Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: When I was coming up in the acting profession, there
Speaker 1: were two teachers you had to take classes from. Milton
Speaker 1: could sell Us in Los Angeles and Win Handman in
Speaker 1: New York. I studied with both, and both contributed to
Speaker 1: my technique. But Handman also influenced my approach to life
Speaker 1: and to my co workers on screen and on stage.
Speaker 1: His goodness, kindness, and generosity shown through in a professional
Speaker 1: world too often characterized by cutthroat competition and one upmanship.
Speaker 1: Over the years, an astonishing array of talent passed through
Speaker 1: Handman's studio. Christopher Walken, Raoul, Julia Richard, gere Anna Davie Smith,
Speaker 1: Joanne Woodward, Mia Farrow, and on and on. But after
Speaker 1: seventy years, yes seventy, enrollment is finally closed. In April,
Speaker 1: Hammon became one of New York's victims lost to COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: I was finally able to get him to record an
Speaker 1: interview for Here's the Thing in two thousand eighteen, and
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you our conversation today. I witnessed as when
Speaker 1: made real progress with some marginally talented actors. But He
Speaker 1: remained humble about what teachers can do. If they don't
Speaker 1: have the right stuff inside them, I can't do it.
Speaker 1: That's the basic thing they need. Yeah, the basic thing
Speaker 1: is act as a highly suggestible people. If I suggest
Speaker 1: something to you, you'll go with it. We're too gullible
Speaker 1: for everyday of life. So one of the things they
Speaker 1: have to draw upon is the ability to be suggestible,
Speaker 1: because what is it You're suggesting something to yourself, so
Speaker 1: you inhabit the reality in an imaginary situation. And if
Speaker 1: you can do that, then you can take people on
Speaker 1: the journey. I have recently noted people I took who
Speaker 1: had no background and not that much going and now
Speaker 1: they're doing Shakespeare and the Greeks, and said, hey, that's good.
Speaker 1: And uh, I recently said to one, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been congratulating myself because where I've taken you in
Speaker 1: your acting. Yes, the tremendous improvements can be made. What's
Speaker 1: interesting to me when I'm with my children, you see
Speaker 1: the actor's nature they want to believe. See that's what
Speaker 1: Sandy minds. Uh. Well, way back, Sandy was my mentor,
Speaker 1: and uh, he would say, it's like when you play
Speaker 1: Cops and Robbers, or when you played house when you
Speaker 1: were a kid. Get that back, that not eve innocence
Speaker 1: of believing. Where did you meet meister and tell people
Speaker 1: who Meisner was? Then he was a member of the
Speaker 1: Group Theater, and the Group Theater embraced the Santarslawski system
Speaker 1: and they they trained with that. But Sandy was best
Speaker 1: known for teaching at the Neighborhood play Out School of
Speaker 1: the Theater, and he had been teaching there maybe from
Speaker 1: the late thirties. Uh. I got to him in forties
Speaker 1: six as a returning g I. I had been in
Speaker 1: the service four years, so I had the wonderful g.
Speaker 1: I Bill. I wanted to say, that's one of the
Speaker 1: best things that America produced, was the G. I Bill.
Speaker 1: I went there under the G. I Bill, and uh
Speaker 1: when I got there, I had no experience whatsoever and
Speaker 1: only seen a few plays. You discovered the theater yourself
Speaker 1: in Boston when you came home from the war. I
Speaker 1: saw Paul Robeson in a fellow with Uda Hogan and
Speaker 1: Jose Ferrare. I was just on leave and there wasn't
Speaker 1: maybe about the fourth play I had seen in my life.
Speaker 1: When I was in the service. I was there for
Speaker 1: four years. I had been a jazz musician, but I
Speaker 1: realized I was a yeah, second rate. I wouldn't have that.
