Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The movie Babe is very, very important in my family,
Speaker 1: and what takes the movie from good to grade is
Speaker 1: the humanity and the wisdom in James Cromwell's farmer Hogget.
Speaker 1: Cromwell was already in his fifties when Babe came out.
Speaker 1: It's easy to forget that his weathered face was still
Speaker 1: a fresh one. In Hollywood. He was a working actor.
Speaker 1: He played Archie Bunker's buddy Screech Cunningham in All in
Speaker 1: the Family, but Babe was his breakthrough role, and the
Speaker 1: moment he broke through, he put his celebrity to work.
Speaker 1: Cromwell might be the most committed activist in Hollywood. Not
Speaker 1: just fundraisers and photo ops. Cromwell's in the streets and
Speaker 1: chain defenses. He's been arrested five times. Both art and
Speaker 1: politics are in James Cromwell's blood father, mother, grandmother, stepmother
Speaker 1: all actors. And you grew around that. I grew up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I grew up until I was six. They were divorced
Speaker 1: when I was six, uh, and so I moved with
Speaker 1: my mother back East. I think I was probably nine
Speaker 1: when I went out for the first time with him
Speaker 1: to Hollywood, and then he was in fifty three he
Speaker 1: was blacklisted, so he came east the theater. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was in Mary, Mary and Sabrina Affair, so too, very
Speaker 1: long running plays. I think they each ran acting three acting.
Speaker 1: So for people who don't understand that the Hollywood Blacklist
Speaker 1: was to a large degree the Hollywood Blacklist, you can
Speaker 1: go elsewhere and work or not. Everybody, and he had testified,
Speaker 1: but he had left New York before the Communist Party
Speaker 1: really got organized, so he had nothing to say. It
Speaker 1: was always my father's opinion. It's my opinion too that
Speaker 1: really the blacklist was directed not so much at Communists,
Speaker 1: but principally first of all Jews, and then secondly people
Speaker 1: who had come back from the Second World War who
Speaker 1: had a different view about America, what was happening in
Speaker 1: America because they could see what Eisenhower described as the
Speaker 1: military industrial complex, and they could also, yeah, the discrepancy
Speaker 1: between what America supposedly stood for and what it actually did. Obviously,
Speaker 1: what was happening to the people of color, Indian people,
Speaker 1: women's rights, not nothing existed. It was all people who
Speaker 1: knew better, people who agreed were the more liberal and
Speaker 1: democratic country kept their mouths shut so as not to
Speaker 1: make ways. As you know that both all three unions
Speaker 1: did not support the people who belonged to those unions
Speaker 1: who were attacked by UK. Howard Us had bought the
Speaker 1: studio and because my father had testified, he thought of
Speaker 1: my father as a communist and wanted him out, but
Speaker 1: couldn't fire him because of the contract, so he gave
Speaker 1: him a film to direct, call I Married a Communist,
Speaker 1: And my father knew what he was doing and said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'll direct this, but you can't. I can't direct this.
Speaker 1: You have to rewrite this. Well, he got writer after writer.
Speaker 1: Nobody could fix this was a piece of ship. It
Speaker 1: was just propaganda, until finally he settled. It was a
Speaker 1: million dollar contract back in fifty three, settled the whole thing.
Speaker 1: My father bought a building in Beverly Hills, came back
Speaker 1: and did a play with Henry Founder called Point of
Speaker 1: No Return about JP Marquand and won a Tony, so
Speaker 1: his first time back on the stage you want a Tony,
Speaker 1: and then went on to do many many plays in
Speaker 1: New York until basically I did go back to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: He swore that he would never go back, but he
Speaker 1: did towards the end of his life. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: exactly why. And they did two of Robert Altman's pictures,
Speaker 1: Three Women and The Wedding. Do you get a sense
Speaker 1: that both acting for you and an activism for you
Speaker 1: because of what your father went through with the being blacklisted,
Speaker 1: do you find that that had that impact on you
Speaker 1: and your life? He is a role model. Obviously. I
Speaker 1: loved um what I knew of his principles, what he
Speaker 1: stood for. Um. He had a very jaundiced view of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: which I share. He was very frustrated all his life.
Speaker 1: He was a very good director, but he didn't promote
Speaker 1: himself the way Ford and Hawks did who had publicists,
Speaker 1: and so he didn't. He sort of was down the
Speaker 1: food chain as far as the projects all that, and
Speaker 1: then of course what he went through in the studio system,
Speaker 1: you know, with as the personnelity, as you know, as
Speaker 1: you will know, and uh you you encapsulate. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want to dwell on this because I want
Speaker 1: to talk about more positive things. But give me an
Speaker 1: example of what your frustration with the town as man,
Speaker 1: not give you mine? Okay, the emphasis on celebrity, the
Speaker 1: emphasis on profit packaging an independent voice. John Wells telling
Speaker 1: me he wrote a beautiful story about a man who
Speaker 1: lost his job in in two thousand and eight and
Speaker 1: had to go live with this um his in laws
Speaker 1: and selling telephones. He had been a big executive and
Speaker 1: what that the tension in his family, what it did
Speaker 1: to him personally. The studio he had a deal first
Speaker 1: look with the Warners, and Warner said, yeah, that's great, great,
Speaker 1: We'll put Tom Cruise in it. John said, no, no,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this is a little film. You put
Speaker 1: Tom in it, the accountants are going to tell you
Speaker 1: that you gotta be it's gotta be capsized. The capsizes
Speaker 1: the film, and so what does it do? He goes
Speaker 1: into their nobody. He can't get it out. It's gone.
Speaker 1: The business is completely taken over by non creative people,
Speaker 1: non creative people from top to bottom. It's marketing people
Speaker 1: and finance people. They don't even like movies. These guys
Speaker 1: aren't in the movie business. They'd like to just do
Speaker 1: the money part, the producing part, and then have no
Speaker 1: product at all and go on to the next raising
Speaker 1: money for the next one. If they could be making
Speaker 1: money doing something else would now when acting for you professionally?
