Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. When my guest today first walked
Speaker 1: into the studio, I instantly learned just how gifted an
Speaker 1: actor he really is. I was expecting someone as wacky
Speaker 1: and eclectic as the characters he plays on screen, but
Speaker 1: ultimately I was struck by how calm and sincere Stephen
Speaker 1: Rut is in person. Root is an Emmy nominated actor
Speaker 1: who was amassed over three hundred film and TV credits.
Speaker 1: A revered character actor, Rude is known for his iconic
Speaker 1: roles in films and TV series such as Office Space,
Speaker 1: News Radio, King of the Hill, Dodgeball, Idiocracy, and five
Speaker 1: Coen Brothers films. Rude is perhaps most recognized for his
Speaker 1: two recent Emmy nominated roles on the hit HBO series
Speaker 1: Barry and the new Apple TV series Widow's Bay. Stephen
Speaker 1: Root has become known for playing carrotaracters who are, among
Speaker 1: other things, aloof and overlooked. His role as Monroe Fuchs
Speaker 1: on Barry was the first time Route was able to
Speaker 1: really explore what became known as the Stephen Root type character.
Speaker 1: I was curious if they wrote the Fuchs character on Barry,
Speaker 1: specifically for him.
Speaker 2: They did not. I came in late in the process.
Speaker 2: He said, would you come in just to show me
Speaker 2: what you probably not not an audition audition, but just
Speaker 2: if you want to show me what you.
Speaker 1: Do with it. So I did that.
Speaker 2: We did the pilot and it was totally rewritten. My
Speaker 2: part was because I had They started me at eleven
Speaker 2: and they wanted to start me much lower so that
Speaker 2: it became more of a buddy thing between me and him.
Speaker 2: But when we did the pilot, he had me screaming
Speaker 2: and shouting through the whole thing and he said, nah,
Speaker 2: it's not going to work. And fortunately they kept me
Speaker 2: on for the real Yeah, for the real pilot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it worked out great. But I think it was
Speaker 2: a much better show if we were buds and then
Speaker 2: you see it develop into what it did.
Speaker 1: I thought the character was like Yosemite Sam. It was
Speaker 1: constantly blowing up.
Speaker 2: He was he was in the area covered with smoke
Speaker 2: and throwing laptops around and stuff. But no, what was
Speaker 2: so great was like Widow's Bay. You get to walk
Speaker 2: the line between comedy and real real violence, you know.
Speaker 2: And and that's the first thing Bill said to us
Speaker 2: he said, they're not going to mix them. We're not
Speaker 2: going to mix the violence and the comedy. There's going
Speaker 2: to be one in one because you dilute either one
Speaker 2: if you do that. And that was the smartest thing
Speaker 2: I think he did.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a show now. We're doing the show for
Speaker 1: Koppleman and Levine who did Billions, and they're going to
Speaker 1: do the show set in a Las Vegas casino and
Speaker 1: I'm the boss. I run the casino, and Oscar Isaac
Speaker 1: is one my vice president, and his wife is played
Speaker 1: by Betty Gilpin and Betty Brilliant. I saw her do
Speaker 1: Oh Mary, and I just wish I had seen that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe my eyes. How inw Brechtian and insane
Speaker 1: this thing wasn't so the energy you had to put
Speaker 1: out to project this madness. Yes, and then you see
Speaker 1: her in person and she's like Barbara Stanwick and she's
Speaker 1: this beautiful, bleeding, steady well.
Speaker 2: Having her on Widow's Bay was like the biggest get
Speaker 2: in the world. Him and Hamish Link later great actors
Speaker 2: doing amazing script.
Speaker 1: When you do these things, I mean, I've been asked,
Speaker 1: I would guess I don't think that much about this,
Speaker 1: But I would guess for me in the last few years,
Speaker 1: to do Trump was the externalization of something nutty and
Speaker 1: loopy and crazy. You don't seem nutty and loopy and crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm probably the most boring burthon on Earth,
Speaker 2: and my wife Rommel Rosemont will tell you that.
Speaker 1: But you find these characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think any good character has some of them
Speaker 2: in their back pocket that they can take out and go.
Speaker 2: I can use part of this, and I can use
Speaker 2: part of that. And so I had done a lot
Speaker 2: of Southern theater comedy, driving Miss Daisy, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and I think that's gotten me in good stead.
Speaker 1: You know, your character. To me, the Barry character was
Speaker 1: a combination between Rod Steiger and Jonathan Winters.
Speaker 3: That's ystero, just so good masculine, yes, and you in person,
Speaker 3: everything you do, there's that masculinity, sensitivity, intelligence.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the stuff that.
Speaker 2: The script is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll look like, what do you do with the
Speaker 1: script's not good?
Speaker 2: Not do the project? I mean, these days it's you know,
Speaker 2: I'm in my early seventies now and I want to
Speaker 2: do projects that are amazingly well written because I could
Speaker 2: start there and then give it something you know, and.