Speaker 1: He wasn't going to make that my profession. And I
Speaker 1: absolutely did not know what to do. And I was
Speaker 1: on the ship waiting for it d be decommissioned. Then
Speaker 1: I faced the reality that I should have a future.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do? And I decided to
Speaker 1: try acting. I had never acted. I had nice experience,
Speaker 1: but whose idea was that mine? Because I had good experiences,
Speaker 1: because I didn't do many things that my father felt
Speaker 1: I did well. But when I did you my talka
Speaker 1: Jean in po when you're courted safe out here and
Speaker 1: you sent to penny fights and old de shot it,
Speaker 1: then you'll do your work on etcetera, or the face on.
Speaker 1: When I did those poems for him, he liked it
Speaker 1: a lot, and so was your first audience. And I
Speaker 1: got a good, good response. What your dad do? He
Speaker 1: had a printing business. Yeah, I lived on a dirt
Speaker 1: road in an apartment house, you know Wherefore a Triumph
Speaker 1: Parks was right across the street from what became for
Speaker 1: a Triumph Park. But when I was a child, it
Speaker 1: was woods and we had a dirt road and was
Speaker 1: a farm across the way, a farm with chickens and
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. When the depression came along, the
Speaker 1: farm left. The dirt road got paved and it became
Speaker 1: a miniature golf course. And I was a caddy and
Speaker 1: a minute ago I kept the score. But anyway, when
Speaker 1: I was on a ship was North Atlanta anti submarine duty,
Speaker 1: escorting convoys up to northeast Greenland. Uh, you are spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the ward room with your shipmates.
Speaker 1: They play cards, things to do while you're not on watch.
Speaker 1: And we had some records on the ship that were
Speaker 1: of minologists. In those days, they were called Yes. The
Speaker 1: people performed at nightclubs and there's usually a little body,
Speaker 1: and there was one that I was particularly attracted to.
Speaker 1: His name was Dwight Fisk and Uh he had been
Speaker 1: performing at the Monkey Bar at the hotel what Hotel
Speaker 1: Elisa when Tennessee Williams died. Anyway, I uh memorized the monologues.
Speaker 1: I listened to the records and I did him from
Speaker 1: my shipmates and they liked it. And you like getting laughs.
Speaker 1: And this is a short when you win the military.
Speaker 1: When you win, when you win the you win the
Speaker 1: Are you in the navy? Well it was the coast Guard,
Speaker 1: So you're there and with the guys there during the war,
Speaker 1: you're cracking them up and entertaining that what kind of
Speaker 1: material did Fisk do? Body's songs? Here's a one line
Speaker 1: from it an outstepped Mr petty Bone just as naked
Speaker 1: as a child and twice as cocky. You would have
Speaker 1: liked to have done that monologue. Anyway. That encouraged me.
Speaker 1: So when I was waiting to get out they could
Speaker 1: be turned to civilian life, I said, well, what I
Speaker 1: enjoyed was when my shipmates and they enjoyed my doing
Speaker 1: those monologues. And when my father like that when I
Speaker 1: did Gunga, then oh I don't I try acting. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing. How did it go? You tried it?
Speaker 1: And what happened? I went to the I Luckily I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I didn't know one school, I didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: There was a guy on the ship with me who
Speaker 1: seems to fistic catered And while we were waiting for
Speaker 1: the ship to be decommissioned in Norfolk, Virginia, and I
Speaker 1: said to him, I said, I want to try acting.
Speaker 1: When I get out, I have the g I bill
Speaker 1: I can go to school. He said, well, there's only
Speaker 1: one school to go to, and I said, what's that.
Speaker 1: He said, the American Academy and Dramatic Arts. So as
Speaker 1: soon as I got out in May forty six, I
Speaker 1: went to the American Academy. You know where it was.
Speaker 1: He had two flaws on the top of Carnegie Hall
Speaker 1: and uh. They said, we have too many returning gies.
Speaker 1: You can't apply. I say, I can't even apply. No,
Speaker 1: you do monologue. So I saw the pack of monologues
Speaker 1: and I learned it, but they never let me do
Speaker 1: my audition monologue. So I was disconsolate because I didn't
Speaker 1: know of any other school for the American Academy. No,
Speaker 1: where'd you go? Then? Well, I was dating a Whiman,
Speaker 1: I believe her name was Doris Well. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't even apply at the American Academy.