Speaker 1: Did you study somewhere? I left Middlebury where I was
Speaker 1: at college, and came and study with Herbert burg Off
Speaker 1: at the HBC and did a play with he and
Speaker 1: Udah and Sandy Dennis. Then my father, Ruth was touring
Speaker 1: my stepmother, Ruth Nelson was touring um long Day's Journey. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they had played Pittsburgh. So they had gone to
Speaker 1: Carnegie Tech. And my father really wanted me to have
Speaker 1: an education, the one that he didn't have. So I
Speaker 1: went there for about two and a half years. Left
Speaker 1: that finished middle transferred, I've transferred to Carnegie Tech. And
Speaker 1: then I didn't make it all the way through Carnegie
Speaker 1: techither I crossed the disaster and but that's okay. Did
Speaker 1: you come into New York to start your career? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. My father he had done a play at
Speaker 1: Cleveland and got to know the man who ran Cleveland
Speaker 1: kl molo and so he said, there's a wonderful opportunity.
Speaker 1: You can go as a journeyman and act and stage manage,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to direct a play, he said, So
Speaker 1: you can be my stage managed. So I started at Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and then that summer after Kennedy was killed. Um that
Speaker 1: summer I went to Europe with directors from all over
Speaker 1: the world. Was the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. So I
Speaker 1: had all these incredible people who ran their companies and
Speaker 1: you know in Slovenian, all these wonderful directors. And I
Speaker 1: did that. And when I came back, he had cut
Speaker 1: out a little squib from the New York Times that
Speaker 1: a theater that was touring the South needed actors and directors.
Speaker 1: And I he said to go down audition for which
Speaker 1: I did, got the job. Arrived in New Orleans, met
Speaker 1: by the head of the theater, taken to my place
Speaker 1: where we're gonna stay in. On the side of the
Speaker 1: of the next to the door was a plaque which
Speaker 1: said coloreds only. And I thought, oh, it's a throwback
Speaker 1: to the Civil War. Wh they must leave these things up.
Speaker 1: Went up there. Nice black ladies showed us to our room.
Speaker 1: We went out to a restaurant and promptly got thrown
Speaker 1: out of the restaurant because John O'Neil, who was the
Speaker 1: head of the theater, was black. Then I was white.
Speaker 1: And guy came over and you're shaking and said, I
Speaker 1: ask you to leave. My reaction is the Irish pardon
Speaker 1: sol was to John said no, no, no, no, I'll
Speaker 1: handle it and advise the guy that he was violating
Speaker 1: our civil rights. And and that was my introduction to
Speaker 1: a company that toured Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia during
Speaker 1: the height of the civil rights Shakespeare No Doing, Waiting
Speaker 1: for Gotto and Pearley Victorious to opposite extremes to people
Speaker 1: who had never seen television, never probably never seen a
Speaker 1: movie four sixty four, and I was actually I had
Speaker 1: gone to school with a guy um and I didn't
Speaker 1: know he was there, Mickey Schwerner and that was Schwerner,
Speaker 1: Cheney and Goodman. And we knew as we were in
Speaker 1: Mississippi traveling around that Mickey was they were missing, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was Mickey until much later. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they hadn't been found in the levee they've been
Speaker 1: buried in. So when in the early part of your career,
Speaker 1: was there part of you that you said, oh, the
Speaker 1: theater is more my calling and I didn't You didn't
Speaker 1: really want to go out to Hollywood and try to
Speaker 1: make films into TV shows. The theater was more your
Speaker 1: you're licking. First of all, it was I was emotionally retarded.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to design sports cars. And I went
Speaker 1: to Middlebury as a part of a three two program.
Speaker 1: You went to r p I and you got both
Speaker 1: degrees in engineering and engineering. And I wanted to design
Speaker 1: sports cards. That was that. My father was making a
Speaker 1: picture in Sweden within Mark Bergmann's my brit Nil Sineva Dolbeck,
Speaker 1: and spend Niklas was the cameraman. And I went, I
Speaker 1: was now eighteen, and I looked around. I looked at them,
Speaker 1: and we went out to my Bert's house, and people
Speaker 1: are articulate and attractive and loquacious, assisticated and sophisticated. And
Speaker 1: I thought, ship man, this is I gotta do this.
Speaker 1: I gotta do this. You know those people. So it
Speaker 1: only took me about a month to get, you know,
Speaker 1: frustrated with the theater department at Middlebury. Now that I
Speaker 1: was and I knew anything. And then went to New
Speaker 1: York and uh, and Herbert was. Herbert was actually very
Speaker 1: really central to my I mean, for all his shenanigans,
Speaker 1: I really loved him and adored uda. When you meet
Speaker 1: with Herbert, what was your idea of what acting was
Speaker 1: for you, Like what was your really because I have
Speaker 1: my own story about that, but tell me, like when
Speaker 1: you got there was it because you hear men sit
Speaker 1: there and go I was gonna pick up girls. I
Speaker 1: was gonna, you know, I was gonna. I think pick
Speaker 1: up was the first. That was first. Women. My old
Speaker 1: my oldest friend in this town is a Swiss actress
Speaker 1: and she was the book. She ran the book, and
Speaker 1: I thought she was the cat's pajamas and we've we've
Speaker 1: been dearest friends lasting long time. What was like that
Speaker 1: was magnificent, you know, um intense, um, implacable, brave, um smart.
Speaker 1: I remember the last time I saw her. She was
Speaker 1: doing a play. I went to see her off Broadway. Um,
Speaker 1: I think it's called Mrs Klein, about a psychologist. And
Speaker 1: I waited for her and she came out and I
Speaker 1: started to talk to her and I wept. I wept.