Speaker 1: You find you find that literally even in the past,
Speaker 1: in your earlier days, you've been working NonStop since nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two something. They just work working, just a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, but not all of it was something that
Speaker 1: was Oh God.
Speaker 2: No, I like every other actor that came out of
Speaker 2: New York and a starving boy who did the waitering
Speaker 2: and bartending and all that stuff came out of off
Speaker 2: Broadway and Broadway finally, and then some film in the
Speaker 2: eighties in New York because I was still there. And
Speaker 2: then I did a two year tour of Driving Miss
Speaker 2: Daisy with Brock Peters. No, yes, Brock Peters and Julie
Speaker 2: Harris the greatest acting class for two years on the
Speaker 2: road that you could ever have, watching those two every night.
Speaker 1: And I did Not Slanding, and Julie was my mother.
Speaker 1: I did the soap opera Not Slanding, right, and I
Speaker 1: read that's that was my mother. She was unbelievable, and
Speaker 1: so was Brock. And Brock was having a hard time
Speaker 1: at the time because his wife had cancer and it
Speaker 1: was and he what a trooper Peters, Brock Peters the voice,
Speaker 1: just the voice, right, So Anyway, we did that tour.
Speaker 2: And moved to LA in the nineties and then did TV.
Speaker 2: You've been in LA since, been in LA since, But
Speaker 2: we just recently because I missed it. I missed New
Speaker 2: York City and I had done something to play rights
Speaker 2: about a few years ago, and I said, I want
Speaker 2: to be a presence in New York again because I
Speaker 2: was here from seventy six to ninety and that so stats,
Speaker 2: this still feels like my home even though I live
Speaker 2: in LA. So we got an apartment where happily ensconced
Speaker 2: in it. You know, you're hanging three or four months
Speaker 2: out of the area.
Speaker 1: Great, if I read your biographical material correctly. When you
Speaker 1: were a kid and your father was a businessman that
Speaker 1: moved around a lot.
Speaker 2: He was an engineer. He did construction projects, he did
Speaker 2: steam power plants. Wow, they would take a year and
Speaker 2: a half ton. We had to know what he was
Speaker 2: talking about. He was one of those guys that never
Speaker 2: went to college but became an engineer, you know, through
Speaker 2: just just doing it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And he was one of the last ones that that
Speaker 2: did that. And he ended up in an atomic plant
Speaker 2: at the end of his career where in Hanford Hamford,
Speaker 2: washing Washington. Yeah, yeah, the Tri Cities area there.
Speaker 1: I've been involved with anti nuclear.
Speaker 2: So was I for years for years, yeah.
Speaker 1: Anti nuclear utility. I don't get into the weapons thing sticky,
Speaker 1: but the but the utility thing. But you lived in
Speaker 1: Woodland Hills lived. I lived in Woodland Hills for ten years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We high school, Yeah, we we did there and
Speaker 2: then we finally I finally got into uh Sherman Oaks,
Speaker 2: which I really like. There's a lot of actors and
Speaker 2: writers who lived there. Very very nice and quiet, great place.
Speaker 2: But yeah, no, when I was growing up, I was
Speaker 2: year and a half Sioux City, Iowa, a year and
Speaker 2: a half months of Indiana, year and a half Kansas City, MO.
Speaker 2: Glen Rock, Wyoming, Fort Lauderdale, and then back to k C.
Speaker 1: That that was That was my life.
Speaker 2: I didn't think it was weird until I got to
Speaker 2: Abouthigh School and I don't freaking know anybody. It's it's like,
Speaker 2: people don't do this. But I think it was good
Speaker 2: in terms of me being a gypsy as an actor,
Speaker 2: because that's what we are now.
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated when I made that joke about Rod
Speaker 1: Steiger and Jonathan Winters, I'm always fascinated by people who
Speaker 1: access that really brilliant and really very real mania, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And to me, it's literally like music.
Speaker 1: It's like you're blowing notes. Is that how it feels
Speaker 1: to you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think for me to be any good,
Speaker 2: or for any character actor be any good, you've got
Speaker 2: to put enough of yourself and your empathy for people
Speaker 2: in it so that they can always empathize with your character,
Speaker 2: whether he's you know, bizarrely strange or just not at all.
Speaker 2: So I always feel like I have enough of me
Speaker 2: in there that I you know, I can always draw
Speaker 2: on that. But I'm a people watcher, like all character actors.
Speaker 2: You watch the people. You go, you see that guy
Speaker 2: going down during the Yeah, I can use that, and
Speaker 2: you put it in your back pocket and you go.