Speaker 1: I want to try acting. She said, we'll go try
Speaker 1: the Neighborhood Playouts. I hear, that's the best school, and
Speaker 1: that's the first acting school you attended, the first and only.
Speaker 1: And what happened was Sandy you know interviewed me and
Speaker 1: took me. I think he took me because I talked
Speaker 1: about improvisation, because I did it as a saxophonist. But
Speaker 1: also I had written one poem when I was on
Speaker 1: the ship waiting to get out, and he I think
Speaker 1: that impressed them. Here's a short poem home now, feeling
Speaker 1: the years of war spent youth, not time apart, nor
Speaker 1: interlude furiously lived forgotten now like motion picture with yawning
Speaker 1: exit two routine. I knew I didn't want the yawning
Speaker 1: exit two routine, so I wanted to try I acting.
Speaker 1: So I got into the playhouse. I immediately caught on.
Speaker 1: How many people are in the program? When you're there,
Speaker 1: you woke into a classroom. How many are there? It
Speaker 1: is now there's a couple of maybe a couple of dozen.
Speaker 1: And uh, inside of two weeks. Because Sandy saw I
Speaker 1: was catching on, and a lot of them didn't to
Speaker 1: what he was trying to get at. Uh, he said,
Speaker 1: you work with her, you work with him. He had
Speaker 1: no patience with them. I had such an affinity for
Speaker 1: what was going on that it was the first time
Speaker 1: in my life I felt this is what I can do,
Speaker 1: which is to teach, teach direct, Yeah, work with acting.
Speaker 1: You no longer want to be an actor. You want
Speaker 1: to be an acting teacher. Does that happen quickly? Uh? No, No,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an actor. And how much acting
Speaker 1: did you do? Not that much? Because I moved it
Speaker 1: into directing. Sandy. Sandy was like my guardian angel, very smart.
Speaker 1: He latched onto me. I was assisting him at the
Speaker 1: at the end of the first year, he was doing
Speaker 1: a play called truck Line Cafe, which had been Yeah
Speaker 1: brandam was successful on Broadway, and so that was the
Speaker 1: second year classes graduation and there was an eight year
Speaker 1: old child in it. He had no patience to work
Speaker 1: with that eight year old child. He said, you work
Speaker 1: with it. It turned out to be someone whose name
Speaker 1: was Susan Pushett. Oh my goodness. Now when you're there, Uh,
Speaker 1: you look back now, and you've been teaching for quite
Speaker 1: a long time. Sandy started me in in the nineteen
Speaker 1: of fifty. Okay, so you've been teaching for since the
Speaker 1: stagecoach years without a stop. And so with that in mind,
Speaker 1: can you look back now from your perspective and say,
Speaker 1: what were Meisner's strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. Well,
Speaker 1: he was enormously perceptive, uh, and could pick out what
Speaker 1: you weren't doing and what kind of suggests what you
Speaker 1: should be doing, and expressing it in ways that you
Speaker 1: could hold on to, Like he'd say, uh, everything prepared
Speaker 1: but the acting or as if um, you know a metaphors.
Speaker 1: He had good ways of suggesting that his criticism sometime
Speaker 1: could be cutting. He was direct to direct. Uh when
Speaker 1: when he was gonna see I had been in a
Speaker 1: naval officer and on a ship if it was gonna
Speaker 1: ram and hit something, stand by for a ram. Sandy
Speaker 1: would uh put his glasses on his forehead and I
Speaker 1: would say, stand by for a ram. I'm gonna use that.
Speaker 1: When he did that, it was bad because he didn't
Speaker 1: something You don't get over that fast. Uh. And criticism
Speaker 1: at that level, you see, it is a tremendous responsibility
Speaker 1: to be an acting teacher because you can say one
Speaker 1: thing I could damage someone for life. It's so By
Speaker 1: the way, I want to interject from my listeners here,
Speaker 1: I mean why I was so keen on doing this
Speaker 1: with you was because that that nurturing and that kindness,
Speaker 1: your reputation in New York when I first came here
Speaker 1: was you were a very supportive and kind and nurturing teacher.