Speaker 1: I she meant so much. I did a TV series,
Speaker 1: and I had to choose between a job that was
Speaker 1: a very good job and a very challenging piece and
Speaker 1: a great role for me early in my career, or
Speaker 1: to do a TV series, which was a very successful
Speaker 1: show that was nothing to be ashamed of. But the
Speaker 1: real opportunity was I was going to play Julie Harris's son,
Speaker 1: and I did that instead. For it, I passed on
Speaker 1: what was the better role to spend a year and
Speaker 1: a half with her and be around her, and oh
Speaker 1: my god, I was not a copportunity of a life
Speaker 1: wonderful another magic woman. But when you do your work
Speaker 1: compared to them, I mean, how was that path change
Speaker 1: for you as an actor? Well? I went to Tech
Speaker 1: and I had a wonderful teacher the first year before
Speaker 1: you got fired, which was basically, you know, an actor
Speaker 1: prepares the method, um and UM. A lot of it
Speaker 1: I got, I think subliminately through my father and mother,
Speaker 1: watching my father and watching my mother stepmother, um, and
Speaker 1: then actually doing for the ten years that I did
Speaker 1: resident theater, not taking acting classes, but watching people making
Speaker 1: your own mistakes, being out on stage. In terms of acting,
Speaker 1: I think I learned. I learned a lot because John
Speaker 1: Voyd brought Sandy Meisner's repeat exercise to Hollywood. He altered
Speaker 1: it a little, and I did that class with Richard
Speaker 1: and Jill Clayburg, Richard Dreyfuss and Joe Clayberg and a
Speaker 1: lot of other people who were working, and I happen
Speaker 1: to really love the repeat exercise, and the has great value,
Speaker 1: and I love the fact that it's not taught by
Speaker 1: a teacher. You know. Then of course I got a
Speaker 1: magnificent the best teacher I've ever had. Milton could sell us.
Speaker 1: Who was I just adored? Didn't tell me why why
Speaker 1: did I love Milton could sell us? Because in his class.
Speaker 1: I took his class for like maybe nine months, and
Speaker 1: then I left, and I'll never have many memories of him.
Speaker 1: One was I was working at the time doing a pickup.
Speaker 1: I did a pilot and they picked up eight episodes
Speaker 1: and we were shooting, and I missed some of the classes.
Speaker 1: This is like an eighty three eighty four, you know,
Speaker 1: And my then girlfriend was taking class when we go
Speaker 1: to that Beverly Hills theater of his and we went
Speaker 1: to I think I went to our Thursday nights or something.
Speaker 1: So I go some night and this one guy gets
Speaker 1: up and he does the scene and he and he's
Speaker 1: pulled a chair down to get the comments from Conzellis,
Speaker 1: and Conzellis begins, you know, what do you think and
Speaker 1: what were going forward? Always with you you reflect back
Speaker 1: and then he starts to say things, and the guy
Speaker 1: starts to kind of debate him, and Conzellis with the
Speaker 1: big Conzellis was a bear of a man and very
Speaker 1: you know, very intense sky but it's nonetheless kind of
Speaker 1: he really laid back and he said, he said, he said,
Speaker 1: we're not here to debate my opinions with you. He said,
Speaker 1: you pay the money, you come here. I give you
Speaker 1: my opinions. That's why we're here for me to give
Speaker 1: you my opinions. And and I'm sitting there going because
Speaker 1: I had taken Strasbourg in New York for a year
Speaker 1: and a half and studied privately with people in New York,
Speaker 1: and and I'm there and I'll never forget this. I
Speaker 1: did a scene from How I Got That story by
Speaker 1: Emlyn Gray, where there was the person that was the press,
Speaker 1: and then there was the person that they called the event.
Speaker 1: And so the one guy is the reporter and the
Speaker 1: other guy plays like thirty two different characters. You play
Speaker 1: the Vietnamese dictator's wife. I did that in this class.
Speaker 1: And he walks up to him. When he walks up
Speaker 1: behind me, I don't even know he here works behind
Speaker 1: me whip me was Gonzalas. And the only thing he
Speaker 1: ever said to me the whole class he whispers and
Speaker 1: he goes lose eight pounds. That's it, walked away. I
Speaker 1: should tell me, Uh, I had done Hamlet. I produced
Speaker 1: my own Hamlet because no one was in L A
Speaker 1: and four, and I played it a little theater down
Speaker 1: on Santa Monica Boulevard. Sometimes we had more people on
Speaker 1: stage than we did in the audience. It was the
Speaker 1: Olympic Theater Festival, so the RSC had come and they
Speaker 1: were playing out in U c l A. No one
Speaker 1: came to ours. But I had a had a very
Speaker 1: interesting time, learned quite a bit um. And then subsequent
Speaker 1: to that about it a couple of years. Any about
Speaker 1: a year later, Milton did a Shakespeare class, uh, because
Speaker 1: he was working on Romeo and Juliet, which I also
Speaker 1: did with him, and I had was going to do
Speaker 1: the Nunnery scene, and I had done it one time
Speaker 1: for him and the class, and he said, um, you
Speaker 1: don't know what this play is about. And I said, Milton,
Speaker 1: I have done this place seven times. Don't don't tell
Speaker 1: me that I don't know. He said, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know what it is up here in your head?
Speaker 1: You know an intellectually at this place is about, but
Speaker 1: you don't know what it's what it is here in
Speaker 1: your heart. I want you to do the do the
Speaker 1: scene again. He came behind me and put his hands
Speaker 1: on my head and squeezed as hard as he could
Speaker 1: and said, now, say to be or not to be? Well.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to get but two words out when
Speaker 1: I understood what he was driving at the pressure. So
Speaker 1: unfortunately I didn't get to rehearse in the intervening week.
Speaker 1: So this the girl who was playing Ophelia, she just
Speaker 1: thought that it would be the same. I went outside
Speaker 1: to do push ups on my knuckles in the driveway
Speaker 1: to get myself cranked up, and as I was doing it,
Speaker 1: the door closed to the theater and locked. Now I'm
Speaker 1: Hamlet is now locked out of the Nunnery scene. And
Speaker 1: I realized that either I'm going to have to knock
Speaker 1: on the door and somebody's gonna have to come and
Speaker 1: let Hamlet in, which he might very well say, go
Speaker 1: go let Hamlet in, or I'm gonna have to run
Speaker 1: around the front like an idiot and come the wrong way.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, hear footsteps. It's Milton. I have
Speaker 1: no idea how he knows. He just clicks the door open.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say anything to me. I can hardly see him.
Speaker 1: And I come on, now, I am so freak. You're
Speaker 1: playing Jack now, Jesus, I was on and I everything
Speaker 1: completely changed in the scene. She now pursued me. I
Speaker 1: kept retreating until I finally hit her. I hit her
Speaker 1: really hard in the face. Uh. And I finally got
Speaker 1: what this scene was about. And that was that was Milton.
Speaker 1: That was both what he had done showing me physically
Speaker 1: what was involved, and then because I used an event
Speaker 1: that was happening to me in real time, and I
Speaker 1: laid the verse on top of that, which of course
Speaker 1: is what the RC when they work with the Sonnets,
Speaker 1: that's what they do. Um. So I learned, and I
Speaker 1: gotta say I just wanted. One of the lessons that
Speaker 1: I learned is something that you said. I remember seeing.
Speaker 1: I think you did a master's class or you did
Speaker 1: some class, and you were describing that when you came
Speaker 1: to a there was a scene in which you had
Speaker 1: to walk down a corridor. The director said, okay, so
Speaker 1: I like, this is what you're gonna do. You're gonna
Speaker 1: walk down this corridor, you're gonna reach you're gonna open
Speaker 1: the door. You're gonna step into the room. You're going
Speaker 1: to see her on the floor bleeding. You're gonna go
Speaker 1: over to her. You're gonna get down, you're gonna pick
Speaker 1: her up. I'm going to follow you with a steadicamp.
Speaker 1: You're gonna hold her in your arms, and then you're
Speaker 1: gonna you weep. And you said no, I'm not because
Speaker 1: I know what's going to happen. I'm gonna go down.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get all cranked up to do this scene.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go down the hall. You're gonna open the door.
Speaker 1: The camera's going to hit the side of the thing.
Speaker 1: You're gonna yell cut. We're gonna do that three and
Speaker 1: four times. By the time by the time I get
Speaker 1: to pick her up, I'll have nothing left. This is
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do. You're gonna take me down the hall.
Speaker 1: You're gonna cut, You're gonna open the door, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna cut. So in other words, being able, that's what
Speaker 1: I can remember that from Heaven's Prisoners when they shot
Speaker 1: my wife Kelly Lynch to pieces and I said, you're
Speaker 1: gonna come in like a medium shot two cameras medium
Speaker 1: and tied of me. When I scooper up and start crying.
Speaker 1: If that's a separation, that's it, because you have to
Speaker 1: protect yourself. And Milton's whole focus was on For those
Speaker 1: who don't know Milton, it's he said, you don't have
Speaker 1: an obligation to the play. You don't have an obligation
Speaker 1: to the play right or the producer or whatever. You
Speaker 1: have only one obligation that's to your own genius and
Speaker 1: whatever that is, it has to be expressed. Nobody gives
Speaker 1: a ship whether you feel whether your interpretation of this
Speaker 1: play is really wonderful and you're trying to get at
Speaker 1: If you're not at home, if you're not engaged, there's
Speaker 1: no performance, there's nobody there. There's nobody to watch. That's
Speaker 1: what I loved about it. Now we've spent the bulk
Speaker 1: of this time talking about your working in the theater
Speaker 1: and studying acting. We have other subject to cover. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to jerk the steering wheel. Now down this
Speaker 1: other road stretch. Cunningham was your breakout role, and you
Speaker 1: were doing film and TV before you did. That was
Speaker 1: the first thing I was. Yeah, I had come. I
Speaker 1: had gone to CBS because a guy had been at
Speaker 1: Middlebury with Michael Severi. His father was Eric, Eric sever
Speaker 1: right and and Eric Michael had been really great with me,
Speaker 1: and he had introduced me to the woman who was
Speaker 1: casting him producer director. No, no, I think he was
Speaker 1: in the news department. I know what he actually what
Speaker 1: he was doing as at CBS. Uh. So my agent
Speaker 1: called me one day and said, get over to to
Speaker 1: uh to uh CBS right away, uh and they got
Speaker 1: the show. Uh. So I went over there. I had
Speaker 1: never seen all in the family, and I read for
Speaker 1: this woman who had interviewed me and found the only
Speaker 1: I had sort of fudged on my resume that I
Speaker 1: had played Claudius at Stratford. I did actually go on
Speaker 1: as Claudius, but I was the understudy. She said, you
Speaker 1: did Claudius at Stratford, and I've probably flushed. And so
Speaker 1: she at four o'clock or five o'clock in the afternoon
Speaker 1: on a Friday, I read for her. She says, fine, wait,
Speaker 1: the director will be down. I read for the director.
Speaker 1: The director said, come on, let's go up and meet Norman.
Speaker 1: And the next day I'm doing Studge cutting him, and
Speaker 1: I don't know what occurred to me. I think I
Speaker 1: had in my head art Carney, Hey, come on, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a off. So I guess I did that day
Speaker 1: and and Norman loved it. And the first show I did,
Speaker 1: Carol had quit and he was holding the show up,
Speaker 1: and so he did eventually come back. He came back
Speaker 1: because Norman said, what am I supposed to say to Gene?
Speaker 1: She's half the show? And so we were actually rehearsing
Speaker 1: the episode where he was found dead in Buffalo. He
Speaker 1: and I had gone to Buffalo on a conference and
Speaker 1: he settled, but I had all the best lines. And
Speaker 1: my first time that I did at the Norman did
Speaker 1: the warm up, you know, you sort of get the
Speaker 1: audience going, and someone in the audience raised their hand
Speaker 1: at the first intermission and said, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: give the tall guy his own series? So on an
Speaker 1: elevator ride down to rehearse that last bit with when
Speaker 1: he finally settled some the producers said, you want to
Speaker 1: do Hotel Baltimore? We got this series, so I now
Speaker 1: I have another series. I have how How They'll Baltimore?
Speaker 1: And I'm originating this part Dorman do that show. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: really wonderful people. You know, we got banned in four
Speaker 1: or five cities because it was about there were there
Speaker 1: were horrors and gay people in it, based on the play,
Speaker 1: based on the plate. Uh. But it was an extraordinary
Speaker 1: Did you love Geane? Oh yeah absolutely, Oh absolutely, what
Speaker 1: a great cast. Wonderful great because people don't realize people
Speaker 1: who even remember Carol O'Connor don't remember movies. I can
Speaker 1: play the villain and point blank he was such a
Speaker 1: polished act, wonderful and he was such a such an
Speaker 1: elegant guy and a very urbane guy and nothing like that.
Speaker 1: I mean in real life, he was nothing like that
Speaker 1: people tell me that he was. It was a part
Speaker 1: of him that he was really sad he'd created that carocter.
Speaker 1: He was. He was bereft because I saw him on
Speaker 1: stage doing something when the audience said we want Archie
Speaker 1: and you could see Chris. I'm stuck. Henry will Winkler
Speaker 1: the same, I mean. And the thing is he saved
Speaker 1: me from that because Norman wanted to keep me on
Speaker 1: a stretch cunning him, but it didn't work out story wise,
Speaker 1: and I would go back after a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I went to Norman and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: really would like to do the show. And he said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: I asked Carol for you to come back, and Carol no,
Speaker 1: he says, no, I don't want him. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there. I'm standing with Sally and Carol is
Speaker 1: walking towards us, and Sally said, Carol, Jamie, Jamie wants
Speaker 1: to come back on the show. And he went like this,
Speaker 1: He's better off where he is, which meant that instead
Speaker 1: of doing stretch cunning him for four or five years,
Speaker 1: which would have finished me as an actor, I got
Speaker 1: just enough and another than another series. So you felt
Speaker 1: he was doing you a face. He wasn't. He knew exactly. Oh,
Speaker 1: if this kid wants a career, the way to do
Speaker 1: that is not get stuck into some character. Don't do
Speaker 1: what I did. Actor and activist James Cromwell. Cromwell is
Speaker 1: now respected as much for his environmental and animal rights
Speaker 1: activism as for his Hollywood career. Similarly, a few people
Speaker 1: have done as much to advocate for a more sustainable,
Speaker 1: plant based food system. Has my guest Michael Pollen. We
Speaker 1: all have power. We get three votes today, you know,
Speaker 1: and people are voting in a different way for a
Speaker 1: different kind of food system. I mean eating is a
Speaker 1: political act. And um, those of us who can afford
Speaker 1: to buy the sustainable chicken and beef or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: not everyone has the same vote. And that's unfortunate. And
Speaker 1: that's why voting with your fork is not We also
Speaker 1: need to vote with our votes, and we need new
Speaker 1: policies without question. More from Michael Pollen now Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing dot Org. After the break, James Cromwell talks about
Speaker 1: his start in the movies and his experience in a
Speaker 1: New York State prison. This is Alec Baldwin. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing. It's James Cromwell is making a
Speaker 1: living on stage and on TV. Now it's time to
Speaker 1: try his hand in Hollywood. The first film I went
Speaker 1: for was murdered by death Neil Simon and and I auditioned,
Speaker 1: did a screen test and got the part. It's Maggie Smith,
Speaker 1: David Niven, Alec Guinness, Elsa Anchester, Nancy Walker, Peter Faulk,
Speaker 1: Peter Sellers. Everybody is in this thing, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're eleven weeks in a studio altogether in every scene,
Speaker 1: so I'm there every day with those people. Who did
Speaker 1: you who were you fond of? Like people in my
Speaker 1: own generation, there's something I like, you know. I worshiped
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis, I worshiped Colin Farrell. It was like
Speaker 1: three or four of them. I really really Gary Oldman.
Speaker 1: I just worshiped them for their talent. So when you're
Speaker 1: doing that film, who would you who did you have
Speaker 1: a really vivid memory of somebody? Well, Alec was very
Speaker 1: dear because Alec and they had a you know, a dad,
Speaker 1: one of those press juncns you know before, and Alex said,
Speaker 1: I'm really delighted to be working with two wonderful young
Speaker 1: American actors, James Crumwell and Richard Narta, who played Peter Sellers.
Speaker 1: He was Charlie chan number one son, and I played
Speaker 1: Hair Cool Paro Jimmy Coco's so right away the press
Speaker 1: wanted to know us, and and so Coco played a
Speaker 1: k Alec was always very very supportive of me. I
Speaker 1: didn't go to the house, but we met in London
Speaker 1: a number of times. I adored him. David Niven my
Speaker 1: father had given him his first job, so David was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I watched Truman Capodi, who who absolutely froze on camera,
Speaker 1: but when he wasn't on camera, when he was sitting around,
Speaker 1: there was a delight he could he could he could
Speaker 1: charm the paint off the wall and get them to talk.
Speaker 1: And I loved him. I was in love with Maggie Smith.
Speaker 1: I couldn't take my eyes off her. Subsequently got to
Speaker 1: know her pretty well. Um, So there was just a
Speaker 1: really great Nancy Walker, very dear friend. Does everything become
Speaker 1: from that point on? Because you talk about you're too
Speaker 1: tall to play to be the leading man and you're
Speaker 1: gonna play the character man? Does everything become character man
Speaker 1: parts in the movies for the years to come? Well,
Speaker 1: there was a there was an event at the end
Speaker 1: of the shooting. Ray wanted to publicize this film. He
Speaker 1: wanted to get some some heat Ray Stark Stark, and
Speaker 1: so he invited all the name people to a party
Speaker 1: at his house, which was Humphrey Bogart's old house off
Speaker 1: of Sunset, and did not invite Richard Narita and James Cromwell.
Speaker 1: So Eileen Brennan said, listen, Jamie, I'm gonna go and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drink, and I don't want to drive home,
Speaker 1: So you drive me and we'll get there and and
Speaker 1: and you'll be fine. You'll be there in the room
Speaker 1: because it's going to be incredible. Everybody in Hollywood is
Speaker 1: going to be there. So I said, fine, we got there.
Speaker 1: We were early. Ray comes down and says, oh, Eilean,
Speaker 1: nice to see you. Kisses your bad and turns to
Speaker 1: me and goes Hi. Rays dark and he says, Ray,
Speaker 1: are you nuts? He's been on the picture eleven weeks.
Speaker 1: Have you nuts? It's James Cromwell. He didn't want me
Speaker 1: in the room. Now we have everybody in the room. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sean Connery and Michael Caine had just done an episode
Speaker 1: of Griffith Show. Yeah yeah, and Sean goes hates like
Speaker 1: he's he's still fulming, and Michael loves it because he
Speaker 1: loves to talk and tell stories. So he had a
Speaker 1: great time. So we all sit around and watch that.
Speaker 1: But then they showed a rough cut of a scene
Speaker 1: from the movie which was not either color corrected, it
Speaker 1: had no track. Uh. And he showed he had Ray
Speaker 1: had a picasso about the side, not as big as Guernica,
Speaker 1: but almost, and it was on wires behind a high boy.
Speaker 1: And when they wanted to show the picture. They dropped
Speaker 1: the Picasso down but below the high boy. He had
Speaker 1: the great one of those great art collections, you know
Speaker 1: they had. They had a more in the in the
Speaker 1: in the pool for the more, they had Jacometti, they
Speaker 1: had art. They had everybody all on every wall and
Speaker 1: they showed the picture and Maggie and Alec were so
Speaker 1: Maggie said, I'm going to the bathroom. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to see this. I don't want to see this. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be here. Alec was livid Peter had
Speaker 1: not come to the event. And so they showed this
Speaker 1: picture and of course everybody laughed at the set up lines,
Speaker 1: not the jokes, because they were laughing because they knew
Speaker 1: they had to laugh. And it killed the picture. Basically,
Speaker 1: they looked at it and those people, you know, Evans
Speaker 1: and other people and said, he hasn't gone anything. That's nothing,
Speaker 1: it's no comedy. It's it's too arched's too sophisticated. Nobody
Speaker 1: will get it. And basically killed this picture. It's become
Speaker 1: a cult classic. But um and then we stayed. We
Speaker 1: stayed so long. Michael Caine Hackman, um, uh crowd, the crowd,
Speaker 1: I lean me uh and Sean Connery stay so late
Speaker 1: that the Stark sent a maid down to tells have
Speaker 1: to leave, and on the way out, Sean says to oh,
Speaker 1: Dustin often was there? Says to Dustin, Oh, you gotta
Speaker 1: see my card? A great car. What's a wonderful card?
Speaker 1: It's a magnificent So I'm thinking in my head, you're
Speaker 1: Jesus kind a ferrarian Ashton Mark. It's wonderful. And we're
Speaker 1: walk outside and on one side of the driveway is
Speaker 1: Dustin's stretch Limo because they don't want him to drive home,
Speaker 1: and on the other side is as an AMC pacer
Speaker 1: remember those, Oh God, And he says, that's it, that's
Speaker 1: my car. And then I watched he did it for
Speaker 1: the same reason I'm watching Dustin Hoppins face. I think,
Speaker 1: do I tell him that pears of shite? What am
Speaker 1: I going to say? That was my only Hollywood party
Speaker 1: and I loved the story. Then it's a change again
Speaker 1: for you to play lead roles the until when I
Speaker 1: think Ray was so piste off that I'd shown up
Speaker 1: at that party and Jimmy Coco and I had got
Speaker 1: gotten stoned and we stayed so late and that I
Speaker 1: couldn't get arrested in for film. I didn't get another TV.
Speaker 1: I did mostly, you know, thanks to Norman Norman shows.
Speaker 1: I did almost all of Norman's shows, and then I
Speaker 1: moved out. You know, I would start to do Bad
Speaker 1: Guys and you know, one off Serian television series. Did
Speaker 1: you have your own series? No? No, I said no, no,
Speaker 1: never never started an US and never got and never touched.
Speaker 1: And my agent then, would you know, send out and
Speaker 1: they'd say, no, no, we know who he is. He's
Speaker 1: a situation comedy actor. She'd said, no, no, he's does Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's done theater for ten And so
Speaker 1: finally they sent me this silly script, you know, about
Speaker 1: a kid's movie called Babe, and uh. And I looked
Speaker 1: at the thing that was about I had about sixteen lines,
Speaker 1: and I was I thought Jesus. And my friend said
Speaker 1: to me, listen, it's a free trip to Australia. If
Speaker 1: the picture goes on the toilet, it's not your picture,
Speaker 1: it's the pigs picture. So so what the difference. So
Speaker 1: I went and I'm gonna run the pick up the
Speaker 1: flag pole, not you. And I said to myself, look
Speaker 1: I don't have any responsibility in this. I'm playing next
Speaker 1: to a pig. All I have to do is show
Speaker 1: up and enjoy this and enjoy these people. I love
Speaker 1: Australia and I love Australians. I just had a ball
Speaker 1: a few run ins with George Miller, who I am
Speaker 1: also very fond of. We're different people, different people question
Speaker 1: the first christ Noon and the first one, which is
Speaker 1: why the first one has as much heart as it does.
Speaker 1: And George is a medical medical doctor, and he has
Speaker 1: a focus. He has a vision, as you can tell
Speaker 1: from the things that he does, and you can see
Speaker 1: what's inherent in that vision, that amount of edgy violence. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the outsider. Uh. I think the world
Speaker 1: is a tough place. The world is a really really
Speaker 1: tough in a tough tough place. As opposed to to
Speaker 1: Noonan's which is no, no, we all should embrace. We
Speaker 1: have to embrace, we have to include people. We must.
Speaker 1: That's right, fun, wonderful. So um, last scene I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to at this contest, I'm supposed to, you know, say
Speaker 1: a way to me, Pagan. The pig goes and gets
Speaker 1: all the sheep and they go through this entire course,
Speaker 1: with no, no, nothing from me, and they go right
Speaker 1: I opened the gate. This only sound you hear the
Speaker 1: creaking of the gate. The sheep go right past me.
Speaker 1: I moved the gate like this. There's a click as
Speaker 1: the latch falls. The pig was first take magnificent and
Speaker 1: the animals to do it. That was sheep is almost
Speaker 1: impossible to get them to walk in un which they did.
Speaker 1: The next shot was I had to turn to the
Speaker 1: pig and say, that'll do, Pig, that'll do. I said
Speaker 1: to Chris, where do you want me to take it?
Speaker 1: He said, let me take it right into the lens
Speaker 1: and I said, okay. I had you know, all the
Speaker 1: time that I had been doing the show, I had
Speaker 1: never really actually looked at the makeup. So I do
Speaker 1: the thing and I turned to the camera and I
Speaker 1: look and it's not me, it's my father, and I say,
Speaker 1: that'll do, Pig, that'll do. But what I heard in
Speaker 1: my head was that'll do, Jamie, that'll do. And it
Speaker 1: was a gift from my father to me. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he was there. Isn't it amazing how you do a
Speaker 1: movie and you make you know, countless TV shows and
Speaker 1: you do you you have the supporting parts in these
Speaker 1: character parts and countless films and TV shows, and then
Speaker 1: you made that movie. How old were you? They shot
Speaker 1: you knocking around Holly for thirty years and you basically
Speaker 1: grew up there and part of your life. And this
Speaker 1: is the movie that just blows up. It blows up.
Speaker 1: This is the movie when everybody sees you like that'll do.
Speaker 1: Pig and my family we went around for all these years.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe recently we stopped with my daughters older,
Speaker 1: but might we might might might be ordering lunch with
Speaker 1: my daughter said I'm gonna have uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: salad with chickpeas and this, and I say anything else,
Speaker 1: and she'd say, well, maybe I'll have a nice tea,
Speaker 1: anything else else. Like the dog says the pit bull,
Speaker 1: the evil pit bull, the tough pit bull. I mean
Speaker 1: that sequence with the pig almost drowned in the moment.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. We watched that movie a hundred times.
Speaker 1: I've seen that movie a hundred I'm not exaggerating you.
Speaker 1: You know you said that the one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I think I have the career, besides what Carol's
Speaker 1: contribution was, was that the next film I did was
Speaker 1: l a confidential, which was Curtis Hanson knew what he
Speaker 1: was doing because he didn't want the audience. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to tip the gag the turn at the end
Speaker 1: when I killed Kevin and uh And I remember doing
Speaker 1: that picture and I had no idea what how good
Speaker 1: it was because I had a lot of problems with
Speaker 1: Curtis Bliss his heart. We had a lot of fights,
Speaker 1: and I fight with directors. Um And when you say fight,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I appreciate what you're saying because
Speaker 1: I've had two experiences in my life. I didn't even
Speaker 1: speak to the director during the making of the film.
Speaker 1: I mean with the conversation was to a minimum. You know,
Speaker 1: they come up to me, and you know, I would
Speaker 1: just stare at the ground and never make eye contact
Speaker 1: with them. And I thought, you know, I thought they're
Speaker 1: gonna hurt me because they want me to be their
Speaker 1: unconscious mind. They don't know what they want they know,
Speaker 1: So if they tell me that there's something they want
Speaker 1: me to do that I don't agree with them, I'm out.
Speaker 1: Or if they don't know what they want me to do,
Speaker 1: I'm out because I'm like, I can't, you know, makeup.
Speaker 1: So when you're with Hanson, what do you uh debate
Speaker 1: with him? Well, Curtis really knew what he wanted, but
Speaker 1: he was basically an editor. He didn't he didn't know
Speaker 1: how to talk to actors, and he didn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: what our methodology was. And so I came into the
Speaker 1: rehearsals with a lot of ideas things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, and basically got no and no explanation. You know,
Speaker 1: can I do this? And I this is a makeup?
Speaker 1: Can I have a cat? And then no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I got so bad. I went to Milton, don't sit
Speaker 1: take him on to lunch, you know, and tell him
Speaker 1: what your problem is. I didn't wind up doing that,
Speaker 1: and I remember that I know I've been nominated for Babe.
Speaker 1: And then and Kevin had one. So we shot up.
Speaker 1: We we the rehearsal came. I would see Russell leave
Speaker 1: the rehearsal like steam coming out of his ears, which
Speaker 1: is normal. And then and then Kevin showed up and
Speaker 1: he had a new Mercedes and he had a little
Speaker 1: cell phone, the first cell phone, and an assistant because
Speaker 1: he won the Academy Awards. And so we're sitting there
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm so frustrated because everything I have suggested
Speaker 1: has been no, and he's Kevin stops and says, the
Speaker 1: line was rollo to Massi and that's all his line was,
Speaker 1: and it had been changed to rollo Tamasi. He knows,
Speaker 1: and you're left fucked. And he said, Curtis, listen, the
Speaker 1: line is much better if it's just Rollo to Massi.
Speaker 1: He knows, and your fun is. I've heard that line
Speaker 1: a hundred times and anyway, the audience's way and I thought,
Speaker 1: oh boy, now now we're going to see. Now the
Speaker 1: Academy Award winner is now confronting him. Maybe he'll have
Speaker 1: more weight instead of a nominee. Curtis got up out
Speaker 1: of his seat, walked around the table, stood behind Kevin
Speaker 1: so Kevin could not see him, and said, Kevin, I
Speaker 1: want to say the line the way was written. Kevin said, listen,
Speaker 1: that's your picture. I'm just telling you from my point
Speaker 1: of view, it's much better than way. So we got
Speaker 1: to the table read just before we shot, and the
Speaker 1: line was still roll out Tomasa. He knows. In your
Speaker 1: fun I said to him, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: He said, I'm not going to say it. He said,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for fifty years. No one's ever
Speaker 1: said no. You don't say no. You say we'll do
Speaker 1: it both ways. Do it your way, We'll do it
Speaker 1: my way. In edit, let me choose so we can
Speaker 1: finally get to the scene. In the meantime, during the
Speaker 1: whole picture I have asked for and all it's been
Speaker 1: is no everything, no explanation. Finally he my best scene
Speaker 1: with Russell. I had a wonderful speech. He came to
Speaker 1: me in the middle speech and the middle of the shooting,
Speaker 1: said Jamie, I want to cut that speech, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I can't get out of this. So I said, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Curtis. I don't think I can do it
Speaker 1: without I need that transition in order to get and
Speaker 1: he remember him looking at me like, you idiot, I
Speaker 1: can cut it out and post your jerk. You want
Speaker 1: to take time now to do a piece, I'm going
Speaker 1: to cut out. So so at the you know, I
Speaker 1: have the gun. I turned around to Kevin. I shoot him.
Speaker 1: I say, have you a benediction boil and he goes
Speaker 1: rollo Tomassi and dies. I think what's gonna happen? Sure enough,
Speaker 1: Curtis comes down the hall says Kevin, I want you
Speaker 1: to see the line the way it was written. Kevin
Speaker 1: goes m. So I turned around, shoot him again, have
Speaker 1: you been addiction? Boil? Rollo Tomassi? And he dies. He
Speaker 1: was going to die every time. Now Curtis realized that
Speaker 1: too and and instantly said, Okay, it's fine. I got it.
Speaker 1: I don't need that. I don't need the line. So
Speaker 1: I think, oh, now I know what to do. He persists.
Speaker 1: So I get to the last scene where I shoot
Speaker 1: Guy Pierce and Guy says Rolo Tomassi, and my line
Speaker 1: is who is he? But I know that my character
Speaker 1: has already done a complete search in Los Angeles there
Speaker 1: is no such guy. So I've changed it to what
Speaker 1: about him? Guy pierces, Oh, that's great, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: say that. I said, yeah, I'm gonna say it. So
Speaker 1: I say it and rehearse. Dante Spinette is setting up
Speaker 1: the lighting the scene and I'm standing outside by the
Speaker 1: car and Curtis comes up to me and says, Jamie,
Speaker 1: I want to say the line the way it was written,
Speaker 1: but instead of doing Kevin, I said you, I scream.
Speaker 1: I'm screaming, I'm kicking dirt at him. I punched the
Speaker 1: car and he just stands there like, if you quit,
Speaker 1: you ask whole, you will never work in this town again.
Speaker 1: We will suondicated like actress. No, he knew something that
Speaker 1: I didn't know, which was he knew at that point
Speaker 1: that the audience was already passed it, that it really
Speaker 1: didn't matter what the line was. When I so first
Speaker 1: saw it the first time, the audience as a whole
Speaker 1: had an intake of breath when I shot him, like
Speaker 1: the guy from Babe shot him. So the director, he
Speaker 1: had a vision, he knew what he wanted. He was
Speaker 1: right about the gag. He was right and saying no
Speaker 1: to me all through the picture. So it worked. Now
Speaker 1: I want to get to this last such because we're
Speaker 1: running of time here, which is you've been active in
Speaker 1: a lot of environmental causes and animal rights causes. You
Speaker 1: work with Peter. I've worked with Peter. When did all
Speaker 1: that begin for you? Um got back from Babe first thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Peter calls up and says, listen, would you do
Speaker 1: the narration on this thing about four h pigs in
Speaker 1: the Midwest and what happens to them over the summer
Speaker 1: when the kids are not watching? I said, yes, I
Speaker 1: didn't know the organization at all and did that, and
Speaker 1: then they start to ask for more. You know, would
Speaker 1: you do a slaughter house? One? And England and Dan
Speaker 1: Matthews got you the best, the best, adore I adore them.
Speaker 1: I adore the organization. I think it's the best. Um.
Speaker 1: So I got involved in that and then um mostly
Speaker 1: animal rights work, and then came east and got involved
Speaker 1: in this, you know, energy work. I've been working on that.
Speaker 1: Now we're trying to stop this pipe pine. We got
Speaker 1: arrested and we you know, we went to four basically
Speaker 1: not paying the fine for blocking traffic. We refused to
Speaker 1: play the fine and do community service. I said, no, stupid,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to justify your crappy opinion. How long?
Speaker 1: Only four days? Only four days was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a week. The reason it's only four days was they
Speaker 1: you know, you're three days in quarantine because you get
Speaker 1: a test for drug resistance suberculosis, and once you pass
Speaker 1: that test, then you're going to the general population. But
Speaker 1: the organizing factor in these prisons is rape. So the
Speaker 1: first thing they say to you when you get in
Speaker 1: there and you're doing your your you're asked questions by
Speaker 1: a guy who's sitting up there, and he said, are
Speaker 1: you afraid of being raped while you're being here? And
Speaker 1: I said, I joked, I said, not unless they're a
Speaker 1: lot hornier than I think they are. He didn't laugh.
Speaker 1: Then he said, are you afraid that you will rape someone? No,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think. Wait minute, he's talking to a
Speaker 1: seventies seven year old man. Then I got in there
Speaker 1: and I unders began to understand what that is. If
Speaker 1: you do not want to be raped, you have to
Speaker 1: rape in order to establish your bona fides with the
Speaker 1: rest of the inmate population. It's through violence. You can't
Speaker 1: beat somebody up because you get extra time. But raping
Speaker 1: happens so quick in the bathroom wherever. Then it happens
Speaker 1: all the time. Oh oh, it's indemn every day, every day.
Speaker 1: And it's not only it's not only the cons that
Speaker 1: do it, it's the guards that do it. They do
Speaker 1: it too. They rape the inmates, both male and female.
Speaker 1: So I saw this. I saw this, this continuation of
Speaker 1: the violence that mostly people of color experience experience on
Speaker 1: in their communities. And it is completely and utterly unjust, undemocratic, unethical,
Speaker 1: it's poison It poisons, the community deprives us of the
Speaker 1: count Absolutely well, you are, you know, among the most
Speaker 1: admired actors and activists at the same time, and the
Speaker 1: business people just are. So your dad was this prominent
Speaker 1: film and director, or your mom and actress, and you
Speaker 1: go through the TV and then you have a family,
Speaker 1: then you do babe, and you get nominated for an
Speaker 1: Academy Award, and it all leads to you going to prison,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get you right there before they knock
Speaker 1: your teeth out and rape you. That'll do, Jamie, Sorry,
Speaker 1: that'll do. James Cromwell's remarkable life in Hollywood and in
Speaker 1: the streets. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing.