WEBVTT - Dustin Hoffman and Edie Falco 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.320 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:08.920 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:13.319 hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:19.319 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. This hour, we'll 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.200 talk with two actors, one with a legendary film career, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:29.840 the other who helped redefine television. Earlier this year, I 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.879 spoke with actor and director Dustin Hoffman as part of 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.159 the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival in Hollywood. At the festival, 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.840 we screen some of the greatest films of all time 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.559 and then discussed them in front of an audience. We 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.240 decided to show this movie about Lenny Bruce at eleven 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.479 thirty in the morning. We're gonna show TUTSI at midnight. 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:51.040 We thought we mix it up a bit here at 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:56.240 the Customer. In two thousand fifteen, we selected Lenny, four, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.000 film in which Hoffman portrays the groundbreaking but troubled commute 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.760 and social critic Lenny Bruce, who had died just eight 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:09.560 years prior of a drug overdose while battling ongoing obscenity charges. Lenny, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.679 shot in black and white by director Bob Fossey was 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:17.560 nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Fossey, 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.560 Best Actress for Valerie Paine, and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:28.520 We're all the same, schluck, and it just cracks me 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.240 up that we try so desperately to be unique when 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.920 we're all the same. Canies and Howard Kennedy Johnson me. 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.440 When you make films like this, I mean you've worked. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.520 You've made so many great films and work with so 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.520 many great directors. Was Fossey some of them without a goal? 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:51.320 For you too? To work with Fossey? No, how was 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:56.200 it to work with Fossey? Tough? Tough? Uh? Bob was 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:02.120 originally a choreographer, and choreographer don't have dancers coming up 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:07.640 to them saying, what's my motivation? They dances, do what 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.280 they're told, you know. He tried to be in a 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.440 sense to collaborate, but it was tough for him and 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:16.520 it was tough for me. We had a tough time. 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:19.520 Did he like to do a lot of takes? Yes, 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:23.000 both of us did. The script. I thought it was problematic, 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.320 so I wasn't that anxious to do it. We went 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.480 into rehearsal with the principal actors with the wonderful Valerie 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:43.040 Paene extraordinary performance and with Valerie myself and you know, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.720 Jan Minor and I think Stanley Beck were in New 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.480 York in the room and it's going rough the rehearsal, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.320 and after five days we started Monday. After five days, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:59.160 we're rehearsing routines, rehearsing scenes. And on Friday, Bob Fosse says, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.600 we don't have a movie. We don't have a script. 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:08.080 See on Monday, rehearse two weeks or three weeks, and 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.760 we thought it was gonna be shelved. When Hallman came 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:15.000 back Monday and he says, I solved it, and he 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.840 interspersed it. He says, I'm going to intersperse it with 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.560 interviews because he scenes there's no connective tissue to them. 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.120 They don't connect. So Stanley Beck, who was wonderful and 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:31.960 at my manager, Valerie Pete, thank you. Uh uh. Stanley 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.360 and I were close friends since we were beginning actors. Uh. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:39.520 And Valerie Preen and Jan Minor are going I think 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.120 that's all it is, isn't. Those three are going to 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.520 be interviewed throughout the movie, and He'll and I'll have 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.200 an easier time of shooting it. And when when you 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.400 make a film like this or any of the films 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:52.760 you've made, I should say, do you have any kind 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:57.400 of unique relationship or a specific relationship with the cinematographer? 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.600 Surtise This film was not manated for six Academy Awards 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.720 and in every one of the major categories you would 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:08.080 imagine Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.720 and cinematography for Surtees, who made his reputation shooting a 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.480 lot of Clint Eastwoods films for many, many years. Bob 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.159 Surtees was one of the great cinematographers Robert Surtees, he 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:24.279 was the cinematographer the graduate Bruce is a son. No, 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.040 we were going with the father and son tense when 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.800 you should have filmed. Do you have a specific relationship 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.839 with cinematographers when you make a film? Or no, No, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.800 I don't uh. I don't want to know uh where 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.200 the cameras In terms of uh, I do ask about 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.599 lenses sometimes if I want my hands to do something, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.080 and I say, where are you cutting? Where's your bottom frame? 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:50.839 Because if if it's here, also I'd have to have 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:52.679 my hands up here to have it in the shot. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.320 Other than that, I don't really want to know. It's 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.440 interesting that you say that, Alec, because one of the 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.240 things I objected to with with Bob is that he 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.760 posed me, and when you see it, it's gorgeous. So 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.000 he was right. It was wrong. But you know, i'd 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.000 be up there, and I worked so hard on these routines. Uh, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.680 I had never seen Lennie Bruce. Bob had never seen 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.680 Lennie Bruce. Mike Nichols, who I talked to before I 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.480 did it, because we'd done the graduate. He and Elaine 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:27.680 May were acting upstairs on Sunset Boulevard was it called 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:32.040 a duplex or something nightclub, and Lenny Bruce was downstairs 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.960 and in between their acts they would come downstairs and 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.320 watch Bruce. Because no comedian, they said, would do a 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.000 whole show improvising. You know, sometimes you do two minutes, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.800 three minutes and the rest is yours is your stuff. 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.080 But Lenny would come out and not know what he 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:53.440 was going to say. I think the only two comedians 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:58.000 I know since Lenny that that do that one was 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:09.320 Robbed Mumbles, Robin Williams, and the other one was a 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.240 wonderful Billy Connolly, and neither of them many times would 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.359 just they would just go uh and that that takes 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:24.280 a lot. What was the question? Um the sorry, we're 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:30.080 talking about cinematographers and oh yeah, me and I worked hard. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.880 I got the thirty three rpm s that Lenny had 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:34.520 made us what we called him that we didn't call 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.480 him finals and U I'd lay down on the floor 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.279 and I would play. I had three months. I had 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.400 about three months and I did every you know, I 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:50.000 wrote down longhand every single line he said in all 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.520 the records, and he even the ones he did over, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.039 he would always deviate and I would write them down. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:58.239 And then I would go to Bob Fossie and I'd say, geez, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.839 I like what he did here because he used these sentences, 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:05.599 are used that And I was promised, and I think 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.920 that's what I got so upset about that I would 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.560 be able to shoot it. We were going to shoot it, 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.120 and I think that's what Bob wanted. We were going 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.000 to shoot it in different clubs in Florida and with 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.000 live audiences, and that's what I wanted. I want to 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.200 be able to really feel like I'm doing it with 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.840 the real audience. And He'll have whatever three or four 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.840 cameras at once. He agreed, and that's what we were 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.760 supposed to do. And then it's probably money wouldn't allow it. 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:34.440 So it was quite laborious sometimes to do these routines 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.080 over and over again. And he would tell the camera. 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.960 He would he'd be like, where you are and I'd 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:41.920 be on the stage. He'd said, okay, now look a 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.840 little bit this way, and I'll look up, now look down. Okay, 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.040 now do the routine from here to here. And you know, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.200 it kind of broke my heart because I was trying 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:55.120 to be the guy. You know. The Foster was a great, 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.920 great artist, and uh, it's funny because I just saw 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:05.600 a him recently with that Alfred Hitchcock directed with Carrie Grant, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.240 and uh carry Grant said he had never worked with 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.200 Hitchcock again after the first picture because they didn't get 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.400 along because Hitchcock didn't like to collaborate. But then they 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.280 made up and they made more movies. And that Lenny 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.400 Bruce was not someone you had been a fan of 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.960 or had a big awareness of before them where you 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:28.040 had no no, I just I was in New York. 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.960 I just never saw him. We couldn't have, uh, you know. 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.280 I mean before I was successful, we couldn't afford to 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:43.160 go to nightclubs, you know they it was expensive. And uh, 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.280 I love the jazz is what's so extorting? It was 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:51.920 next to jazz never dates. Jazz is the same now 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.280 as it was that. It's god, dude, the score. Oh 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.240 and uh and I had time no I and I 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.160 had never seen him. I had never seen I don't 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:06.040 think any comedian. I didn't go to nightclubs much. And 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.760 I went out to l A because they said. Someone 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:10.920 said to me, if you want to know Lenny Bruce, uh, 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:14.960 you gotta go see Sally mar his mother who was alive. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.679 And I went. She was very friendly. Uh. She introduced 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:21.880 me to one of his best friends who used to 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.679 shoot up with and he in turn introduced me to 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.439 friends with Lenny. And I had a tape recorder, you know, 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.040 like a wallet, not a walan is like a pearl 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.679 tape recorder. And I taped everything. And she says, you 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.319 want to go to Vegas because they're all there, all 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.680 his friend Buddy hack It other people. And I said, 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.840 oh my god, yes, And I was taking all these notes. 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.280 It was the best time of research I've ever had. 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:52.000 They all said the same thing. Uh, except Buddy Hacket. Um. Uh. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.160 They said, you know, you know Broadway, Danny Rose, I 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.959 think Willia Allen did you. And they used to get 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.880 together to commit Indians, Lenny and these guys when they 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.040 were you know certainly what it was, I don't know, 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:09.240 cantors or and they said they'd sit around, do what 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.520 they did and bro down, you know, tell jokes, and 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.640 I studly look around. And he was always very quiet. 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.160 And suddenly he's gone because he wasn't shy guy. And 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.000 he's gone, and they look around. I don't know where 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.680 he is. And then they find him in the kitchen 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.760 talking to the people that work in the kitchen to help. 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.439 He loved to just talk to the people and and 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.240 ask questions and find out stuff. I think he originally 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.200 this is the stuff I had heard. Uh. They kind 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.120 of say it in the movie. The musicians were more 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.079 important to him than the audience, because when you do 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.319 show after show after show, he if you noticed the musicians, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:53.200 they're always sitting like that, you know, because they rash 0:10:55.240 --> 0:11:00.440 of a fon Monroe and uh and Lenny. Uh. Then 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.520 he felt that if he could crack up the musicians, 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.120 then he was getting somewhere. I think he wanted to 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.360 be in Hollywood. We wanted to be an actor. Also, 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.679 I had heard you shot this movie where we shot 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.680 a lot of it in Florida. The nightclubs, the stage work. Yeah, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.679 one nightclub. Basically, I think the scene and when we 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:20.679 were sitting next to each other, the scene up there 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:26.840 where I'm in my raincoat. And yes, when I came 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.440 back after my three months, I had all this stuff 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.560 to give Bob. You gotta put this in, You gotta 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.160 put that in. You gotta put that. And the one 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.760 thing that he kept was that scene. And the reason 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.080 he did is when I was memorizing it wasn't then. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.800 You know, this is before the kind of media. You know, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.040 you had cell phones and all the texting. Some guy 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.480 heard I was doing the movie and he had been 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:57.319 a student somewhere in Chicago, and he sent me found 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:01.360 out my business address in New York, and he sent 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.880 me a cassette and I played it word for word. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:11.520 It's that scene. And I got piste off at Bob 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.520 because when he shot the master from upstairs, right in 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.880 the back, and when I saw it, I said, he 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.360 didn't cut in. You didn't cut in and he says, no, 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.679 So that's eight minutes, you know, being up there just 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.679 in one shot, one shot and again he was he 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:34.000 was right. Uh, it's nice of you to admit that. Actually, 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.160 it's very generous. I've met a lot of stuff forty 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:42.880 years later. But but do you think do you think 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:44.959 in your I mean, obviously you're someone who when you 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.000 I mean, I don't believe anything I read. But I mean, 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:54.880 but but people really I try to minimize that in 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.559 my life and time. But but the but, but for you, 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:02.240 obviously you know very fastidious and very very lots of 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.280 questions and lots of seeking and so forth in the 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.719 work you were doing. And what do you think that 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.760 comes from? In terms of all the films you've made 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.440 from Graduate on into Cowboy and everything like that, where 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:21.200 you just seem so what's the word? I mean, you're 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:30.280 so Jewish? Is that it? I'll convert If that's the thing. 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.080 Is that simple, I'm gonna convert tomorrow. That's what's gonna 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:36.760 get me into your statusy it? But the but, but 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:38.400 but the thing is you you just seem like you 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.640 always have something to prove a lot of people got 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.640 where you got and they did what you did, and 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.480 you scored with these performances and the originality. But then 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.520 you keep going and you still feel like you have 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:51.199 Did you feel that way? You still have something to 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.719 prove again and again and again. What drove you? I 0:13:55.800 --> 0:14:00.000 guess the same thing that still drives me. Kobe Bryant 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.600 was interviewed recently. It was before he, you know, had 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:06.880 a step out for the season, because he heard himself. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.559 I saw the interview and I wrote it down. I 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:15.319 told my son Jake was basketball, same question. You know, 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.400 all these years of great basketball playing and he still 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:25.200 spend so much time practicing and playing whatever. Why And 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.320 he said, I guess for the challenge of every day. 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:40.400 It's beautiful, sons. I have only one slight personal connection 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.000 to Lenny Bruce and that and that was that Marvin 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.720 Worth was a dear friend. He died. Producer. He produced 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.560 this some he produced to Malcolm X with Spike. He 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.000 produced a lot good and he was Bruce's manager. Marvin 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.080 Worthy was from Brooklyn and his wife Joe, and they 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:57.000 were from Brooklyn. And he had the more the heaviest 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.160 New York accents I've never heard in my life. His 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:01.560 voice was down. We got a very heavy accent like this. 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.400 And he said to me, I'm gonna revive Letty on Broadway, 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.200 and I want you to do play Letty. I go, 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.640 what and he said, uh, he goes. I got a 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:14.320 thousand hours of tapes of Lenny. I got thought, Julian Barry, 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.640 We've got so much material and Lannis. He said, there's 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:18.080 so much stuff we can put in there. I don't 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:19.600 worry about that. It's all gonna work like a child. 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.800 And I go and he goes in the Dusty equals 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:24.840 to Dusty. Dusty's not the only one who could play 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.560 that part. By the way, you got the only person 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.480 who coul played up on him. I got huh, Sara. 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:31.920 And he goes and he goes, He goes, and I go, 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.520 but what about the other thing? He goes, one other thing? Yeah, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:36.320 what about the other thing? Was one other thing? One 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.320 other thing? One of the thing. I go, I'm not Jewish. 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:45.960 He said, you're from Long Island, right, I said, yeah. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:47.360 He goes, You're You're half way there. The rest of 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:52.000 them take care of its something like that. And he 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:57.040 would have been wonderful. But when you did this film, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.840 how involved in your films? Warn you before then? Later 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.600 in the casting. Oh, I have to tell your gun 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:11.400 glad you're asked me. Another example of Fosse's genius, uh, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:17.480 is that I met Honey Bruce. Uh and uh uh 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:25.920 which came first? I met? He cast Valerie Pain before 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.880 he met Honey Bruce, and then he met her, and 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.120 then I met her. We you know, not together. And 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.080 I couldn't believe Honey Bruce that Valerie was the reincarnation 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.600 of Honey Bruce. Literally, I mean it could have been 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.360 like mother and daughter. I was and I said, Bob, 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:49.320 you had to have met the Honey Bruce before you 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.640 cast Valeries as No, it was just this intuition. I 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.560 had nothing to do with any of the casting except 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.680 except Stanley. He was not enough to have Stanley in 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.760 it for my manager and all my films. Uh. Yeah, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.600 I mean the graduate. They've been trying for two years 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.159 to cast it, and Katherine Ross and myself were the 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.240 last two two screen test after two years. And I 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:21.960 heard that they were sitting in the screen room not 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.400 particularly excited about our screen test, and I said, well, 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.159 either we go with them or we don't do it. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.440 And it was that kind of a that they said 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.000 that in interviews. I think Larry Terman said that the 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:43.080 producer and uh Midnight Cowboy. Uh he uh he cast Uh, 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.000 he didn't cast John Voyd. He cast some someone else 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.560 and they wouldn't let him out of his contract. And 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:57.639 after that happened, I said, please see my friend John Voyd. 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.560 We weren't close friends that we've been off for all 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.920 and he says no. John Sessinger said he read for 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.440 it and he doesn't have that Texas accent. He was 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.560 from Yonkers. I said, yeah, but he's an actor. He 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.280 can get it, you know. And John immediately went down 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.800 to Texas forgot where with the tape recorder and spent 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:19.159 whatever time and came back and and read for it 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.280 and he got the part. But he was the second choice. 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.919 Kate Jackson was the first choice for Cramer versus Kramer. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.600 She was in Charlie's Angels and they were saying, oh, 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.560 the film will pay back itself before we started shooting 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.879 because they were so popular. And then the studio wouldn't 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.879 let her out. So I kept telling them about this 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:45.199 Meryl Streep. I had heard about it, uh, and they 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.600 saw and they saw her. So there's been a few 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:53.720 I've suggested, I've I've never demanded or you know, I don't. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.199 I don't think that works actually unless you're directing or producing. Well, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.040 some people there, some people to have these approvals of 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.240 casting and they and they utilize that in whatever way. 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.560 And those are the people who they just don't get involved. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.000 They just like they just let it that all take 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.560 care of itself, and that it doesn't really change what 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.880 they do. You know, de Valent Hackman and I knew 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.760 each other from the early days. They're much older and 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:21.199 and uh, we never worked together. And suddenly I'm doing 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:23.399 this thing a few years ago. We're shooting in New 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.439 Orleans a runaway jury and I have a I think 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.040 a supporting part, and Gene Hackman has a leading part. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.400 And the director finds out that we knew each other. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.760 We went to the past seeing the playhouse together to 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.680 kicked out after three months they're not having any talent 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.160 and uh, oh my god, you guys know each other 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.440 for all those time, dirty years. Yeah, we gotta do 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.919 a scene. So they wrote a scene. It's it's one 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:51.720 of the last scenes in the movie. Takes place in 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.200 a public bathroom. It's like an eight page dialogue scene. 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.080 And afterwards it was lasting they shot in the movie 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.919 it's over and Jean and I said, let's go out 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.520 and get drunk. And we go to an Italian restaurant 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.200 in New Orleans and we're getting drunk, and Hackman says, 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.040 were you scared? I said, I was so scared. Man, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:13.720 I thought, I'm gonna I'm gonna forget my lines. He 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.359 said he felt exactly the same way. You know, because 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.480 you are what you are at the beginning, you don't 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.080 really change. We were unemployee actors for ten years, and 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.920 he said to me, and one of the great things 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.480 ever said, we were this close to each other. He says, 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.840 do you feel the same way I do after you 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.520 finish a movie? And he probably made a hundred twenty movies. 