Speaker 1: The late director and teaching legend when happen more coming up,
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the
Speaker 1: thing when handman shares with his mentor Sanford Meisner, the
Speaker 1: move away from so called effective memory. That's the method
Speaker 1: acting staple of summoning one's own emotional experiences in order
Speaker 1: to channel the characters trauma or joy. But Hammond's warm
Speaker 1: embrace of his students stood in sharp contrast to the
Speaker 1: man who first gave him his shot. Well, it's not
Speaker 1: my nature to hurt people, and it's in my nature
Speaker 1: to bring people along and know how vulnerable they are.
Speaker 1: See when I be Sandy said you will, He said,
Speaker 1: you will become my assistant, and you will have an
Speaker 1: apprenticeship of humility. He said that that directly, and he
Speaker 1: said you will watch every one of my class and
Speaker 1: do your own. And I did that. So I saw
Speaker 1: more Sandford Meisner classes than anyone because he ordered me
Speaker 1: to do it. And I thank him for it because
Speaker 1: I learned from it. But I could see where he
Speaker 1: set people back because the tension, and I felt it.
Speaker 1: I mean, why do you think he did that? Did
Speaker 1: you believe that was in their interest? He had that nature.
Speaker 1: He could be very mean. And so Meisner was known,
Speaker 1: obviously in a very kind of a basic sense for
Speaker 1: this repetition technique, the Meisnerian tank. Did you not see that, President, No,
Speaker 1: that wasn't done. Then it wasn't He didn't do it
Speaker 1: when And I know why he developed it because it
Speaker 1: was a period of naturalism and you know, strong realism,
Speaker 1: living off the other person. What the repetition does is
Speaker 1: he it makes you go off the other person. Fuck you. Well,
Speaker 1: I said, you know that kind of thing. But then
Speaker 1: they became his whole system, this whole method, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous. Did you think that's true? That did become
Speaker 1: his whole system. Aren't they teachers around who they teach Meisner?
Speaker 1: And so what do you do? Well, what you do repetition?
Speaker 1: How long can you do repetition? Maybe a week or something, No,
Speaker 1: the whole semester. Well, I think it's for teachers who
Speaker 1: don't have the chops to really teach, so they watch
Speaker 1: these people go back and forth with their repetition. With
Speaker 1: Sandy was everything to me. You know, he trained me,
Speaker 1: and uh, he moved me right along. He could be
Speaker 1: very tender. So when my first child, Laura was born,
Speaker 1: he gave her a little thing from Tiffany, a pearl,
Speaker 1: and every birthday he gave her another pearl. And I may,
Speaker 1: I said, he's our godfather. And he got me so
Speaker 1: out of directing because he there was up in the
Speaker 1: at Irondack so was a was a leftist adult camp
Speaker 1: lest it was very He said, you you should direct
Speaker 1: that company. I was not married yet, but my wife
Speaker 1: to be was a truly great woman. Anyway, I sat
Speaker 1: on a bench with her up at Columbia University where
Speaker 1: she was a Barnard said, Sandy wants me to direct im.
Speaker 1: She says do it. Yeah. And when I said, Bobby,
Speaker 1: that was so right for me. I had my own company.
Speaker 1: I did play aff to play and Uh, I said,
Speaker 1: I knew I was a director. Now what do you
Speaker 1: think Lee's strength was? Uh? Were you critical with him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of Leasia. His speaking gave me
Speaker 1: a headache. He is an example. I had a student
Speaker 1: who took his direct acting course and and he used
Speaker 1: two of my students. One of them was Dallas from
Speaker 1: North Carolina. And another woman from Jackson, Mississippi. They did
Speaker 1: a scene and he was very critical. So he had
Speaker 1: them do what he had his his emotion memory, and
Speaker 1: they did it and then he was very pleased. But
Speaker 1: she said to him, yeah, but Dallas was in North
Speaker 1: Carolina and I was in Mississippi. He didn't transfer into saying, well,
Speaker 1: whatever you're getting from that, now move it into you
Speaker 1: are now. One of the things you learn in basic
Speaker 1: acting and acting is doing because you have an intention,
Speaker 1: a purpose because out of your want. Well, they they
Speaker 1: got so preoccupied with physical things like itches and and
Speaker 1: pains and behavior behavior that they us the intention and
Speaker 1: that was no good. I was critical of that, but
Speaker 1: he let that go. Well. There are people who do
Speaker 1: scene work in classes that can that could be scene
Speaker 1: work at the actor's studio, which isn't really scene work.
