
Speaker 1: even now, which is now, it is kind of a
Speaker 1: unimaginable what they're going through. Zapparija was a really good
Speaker 1: example of I don't know what else to call it
Speaker 1: other than putin cynicism, but the strategy of responding to
Speaker 1: military advances by attacking civilian infrastructure. In Zapparijia, he hit
Speaker 1: the main hospital, and then the night after he hit
Speaker 1: the main hospital, he hits an apartment complex in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night when they're sure that there are
Speaker 1: people sleeping in their beds and are going to need
Speaker 1: medical care. And that's the big, the big, big issue
Speaker 1: for Ukrainians right now is medical infrastructure. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: not only decimated the energy grids and all of the
Speaker 1: other stuff that they're relying on to stay alive and
Speaker 1: warm through this winter. And as you know, the temperatures
Speaker 1: in Ukraine after December into January or it's all sub zero.
Speaker 1: And but they've hit He's hit all of the medical infrastructure.
Speaker 1: So it's alarming and it's just more important than ever
Speaker 1: that we continue to provide them with the aid that
Speaker 1: they need to keep that machine running. Most of these
Speaker 1: doctors too, by the way, have been working since February,
Speaker 1: you know, with no shifts off. Things like fixators for limbs, ambulances,
Speaker 1: operating tables, all this stuff is really really essential and
Speaker 1: that's part of why I agreed to be the ambassador
Speaker 1: for the President's Fund, which is united in the medical
Speaker 1: aid capacity. Back in June, Humanitarian Outcomes, which is a
Speaker 1: sort of aid watchdog organization out of the UK, published
Speaker 1: a report that said of the two point six billion
Speaker 1: dollars that have been donated to Ukraine, only six million
Speaker 1: had been activated and given to the NGOs on the
Speaker 1: ground who are fighting. It's an alarming, un alarming number,
Speaker 1: and it goes where to Red Cross and big organizations
Speaker 1: like big multi additional big multinationals who have big overhead
Speaker 1: and can't even operate in country because of the liabilities right.
Speaker 1: They can also because their multinationals decide where they want
Speaker 1: to send that money and sit on it as long
Speaker 1: as they want to when you've got a very acute situation.
Speaker 1: And so for us, that was a huge sign that
Speaker 1: we were doing the right thing. That going directly to
Speaker 1: the NGO is going directly to the people working on
Speaker 1: the ground, is the way to do it. Leev Schreiber.
Speaker 1: If you appreciate conversations that educate and inform on the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian conflict, listen to my episode with Bryce Wilson, a
Speaker 1: freelance photojournalist who reported from the front lines of Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I was at Zelenski's inauguration. It's very surreal for me
Speaker 1: to have seen this huge narrative of his character, quite
Speaker 1: literally a character because he has an acting background, and he,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, will be remembered in the same vein
Speaker 1: as famous Ukrainian poets, people who were invested in the
Speaker 1: idea of Ukraine's independence, like Zelensky, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: a hero through his leadership. Here more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Bryce Wilson that here's the thing dot org after
Speaker 1: the break. Leev Schreiber shares the story of being invited
Speaker 1: to meet Ukraine's President Zelenski. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you
Speaker 1: were listening to Here's the thing. Through its donation network,
Speaker 1: blue Check Ukraine provides direct financial assistance to n g
Speaker 1: os in Ukraine that offer crucial services such as emergency
Speaker 1: medical care, food distribution, and mental health services. I was
Speaker 1: curious to hear how the Ukraine and people reacted to
Speaker 1: the presence of Blue Check at a time of such turmoil.