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.640 I said, what do you feel like You'll never work again? 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:47.720 Of course, every single time. But that's it. My conversation 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.800 with Dustin Hoffman continues after the break. You can hear 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.000 from other actors in the Here's the thing, archives like 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.320 Julianne Moore, who shares her special technique for getting ready 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.960 to play a scene. I'm very chatty. I'd like to 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.119 talk all the way up to action. I do, I do, 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:07.680 And if you can't talk to me. I'm really disappointed. 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:09.600 Then I get lonely, and I want to be lonely 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.159 when I'm working. I want to be with my buddy. 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.200 I'm going to talk to me. You talk to me, friend, 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:14.440 Let's be buddies. Talk to you. What did you do 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:15.919 this morning? What do you have for dinner last night? 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:17.760 What are you doing later today? Are you cold? Do 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:19.560 you like that sweater? Did you like my sweater? What 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:21.960 are you doing? Action acting? I love it. That's my 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.719 favorite parts. You get this great connection with other human being, 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.320 and then the scene is like, comes alive. Take a 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:40.840 listen and here's the thing. Dot Org, this is Alec 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.800 Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Dustin Hoffman 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.040 has been nominated for the OSCAR for Best Actor seven times. 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:52.800 He's won the award twice. Actors strive for depth and 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:57.520 range in their work. Dustin Hoffman makes this appear effortless. 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.359 There's obviously roles you played like Crame versus Cramer and 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.880 all the President's men, and you seem it's I don't 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.440 know what word to use. It seems closer to who 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.240 you are, your voice and your appearance, and you're the 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.280 psychologic stuff that you're paying playing a contemporary character. You're 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.320 not playing somebody with some disability or what have you. 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.080 It's not rain man or someone who's damaged and broken 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.240 like Cowboy and so forth like that. But you've done both. 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.840 There's a there's a theatricality of the roles and a 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:27.000 vividness to them, and you're not afraid to do that. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.520 Where does that come from? From being in the theater? Yeah? 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:34.840 I mean I where are you from? I told you 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:44.959 from long for a long island. So how first of all, 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.600 I wish we lived in the same city. How old 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:53.040 were you when you started studying act? And when they 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:56.000 sent you out? They sent you out for certain kinds 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:00.080 of parts, young leading man, the young guys who I 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:05.399 had a lot or whatever. I'm the short Jew and 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:08.280 uh still with some acne, and I come to New 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:12.760 York to study and they always said leading men, young 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:18.320 leading men, juvenile's character juveniles. That's what I was designed as. 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:23.240 I couldn't get an agent. And that's just code for Semitic, 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:27.800 you know, because in those days, the leading man was 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:33.919 white Anglo Saxon Protestant, and the ethnic person was character 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.520 juvenile or character Janews. It really was that way anyway. 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:40.840 So I went out a few times. I could, you know, 0:23:41.119 --> 0:23:44.600 go to open auditions, because if you're not equity then 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.520 you can't go to a regular audition, and you can't 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.359 go to a regular audition until you get your equity card, 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:52.560 and you can't get an equity card until you get 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:55.560 a job, so you know, catch twenty two. So the 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:58.160 few times that I could go, it was the character 0:23:59.040 --> 0:24:06.440 juvenile and by Hooker Crook. Uh Nichols casts Katherine Ross 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.679 and I in a graduate and I'd been just starting 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.480 to get somewhere off Broadway doing you know, my own 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:18.879 style of stuff. Hunchbacked German gay guy with a limp. 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:23.920 You know, the first thing that I got mentioned for 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:28.560 in the in the New York Times, and uh Nichols 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.200 had heard about it, and uh and I got to 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:36.840 you're not kidding. You played a hunchback German homosexual with 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:40.680 a limb. Ronald Ribbon. What was the production Harry Noon 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.119 and Night. And the other actor was what was his 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:51.280 Joel Joel Gray? Sorry Joel? Uh, yes, that was accurate. 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:54.960 So uh he brings me out to test me, and 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:57.520 I didn't want to test. I was doing for the 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:00.240 first time in my life doing well off Broadway. I 0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:02.920 won an award and I thought, oh, I'll have a career. 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.560 You know, I'll do off Broadway. And you know this 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:10.639 as well as I do. Uh. You know, if God 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:15.040 has said, look alec uh, you'll never be in a movie, 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:18.000 you'll never get leading roles. If you're struggling for years, 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:20.359 you won't even be on Broadway. I will guarantee you 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:23.640 a good part off Broadway for the rest of your life. 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:29.280 You'd sign, you would, you know? Uh? And so would 0:25:29.280 --> 0:25:32.720 a hackman who moved furniture and down, you know, six 0:25:32.840 --> 0:25:34.960 flights and do val who worked midnight to eight in 0:25:35.000 --> 0:25:37.440 the post office. And I was doing waiter jobs and 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:41.639 a little acting teaching if I could. And it's you know, 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:45.000 it's never changed as actors. Here you know the pain 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:49.240 of that. Um and uh. Here he is now taking 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:52.080 me out into l A and testing and can we 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:56.000 do anything about his nose? I remember, And I mean, 0:25:56.280 --> 0:25:59.119 well the guy is he said, you don't and he 0:25:59.160 --> 0:26:01.440 couldn't believe it. I mean, he's the hottest director from 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:07.239 Neil Simon Broadway and also Virginia Wolf. He did. Uh, 0:26:07.880 --> 0:26:10.600 there was no hotter director at that moment. In time 0:26:11.359 --> 0:26:14.520 he was Spielberg and he said, what do you mean 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:16.000 you don't want to do this part? I said, I 0:26:16.160 --> 0:26:19.080 read the book of Mr Nichols. Was on the phone. He'said, 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:22.040 Alam in New York doing a play. I said, Benjamin 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:25.359 Braddock in the book. He's five ft eleven, blonde hair. 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:27.960 I says, it's Redford. I said, you don't want me 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:32.200 and he said no. He says, I I would like 0:26:32.280 --> 0:26:34.479 to test you. He said, you mean he's not Jewish. 0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:38.680 I said, right, it's Benjamin Braddock. And he said something 0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:41.520 I've never forgotten. He says, well, maybe he's Jewish. Inside 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:49.680 years later he's from Berlin, Mike. He came here in 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:53.400 the early thirties, and uh, he had his own pain 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:56.080 because he didn't have a lot of hair. He had 0:26:56.240 --> 0:27:02.159 scarlet fever. And uh he not too long ago, just 0:27:02.280 --> 0:27:04.240 a few years ago. I read in the paper that 0:27:04.880 --> 0:27:07.960 he never understood why he cast me, and then he 0:27:08.080 --> 0:27:11.800 finally did through the analysis or something, and he said, 0:27:11.840 --> 0:27:15.879 because I was like an alter ego of him. He 0:27:16.200 --> 0:27:21.000 felt like he was me in uh, you know, on 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:24.000 the periphery, you know, out of it, and he was 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:27.639 casting himself the funny looking guy. Do you know that 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:31.919 that movie was shot and I went back to New 0:27:32.000 --> 0:27:36.320 York to collect unemployment. It was a lot, because you know, 0:27:36.400 --> 0:27:38.600 it's fifty bucks a week is getting the mostly to 0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:41.639 get and they're cutting the movie again. I read this 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:46.720 in the newspapers and Lawrence Turman, I think it was 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:49.600 a New York carrents a producer. They're showing it all 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:54.920 over the bel Air circuit, every Hills Belair, Brentwood on 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:59.680 a movie theaters they have in the homes and over 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:03.080 in a over again Urman said before it opened, and 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:06.800 over and over again. People in the industry would come 0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:11.639 up to Larry, Why brilliant film you almost had if 0:28:11.680 --> 0:28:17.480 you hadn't a miscast the lead. And that was the perception. 0:28:19.200 --> 0:28:22.639 It's interesting because speaking of that casting thing, he and 0:28:22.720 --> 0:28:25.840 I have had a little There was a whiff of this, 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:28.920 of this, of my appreciation of his career, and you 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:31.080 wind him mind. I remember this. I doubt you remember this. 0:28:31.160 --> 0:28:33.879 But I go to the old Westwood Marquis Hotel because 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:37.040 I get called to go an audition for the movie 0:28:37.160 --> 0:28:41.240 Hero and Stephen Friers is the director, and the phone rings, 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:42.760 and this is back when I was making films in 0:28:42.800 --> 0:28:45.080 the nineties and everything, and I'm lighting one off the 0:28:45.200 --> 0:28:47.520 other and I'm gonna meet this guy and I'm gonna 0:28:47.680 --> 0:28:52.400 I'm in my car. I'm like, God, masically gonna go 0:28:52.440 --> 0:28:54.800 to the Westwood Marquis, and they just lay out the 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:56.480 facts are like, you know, snap out of it. You're 0:28:56.480 --> 0:28:58.200 gonna go to the Westwood Marquis. You're gonna be Steen 0:28:58.280 --> 0:28:59.960 Friars and you're gonna have a meeting with Dustin hop 0:29:00.000 --> 0:29:05.160 And I'm like, I love this guy. I want to 0:29:05.160 --> 0:29:07.200 be this movie where this guy and all of a sudden, 0:29:07.240 --> 0:29:09.520 like twenty minutes goes by and Stephen Fiers. If you 0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:12.680 know the movie Hero, where someone commits this actor, there's 0:29:12.680 --> 0:29:14.880 a case of mistake in identity, and Andy Garcia played 0:29:14.880 --> 0:29:16.360 the other role, so there has to be this case 0:29:16.400 --> 0:29:19.120 of mistaken identity between the two actors. Stephen fears literally 0:29:19.160 --> 0:29:22.280 twenty minutes in. I mean, my dream is just taking flight, 0:29:22.480 --> 0:29:25.800 my wings. I'm flying over the west Wood Blocky Hotel. 0:29:26.280 --> 0:29:29.280 I'm gonna make my first movie with Dustin Effin Hoffman, 0:29:29.840 --> 0:29:31.440 and Stephen Fiers looks at me and goes, you know, 0:29:31.480 --> 0:29:33.920 I just realized that you don't look anything like Dustin 0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:41.160 at all, and it was like there, I'm flying. Also 0:29:43.200 --> 0:29:47.040 he shoots my balloon, my crash onto Westwood Boulevard. I'm 0:29:47.160 --> 0:29:50.360 dead on the highway there. I'll never figure to talk about. Yeah, 0:29:50.440 --> 0:29:54.280 I'm not. I'm not. Our dreams are dreams, how they 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:57.360 how they escape us. But I'm called the Emma right 0:29:57.640 --> 0:30:01.720 right right. But the when you do, when you show 0:30:01.800 --> 0:30:03.680 up and you work with Lessinger and you do Cowboy, 0:30:04.080 --> 0:30:05.840 do you you come up with all that and you 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:09.400 show him did he help you? Did you Cowboy? Very briefly, 0:30:10.440 --> 0:30:12.640 he didn't want It's very similar to Freers and you. 0:30:13.280 --> 0:30:15.680 He did not want to see me because he had 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:18.280 seen a graduate and that's the only thing he'd ever 0:30:18.360 --> 0:30:21.840 seen me in. And he was an artist. He give 0:30:21.880 --> 0:30:23.960 a ship that I was in a big hit and 0:30:24.080 --> 0:30:28.280 suddenly an instant star. He wanted the right person, and 0:30:28.360 --> 0:30:30.360 he refused to see me. And I heard about this, 0:30:30.920 --> 0:30:33.960 and I had read the book. I thought the script 0:30:34.040 --> 0:30:36.960 was okay. It was Waldo Salt. He actually came in 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:40.160 a room with John Votnit when we did it, and 0:30:40.160 --> 0:30:43.760 he had a wall inside tape recorder. We improvised everything. 0:30:44.080 --> 0:30:47.360 Everything was Lessener was great at that and he would 0:30:47.400 --> 0:30:50.880 go home, Uh, wald as well and write the improvisations 0:30:50.960 --> 0:30:53.960 into the scenes that he had already written. Anyway, he 0:30:54.040 --> 0:30:56.960 wouldn't see me, and I said, please, you know, I 0:30:58.200 --> 0:31:00.480 gotta see him. He's got to see me. And he agreed. 0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:03.560 I know we're running out of time, so I go quick. 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:08.280 Uh forty second Street. What are they called those things 0:31:08.360 --> 0:31:10.280 where you you go when you put the quarter in? 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:14.520 I can't remember the automat, thank you, And I said, 0:31:17.400 --> 0:31:19.880 the automat. I'm gonna direct the movie of him playing 0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:25.320 a car. You all heard it, go ahead? And I 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:27.520 used to go there and we all did you know, 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:31.200 to three in the morning whatever, uh, and get coffee 0:31:31.240 --> 0:31:35.200 or whatever. And it was all kind of trance people there. 0:31:35.520 --> 0:31:38.360 And I said, I'll meet him in the automat, and 0:31:38.480 --> 0:31:40.080 I want to do it about one or two in 0:31:40.200 --> 0:31:43.600 the morning, because you know, and I'll dress accordingly, which 0:31:43.680 --> 0:31:45.760 is what I did. It kind of like I wore 0:31:45.840 --> 0:31:49.120 in that scene that rain Cole and I didn't shave 0:31:49.240 --> 0:31:53.000 a few days and I greased my hair. I was 0:31:53.040 --> 0:31:56.400 auditioning and I came in and I just said, met 0:31:56.440 --> 0:31:58.320 him there, sat there and he looked at me, and 0:31:58.400 --> 0:32:02.200 he looked at you know, sparsely crowded, you know, people 0:32:02.240 --> 0:32:04.760 around he says. Oh, he says, yes, I think you'll 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:07.720 do quite well. So the voice and all of it, 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:10.200 you just throw that out there. You come up with that. 0:32:10.400 --> 0:32:12.880 Oh well, yeah, you keep trying. You mean, my friend 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:15.640 Will Daniel, My friend Will Daniel, you're too comes. Where 0:32:15.680 --> 0:32:22.000 do you find this? You get desperate? Um, but I didn't. 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:26.040 I didn't. I didn't. That's my father. I wasn't desperate enough. No, 0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:31.680 And uh, we were rehearsing and then uh, Lesson has 0:32:31.760 --> 0:32:36.120 to shoot some exteriors before we start shooting, uh, principal 0:32:36.160 --> 0:32:39.200 photography because he's got winter and he needed winter. So 0:32:39.400 --> 0:32:42.240 John Voight and I go and he says, you don't 0:32:42.280 --> 0:32:44.160 have to talk. I says, I don't have a character. 0:32:44.240 --> 0:32:45.920 I don't have a voice. I said, I can't. I 0:32:46.040 --> 0:32:48.680 barely have a walk. No, we've had the camera cross 0:32:48.680 --> 0:32:51.200 the street. You guys just gotta walk. We're not starting 0:32:51.280 --> 0:32:53.280 for a month, but we just need the weather, you know, 0:32:53.400 --> 0:32:56.960 the smoke coming up. Whatever was right? Okay? So John 0:32:57.800 --> 0:33:00.520 and I were walking. John Voight and I knew each 0:33:00.520 --> 0:33:03.840 other for years. I was the assistant director, which is 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:07.080 like you know, sharpening pencils in the off Broadway when 0:33:07.160 --> 0:33:09.240 he was in From the Bridge with Bob du Valle. 0:33:09.280 --> 0:33:12.240 He was brilliant and he was up and coming star, 0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:17.160 and uh, and you know we were competitive. Actors are 0:33:17.160 --> 0:33:20.800 always competitive. And uh, you know, if you're walking down 0:33:20.840 --> 0:33:22.720 the street, you got a script, you have a reading, 0:33:22.840 --> 0:33:25.840 or you did the read, you see another actor coming up, 0:33:25.880 --> 0:33:28.080 You've always put it behind your back, you know. Said 0:33:28.240 --> 0:33:29.800 but no, it's just something, you know, because you don't 0:33:29.920 --> 0:33:33.440 want the competition. Uh. Anyway, so we're across the street 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:36.479 walking and says after this, I said, yeah, but I'm 0:33:36.480 --> 0:33:39.000 supposed to cough. Were at that point in the movie 0:33:39.080 --> 0:33:41.240 where you know he's got You're gonna find out the 0:33:41.360 --> 0:33:44.320 S T B or whatever. He says, yes, says this, says, already, 0:33:44.320 --> 0:33:46.080 you do some coughing and do something not going, but 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:50.800 you don't have to talk. Okay, I'm rehearsing out of panic, 0:33:51.280 --> 0:33:55.440 you know, trying on these limps or whatever. And uh, 0:33:55.640 --> 0:33:58.360 I said, it shouldn't be shooting. We got a month ago. 0:33:58.680 --> 0:34:02.560 I haven't found him yet. And suddenly we're walking and 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:06.280 we paused, and I'm trying a cough and I threw 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:15.520 up literally on John Voyd's Cowboy boots and afterwards sus 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:19.759 and just I think we've got it. You did, and 0:34:20.800 --> 0:34:23.840 John because he's an actor and you know we're competitive. 0:34:24.239 --> 0:34:28.360 He Passenger told me later he went up to pless 0:34:28.400 --> 0:34:30.719 and Journey said, John, let me just ask you something. 0:34:31.080 --> 0:34:35.640 Is he going to do that all throughout the Jesus 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:38.960 because I'm not even in the scene. If he does, well, 0:34:39.680 --> 0:34:41.440 let me just say this because obviously, I mean, I 0:34:41.520 --> 0:34:43.480 got another forty five questions I could ask, but they 0:34:43.520 --> 0:34:45.800 do have a schedule here for the festival. But I 0:34:45.880 --> 0:34:49.000 do want to say. I mean, as as as sadly 0:34:49.040 --> 0:34:51.319 as this sounds on behalf of everybody here, I want 0:34:51.360 --> 0:34:56.479 to say thank you to you because I mean, I really, 0:34:56.600 --> 0:34:58.960 from the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of 0:34:59.040 --> 0:35:02.120 my heart, you are one of the greatest movie actors 0:35:02.160 --> 0:35:07.640 that has ever lived. And this happen really actress ever, 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:10.400 I mean, there's somebody great ful. Please help me in 0:35:10.440 --> 0:35:19.600 a thanky Dustin everyone. Dustin Hoffman has accrued a lifetime 0:35:19.680 --> 0:35:23.560 of knowledge about acting and the entertainment industry, and despite 0:35:23.600 --> 0:35:27.000 turning seventy eight this summer, he's now embracing a very 0:35:27.120 --> 0:35:30.200 new way to share it. He's teaching an acting class 0:35:30.640 --> 0:35:34.960 online The description reads, quote Dustin teaches you everything he 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:38.799 wishes someone had taught him unquote. You can sign up 0:35:39.160 --> 0:35:44.040 at master class dot com. Coming up actress Edie Falco 0:35:44.600 --> 0:35:46.520 Sweeney Todd was one of the first things I saw 0:35:47.360 --> 0:35:49.399 where I thought, oh, I got it what. I don't 0:35:49.400 --> 0:35:52.040 know how, but I got it. Oh my god. That 0:35:52.239 --> 0:36:00.320 one show, This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:04.120 to hear is the thing. Edie Falco played Carmelo soprano 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:08.160 on the groundbreaking HBO show about an Italian American mob 0:36:08.280 --> 0:36:12.240 family from New Jersey. Falco now has two kids herself, 0:36:12.640 --> 0:36:14.880 but when she was playing Carmela, she was a single 0:36:14.960 --> 0:36:18.520 woman living in New York. In this clip, we hear 0:36:18.560 --> 0:36:22.480 Falco with the late great James Gandolfini, who played her 0:36:22.560 --> 0:36:28.600 husband Tony. You know what I don't understand, Tony. What 0:36:28.760 --> 0:36:39.840 does she have that I don't have. I did not 0:36:39.960 --> 0:36:42.640 carry on an affair with the cousin, and I will 0:36:42.640 --> 0:36:46.719 take a damn polygray effect. I want you to leave 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:51.640 this house, Tony, please, I want you to leave me alone. 0:36:52.680 --> 0:36:57.240 TV Guide named The Sopranos the best television show in history. 0:36:57.920 --> 0:37:00.200 It's safe to say the role of Carmela made her 0:37:00.640 --> 0:37:03.719 but Edie Falco didn't sense that. At the start, I 0:37:03.800 --> 0:37:05.880 didn't have any sense of the gravity of what we 0:37:05.960 --> 0:37:07.840 were doing, and might might have just been because I 0:37:07.960 --> 0:37:11.480 was dumb. I didn't realize, what, you know, the the 0:37:11.640 --> 0:37:14.680 larger themes at play there. But I just enjoyed it. 0:37:14.719 --> 0:37:17.359 And it was still a novel TV working on something 0:37:17.440 --> 0:37:19.880 that was good, that people enjoyed, that seemed to be 0:37:20.360 --> 0:37:23.279 well received. Yeah, that was the excitement of being on 0:37:23.440 --> 0:37:26.560 something good. Was still very new, and I wonder when 0:37:26.600 --> 0:37:29.480 you did the show, was it fun and pleasant? Was 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:31.719 it really tough? Was it work? Now? It was fun 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:35.040 and pleasant because it was There was a lighthearted atmosphere. 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:36.879 The writing was funny. There was a lot of really 0:37:36.920 --> 0:37:38.239 funny stuff, and it was a lot of these sort 0:37:38.280 --> 0:37:41.239 of goomba guys. It just felt like family to me 0:37:41.400 --> 0:37:44.719 and very easy to be with. Did you participate in 0:37:44.800 --> 0:37:47.359 the writing of the did you just turn that all over? 0:37:47.480 --> 0:37:49.160 You never got involved, not at all. I was not 0:37:49.239 --> 0:37:52.480 at all interested. I had so much trust in certainly 0:37:52.600 --> 0:37:56.480 David Chase, but in all the staff that he carefully chosen, 0:37:56.680 --> 0:37:59.040 hand picked. I felt like they knew what they were doing. 0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:02.680 They had much better overview of what the story was 0:38:02.719 --> 0:38:04.799 about as opposed to what would Carmela do want here? 0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:07.440 You know, I just thought it was a huge relief 0:38:07.480 --> 0:38:08.960 to know that I could just let them do their 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:10.400 thing and I would do what I was hired to do. 0:38:10.600 --> 0:38:13.680 I felt completely comfortable with that. Did they put things 0:38:13.719 --> 0:38:15.759 about you and the characters? They got me, Tina Fey 0:38:15.760 --> 0:38:17.640 When I did thirty Rock with someone who the moment 0:38:17.680 --> 0:38:21.080 you told a story, it was an embarrassing It was 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:23.680 in the show. Absolutely. Jim said that all the times, 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:26.279 like I can't talk to anybody about anything, It's gonna 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:29.160 be in the next episode. But I didn't notice it 0:38:29.280 --> 0:38:31.160 so much from my life. There was nothing going on 0:38:31.200 --> 0:38:32.640 in my life that was all that interesting, So I 0:38:32.719 --> 0:38:34.600 didn't see a lot of it in the scripts. But 0:38:34.640 --> 0:38:37.959 I know they, like I guess, every show, to some extent, 0:38:38.040 --> 0:38:40.640 they start writing for the actors that have been hired, like, um, 0:38:41.560 --> 0:38:43.640 I eat his character right A tour that who played 0:38:43.680 --> 0:38:46.000 his sister was supposed to be a very different thing. 0:38:46.120 --> 0:38:48.480 It was supposed to be more like the mom sort 0:38:48.520 --> 0:38:52.080 of cold and calculating and unkind. And because I ate 0:38:52.120 --> 0:38:53.960 a Tour was doing it, it's sort of morphed into 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:57.000 this whole other like Parvody, that phase that she went 0:38:57.040 --> 0:38:58.720 through where she was sort of like an earth child. 0:38:58.840 --> 0:39:02.080 And so yeah, I'm sure they were writing based on 0:39:02.200 --> 0:39:05.080 what they perceived me to be, but I was. I 0:39:05.239 --> 0:39:08.160 was not entirely cognizant of myth. Think they hired you 0:39:08.239 --> 0:39:10.920 for that part because you said I read an interview 0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:12.880 where you talked about how you win, and you just 0:39:13.000 --> 0:39:15.799 relaxed and said, Hey, if this happens, it happens, which 0:39:15.880 --> 0:39:17.640 we all go through when you sometimes sit there and go, 0:39:17.760 --> 0:39:20.440 I can't stress about another interview, that's right. What do 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:24.680 you think they hired you for? I couldn't begin to 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:26.560 tell you. I think I think probably because of that, 0:39:26.760 --> 0:39:30.960 because I was completely non stressed. It was a script 0:39:31.000 --> 0:39:32.960 that had been bouncing around for a while, but I 0:39:33.160 --> 0:39:35.240 was doing odds at the time, and I was working 0:39:35.280 --> 0:39:36.960 a lot, and I kind of was all caught up 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:39.560 in that. And it came along and it called Sopranos, 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:41.640 and I thought it's about singers or something, and it's 0:39:41.680 --> 0:39:48.000 a you know, Italian American American woman wife, and I 0:39:48.080 --> 0:39:50.160 thought that I never get cast as that I know 0:39:50.200 --> 0:39:51.920 who's going to get cast I figured it's you know, 0:39:51.960 --> 0:39:54.759 Annabella Shore or Marissa Tomay or some of these women 0:39:54.800 --> 0:39:57.160 who had played parts that sort of felt similar to that. 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:00.120 There's no better place to be and when you walk 0:40:00.160 --> 0:40:02.680 into an audition then knowing you're not going to get 0:40:02.719 --> 0:40:05.680 it and not caring, so, uh, you know, I really 0:40:05.719 --> 0:40:07.720 just sort of enjoyed myself and thought, it's just another 0:40:07.760 --> 0:40:09.920 audition and if you're in a good head, you can 0:40:10.000 --> 0:40:13.279 never not learn something from an audition. So I just 0:40:13.320 --> 0:40:16.400 went in and had fun. And you inadvertently you present 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:18.359 your best self when you're doing that, and I guess, 0:40:18.360 --> 0:40:20.160 I don't know. I was relaxed and I enjoyed myself, 0:40:20.239 --> 0:40:22.680 so I guess that's what they So I don't know. 0:40:22.920 --> 0:40:24.960 And when you got the job, was that something that 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:28.960 was just floored you? Are you ecstatic about getting the job? Well, 0:40:29.120 --> 0:40:31.520 remember so you just just a pilot you get cast 0:40:31.600 --> 0:40:33.680 for you know, So at that point it was whatever. 0:40:33.760 --> 0:40:35.160 It was two weeks of work, and it was a 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:37.799 sum of money I had never seen before, which now 0:40:37.960 --> 0:40:40.439 seems not all that shocking, but back in the day 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:42.600 it meant I could pay off my student loan and 0:40:42.840 --> 0:40:45.760 so I was able to with that one check completely 0:40:45.760 --> 0:40:47.960 pay off my student loan. It was huge. It was 0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:51.080 a huge occurrence. But again two weeks of work and 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:53.640 then onto the next panic thing, you know, about what 0:40:53.840 --> 0:40:56.400 what to do next. So soon after the pilot was shot, 0:40:56.920 --> 0:40:58.480 I think it was a year you told, so you 0:40:58.600 --> 0:41:01.400 waited a year to be told this was going to 0:41:01.480 --> 0:41:03.960 move forward. And David Chase called me and said, I 0:41:04.000 --> 0:41:05.719 just won't let you know this has been picked up. 0:41:05.920 --> 0:41:07.560 This is after we shot the pilot. And he said, well, 0:41:07.600 --> 0:41:09.320 nobody's gonna watch this thing, but I'm proud of what 0:41:09.400 --> 0:41:12.840 we made or whatever. And David was also apparently he 0:41:12.920 --> 0:41:14.560 put his head in his hand and said, oh no 0:41:15.280 --> 0:41:16.759 when he found out it was picked up, because I 0:41:16.800 --> 0:41:20.040 don't think he had intended to have to tell more 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:21.799 about these people. I think he was trying to get 0:41:21.840 --> 0:41:24.239 a movie made and this was almost like a spec 0:41:24.280 --> 0:41:27.120 script or something, you know. I don't think he had 0:41:27.200 --> 0:41:30.920 anticipated this going on like this, So he was had 0:41:30.960 --> 0:41:32.719 his head in his hands. Jimmy's like, what am I doing? 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:34.560 And I'm like, I can pay my student alone. And 0:41:34.640 --> 0:41:36.360 you know, here at his four thousand years later, and 0:41:36.840 --> 0:41:39.440 uh just goes to show you you wake up every day. 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:41.319 I have no idea what anything is going to turn into? 0:41:41.440 --> 0:41:44.200 So well, two things that come to mind for me. 0:41:44.360 --> 0:41:46.880 One and I probably told you this before and when 0:41:46.880 --> 0:41:49.560 I would run into you, But one was I never 0:41:49.640 --> 0:41:52.359 watched TV. I just didn't have time. And I hit 0:41:52.440 --> 0:41:56.319 this period toward the last probably four seasons, definitely maybe five. 0:41:56.840 --> 0:41:59.759 I don't want to say obsession, but my fondness for 0:41:59.880 --> 0:42:03.000 you and your character. Remember I watched him go, oh 0:42:03.080 --> 0:42:05.200 my god, I've got to be married to that kind 0:42:05.280 --> 0:42:10.680 of woman through thick and thin and smart choices, and 0:42:10.800 --> 0:42:13.360 she's a good partner. Did you sense that when you 0:42:13.440 --> 0:42:16.280 were doing it? I loved it for that reason because 0:42:16.320 --> 0:42:19.759 it was everything that I was not, you know, I 0:42:19.840 --> 0:42:21.759 mean it was you know, I was a single woman 0:42:21.840 --> 0:42:23.920 living in New York, didn't have kids, and here I 0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:28.000 was ensconced in this life that I saw my grandparents live, 0:42:28.160 --> 0:42:32.320 you know, married with kids, deeply entrenched in a community 0:42:32.800 --> 0:42:36.680 of people. Family gatherings were huge, you know, everything that 0:42:36.840 --> 0:42:39.480 and even with Jim feeling like I was attached to 0:42:39.600 --> 0:42:41.759 a big man who would take care of stuff. It 0:42:41.880 --> 0:42:47.960 was a tremendously um invigorating place to inhabit while I 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:51.400 was working. It was completely diametrically opposed to what I 0:42:51.600 --> 0:42:53.839 lived when I left the set, And for that reason, 0:42:53.920 --> 0:42:56.000 I absolutely what did you live when you left the set? 0:42:56.800 --> 0:42:59.800 The life of a single actress in Manhattan? You know, 0:42:59.840 --> 0:43:02.120 I had a relatively small apartment, I had my dog, 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:04.960 I had my dates. But it was not you know 0:43:05.040 --> 0:43:07.279 at all what a lot other women my age, let's say, 0:43:07.320 --> 0:43:09.360 in the Midwest are certainly in my family back a 0:43:09.440 --> 0:43:14.320 number of generations. Primary and I was your boyfriend. It 0:43:14.560 --> 0:43:18.520 was when you dated other guys on the side. Was 0:43:18.719 --> 0:43:21.239 it was? And I was thrilled for it, thrilled for it. 0:43:21.640 --> 0:43:23.680 I loved it. How old were you when you first 0:43:23.719 --> 0:43:25.000 had a sense that you wanted to do that for 0:43:25.040 --> 0:43:28.320 a living? Seriously, do it for a living? Well, I 0:43:28.440 --> 0:43:30.040 didn't know that I could ever do it for a living. 0:43:30.160 --> 0:43:31.800 I think until I was able to do it for 0:43:31.840 --> 0:43:33.279 a living, I thought I would just do it as 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:35.840 after my waitressing gig. You know, the idea that I 0:43:35.880 --> 0:43:39.239 could support myself with it was sort of preposterous. Um. 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:42.400 But my mom was an actress. She did stuff at 0:43:42.400 --> 0:43:45.920 arena players in Farmingdale and broad Hollow Theater and Huntington's 0:43:45.960 --> 0:43:47.960 all around Long Island. But she had a job, and 0:43:48.080 --> 0:43:49.799 she would do her plays in the weekends and at night, 0:43:49.840 --> 0:43:52.720 and I sort of thought of your job many different jobs. 0:43:52.760 --> 0:43:55.759 But she was a she was a DJ W g L, 0:43:55.800 --> 0:43:58.880 I was a station on Long Island. She was a copywriter, 0:43:59.160 --> 0:44:00.880 and she did a million different things. She decided she 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:03.480 wanted a job and she would get it, but then 0:44:03.520 --> 0:44:05.319 at night she'd do her plays. And I thought, that's 0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:06.719 what you do when you want to be an actor. 0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:11.399 I've got an older brother, younger brother, and a younger sister. 0:44:11.520 --> 0:44:13.840 It's four four of us all, and were any of 0:44:13.920 --> 0:44:16.239 them also interested in the theater, not at all, even 0:44:16.239 --> 0:44:18.719 though your mother was an actress and your father was 0:44:18.840 --> 0:44:23.080 a patriot artist and be with musician for when he 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:25.200 was younger, but then he went on to do sculpture 0:44:25.239 --> 0:44:27.520 and painting. And your parents got divorced from your how old. 0:44:28.000 --> 0:44:31.560 I have no idea, because they got divorced and then 0:44:31.600 --> 0:44:33.759 they remarried each other two other times, so it's a 0:44:33.840 --> 0:44:36.800 very complicated childhood with that. They remarried each other and 0:44:36.840 --> 0:44:38.680 then dovorris and remarried divorce And I don't even know 0:44:38.719 --> 0:44:41.120 if because because I want to make a movie at us, 0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:43.279 I want to play this. They got divorced. When they 0:44:43.320 --> 0:44:45.080 would get divorced, how long were they apart before they 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:47.640 were united? A matter of months, No longer it was 0:44:47.760 --> 0:44:49.560 for the first time, it was a number of years. 0:44:49.680 --> 0:44:51.160 And you know, they kind of the kids were pitted 0:44:51.160 --> 0:44:53.040 against each other and the right against And then we 0:44:53.080 --> 0:44:54.800 found out the parents were sort of hanging out with 0:44:54.880 --> 0:44:57.719 each other again. It was, you know, horrifying for the 0:44:57.800 --> 0:44:59.719 kids that they would something get together again. Then they 0:44:59.719 --> 0:45:02.000 would have a ceremony, we would witness there. What it was, 0:45:02.560 --> 0:45:05.319 I don't know led to some psychological issues and I'm 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:07.360 working on as we speak, but we get to that. 0:45:08.480 --> 0:45:10.920 And none of your siblings had the bug, not at all, not, 0:45:11.120 --> 0:45:14.040 I mean did the opposite. And so did this become 0:45:14.320 --> 0:45:16.640 formal for you only when you go to Purchase or 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:19.600 had you done plays before you went to school? Community 0:45:19.640 --> 0:45:23.239 theater plays nothing too and school plays, you know, but 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:26.920 nothing very serious. Um. And then I went to Purchase 0:45:27.000 --> 0:45:31.279 first as a liberal arts person, and uh, I saw 0:45:31.400 --> 0:45:34.160 my some actor friends had gone into Purchase in the program, 0:45:34.239 --> 0:45:36.279 and I thought that wanted to be there, and that 0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:39.200 program had grown, Yes, and now it's become this very 0:45:39.360 --> 0:45:42.400 estimable program on the East coast, big time. So I 0:45:42.440 --> 0:45:44.800 auditioned and went the next year as an acting student. 0:45:45.080 --> 0:45:47.879 And did you graduate? Did you finish? I did? I did? 0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:50.759 And then when you finished, what did you do? Well? 0:45:51.320 --> 0:45:54.040 Remember the league auditions? That whole thing. So we had 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:56.719 the league auditions, and from those auditions, I got a 0:45:56.800 --> 0:45:59.279 part in a movie where I had to be on 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:01.800 set the day after I graduated, and I thought, you know, 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:05.200 what's everybody talking about? This is so easy. I just 0:46:05.320 --> 0:46:07.919 kind of glided my way into this career. I didn't 0:46:07.920 --> 0:46:10.239 do anything for five plus years after that, but did 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.719 a movie called Sweet Lorraine that was done up in 0:46:13.440 --> 0:46:17.320 The Cat's Skills with the guy's name was Steve Gohmer, 0:46:17.360 --> 0:46:22.040 the director. How did that go? It was? Well, it 0:46:22.200 --> 0:46:23.799 was I couldn't believe it was on a movie set, 0:46:23.920 --> 0:46:25.520 you know. It was a huge thing, and I just 0:46:25.680 --> 0:46:29.600 graduated from school and it was crazily exciting. You know 0:46:29.640 --> 0:46:31.200 what the heck were we like eight weeks up in 0:46:31.320 --> 0:46:33.600 the Cats Skills I think it was, and kind of 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:35.359 fell in love with all the boys in the show. 0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:38.040 You know, it was being a sleep away camp. And 0:46:38.200 --> 0:46:40.759 I remember when my agents said, I hope you're sitting down. 0:46:41.320 --> 0:46:44.480 You booked that movie? And you're gonna get paid more 0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:46.560 money than you have ever seen in your life. They're 0:46:46.560 --> 0:46:49.279 going to pay you two thousand dollars a week, which 0:46:49.400 --> 0:46:51.880 was more money than I had ever seen. And waitressing 0:46:52.360 --> 0:46:55.520 not yet, I uh no, except on Long Island, I 0:46:55.640 --> 0:47:00.200 hadn't really happened. So it was after the movie the waitressing. Yes, 0:47:00.440 --> 0:47:06.160 in to try to keep up weekends the Rainbow Room. 0:47:06.239 --> 0:47:10.719 I was ane, thinking it would be consistent. Yes, but 0:47:10.840 --> 0:47:13.440 now what was the job for you that ended that? Like? 0:47:13.520 --> 0:47:15.520 When did you get a job and then you never 0:47:15.560 --> 0:47:17.560 went back again? You only made a living as an actress. 0:47:18.160 --> 0:47:20.640 I was waitressing at a place called Canyon Road on 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:23.680 seventy seven, and first it was the last waitressing job 0:47:23.719 --> 0:47:26.120 I had. I worked in with Paul Scholzy, my friend 0:47:26.200 --> 0:47:28.240 who has actually been on a bunch of my shows 0:47:28.280 --> 0:47:32.400 with me, my great actor friend, and he was bartending, 0:47:32.640 --> 0:47:34.600 and I went off to do a thing called Cost 0:47:34.680 --> 0:47:37.600 of Living, a low budget independent thing, and I left 0:47:38.920 --> 0:47:41.640 and I was about to come back to the restaurant job, 0:47:41.680 --> 0:47:44.360 and I just had one of those sort of grace 0:47:44.640 --> 0:47:47.719 moments where I thought, no, I'm not going to come back. 0:47:47.760 --> 0:47:49.560 I don't know how this is going to work. But 0:47:49.880 --> 0:47:51.759 I'm not gonna waitress anymore. I really was one. It 0:47:51.840 --> 0:47:55.319 was a total leap of faith. I just I'm going 0:47:55.360 --> 0:47:57.799 to live in a washing machine box, which see nicked 0:47:57.840 --> 0:48:00.720 out the box preferable to taking another order at that restaurant. 0:48:00.760 --> 0:48:03.120 So I couldn't do it anymore. So yeah, and at 0:48:03.160 --> 0:48:05.960 that I don't know. I guess um oz happened shortly 0:48:06.000 --> 0:48:08.680 after maybe. So what was the experience like working with 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:13.879 fontana Um? You know Tom right? I I love him. 0:48:14.000 --> 0:48:16.399 He was one of those angel guys, you know. Because 0:48:16.440 --> 0:48:19.160 I had done a movie called Laws of Gravity and 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:22.360 it got some attention and played the sort of sundance 0:48:22.400 --> 0:48:26.400 and the the festival circuit. Tom saw it and decided 0:48:26.480 --> 0:48:28.440 he wanted to use me for stuff, and so he 0:48:29.040 --> 0:48:32.640 put me in um series called Firehouse about e MT 0:48:32.920 --> 0:48:36.080 workers and fire people or whatever. Then he cast me 0:48:36.280 --> 0:48:39.959 in homicide, or maybe it was the other way around. 0:48:40.000 --> 0:48:41.719 He just we kept putting me and stuff when I 0:48:41.800 --> 0:48:44.239 wasn't really working much. And then he said, I'm doing 0:48:44.239 --> 0:48:47.800 the series about a prison. I have two parts. You 0:48:47.880 --> 0:48:51.200 can play the nun or you can play the correction officer. 0:48:51.280 --> 0:48:52.719 Which part you want to play? So I'll be the 0:48:52.760 --> 0:48:55.600 correction officer and that was you know, and he just 0:48:55.920 --> 0:48:57.520 decided he was going to take care of me, and 0:48:57.600 --> 0:48:59.800 he did, and he did for many years, and just 0:49:00.000 --> 0:49:02.759 you were in his troop. I was in his troop. Yeah, 0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:07.440 and I was just digital of oz. Gosh, you know, 0:49:07.520 --> 0:49:08.960 I have no idea actually, come to think of it, 0:49:09.080 --> 0:49:12.000 more than a couple. Yeah. It was just so crazy 0:49:12.080 --> 0:49:14.040 grateful for the work. And I remember it was before 0:49:14.080 --> 0:49:16.440 cell phones. Remember Terry Kinney was on the show with me, 0:49:16.480 --> 0:49:18.080 and he was the first person I ever knew who 0:49:18.160 --> 0:49:20.480 had his own phone. I just thought he was the coolest, 0:49:20.560 --> 0:49:24.680 coolest thing going. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It was fun, 0:49:24.719 --> 0:49:26.200 It was really really fun. And it was great to 0:49:26.280 --> 0:49:28.680 have a steady gig. And then after that, what did 0:49:28.719 --> 0:49:31.120 you do? How long between that and the Sopranos? Not 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:34.040 long I was doing you know, I was doing uh 0:49:36.040 --> 0:49:38.600 that that was during Sopranos. I think that was during 0:49:38.640 --> 0:49:40.680 two seasons of Sopranos. But I was doing ODZ and 0:49:40.760 --> 0:49:43.920 then I was doing Sideman play that I did for 0:49:43.920 --> 0:49:45.680 a very long time. And I was doing Odds at 0:49:45.800 --> 0:49:47.960 night and Sideman during the day, and then Sopranos came 0:49:48.000 --> 0:49:49.319 in and so I was doing there was a period 0:49:49.360 --> 0:49:51.239 of time where I was doing sort of all three 0:49:51.280 --> 0:49:53.080 of them, and I thought because they were so great 0:49:53.160 --> 0:49:55.120 and I couldn't say no to anything. But I was 0:49:55.320 --> 0:49:59.239 very unhappy because I was exhausted and sick most of 0:49:59.280 --> 0:50:01.239 the time, screen me my voice out and it was 0:50:02.680 --> 0:50:05.359 an embarrassment of riches. But I might have done better 0:50:05.440 --> 0:50:06.880 to say no to one of them. But be that 0:50:07.000 --> 0:50:09.600 as it may, it was at a time when I 0:50:09.600 --> 0:50:14.839 couldn't imagine not doing any of those jobs. Hello, Well, 0:50:14.880 --> 0:50:16.320 I'm I'm trying to think of how to say this. 0:50:17.600 --> 0:50:19.200 I'm going to write a book. I'm writing a memoir 0:50:19.320 --> 0:50:21.640 that's coming out in a year. And in the book, 0:50:21.640 --> 0:50:25.640 I've got some interesting things I talked about, and one 0:50:25.680 --> 0:50:30.280 of which was I celebrated my thirtieth anniversary in February 0:50:30.960 --> 0:50:32.719 this year. I went up to Los Angeles, which is 0:50:32.840 --> 0:50:35.480 was the scene of the crime from that, right, Can 0:50:35.520 --> 0:50:37.359 we talk about that? How are you on the record 0:50:37.400 --> 0:50:40.000 about that? I was wondering what that, how that affected 0:50:40.080 --> 0:50:44.000 your career? Well, I got sober twenty three years ago 0:50:44.239 --> 0:50:45.880 and there was really not much of anything going on 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:48.240 at the time, and I'm grateful for that also because 0:50:49.360 --> 0:50:52.640 you know, the access people have to your life nowadays. Um, 0:50:52.880 --> 0:50:55.759 I'm just glad that none of that was going on. 0:50:55.840 --> 0:50:58.960 Nobody was interested back when I was a mess um, 0:50:59.680 --> 0:51:02.120 so I was able to get kind of squared with 0:51:02.200 --> 0:51:05.239 a lot of that stuff before. Yeah, before anything big 0:51:05.360 --> 0:51:08.480 was happening in my life. I was very, very grateful 0:51:08.520 --> 0:51:10.200 for the timing of all that. When you walk into 0:51:10.239 --> 0:51:11.480 a room in a a there's not a lot of 0:51:11.520 --> 0:51:14.279 people who have twenty five years. Yeah that people make 0:51:14.320 --> 0:51:16.520 it that far. Yeah, they might be when they do 0:51:16.640 --> 0:51:18.640 the hand raising thing. I'm in a room the other 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:21.120 day in l A where there was three people and 0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:23.160 there might have been like six or eight of them 0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:28.600 that had over twenty years. Yeah, right, where the times right, 0:51:28.960 --> 0:51:30.640 there's still a part of your left. I go on 0:51:30.719 --> 0:51:33.719 my anniversary, which was the last week, and just to 0:51:34.080 --> 0:51:38.759 announce it, and now I'm I'm a Buddhist, which is 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:41.160 where what I what I do now? Yeah, I spend 0:51:41.200 --> 0:51:43.440 a great deal time at the Buddhist Center in New York, 0:51:43.520 --> 0:51:46.359 were has given my life a tremendous amount of when 0:51:46.440 --> 0:51:50.239 when in because you're not the first person I know 0:51:50.600 --> 0:51:54.560 who has supplanted sobriety interest and twelve steps sobriety with 0:51:54.600 --> 0:51:57.520 Buddhism or Buddhists of crossovers. I see a lot of 0:51:57.560 --> 0:52:01.080 people that I know from both places. So I see, yeah, uh, 0:52:01.360 --> 0:52:04.440 Like twenty something years ago, I inadvertently ran into a 0:52:04.680 --> 0:52:06.800 meditation class and it was this teacher, and then I 0:52:06.920 --> 0:52:09.000 kind of wandered away, and then I kind of went 0:52:09.080 --> 0:52:10.960 back and it was the same teacher. I thought I 0:52:11.040 --> 0:52:13.080 was going to some other thing. This happened a number 0:52:13.120 --> 0:52:16.040 of times, and then a good five or six years 0:52:16.080 --> 0:52:18.120 ago I went back again, and here's the same darn 0:52:18.200 --> 0:52:21.640 teacher in a different place. And I've been going consistently 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:24.239 for I don't know, four or five years as much 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:27.080 as I can. It feeds me in a huge way. 0:52:27.239 --> 0:52:29.520 So what do you get out of it? Well, it's 0:52:29.600 --> 0:52:32.160 not just sort of mumbo jumbo spiritual kind of it's 0:52:32.160 --> 0:52:35.560 also it's like a science of the mind really that 0:52:35.800 --> 0:52:40.000 was established years ago. And so they've got they've got 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:43.480 history on their side. And I see the people who 0:52:43.719 --> 0:52:45.759 spend a good deal of time there, and the teacher there. 0:52:46.200 --> 0:52:47.600 They have what I want, you know, the stick with 0:52:47.640 --> 0:52:50.719 the winners thing that I love a But you know, 0:52:50.800 --> 0:52:52.920 there there are a lot of cuckoos in there, and 0:52:53.120 --> 0:52:55.319 you know, and I love them because I understand them. 0:52:55.360 --> 0:52:57.200 But to be in a place where there somebody who 0:52:57.239 --> 0:52:59.759 really has something that I want, it's very meaningful to me, 0:52:59.840 --> 0:53:02.160 but comes harder and harder to find that that's huge 0:53:02.560 --> 0:53:04.680 And and and for you, what I'm wondering, what did 0:53:04.760 --> 0:53:06.920 it give you? What did it help you deal with? 0:53:07.200 --> 0:53:10.360 Or manager? Well, single parenting is not for this faint 0:53:10.400 --> 0:53:13.560 of heart. Uh, shall I say? You know, you live 0:53:13.680 --> 0:53:16.400 for forty years where you're the center of your universe. 0:53:16.480 --> 0:53:17.759 You know, when you want to get a massage, you 0:53:17.840 --> 0:53:21.160 go get one, and as you know that, kids enter 0:53:21.200 --> 0:53:23.799 the picture, and it just turns your whole life. I mean, 0:53:24.080 --> 0:53:26.719 there's nothing recognizable about it. And it was really a 0:53:26.800 --> 0:53:30.719 crash course in in uh, not being the center of 0:53:30.760 --> 0:53:34.040 my universe anymore so, And I didn't always handle it great. 0:53:34.200 --> 0:53:36.600 Spent a fair amount of time just not being okay 0:53:36.680 --> 0:53:39.360 with the fact that I couldn't control my environment. So 0:53:39.680 --> 0:53:43.920 a lot of it is about remaining calm, about being patient, 0:53:45.120 --> 0:53:48.920 about remembering what's important about patients is I think the 0:53:48.960 --> 0:53:50.840 biggest part of it. I am. I have I have 0:53:50.960 --> 0:53:54.800 a short temper that people may not believe, but you know, 0:53:54.920 --> 0:53:58.160 in in my human environment. Yeah, it's not pretty. So 0:53:58.840 --> 0:54:01.920 it has helped me in measure believe with that, Describe 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:12.000 your son, cute blonde. He's uh, spectacularly amazing kid and 0:54:12.080 --> 0:54:14.640 he's been through a lot, and uh he has some 0:54:14.880 --> 0:54:18.279 learning stuff and uh also a d D a d 0:54:18.400 --> 0:54:22.239 h D and all those acronyms, um, which you know, 0:54:22.360 --> 0:54:24.920 single parenting under the best of circumstances is difficult. But 0:54:24.920 --> 0:54:26.760 when you have a kid who's bouncing off the walls 0:54:26.880 --> 0:54:28.920 and then a kid who's not who's getting beat up 0:54:28.960 --> 0:54:31.600 by the kid who's bounced off the wall, it's complicated 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:40.719 and it's difficult. Yeah, she's the sort of the survivor, yes, yes, so, 0:54:41.040 --> 0:54:42.560 but you know she's a tough kid. She can take 0:54:42.560 --> 0:54:45.000 care of herself. Let's play sword fights. Yeah no, no, 0:54:45.080 --> 0:54:48.200 you're the sword and he's constantly beaten the crap out 0:54:48.200 --> 0:54:51.880 ever and she's learned to kind of make the make 0:54:51.960 --> 0:54:53.400 the best of it. But the fact that she has 0:54:53.440 --> 0:54:56.680 to what is a drag so um. But you know, 0:54:56.760 --> 0:54:59.279 we all had our stuff growing up in the middle 0:54:59.360 --> 0:55:02.040 child and everybody we all have some order in which 0:55:02.080 --> 0:55:04.279 we were born and the difficulties we had and being 0:55:04.360 --> 0:55:06.040 the first one or the last one or whatever, and 0:55:06.920 --> 0:55:10.000 my kids challenges are not that unusual. But you know, 0:55:10.400 --> 0:55:12.879 I say that my daughter, my older daughter, I said 0:55:12.920 --> 0:55:15.840 to her recently. I said to her, you know, to me, 0:55:16.280 --> 0:55:18.719 a god or the presence of some kind of force 0:55:18.800 --> 0:55:21.440 like that in your life manifests itself in the instincts 0:55:21.520 --> 0:55:25.719 that you have. And I said to her, the minute 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:27.960 you get into trouble in this life, in my experience, 0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:31.319 is when you stopped listening to your instincts. That's all 0:55:31.400 --> 0:55:33.439 we can do is try to get them to listen 0:55:33.480 --> 0:55:35.520 to that voice in them because in the end, they're 0:55:35.520 --> 0:55:37.680 gonna do what they're gonna do. We can't make them 0:55:37.760 --> 0:55:40.879 do what we want to do. Is painful, it's shocking too. 0:55:41.239 --> 0:55:42.920 I mean, especially in this industry. We have so many 0:55:42.960 --> 0:55:45.719 people running around, you know, telling you how great you are, 0:55:45.800 --> 0:55:47.879 and you know, making sure that every your every need 0:55:48.000 --> 0:55:49.600 is taken care of, and then you go home and 0:55:49.640 --> 0:55:53.560 your kids just couldn't care less what you're asking they do. 0:55:53.760 --> 0:55:55.920 But I think they think everybody's parents have some kind 0:55:55.920 --> 0:55:58.960 of life like this. I don't know, they exceedingly unimpressed, 0:55:59.000 --> 0:56:00.960 but you know, just to hang up the damn coat, 0:56:01.040 --> 0:56:03.080 you know what I mean? It just couldn't possibly care 0:56:03.200 --> 0:56:05.360 less the way I want, the how's the look? And 0:56:05.800 --> 0:56:07.360 you know, all that stuff that used to be so 0:56:07.480 --> 0:56:11.240 important that I'm learning slowly to let go of. There's 0:56:11.239 --> 0:56:14.600 a human nous to Eadie Falco's characters, no matter how 0:56:14.760 --> 0:56:19.560 tough their exterior appears. Her women are vulnerable, fallible, and 0:56:20.000 --> 0:56:27.440 we can't get enough of them. You were listening to 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:31.320 Here's the Thing, produced by Emily Botine and Kathy Russo 0:56:31.760 --> 0:56:36.840 with Melanie Hoops, ed Herbstman, Zach mcnee's, Dan O'Donnell, Christ Ripple, 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:41.520 Joel Werner, and Mallory Schwartz. This is Alec Baldwin, and 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:43.239 you were listening to Here's the Thing,