Speaker 1: It's more like previous circumstances or prior circumstances. They do
Speaker 1: a lot of different kind of exercises there. Uh for
Speaker 1: those who don't know what I mean, do you take
Speaker 1: a scene from uh Cataona hot Tin Roof and let's
Speaker 1: go back and do the scene that happened a couple
Speaker 1: of days before that. We make up and we improvise
Speaker 1: what are known as the prior circumstances, and we improvise that.
Speaker 1: But these exercises, which is really the bread and butter
Speaker 1: of the studio, inhabiting the character. If you get in
Speaker 1: the character, then the character does the work for you.
Speaker 1: It's a difficult thing to do. Yeah, well that's training.
Speaker 1: So I've developed something called the character interview. So if
Speaker 1: you're working on the role, I say, well, before you
Speaker 1: come back in, put down four questions you want to
Speaker 1: be asked about yourself. Oh well, they make them up
Speaker 1: for their own, but then I know what the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what the material is about. So then I
Speaker 1: have my own questions in bon and I don't let
Speaker 1: them do the scene, but I only get them improvising
Speaker 1: in this character that we're developing. So then when they
Speaker 1: get to the scene, the character is inside. People remember
Speaker 1: it when it's inhabitant. When do things end with Meisner?
Speaker 1: You're done with Meisner? You guys part ways? When and
Speaker 1: then in between exactly what happened? Uh? He taught first
Speaker 1: year was basic acting. Now, basic acting it's important, but
Speaker 1: it got boring to me, and I was teaching more
Speaker 1: basic acting causes than he was So when the new
Speaker 1: season began and uh I saw the schedule, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I can't do this much basic acting anymore. It's like
Speaker 1: mountains ahead of me. I just can't take it. So
Speaker 1: he flew. He got very angry, and I got angry,
Speaker 1: and uh I left. I had a certain independence which
Speaker 1: he gave me because I am between fifty five. And
Speaker 1: when you open American Place, what do you do? You
Speaker 1: start teaching privately, no teaching classes. I was teaching four
Speaker 1: classes each with twenty or more people. I had my
Speaker 1: own studio what was it called? Just to win him
Speaker 1: in studio? And when you started American Place theater, I
Speaker 1: started in the early sixties sixty Why do you want
Speaker 1: to start a theater? Because it wasn't enough for me
Speaker 1: to teach. I was reaching I guess it was midlife crisis.
Speaker 1: What am I going to do with my life? I'm
Speaker 1: teaching very well and I like doing it, and I
Speaker 1: can do it, But is there more I can be
Speaker 1: doing well? What was in the era at the time
Speaker 1: was not to just do Broadway kind of theater, but
Speaker 1: to do others. So Bruce Stein had an article about
Speaker 1: you know, Robert bruce Stein, the critic and Uh. There
Speaker 1: was an article called the Plight of the Serious Play
Speaker 1: which I saw in the New York Times, and uh
Speaker 1: quotes from George Bernard Shaw, which I'll do one which
Speaker 1: meant a lot to me, and I'd like to record it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You see, George Bernard Shaw was a theater critic in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties and he for three years, and when
Speaker 1: he finished with that he started writing plays. But they
Speaker 1: published all of his criticism in the collection Our Theater
Speaker 1: in the nineties. He said this, more people went to
Speaker 1: the theater in London when I was reviewing, then went
Speaker 1: to church. This would be a very good thing if
Speaker 1: the theater took itself seriously as a factory of thought,
Speaker 1: an elucidator of social conduct, and armory against despair and dullness,
Speaker 1: and the temple of the ascent of a man. Well,
Speaker 1: I carried that around. I said, this is what I
Speaker 1: have to fulfill. So it got me started looking for
Speaker 1: plays that well. That He also, in one of his reviews,
Speaker 1: said something very meaningful to me. He said, well, this
Speaker 1: play is an entertainment, nothing wrong with that, not a
Speaker 1: serious revelation of mankind to itself. That's what we're really about.
Speaker 1: Give us two examples male female who came through your
Speaker 1: doors who you just excited you. You knew they had it.
Speaker 1: They went on to become great act Michael Douglas. He
Speaker 1: said us me, if it was all right, if I
Speaker 1: could call your mother and tell her how good you are.
Speaker 1: I knew his mother, and yes he was. He was
Speaker 1: very good. Right. A woman? What's an actress who came
Speaker 1: through your doors? Alison? Janny, Alison Janny. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: give him a role and she can do it all.
Speaker 1: And I should mention one you never heard of. Her
Speaker 1: name is Mary Alice By, and I directed her in
Speaker 1: a summer theater up in the Bosch Belt area in
Speaker 1: the fifties and I just couldn't get over her talents
Speaker 1: with one word, this actress. It was a summerstar play
Speaker 1: four poster the Evolution of a marriage. And then there's
Speaker 1: one sequence where the man has gone off and been
Speaker 1: with another woman. Now he came back. She loved that man.
Speaker 1: All she said was you and that you was still
Speaker 1: with me. It just bounced off every wall of every
Speaker 1: theater because she had so much going down here for
Speaker 1: her love for this man. Mary Alice. Now I caught
Speaker 1: Laurence Olivier at a performance of The Entertainer which was
Speaker 1: on a Thursday, and David Merrick uh New York in
Speaker 1: New York, and the word was out, well, he missed
Speaker 1: his performer. He wasn't as good as he had been
Speaker 1: in England on the opening night on Wednesday. Well, Mary
Speaker 1: wanted to gate eight performances in so he had a
Speaker 1: Thursday matinee and he had a phil of theater, so
Speaker 1: it was all actors. And when Olivier walked on stage,
Speaker 1: they applauded and uh and greeted him. And from that
Speaker 1: entrance on he was so in that character. He's never
Speaker 1: been in a character like that. That was absolutely memorable.
Speaker 1: Not just one moment, but memorable. But there are moments
Speaker 1: like when I saw the original street Car, when when
Speaker 1: Malan was hearing the sisters talk about how an animal,
Speaker 1: Blanche would saying he's an animal. Don't hold back with
Speaker 1: the apes. He was out there listening. You got so
Speaker 1: much from him that you see. It's still in the air.
Speaker 1: Pig pollock, disgusting, vulgar boards on your lips and your
Speaker 1: sisters too much around here. Remember what you long said,
Speaker 1: every man is a king and I am the king.
Speaker 1: Around even you and I snashed my hand. I go backstage.
Speaker 1: All my knuckle was all bleeding, but I didn't give
Speaker 1: a ship that was so happy. I remember how good
Speaker 1: you were your class. I always remember because you were
Speaker 1: so encouraging. I mean, but we got into it. You
Speaker 1: mean that freedom to who just explore each other emotionally,
Speaker 1: you know, and that love you know, which you just
Speaker 1: can't fake on stage. When I teach. Now, I say
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor. I say, really luxuriate in this now,
Speaker 1: this process, because when you get older and you go
Speaker 1: to work, it's all Arthur Murray, It's all steps on
Speaker 1: the floor and dancing. Hurry. R had a we despair.
Speaker 1: He told me the ground word there walking around words
Speaker 1: told me to take it from there. You know something,
Speaker 1: We're gonna end with that. We're gonna end with your
Speaker 1: Arthur Murray song. Well, thank you, right, and you're very glad.
Speaker 1: We met Win Handman, founder of the American Place Theater,
Speaker 1: mentor to thousands, father to Laura and Liza, husband to
Speaker 1: the late Bobby Handman, and a force for good in
Speaker 1: the world of acting and beyond. Rest in peace. Win.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to here the
Speaker 1: thing