Speaker 1: You're in a restaurant, you watch some guys proposing to
Speaker 1: his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Walks and walks are big because what what you're wearing
Speaker 2: on your feet and how you walk. As for me,
Speaker 2: is a big part of whatever character I'm doing because
Speaker 2: it kind of your your body adjusts to that guy. Then,
Speaker 2: whether he walks slow, he walks fast, he's he's he's
Speaker 2: a drunk, he's not whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was starting in this business. When
Speaker 1: I started, my dad was still alive. My dad was
Speaker 1: so funny because I went to college for something else.
Speaker 1: I'm at George Washington University, going to go to law school.
Speaker 1: I changed and go to n YU at the Buzzer
Speaker 1: and my dad one time he says to me, he goes,
Speaker 1: you know where this acting thing you want to do?
Speaker 1: He said, Uh, so you got to come up with
Speaker 1: a walk. He said that he like John Wayne and I.
Speaker 3: Like aip over John Wayne.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think John Wayne was more likely to get
Speaker 1: away with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But for me. Sometimes, you know, the clothes,
Speaker 2: clothes make the character.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you go outside in, you know, go what am
Speaker 2: I going to wear with this? What do you think?
Speaker 2: What did shitty look like? I just did a little
Speaker 2: indie down in Birmingham with my wife and we were
Speaker 2: gun shop owners and at one point they put a
Speaker 2: band down on me. It looked like I was doing
Speaker 2: Rambow two. So that changes your whole complexion. Then you
Speaker 2: put on something like that, you know, so sometimes it
Speaker 2: goes outside in. Sometimes you go the other way.
Speaker 1: No, you've been nominated for Widow's Bay. And what's on
Speaker 1: the air now is they just finished streaming season one?
Speaker 2: Yes, Season one is done ten episodes, and you're going
Speaker 2: to go back and do Hopefully we're officially picked up,
Speaker 2: but there's no news about when we're going to do it.
Speaker 2: We're hoping, I'm hoping, and we're all hoping to do
Speaker 2: it a little earlier than we did last year, which
Speaker 2: we started in late May, so we went through kind
Speaker 2: of a hot season in Massachusetts, which is where we
Speaker 2: shot it. So we're hoping to start maybe earlier, maybe
Speaker 2: in April, but that's in Katie dip Old's mind, and
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not allowed in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's where the whole thing is filmed. How do
Speaker 1: you like being up there? Loved it.
Speaker 2: I didn't get to do that part of the country
Speaker 2: when I was moving around with my dad, So it's
Speaker 2: really beautiful. All the little towns there. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: And we would shoot, you know, some of the main coasts,
Speaker 2: but about really about twenty minutes from Concord. There's a
Speaker 2: couple of studios in Devon and we shot there and
Speaker 2: locations all around.
Speaker 1: When I would go to locations if I wasn't playing
Speaker 1: the lead in the film. When you're the lead in
Speaker 1: a big film, you don't have much time off. It's
Speaker 1: about you, basically your character. And I didn't get to
Speaker 1: see London or Paris or Rome or whatever. And then
Speaker 1: I started playing smaller roles in films. I had a
Speaker 1: lot of time off. Yeah, so I can go with
Speaker 1: My friends used to call me the horror of may There.
Speaker 1: So I'd be walking down Mount Street in London, smoking
Speaker 1: my cigars and sawders and going to my church was
Speaker 1: on that street, and I would really get to see
Speaker 1: the town and do some traveling and most saying, as
Speaker 1: opposed to years before when I was too busy.
Speaker 2: So that's the great part of being a character actor.
Speaker 2: You walk in, you do your thing, hopefully knock it
Speaker 2: out of the cark, and then say see Thursday, because
Speaker 2: I've got to go do something over here.
Speaker 1: Name for me among let's say movies. It was the
Speaker 1: great writing for movies that you just said, I gotta
Speaker 1: do this movie.
Speaker 2: Oh brother, we're an You're going to do it for them.
Speaker 2: Just just love those guys.
Speaker 1: And uh, no country for all men, No country I worship,
Speaker 1: I worship VI.
Speaker 2: So did I and the poor guy throughout the whole
Speaker 2: film would come over to everybody, everybody including extras, and go,
Speaker 2: my hair look weird. It's my hair weird. It is
Speaker 2: actually said Javier, you're totally frightening. Don't touch it, please,
Speaker 2: please don't please leave it alone.
Speaker 1: But when you're with the Coen Brothers, like do people
Speaker 1: when they work with you, because they realize so funny obviously,
Speaker 1: and that's a very valuable currency. You've ever worked on
Speaker 1: thilms where they asked you for your opinion about lines
Speaker 1: and ideas, and they're so storyboarded.
Speaker 2: They storyboard everything to the instagree. Then when you're when
Speaker 2: you're there and you're doing the thing, of course they'll
Speaker 2: do you know, go have fun. What do you want
Speaker 2: to do with this?
Speaker 1: You know at the end.
Speaker 2: But they were very very rigid in terms of that,
Speaker 2: so there's not a lot of improv going on. But
Speaker 2: in your final take of that scene, you could you
Speaker 2: could play around her a little, which was great, and
Speaker 2: we did.
Speaker 1: Who was the head writer for Barry alec Burg.
Speaker 2: Alec Berg and and Bill wrote wrote wrote a lot.
Speaker 2: It was It was a good They lose.
Speaker 1: With that too. Do they want you to let you burn?
Speaker 1: It a take.
Speaker 2: Bill was very loose, you know, because obviously it came
Speaker 2: from improv and I didn't. I mean, I came from
Speaker 2: National Shakespeare Company back back, so I was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know if I can. But Bill made it very
Speaker 2: easy to do for me to be come better at
Speaker 2: that kind of thing, better better at improv, because he
Speaker 2: directed the whole fourth season and he just wouldn't spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time that day. Stopped, stopped insane, take
Speaker 2: off the hat, put on the hat, and he'd go
Speaker 2: go to the insane and go it was that good enough,
Speaker 2: okay good and then then he'd go direct, but he
Speaker 2: would let you play around a lot there. I remember
Speaker 2: there was there there was an episode where my hands
Speaker 2: got stuck on the wheel of the car. We did
Speaker 2: a scene after that that didn't work, and Bill said,
Speaker 2: now we're gonna throw that out. We're gonna go over
Speaker 2: here to this, over here to the park. We're going
Speaker 2: to improv. You know what happened after that scene, And
Speaker 2: we did that and that's what ended up in the
Speaker 2: in the piece. So it was it was much different
Speaker 2: in that in that way for me, since I came
Speaker 2: up through shakespeare and stuff like that. I found if
Speaker 2: I knew everything backwards, knew it so well, then I
Speaker 2: felt like I could play within the structure of what
Speaker 2: it was, not necessarily change the line, just just play
Speaker 2: within the structure. And that's what's helped me so much,
Speaker 2: is knowing things backwards, knowing exactly what's coming up, and
Speaker 2: then then you can go play and change it and whatever.
Speaker 1: But you have the base. You have the base to
Speaker 1: do it. Actor Stephen Roots. If you enjoy conversations with
Speaker 1: intrepid character actors, check out my episode with Dan Ackroyd.
Speaker 4: I love writing more than anything.
Speaker 1: You're left alone.
Speaker 4: You know, you do three hours in the morning you're write,
Speaker 4: you need to have lunch, and then three hours in
Speaker 4: the afternoon, go pick up a kid from school and
Speaker 4: write at night, and after nine hours you come out
Speaker 4: with seven pages and then you're moving on. It's just
Speaker 4: your own devices, the air, the air around you, and
Speaker 4: your mind and a blank screen or a blank piece
Speaker 4: of paper. That's really what I'd like to be doing
Speaker 4: more of and always did.
Speaker 1: Enjoy. To hear more of my conversation with dan acroy
Speaker 1: go to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Speaker 1: Stephen Root tells us how good scripts keep him from
Speaker 1: becoming the laziest actor he knows. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: this is here is the Thing. Now known for countless
Speaker 1: roles in film and television. Stephen Root got his start
Speaker 1: in a traveling Shakespeare troupe. Before completing his senior year
Speaker 1: at the University of Florida. Route left school to join
Speaker 1: the National Shakespeare Company. He spent three years traveling and
Speaker 1: performing classic works such as The Winter's Tale in Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliet. I wanted to know some of the roles
Speaker 1: Route performed during his Shakespearean apprenticeship.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing that I loved so much
Speaker 2: we did National Shakespeare was a bus and truck twelve actors.
Speaker 2: We did three plays is in every college in America
Speaker 2: for nine months, so you were at least double cast
Speaker 2: in a play.
Speaker 1: Where were they headquartered out of.
Speaker 2: Out of New York right on fifty first between nineth
Speaker 2: and tenth. But I think the very first one that
Speaker 2: we were going to rehearse in seventy six, I think
Speaker 2: it was was a Wintersdale, one of my favorite things,
Speaker 2: and I played the clown in it.
Speaker 1: So I got there.
Speaker 2: I'm completely off book, ready to go, just going crazy
Speaker 2: and rehearsal, and the director comes over to me and says, wonderful, wonderful,
Speaker 2: ninety percent less, And so as well as I was prepared,
Speaker 2: I could then go down to that.
Speaker 1: You know, I never had a chance to do as
Speaker 1: much Shakespeare as I wanted to. I did Scottish play
Speaker 1: in ninety eight at the Public with Angela Bassett, and
Speaker 1: that was a tremendous experience. It changed my life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really was, because it made me want to do more.
Speaker 1: Although for me memorization wise, I'd fall asleep with the
Speaker 1: thing on my chest, sure, and I wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning with it. And I mean I was just
Speaker 1: nice watching I had my notes in that book. Oh god,
Speaker 1: damn dar Yeah, what's another role you played? Oh?
Speaker 2: I played a Groomio and Tame You of the Shrew,
Speaker 2: which I loved very very much. But these are all comic.
Speaker 2: They are mostly all comic characters off no king there
Speaker 2: from me. I did get to play Demetrius as a
Speaker 2: young lover, but most of my stuff was with you know,
Speaker 2: I would be Audrey with balloon Titch.
Speaker 1: You know, sorry, I know it was.
Speaker 2: It was tremendous performance, but yeah, mostly comic stuff. Back
Speaker 2: when I was, you know, in my my twenties. That's
Speaker 2: what they wanted me to do, and I did that
Speaker 2: didn't get we we did Hamlet, and we did you know,
Speaker 2: all all the all the dramas. But I'd get to
Speaker 2: play ancillary characters.
Speaker 1: And though you work a lot, Yeah, you work a lot.
Speaker 1: I do. And was there a period of time where
Speaker 1: you did that because you had to in terms of
Speaker 1: sure to make them living. Yeah, because we're cobbling together
Speaker 1: things in the beginning to make a living and then
Speaker 1: the next you know, you go to another level and
Speaker 1: another level and you find that it's just to happen.
Speaker 1: Now you like to work a lot.
Speaker 2: I know. I'm the laziest actor that I know. I
Speaker 2: just happen to get some good scripts. I mean, you're
Speaker 2: not going to turn down Barry because.
Speaker 1: The scripts were brilliant with.
Speaker 2: The con Brothers and or the Coen Brothers or or
Speaker 2: Widow's Bay because it's just too good. I mean, I
Speaker 2: hadn't in my seventies, I hadn't ever planned on signing
Speaker 2: on as a regular to another show. But you got
Speaker 2: those scripts and Katie Dippold and hero Maria Hello, I
Speaker 2: have to do it. I feel compelled.
Speaker 1: But you say the laziest actor, meaning do you see yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people, I know, they get
Speaker 1: to the point you're at now where they have all
Speaker 1: the work they need. Yeah, you're constantly offer things all
Speaker 1: the time. Sure, and they say to themselves, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to do this until it ends. I'm going to
Speaker 1: ride this way. Get that.
Speaker 2: I get that you want to retire monetarily. I don't
Speaker 2: need the money at the moment, so I just want
Speaker 2: to go for quality, quality control, and no retirement. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any reason to really. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 2: don't think. So I could go do five projects this
Speaker 2: year and maybe four the next year and dwindle down
Speaker 2: to one in my eighties and nineties. Yes, but that's okay,
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's all right if I can have
Speaker 2: fun doing it. And this this INDI that I just
Speaker 2: did with Romeo, I had fun.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it for money. Did it to be
Speaker 2: able to work with my wife and have fun.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason I found at one point indies. I
Speaker 1: mean I've had a tough time, meaning great people, lovely people,
Speaker 1: pleasant people, some good scripts, some good scenes and moments.
Speaker 1: I mean you know. Yeah. I think it was Nicholson
Speaker 1: who was quoted to sitting there saying what was the metric? Like, well,
Speaker 1: how did you choose the script? And he said three
Speaker 1: good scenes, two good lines, that's about right, And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's an inch way to look at it. I ask
Speaker 1: a lot of actors this question, what do directors have
Speaker 1: to offer you? Now? With all your experience, A good
Speaker 1: director does what?
Speaker 2: A good director lets you do your gut, what your
Speaker 2: gut read that you think for this guy is, and
Speaker 2: then nudges you forward or backwards with in terms of
Speaker 2: intensity and style. But I think it's a good director.
Speaker 2: You've cast this person to do this role, so you
Speaker 2: must have an idea of what he does well or
Speaker 2: she does well. Less is more for me for a director,
Speaker 2: tell me, am, I in the right direction? Good, I'm
Speaker 2: not okay?
Speaker 1: Which way? That way? Okay?
Speaker 2: But then let me do my gut. Once you've given
Speaker 2: me the direction, let me do my gut and if
Speaker 2: we're close, great. But I think less is more.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been interested in directing? Never? Ever? Why?
Speaker 1: I'm the same way.
Speaker 2: The laziest in the world.
Speaker 1: The lazy bastard. I like to pet the dog and
Speaker 1: go to the pool.
Speaker 2: No, that's not I'm not really a type a personality
Speaker 2: I like to I like on the ensembleness of it all,
Speaker 2: but I do I want to direct the ensembleness of
Speaker 2: it not so much. I think it would be more
Speaker 2: fun for me if, in my later years to produce
Speaker 2: get and put people together, Put people together.
Speaker 1: And go back to being a lazy best. Yes, you
Speaker 1: will have that absolutely well. When I directed one movie,
Speaker 1: I hated every minute of it, And when the part
Speaker 1: I hated most dealing with the actors. Yes, trying to
Speaker 1: cajole them into doing what I want to done. Babies, Yes,
Speaker 1: why don't you shut up and.
Speaker 2: Say the lines?
Speaker 1: Say this way? Yeah. But I've done movies with people
Speaker 1: where they were less experienced. It was enjoyable because they
Speaker 1: realized that they wanted to collaborate with you and maybe
Speaker 1: get some ideas from you. Because I'm always figuring how
Speaker 1: do we make it more cinematic, Like let's have a
Speaker 1: shot of you, and I'm big on the walking scene,
Speaker 1: the horseback riding scene, and we're weigh in the distance
Speaker 1: and we can loop the lines later on say whatever
Speaker 1: we want to say. It doesn't matter what the lines
Speaker 1: are the days.
Speaker 2: The nicest space if you could take space visually in
Speaker 2: a movie, and that's the cinematographer's job, take space and
Speaker 2: time and and not rush it. That's why I love
Speaker 2: the Coen Brothers movies because it goes at a pace
Speaker 2: that it should go. It doesn't go too fast, doesn't
Speaker 2: go too slow. It's just telling the story of people.
Speaker 1: The business has changed greatly since you and I started, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of it's crazy. Now, what's one of
Speaker 1: the biggest changes you've noticed in this business.
Speaker 2: I've noticed it because my wife is still going through it.
Speaker 2: They don't want to see people in person anymore, and
Speaker 2: that makes me freaking crazy.
Speaker 1: I can't believe the union isn't stop them.
Speaker 2: That's that's insane. How first of all, you can send
Speaker 2: in a tape. It's probably brilliant for the character that
Speaker 2: they want to see, but can you be directed. No,
Speaker 2: you can't tell that from a tape. You have to
Speaker 2: see the human being in the room to be able
Speaker 2: to do it, and they've gotten rid of that. And
Speaker 2: that makes me angry because then you can't win a
Speaker 2: role in a room. That's what I did when I
Speaker 2: was younger. I want to roll in the room because
Speaker 2: you could see what I was doing and I could
Speaker 2: be directed in either direction. But doesn't happen now. And
Speaker 2: that's one of the main things that I really hate.
Speaker 1: I would tell people that when I first started and
Speaker 1: I went out to LA because I was in New
Speaker 1: York and I went out tell her to kind of
Speaker 1: introduce myself to people out there, so to speak. And
Speaker 1: you know, one good example was Jane Jenkins and Janet Herschinston.
Speaker 1: Jane and Janet we called him back then, and they
Speaker 1: were these big casting directors who'd bring me in and
Speaker 1: you knew that when you left, or you learned later on,
Speaker 1: essentially that when you left, they were like, he's not
Speaker 1: right for Bob in this movie, but he's right for
Speaker 1: stun Pots on the show at the same time. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And they want you want to be in that room
Speaker 1: so they can smell you, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They want to get a smell. And that's gone now,
Speaker 1: which I find horrendous. That's so bad.
Speaker 2: And plus people are going to off roadway shows like
Speaker 2: they used to define new actors and how are you
Speaker 2: going to train the league the act Yeah, and how
Speaker 2: are you going to train these actors? If you don't
Speaker 2: give the meaty parts as they're coming up, and they're
Speaker 2: just giving it to stars. You know, some of them
Speaker 2: are good for that role, but most of the time
Speaker 2: they're not. You're not getting the best actor for the role.
Speaker 2: I don't love that either. The argument for them is
Speaker 2: that we can see more people that way, and that's
Speaker 2: entirely true. You can see more people. What you can't
Speaker 2: do is see if they're directable, and that's the whole
Speaker 2: I haven't thought of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always say the same phrase I said. They're
Speaker 1: in search, have always been in search of, and remain
Speaker 1: in search of, the risk free entertainment business. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as the risk free entertainment business.
Speaker 1: If you don't take risks, then you're going to be sure.
Speaker 1: And now we're fully, fully in the zone of risk
Speaker 1: free entertainment. I look at people who are actors now
Speaker 1: and I think acting couldn't be less important than it
Speaker 1: is now.
Speaker 2: Well, we're widgets. We're widgets with the bean counters count.
Speaker 1: You put the costume on, put the cape on, and
Speaker 1: put the gloves on, and anybody can wear the gloves
Speaker 1: in the cape. Let's just get you know, yeah, just
Speaker 1: get fitnesses stardom. Now, yeah, fitness is stardom. And I
Speaker 1: mean in old school acting, your talent is never going
Speaker 1: to be devalued. It's never going to go out of style.
Speaker 1: You're always going to work. When they want something, they
Speaker 1: want real talents.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that. I've just been in this so long.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know about you, but most of
Speaker 2: the people that were in the business when I started
Speaker 2: or not there anymore, right, And that's that's what I
Speaker 2: tell young actors say. Longevity is just staying in it.
Speaker 2: That's half of it.
Speaker 1: Actor Stephen Root, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Stephen Root talks about what kind
Speaker 1: of project he would like to do next and what
Speaker 1: he loves about Widow's Bay and Barry. I'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you were listening to Here's the Thing. Stephen Root's
Speaker 1: big break was on the nineteen nineties sitcom News Radio,
Speaker 1: where he acted alongside comic heavyweight Phil Hartman. Root has
Speaker 1: worked with countless Hollywood icons from Arnold Schwarzenegger to the
Speaker 1: Kohen Brothers. Having had such a diverse career, I was
Speaker 1: curious if there was one actor in particular who has
Speaker 1: stood out to throughout his impressive career.
Speaker 2: I have to say Matthew Reese, just because we had
Speaker 2: worked together before on Perry Mason for HBO, and Perry
Speaker 2: Mason was not funny, but Matthew Reese his hysterical. He's
Speaker 2: one of the funniest people ever and he hasn't had
Speaker 2: a chance to do that for him to be able
Speaker 2: to do it on Widow's Bay and he does silent acting,
Speaker 2: silent comedic acting, which is really big, and he does
Speaker 2: really tiny, tiny, wonderful, subtle stuff. So I have to
Speaker 2: say Matthew. Back when I was doing news radio, Phil Hartman,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, oh my god, the best, Miss uncle
Speaker 2: Phil so much. But that was a whole group of
Speaker 2: great people. They fully and more Tyranny more. Tyranny is
Speaker 2: one of my heroes. She what a great, great great.
Speaker 1: Phil Hartman is the only person that made me crack
Speaker 1: up on us and now live no kidding. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: doing a scene and I played Marlon Bando and take
Speaker 1: us to the movie. We're lamputting his calls the environmentally
Speaker 1: sensitive one and I'm running off with his daughter Victoria
Speaker 1: Jackson when one of his aides comes in and says
Speaker 1: to what number three blue boss, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: And Phil Hartman's line was take me with you? Like
Speaker 1: he changed his mind. He wasn't gonna reject me. Now
Speaker 1: he wants to leave with us and escape. Do you think?
Speaker 1: And literally during the during the air show, he goes
Speaker 1: tell her number three blue boss, what do you want
Speaker 1: to do? Phil hart looks, he goes, take me with you.
Speaker 1: He just says this wine inside the line that he
Speaker 1: never did, And of course I start spinning up and
Speaker 1: laughing on the show.
Speaker 2: He nobody has has made me laugh harder than that,
Speaker 2: or Caveman, caveman, lawyer.
Speaker 1: Lord, come on, your ways are strange to me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, fantastic loved him.
Speaker 1: It was for me. It was Tony Hopkins. Oh and Meryll.
Speaker 1: When I got a chance to do It's Complicated with Meryll, amazing,
Speaker 1: I was. I was thrilled to do that. That was
Speaker 1: a real pleasure to that was a great honor to
Speaker 1: work with her.
Speaker 2: Right, I would say John Lithgow as well. I mean
Speaker 2: I we got to work with him, both Matthew and
Speaker 2: I did on on Perry Mason and I just seen
Speaker 2: I don't know whether you saw a giant in you
Speaker 2: know or here astonishing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see Salesman tonight. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Salesman is great, but John performance in that is yeah, phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry, miss because I love John.
Speaker 2: The man's you know, he's almost eighty. If he isn't,
Speaker 2: and he's he's doing it a h What do.
Speaker 1: You think about that in terms of success at that age?
Speaker 1: Success at your age? You know, things are going really
Speaker 1: well for you right now they are in the in
Speaker 1: the latter part of your career.
Speaker 2: I think I've worked more in my sixties and seventies than.
Speaker 1: I worked to that. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But I think it's just you hang around long enough
Speaker 2: and people remember you, and hopefully work begets work and
Speaker 2: you get to work with some of the same people,
Speaker 2: which has happened a lot.
Speaker 1: What's the part you want to play? Is there a
Speaker 1: play you want to do?
Speaker 2: The last play I did was Marjorie Prime, which was
Speaker 2: a four person play about and this was before AI.
Speaker 2: This is like twenty fifteen. This was about a holographic
Speaker 2: AI taking care of old people by talking to them
Speaker 2: in a projected way, so that maybe their husband was
Speaker 2: thirty years old and they're ninety now and they're talking
Speaker 2: to this AI projected and the AI learned more about
Speaker 2: him as they talk. And this was ten twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: But an ensemble piece interests me more than anything else.
Speaker 2: Do I want to get up and do lear Not
Speaker 2: so much, as I said, I'm very lazy, but an
Speaker 2: ensemble piece.
Speaker 1: Yes. Chris Stack is an actor that I know from
Speaker 1: the actor's studio, and Chris invited me to come see
Speaker 1: Stereophonic when it was aw that.
Speaker 2: I loved that at Playwrights, Yeah, I saw Playwrights unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And then they went to Broadway and what I loved
Speaker 1: was they were all like musicians in the symphony. They're
Speaker 1: all doing the same thing. I thought that was great
Speaker 1: directing to get everybody to do the same thing. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And that's what I try to do now, is I
Speaker 1: don't need the thing to be about me. I'd rather
Speaker 1: be a part of that.
Speaker 2: It can go for the gold exactly exactly what I love.
Speaker 2: And that's why I love Widows Bay. That's why I
Speaker 2: loved Barry, because everybody in it, from the tiniest role
Speaker 2: was perfectly cast with great actors, and you can't have
Speaker 2: any more fun than that on a project if you're
Speaker 2: working with great actors in a great script.
Speaker 1: I dare ask you this question because I'm not quite
Speaker 1: sure I would do it in the nude. Yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 1: you would do it. I'm tard and feathered. Yes, But
Speaker 1: what are your hobbies? What do you do when you're
Speaker 1: not acting?
Speaker 2: I like to play with my I don't play an instrument,
Speaker 2: but I love putting music together like I'll have and
Speaker 2: it's very specific. I want to put together t Bone
Speaker 2: Burnett and Elvis Costello and nic Low from nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: four and make a playlist of that that I'll do that.
Speaker 2: I play golf badly with a lot of other character
Speaker 2: actors and writers, and I try to rest mostly right. Yes,
Speaker 2: rest is good.
Speaker 1: Well, we would used to say years ago we were
Speaker 1: entering the judge phase of our career. So the jobs
Speaker 1: you would do, shou'd have the ropes, but underneath were
Speaker 1: your tennis closed.
Speaker 2: I was a judge, unjustified, and I had a speedo.
Speaker 1: That's all. I have my tennis clothes and you sit
Speaker 1: there all day long, go out of it. The jury
Speaker 1: will disregard that statement by the prosecutor and they shoot
Speaker 1: you last right now. Off of Space is a cult classic? Yeah,
Speaker 1: were you were aware at the time that it was
Speaker 1: a cult when it was due when you were doing it,
Speaker 1: do you go it's gonna be a cult classic? No?
Speaker 2: I knew it was a really good, funny be comedy
Speaker 2: because there are good people in it, and it's Mike Judge,
Speaker 2: who I've done King of the Hill with forever, and
Speaker 2: I thought it was a fun little thing to do.
Speaker 2: And it has become a cult, I think because everybody
Speaker 2: was good in it, like everybody. Everybody was cast well,
Speaker 2: it's like doing a really big performance very small. You know,
Speaker 2: you're you're making a big swing, but you're doing.
Speaker 1: It very very, very.
Speaker 2: Very tiny, almost nothing. And I think that that's that's
Speaker 2: why it was good. I would totally had my thapler.
Speaker 1: I just want to say in the time we have
Speaker 1: the moment we have left, which is that I am
Speaker 1: such a fan of yours. I watched that Barry like
Speaker 1: I was smoking crack. I couldn't wait, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I gotta wait undo the week to watch.
Speaker 2: Came up to me after the third season and said, look,
Speaker 2: I wanted to go this way and I want you
Speaker 2: to do this guy, which is the total opposite of
Speaker 2: what we've been doing for three years. He's coming out
Speaker 2: of prison, he's tattered up, he is you know, a yeah,
Speaker 2: he's the raven. And I said, really, I would never
Speaker 2: get cast as that motherfucker, but I'm more than happy
Speaker 2: to give it a shot. And it was some of
Speaker 2: the most fun I've ever had because it was very
Speaker 2: freeing to be something I would never be cast as
Speaker 2: you know, built up, tat it up, violent, violent guy.
Speaker 1: When I did thirty Rock, they would give us the
Speaker 1: We do the read through on a Wednesday, and they
Speaker 1: had those cameras and then had a pipe out to burnback.
Speaker 1: So we're in New York at Silver Cup and we
Speaker 1: have a dais of the cast.
Speaker 2: And Jimmy Burrows is directing. But go ahead, right right,
Speaker 2: I wish I wish, no.
Speaker 1: No. We had great directors. We had Antina in the cast,
Speaker 1: everybody on the dais, and then the writers and the
Speaker 1: crafts people, all the crew out department heads in the audience.
Speaker 1: So they have like sixty people in the room and
Speaker 1: we sit there. They give me the script at the call,
Speaker 1: and I sit in the makeup chair and get my
Speaker 1: seventhing done, and I'd read the script and I think
Speaker 1: to myself, you know, thank God for great writing. That
Speaker 1: was the greatest time of my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're not going to be great unless unless
Speaker 2: you're doing something that you're scared of as well.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm gonna remember you said that.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: My thanks to actors Stephen Roots. This episode was recorded
Speaker 1: at CDM Studios in New York City. Were produced by
Speaker 1: Kathleen Russo, Zach McNee, and Victoria De Martin. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Isaac Captain Woolmer. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing
Speaker 1: is brought to you by iHeart Radio.