Speaker 1: They were so grateful that were we were there. They
Speaker 1: were so happy to see us, that that that they
Speaker 1: couldn't believe you came, that Americans cared that that that
Speaker 1: that we were willing to even just to be there.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what I was gonna do. And I'm
Speaker 1: that guy from Ray Donovan. They knew who you were.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the intelligent ones are like, what the hell
Speaker 1: is this actor going to do? Right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go punch Pootin in the face, right exactly, you can
Speaker 1: bring the bat out. But it it just it made
Speaker 1: me even more convinced that I had to really be
Speaker 1: effective and not waste their fucking time, not going there
Speaker 1: and just hear their side, their stories and sorry, okay,
Speaker 1: and come back and be like, hey, guys, look what
Speaker 1: I did. You know what I mean? Because that you
Speaker 1: went back again? Yeah, I went back again. So he
Speaker 1: went three times and then the second time what was
Speaker 1: the I don't say mission, but what was the uh itinerary?
Speaker 1: Then you were gonna go where and do what? I
Speaker 1: was going to meet the president? Yeah, like, what's well?
Speaker 1: He heard about us because of that Humanitarian Outcomes Report,
Speaker 1: which he was also pretty missed off about two and
Speaker 1: uh and he invited me to become an ambassador for
Speaker 1: United twenty four. And you know, we talked about how
Speaker 1: that's Kiev, that's his that's his personal fund for Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's broken into three tiers. Initially it was a conflict
Speaker 1: for me because part of what we were trying to
Speaker 1: set up was something that was what's considered neutral aid.
Speaker 1: In other words, it doesn't participate in any political or
Speaker 1: military stuff. So they were really great to us, and
Speaker 1: they carved out the medical aid piece, which is what
Speaker 1: I represent. It was an extraordinary experience and I was
Speaker 1: in Kiev. I got to see Bordianka, I got to
Speaker 1: see Bucci, I got to see all of these things
Speaker 1: that we've we've seen on television on the news, and
Speaker 1: now I know, I know what it looks like. And
Speaker 1: I got to see also all of the extraordinary help
Speaker 1: that all of these other countries are given in lending.
Speaker 1: And Adam Driver and I went to Romania and saw
Speaker 1: the troops who were who were stationed there preparing and training,
Speaker 1: and you know, all the typhoon pilots there. Does anybody
Speaker 1: tell you what they'd like the US to do, like
Speaker 1: like in a long term says, other than relief and
Speaker 1: aid and sidewinder missiles or whatever the fun they wanted
Speaker 1: the world Sam's or what we really needed, whatever the
Speaker 1: whatever the global community can provide them in terms of weaponry.
Speaker 1: In a more law terms says, do they want to
Speaker 1: join NATO? Do they want to be in NATO? They
Speaker 1: always have. I think that's pretty much what started my
Speaker 1: don was that there was this collective sense of relief
Speaker 1: and excitement about joining the European Union and NATO and
Speaker 1: all of that, and Jankovic and the Russians never had
Speaker 1: any intention of letting that happen, and of course he
Speaker 1: buried it, and that's what caused the uprising. People from
Speaker 1: everywhere and hundreds of thousands is a really terrific film,
Speaker 1: Cold Winter on Fire if anyone wants to know about
Speaker 1: that period that it is just extraordinary. That tells that
Speaker 1: whole story very clearly. And it was just amazing to
Speaker 1: see children, old people, people from every walk of life
Speaker 1: just come out of their houses, pour out into the
Speaker 1: streets and go to the go to Madan and and
Speaker 1: say no. And they stayed there and you know, people
Speaker 1: were people died and were shot at and they barricaded themselves.
Speaker 1: It was I mean, you know, revolution. And since then
Speaker 1: they've been rebuilding their government and trying to get rid
Speaker 1: of the corruption and the Russian influence. Setting aside what
Speaker 1: people would like to have happened, what do people over there,
Speaker 1: what do they think is going to happen longter they
Speaker 1: think they're gonna win they're driving the Yeah, they're right,
Speaker 1: they aren't it right? You know what I mean, it's unsustainable.
Speaker 1: It's like it's this thing that I you know, I got.
Speaker 1: You know, when you when your kids lie, it's like
Speaker 1: the best thing that I've ever thought to tell my
Speaker 1: kids when they lie is like it's okay, but think
Speaker 1: about the moment when you get caught in the lie
Speaker 1: and what that's going to feel like. And if you
Speaker 1: still want to tell the lie, tell the lie. I
Speaker 1: wish I could say that the two right. I think
Speaker 1: about the moment when you get caught, what's that going
Speaker 1: to feel like? And the reality is it's starting to happen.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what I think. And I've always felt
Speaker 1: that civil unrest in Russia and the sanctions, if we
Speaker 1: can hold out, if we can stand it, are gonna
Speaker 1: be that there's gonna be daylight. You know. The bedrock
Speaker 1: of Russian nationalism are the mothers of these conscripts who
Speaker 1: got wiped out in the first wave. They went to
Speaker 1: the military academies and they said to them, they said, please,
Speaker 1: don't send our kids. They're eighteen year old kids. Don't
Speaker 1: send them. Of course we're not going to send them.
Speaker 1: Who do you think was in that first wave? And
Speaker 1: where are those kids now? They're gone. So those mothers
Speaker 1: are now coming out in the streets. And that's not
Speaker 1: like the liberals or the progressives, or the elitist or
Speaker 1: the the opposition. That's his bedrock, that's his base, and
Speaker 1: I think it's unsustainable. It's that's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least. I think just lies are unsustainable.
Speaker 1: It's just it's eventually and history bears it out. Eventually
Speaker 1: they come out. What's funny because as an American and
Speaker 1: therefore having grown up on a legacy of those people
Speaker 1: that don't work inside the American system, we kill them
Speaker 1: or we just what we depose them. The end a
Speaker 1: d m overall around the globe. This is the American
Speaker 1: way of doing things. So you you kind of sit
Speaker 1: back and go, I mean, you know they're never gonna
Speaker 1: get Putin, They're not going to kill Putin, but you
Speaker 1: wonder how much longer he's got to last over there?
Speaker 1: Do they realize that he's really kind of losing it?
Speaker 1: I think? And the Russians are always everything looks great,
Speaker 1: where everything looks okay, where everything doesn't look dire until
Speaker 1: the day before the guys gone. They'll get a day,
Speaker 1: but the guy's gone, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 1: you just get so sick and tired of the Beyond
Speaker 1: the death and beyond the injuries and the casualties, it's
Speaker 1: just the psychological toll the whole generation of Ukrainian people,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna live now with watching their country just get
Speaker 1: smashed to pieces, but for no reason that they didn't
Speaker 1: having to deserve that. There wasn't they didn't have that coming.
Speaker 1: You know, well, are you gonna go back again? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: whenever they need me. When you met Zelenski, how did
Speaker 1: he strike you? I wish, I wish you could meet
Speaker 1: this guy, because I just knowing you personally for sometime now,
Speaker 1: I know that you would love this guy. That would
Speaker 1: be hilarious encounter. He's incredibly sharp and he has a
Speaker 1: tremendous sense of humor. Unfortunately, not all of his translators
Speaker 1: are as good, and so what happens is you kind
Speaker 1: of have to listen to him in Russian to get
Speaker 1: how smart he is and how good a public speaker
Speaker 1: he is. There's a kind of courage there that I
Speaker 1: just don't understand. There's a kind of strength of character
Speaker 1: that I think people have seen and meeting him, you
Speaker 1: know he's feeling he's pretty short. Than taking a picture
Speaker 1: with him, I found myself, Yeah, but tough like a
Speaker 1: pit bull, and he looks like that. And I remember
Speaker 1: one journalist that we were This was a conversation before
Speaker 1: we actually met in person. The journalists and I were
Speaker 1: doing a zoom with him and the journalist asked him,
Speaker 1: you know, there have been twelve attempts on your life
Speaker 1: in the in the past few months, and what what's
Speaker 1: that like, Mr President? One of those questions, you know,
Speaker 1: and the guy's timing and this is all because I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: like an actor, I'm watching how's he gonna feel this one?
Speaker 1: Because this is good? And his timing was just he
Speaker 1: stopped for a second and he looked at the camera
Speaker 1: because you know, he's by himself in a zoom and
Speaker 1: in Russian, because I didn't listen to the translator. The
Speaker 1: translator was stumbling through it, but in Russian. And if
Speaker 1: you can imagine me doing English Russian because I can't
Speaker 1: speak Russian. He would like to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: The first couple of times it scared the ship out
Speaker 1: of me, but then you get used to and that
Speaker 1: was that was that was the guy life for me.
Speaker 1: And that and that when when I asked him my question,
Speaker 1: which was if you could speak to the people in
Speaker 1: America and around the world who were considering supporting Ukraine
Speaker 1: financially or otherwise, what would you say to them? His
Speaker 1: response was just completely inspiring. To remind us that we
Speaker 1: all share this desire for democracy, that it's not an
Speaker 1: easy system, right, And that's what my brother said. My
Speaker 1: brother said, these wards are inevitable, right, It's like a
Speaker 1: snake shedding its skin. They just happen over and over again.
Speaker 1: But it's part of a democracy. It's part of the
Speaker 1: horror of democracy that we have to fight for it.
Speaker 1: But it's still the best system in the world. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing I love about being American. You know,
Speaker 1: anyone who's down on their luck anywhere in the world,
Speaker 1: this is the place they come if they want a shot,
Speaker 1: because we've still got the best system, you know, and
Speaker 1: so we've got to we've got to cherish it. We've
Speaker 1: got to we've got to take care of it. We've
Speaker 1: got to nurture it, because it's the best. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: were things that were interesting, you know, like people voting
Speaker 1: for candidates and not voting for parties. I thought that
Speaker 1: was positive and I thought building on that stuff like,
Speaker 1: let's get smart, let's figure out what do you want
Speaker 1: vote for it? You know, who do you want vote
Speaker 1: for him? And that it's it's that's the future, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think there were enough moderate Republicans who went
Speaker 1: to the polls and they I'm using my words obviously,
Speaker 1: but they were like, we really maybe need to have
Speaker 1: a little less crazy town for a while. So you
Speaker 1: have this operation Blue Check and someone you work with,
Speaker 1: they're determining, you've got people on the ground where that
Speaker 1: money is going to and picking the local NGOs where
Speaker 1: the money is going to go. Yeah, we do that.
Speaker 1: And what we do is well we also you know now,
Speaker 1: because we're working very closely with the Ukrainian government and
Speaker 1: the Health Ministry in particular Victor Leashko and the Deputy Minister,
Speaker 1: what we agreed the best thing to do was to
Speaker 1: create a portfolio of NGOs that would cover every base, right,
Speaker 1: so it's you're not always just doing shelter. Sometimes you're
Speaker 1: doing medical aids. Sometimes you're doing elderly people. One of
Speaker 1: the one of my favorite groups that we found is
Speaker 1: called Stranki and what's their Rankie does is they help
Speaker 1: homebound elderly people because you know, you see these videos
Speaker 1: of like these little villages getting bombed out and they're
Speaker 1: just full of old people who didn't want to leave
Speaker 1: their houses. Right. The young people can go sleep on
Speaker 1: couches and Loviv and Kiev, but the old people are like,
Speaker 1: what do I got twenty years? Fucked them? I'm going
Speaker 1: to stay here. This is my home. And you really
Speaker 1: see that attitude in elderly Ukrainians. They're like, we've been
Speaker 1: through everything, We've been through so much over the course
Speaker 1: of our lives. I'm not giving up my home. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to leave my animals. I'm not going to leave.
Speaker 1: And so these people are are the ones who are
Speaker 1: bearing the brunt of a lot of the frontline attacks
Speaker 1: and assaults, and so STARRANKI is an organization that really
Speaker 1: just focuses on elderly people, homebound elderly people and taking
Speaker 1: care of them. We have the Women's Center, which, obviously
Speaker 1: now because of all the men are at war, that
Speaker 1: was a group that used to be a watchdog organization
Speaker 1: for gender equality and rights in the workplace and sexual
Speaker 1: abuse and all these other things, and they immediately transitioned
Speaker 1: into a kind of shelter for women's single moms and
Speaker 1: the chilled. And we're just terrific in the in the
Speaker 1: first few months of the war. We've got the little
Speaker 1: bit of Symphony, which is a food distribution. We've got
Speaker 1: Leaky twenty four, which is an organization that makes sure
Speaker 1: that people are able to get prescriptions, you know, like
Speaker 1: people forget that in the midst of war you still
Speaker 1: need things like insulin. You know. Schools, We've got a
Speaker 1: great group called Toller Space, and what they do is
Speaker 1: they educate teachers on how to talk to kids about
Speaker 1: what's going on. Ukraine needs you seven Mental Health Hotline,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a cultural thing because you know,
Speaker 1: for many people in Ukraine's a real sort of patriarchal,
Speaker 1: macho society and the idea that you get through these
Speaker 1: things with vodka's you gotta you know, we're pushing back
Speaker 1: against that. But the idea was that if we had
Speaker 1: a diverse enough portfolio, we would be able to cover
Speaker 1: any given base at any given time. And now I'm
Speaker 1: also working with a group called Superhumans, which was started
Speaker 1: by a guy named Andre Stebnitzer, who is a really
Speaker 1: successful businessman in Ukraine whose house was bombed and destroyed.
Speaker 1: And his response is to say, I'm going to build
Speaker 1: a hospital for Ukrainians that focuses on prosthetics and things
Speaker 1: like that, because that's a huge issue unfortunately for children
Speaker 1: as well. But getting fixators and things like that to people,
Speaker 1: you know, they've lost. You can't fly there right, so
Speaker 1: if someone gets injured, it's not like you can metav
Speaker 1: act them out. Liev Schreiber. If you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to Here Is the Thing on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. When we come back, Liev Schreiber discusses
Speaker 1: his acting career and shares his perspective on transitioning to
Speaker 1: the small screen with Raydanovan. I'm at like Baldwin and
Speaker 1: this is Here's the Thing with dynamic roles and everything
Speaker 1: from X Men origins to remix of modern horror classics
Speaker 1: like The Omen. Some listeners forget that Shreiber is a
Speaker 1: classically trained thespian well versed in the Bard. Considering Schreiber's pedigree,
Speaker 1: I wanted to know if helming an Emmy nominated show
Speaker 1: like Ray Donovan had ever been a goal. No. I
Speaker 1: thought I was going to do classical theater for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life, because my whole strategy was big fish,
Speaker 1: small pond. There wasn't a lot of people who wanted
Speaker 1: to do Shakespeare, and I wanted to do Shakespeare. I
Speaker 1: liked it. A week was fine. You know, my education
Speaker 1: up through graduate school like Rota and Yale was nothing
Speaker 1: compared to the education I got working and meeting people
Speaker 1: like you and Dustin and people who I thought made
Speaker 1: really strange and interesting choices, you know, because I fought
Speaker 1: off that thing, that perfect verse thing. And you're being
Speaker 1: kind to me right now, and you know it. I
Speaker 1: was fighting off. You know, we said backstage about you.
Speaker 1: What I said, I would try to speak, you know,
Speaker 1: in my normal voice. I said, and you guys are
Speaker 1: all doing this English thing. And I said, and of
Speaker 1: course Liev speaks Leev. You had your own language, you
Speaker 1: spoke own dialect. Yeah, you're being kind again, because I
Speaker 1: you know as well as I do that I was
Speaker 1: fighting off that English training. That I was fighting off
Speaker 1: that perfect verse rise the end of the line, hook
Speaker 1: it around open vowels. And what I what I loved
Speaker 1: about you and what I loved about your king was
Speaker 1: this guy. It wasn't about his voice. It all came
Speaker 1: from his pelvis. It all came from his junk. And
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the way to play this guy.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I borrowed it when I played
Speaker 1: him a couple of years later. But it was so physical,
Speaker 1: and all the actors that I've loved and that I've
Speaker 1: learned from just so physical. There was this guy Michael
Speaker 1: Potts when he was playing Luccio, who's like the pimp
Speaker 1: from Measure for Measure. He this little thing with his
Speaker 1: fingers like this. I stole it for Ricky Roma in
Speaker 1: Glennarys and he used to just constantly doing this thing.
Speaker 1: Was I loved the way he did that with his
Speaker 1: fingers And I said to Michael, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know. I just he's counting money.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, and it's and you had
Speaker 1: that thing. What I loved about that performance is my
Speaker 1: interpretation of what you were doing is all of that
Speaker 1: murdering that he was doing out in the field was
Speaker 1: just his sex drive. And the irony of what was
Speaker 1: so beautiful about it is that when it came down
Speaker 1: to Duncan, he couldn't get it up, he couldn't do it,
Speaker 1: and that I thought that was just such a compelling performance.
Speaker 1: The sling shot of the Queen my Lord is dead
Speaker 1: and the rage and the what I what I took
Speaker 1: from that which was so valuable to me was the
Speaker 1: rage and the chaos and the insanity and the ferocity,
Speaker 1: and it's so perfectly written because it delivers to tomorrow
Speaker 1: and tomorrow the best and tomorrow creeps in this petty
Speaker 1: pace from day to day, and the guys shattered. I
Speaker 1: would tell people that in that production, I said, you,
Speaker 1: Michael Hall, zach Brath, Michael Wow. Zach Braff said, there's
Speaker 1: a few guys in that production. They went on to
Speaker 1: k was a kid kid. I stab him with the
Speaker 1: sword and I said, I'm not gonna pull the sword,
Speaker 1: and I said, if it's cool with you, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put my boot on your shoulder. I'm gonna peel you
Speaker 1: off my sword, and then I want you to drop
Speaker 1: that others. Zach Brath looked me, he was like, that's
Speaker 1: so fucking sick. Man's sick. I go, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to just peel you off my sword. Now, when you
Speaker 1: describe for me, you're making films and you start to
Speaker 1: star in the films, give me an example of one
Speaker 1: that creatively was really really a joy for you. What's
Speaker 1: a film you made and you're making the film and
Speaker 1: you're going, I mean, I love this. Two of them.
Speaker 1: One was the first. One was Day Trippers, that Greg
Speaker 1: Mottold directed that it was just that I had never
Speaker 1: met a group of actors that solid. It was Stanley
Speaker 1: Tucci was Hope Davis, was Parker Posey it was, and
Speaker 1: Mira it was just a Campbell Scott and I had,
Speaker 1: you know, noble it depends, and I had no experience
Speaker 1: making films, and and here was this sort of altruistic
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, back in the nineties when
Speaker 1: independent film was kind of having its heyday, and here
Speaker 1: was this incredible ensemble of actors just giving it over
Speaker 1: to each other. You gotta work together. No one's a
Speaker 1: star here, you know, you gotta work together. And here
Speaker 1: we're a bunch of like really stellar actors just doing it.
Speaker 1: And it felt so good because we weren't getting paid.
Speaker 1: It was something altruistic about it. There was something generous
Speaker 1: about it. And it happened to me again in a
Speaker 1: movie called Spotlight, and it was just an extraordinary piece
Speaker 1: of writing on and Josh's part, and it was something
Speaker 1: that I felt very connected to because of, you know,
Speaker 1: the time I'd men doing Ray and you know, at
Speaker 1: some at some level, the core of Rays about a
Speaker 1: guy who's been spun by his priest and the detail
Speaker 1: and the um, the restraint that they showed in depicting
Speaker 1: journalists and what they do and their value to our society.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was incredible. And every actor in
Speaker 1: that was like Sammy Sosa. For me, it was like everybody, everybody,
Speaker 1: and that was just so good. And when they came
Speaker 1: to you to do the series, because you've never done
Speaker 1: our series regular before, correct And when they came you
Speaker 1: to because when I was asked to do a series
Speaker 1: when we did thir d Rock, Remember sitting there shooting
Speaker 1: the pilot, I'm going, I don't want to. They bring
Speaker 1: me They bring me a fresh ice coffee every fifteen minutes. Well,
Speaker 1: this is nice, it's cozy, they got every everybody's lovely
Speaker 1: if the whole thing is really very pleasant. But I
Speaker 1: don't think I can come here and say this and
Speaker 1: be this guy. And the next thing, you know, we
Speaker 1: come and by season two it's a different show, like
Speaker 1: we had to find our way. But by season two
Speaker 1: they sort to win everything and they're writing and they're
Speaker 1: winning all the writing. At me, some blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: how did they get you to do that show? Who
Speaker 1: is responsible for you doing that show? My kids you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, Naomi was a huge star and we were
Speaker 1: traveling all around the world, going to different countries and
Speaker 1: making movies, yeah, making movies, and you know, it just
Speaker 1: felt like her career was really solid, and you know,
Speaker 1: me doing plays wasn't really gonna work out because you
Speaker 1: don't get weekends eight shows a week, and that would
Speaker 1: mean that I would have to stay in New York
Speaker 1: because that's where I want to do plays. Really if
Speaker 1: I'm going to do plays. So when you go do
Speaker 1: the TV show your Kids, we've got kids, and the
Speaker 1: kids are now of the of an age where it's
Speaker 1: time to go to school. And so I said, Tony,
Speaker 1: where do you want to live New York l A.
Speaker 1: And She's got this beautiful house, Sally Fields Old House,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's built this life. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll go to l A. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: commit the Cardinals sin and I'll go to l A.
Speaker 1: So I told my agents to start looking for a
Speaker 1: television show that would that would shoot in l A
Speaker 1: so that we could live in that house and be there.
Speaker 1: And they found me this show about this Boston fixer
Speaker 1: who had been abused by a priest and he had
Speaker 1: this really tight family situation and he was interacting in
Speaker 1: the Hollywood scene, and it all seemed like nonsense to me.
Speaker 1: But the woman and Binghaman who remember who told her? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who wrote it? Was just extraordinary and just so intelligent,
Speaker 1: and she stuck it in me and I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm just perfect. Let's do it. And I
Speaker 1: didn't expect anything to happen. We did the pilot. I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, that was fun. Like God, I guess
Speaker 1: I blew that. And it just grew and grew and grew.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think again is like,
Speaker 1: because they let me have a say in some of
Speaker 1: the casting, it really I was able to put people
Speaker 1: in it that I really felt good about and trusted,
Speaker 1: and they helped with that as well. But I just
Speaker 1: that cast just just day after day booming. It was
Speaker 1: similar in in the way where you have everybody. It
Speaker 1: was a great cast, and everybody was perfect and distinctive.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody has certain distinctive energies and hard workers
Speaker 1: to like, everybody worked hard. And I tried to get
Speaker 1: any to come to a play with me here in
Speaker 1: New York. You should beg you should well, he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to leave his family. He's got that situation. But
Speaker 1: the way he pursued, the way he went after Parkinson,
Speaker 1: the way he went after everything, how hard he worked, dash,
Speaker 1: the way he would swing for the fences with Bunchie
Speaker 1: and Paula who harnessed all of that real Irish rage
Speaker 1: that she's got, and just every actor and Carriss, the
Speaker 1: woman who played my daughter, just like Ah for you
Speaker 1: with the show, you saw Aliev you never saw before
Speaker 1: on that show, you know, an unbridled kind of character
Speaker 1: as I saw him as just pure vulnerability, you know,
Speaker 1: like the most vulnerable character I've ever played in my life.
Speaker 1: And that the culture that he comes from, it's unacceptable,
Speaker 1: and so he steal himself up. He's pretending, he's pretending,
Speaker 1: he's trying to exist for others because he can't tolerate himself,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that and that for
Speaker 1: me in many, in many ways is kind of a
Speaker 1: central theme on in being a man and how to
Speaker 1: be a man. That just my grandfather, you know, my
Speaker 1: gran Ukrainian grandfather who kind of braised me, and it
Speaker 1: was just he was such a tough bastard and he
Speaker 1: never he never talked about where he was from, which
Speaker 1: is part of my obsession with Ukraine and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff. He never admitted that he could speak any
Speaker 1: other languages other than American. He never admitted what he'd
Speaker 1: been through, or what he'd seen, or what he'd lost.
Speaker 1: And there was a kind of determination and and principled
Speaker 1: tenacity towards being something being American. And he hated Germans
Speaker 1: like that's the only thing that showed. He hated everything German,
Speaker 1: German cars, German beer, until my oldest brother got a
Speaker 1: German girlfriend and suddenly he loved Germans and everything German.
Speaker 1: But there was a kind of you know, if I
Speaker 1: didn't open the door for somebody, I got a smack
Speaker 1: in the back of the head, if I had a
Speaker 1: fight with my brother's girlfriend and I threw a jellyfish
Speaker 1: at her, and I can't I don't even want to
Speaker 1: say what he did to me. But he was that
Speaker 1: person that was trying to give me some character and strength.
Speaker 1: And then I heard from my mother this story about
Speaker 1: how he had been in love after every single in
Speaker 1: love with this younger woman who left him in the
Speaker 1: middle of his life. That just devastated him, and I
Speaker 1: it was that thing I just what are these qualities
Speaker 1: of masculinity? And I think Anne was very interested in
Speaker 1: that too, because I think ends she's writing her brothers,
Speaker 1: she's writing her father, she's writing her lovers in raydonov
Speaker 1: and and what is it about men that compels her
Speaker 1: that makes her that's so interesting? And and for me
Speaker 1: it was like this idea of you know, in all
Speaker 1: good characters and you know this, it's like it's duality, right,
Speaker 1: it's juxtaposition. It's if you think a character is something,
Speaker 1: you better go look in the complete opposite direction. So
Speaker 1: Ray was written as this incredibly tough guy who could
Speaker 1: just kick everybody's ass, and you know, used as few
Speaker 1: words as possible, and once I got to part there
Speaker 1: even less words. But in reality, he's stuck at the
Speaker 1: moment when he was sexually assaulted by this priest when
Speaker 1: he was a seven year old kid. And that's the
Speaker 1: person who's really just dying to come out all of
Speaker 1: the time, and that's the person who's so violent. That's
Speaker 1: where the violence comes from. In my opinion, violence is
Speaker 1: a product of fear more often than not, you know,
Speaker 1: which is which is how I see what's happening with
Speaker 1: poutin he's backed into a corner, he doesn't scare. Yeah,
Speaker 1: quick shout out to Bill Heck. I've rarely seen an
Speaker 1: actor played the younger version of a character as beautifully
Speaker 1: as he did. He was he had everything you needed
Speaker 1: to do. Void. I mean, he was void as he had.
Speaker 1: I loved him. They loved him. David and I wrote
Speaker 1: the movie mostly because we were so blown away by
Speaker 1: Bill Heck, like, you know, let's let this guy just
Speaker 1: take the show and the and the young actor was
Speaker 1: playing me. We just thought these actors were so good.
Speaker 1: He was just extraordinary. Everybody in that but particularly Bill
Speaker 1: just that he just he has that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that that voit does that not many
Speaker 1: other people can do, is the charm, Like he just
Speaker 1: does charm better than anybody I've ever seen. And thank
Speaker 1: god we found Bill Heck. He was great. Two quick things.
Speaker 1: I don't get to see you that often. We have
Speaker 1: got crazy lives, but I want to say, when I
Speaker 1: saw that show, we just confirmed what I always knew
Speaker 1: about you, and that is there's nothing you can't do, drama, comedy,
Speaker 1: shake whatever, There's nothing you can't do. And then number two,
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of you about this Ukraine thing. Good
Speaker 1: for you man. You go there and men show up
Speaker 1: that way, and I really really really appreciate you giving
Speaker 1: us the time to tell people about it. My thanks
Speaker 1: to Leev Schreiber. You can donate to Blue Check Ukraine
Speaker 1: at blue check dot i N. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: at cd M Studios in New York City. We're produced
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Russo, Zach McNeice and Maureen Hoban. Our engineers
Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio