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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. My guest today is an author, critic,

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Speaker 1: and theater director. His most recent book, The Method, How

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Speaker 1: the Twentieth Century Learned to Act, has been named one

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Speaker 1: of the best books of twenty twenty two by The

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Speaker 1: New Yorker, Time Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Vanity Fair.

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Speaker 1: Isaac Butler has studied acting since childhood, performing in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C's theater scene. He is now an adjunct instructor

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Speaker 1: of Theater History and Performance at NYU Tish. Butler is

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Speaker 1: also the author of the World Only Spins Forward, The

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Speaker 1: Ascent of Angels in America. His writing on theater and

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Speaker 1: film has appeared in numerous publications such as New York Magazine,

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Speaker 1: The Guardian, Slate, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

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Speaker 1: I was curious to know Butler's opinion of the three

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Speaker 1: great actors he mentions in his book, Lee Strasburg, Sandy Meisner,

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Speaker 1: Stella Adler, and how he came to write The Method.

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Speaker 2: What I wanted to do with the book was, since

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Speaker 2: I had never met Lee or Stella or Sandy or

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Speaker 2: any of those people. They were all, you know, dead

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Speaker 2: before I went to college, was to really try to

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Speaker 2: take as seriously as possible the opinions of those who

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Speaker 2: knew them right, because I wasn't there. And much as

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Speaker 2: like when you're an actor trying to create a role,

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Speaker 2: you know, you want to understand that role as deeply

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Speaker 2: as possible, even if you don't agree with one hundred

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Speaker 2: percent of that character psychology or the choices they make

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Speaker 2: in a play. I think most characters who are interesting

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Speaker 2: are ones who we wouldn't necessarily make all the same

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Speaker 2: choices they do, because plot comes from.

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Speaker 1: When you're playing. You got to give it everything you have,

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Speaker 1: exactly right.

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Speaker 2: And so I wound up having, you know, very complicated

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Speaker 2: and mostly positive feelings about all of them, Do you

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Speaker 2: know what I mean? I mean Lee, who I didn't know,

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Speaker 2: but by all reports was an incredibly difficult person to

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Speaker 2: get along with, way did not ever say hello or goodbye,

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Speaker 2: did not make a lot of eye contact, yelled at

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Speaker 2: people when he very at the drop of a hat, unnecessary,

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Speaker 2: very imperious, Yeah, very imperious. And you know, at the

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Speaker 2: same time, so many actors would say, even people who

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Speaker 2: hated him personally, he changed my life and maybe the

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Speaker 2: actor I am today, and so you have to respect

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Speaker 2: both of those things. It is certainly not the case

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Speaker 2: that Lee's method is good for every actor. And I

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Speaker 2: think the big problem that Lee and to some extent

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Speaker 2: Stella and some of the other people ran into is

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Speaker 2: getting a little high on their own supply about that

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Speaker 2: that there was one true way to get to the truth.

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Speaker 2: There's all sorts of different ways to get to the truth.

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Speaker 2: And Lee would give lip service to that. Sometimes he'd

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Speaker 2: be like, you know, Laurence Olivier gets to the truth

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Speaker 2: by finding the right shirt or whatever. He didn't really

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Speaker 2: accept that if his students did it, you know. And

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Speaker 2: so I think that what actually is most important is

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Speaker 2: that the student find the right teacher for them. And

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Speaker 2: what's been interesting since the death of that generation, or

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Speaker 2: actually started when late in life, how many people would

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Speaker 2: take classes from both Stella and Sandy or you know,

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Speaker 2: would go to see Lee and then go to udhah

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Speaker 2: Hagen or whatever and try to kind of get the

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Speaker 2: things they were missing from each and create their own

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Speaker 2: way of doing it. Because ultimately, after years and years

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Speaker 2: and years in a career, you found your own technique.

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Speaker 2: It might be based on their technique. But there's stuff

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Speaker 2: that's useful to you, there's stuff that isn't, and you

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Speaker 2: find your own way.

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Speaker 1: I think for me, Strasburg was somebody who the number

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Speaker 1: one thing, which they made the number one thing, and

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Speaker 1: maybe they didn't emphasize it enough, maybe not enough of

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Speaker 1: them completely grasp the necessity of relaxation. Right. You got

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Speaker 1: to turn off all the pipes and vowels of your day.

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Speaker 1: You got to go to work, you can't talk to people,

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Speaker 1: you can't be on the phone with your girlfriend breaking

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Speaker 1: up with her. You got to cut all that off

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Speaker 1: and just be here now and sit in a chair.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to read a book, don't go

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Speaker 1: to your trailer. Go to your trailer when the scene

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Speaker 1: is over and it's a break. But we're during the

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Speaker 1: shots of that scene said on the set, stay connected

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Speaker 1: to this, all these things of connection, relaxation, concentration, and

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Speaker 1: then you have a shot at the other things happening.

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Speaker 1: You have no shot if the other things don't happen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Stanislavsky was very serious about relaxation, you know,

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Speaker 2: and Strasburg is adapting a lot of those ways that

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Speaker 2: Stanislavsky developed. You know, he started doing yoga. He was

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Speaker 2: very interested in breathing exercises, a lot of stuff that

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Speaker 2: we associate today with like mindfulness. You know, Stanislavsky was

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Speaker 2: doing to try to figure out how to totally relax

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Speaker 2: as an actor, because he was totally all about that

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Speaker 2: that it was only once you were relaxed that you

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Speaker 2: could actually do the work, because otherwise it's all getting

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Speaker 2: contained in your body and it's not going anywhere.

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Speaker 1: You know, when you talk about a method acting performance,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about Brando obviously, and Clift and I studied

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Speaker 1: with Mirror Rostova, Oh amazing Cliff's teacher. You know, she

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Speaker 1: was in her nineties. She taught in the living room

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Speaker 1: of a friend's apartment and she would teacheck and she

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Speaker 1: changed my life because she talked to me about how

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Speaker 1: actors very often are playing the scene at the expense

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Speaker 1: of the the act right listening, oh Jack Lemon thing

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Speaker 1: where you have to be really really be very acute

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Speaker 1: and you're listening and responding and so forth. And she

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Speaker 1: really changed my life because I was doing a soap opera,

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Speaker 1: and soap opera acting is defined by an actor walking

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Speaker 1: and going. You know, you're not going to take over

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Speaker 1: those shares of Paul my industry's day. Let me tell

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Speaker 1: you that right now, right, and the next time, the

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Speaker 1: next scene, it's like, I love you, Mary, goddamn it,

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Speaker 1: I love you. You know, they play the same cadence

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Speaker 1: and the same emotional register, regardless of the same right.

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Speaker 1: Was she a yeller to Mirah?

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Speaker 2: That's interesting because a lot of the Russians, I mean,

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Speaker 2: where Strasburg and Stella yelled a lot too, right, And

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Speaker 2: where they got it from was was this student of

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Speaker 2: Stanislavsky's name Maria Ospinskaya of course, who's also very famous

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Speaker 2: you know film actor.

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Speaker 1: Later, Yeah, the Wolf y. You know, I just showed

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Speaker 1: my kid The Wolf, Mam.

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Speaker 2: We're doing the Universal Horror and I was like, oh

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Speaker 2: my god, it's Maria Osbanskaya. And then, you know, my

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Speaker 2: kid looked at me and was like, who's that? Why

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Speaker 2: do you care? And I had to explained she was

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Speaker 2: Moscow Art Theater, Moscow Art Theater, yeah, and then the

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Speaker 2: first studio, and then you know, she was when the

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Speaker 2: Moscow Art Theater came to the United States in the twenties,

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Speaker 2: there was a group of them who had to stay behind.

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Speaker 2: They were fired from the company and exiled from the

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Speaker 2: Soviet or from Russia, you know, because the political wins

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Speaker 2: were changing, and she was one of them. And she

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Speaker 2: and another exile, this guy Richard Boloslavsky, who for any

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Speaker 2: actors who are listening, as the guy who wrote acting

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Speaker 2: the first six Lessons, the very first book in English

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Speaker 2: about Stanislavski technique, Love It. And he also directed Ospinskaya

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Speaker 2: later in a movie. But Richard Boloslavsky and Mario Ospinskaya

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Speaker 2: were the two fundamental teachers at the school. The American

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Speaker 2: Laboratory Theater where was that it had a number of

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Speaker 2: different locations. It moved all around because it was here

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Speaker 2: in New York, and it was this model that's actually

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Speaker 2: sort of the conservatory model now, but not exactly where.

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Speaker 2: You know, you studied very hard for like two years,

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Speaker 2: and then you joined the best of them joined the

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Speaker 2: rep company that was associated with the school, and so

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Speaker 2: they were sort of running all of those those different things.

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Speaker 2: And you know, Harold Klerman studied there, Lee Strasburg studied there.

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Speaker 2: Stella Adler's studied there. You know, a lot of the

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Speaker 2: key twentieth century theater makers study there. Ospinskaya was a

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Speaker 2: notorious dragon in scene study class. She among other things,

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Speaker 2: she was an alcoholic, and so she would have a

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Speaker 2: bottle of what she claimed was cough medicine. It was

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Speaker 2: jin and she would drink medicine. Yeah, but she would

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Speaker 2: drink you know, table switch to be like, oh my

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Speaker 2: cough is worse I need And then eventually she subbed

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Speaker 2: it out with a pitcher of water that was actually

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Speaker 2: gin and would just you know, like a little vermouth

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Speaker 2: with my yes exactly. And so I mean she would

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Speaker 2: just devastatingly destroy people if she thought they were being lazy.

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Speaker 2: I think, like any art, and acting is of course

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Speaker 2: an art as well as a craft at a job

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Speaker 2: and all sorts of other things. There's a kind of

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Speaker 2: osmosis of the world around you that you engage in.

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Speaker 2: You know, like when I am writing a book, there's

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Speaker 2: often like three albums of music I listened to while

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Speaker 2: writing it, and even if they're.

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Speaker 1: Not, can you share what they are? You've rather not.

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Speaker 2: A lot of the method was written to this piece

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Speaker 2: of music called Canto Ostinado, which is a piece of

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Speaker 2: mut music that it's a little difficult to explain. It's

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Speaker 2: sort of a minimalist piece of music. It's about forty

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Speaker 2: five minutes long, and there's a particular version on Spotify

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Speaker 2: that's all Cello's doing it, And so there was that.

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Speaker 1: I listen to that a lot.

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Speaker 2: I have a playlist whenever I'm on deadline, I have

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Speaker 2: a playlist of the most kind of loud, percussive guitar

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Speaker 2: solo heavy songs by the Bandiola Tango or my favorite band,

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Speaker 2: And so I listen to that and just words come.

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Speaker 1: Flying out, I thought you'd say, and not that I'm

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Speaker 1: predating Adagio for streets right right, right right.

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Speaker 2: And then there's a jazz composer who I've worked with

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Speaker 2: a couple of times named Darcy James Argue, who's a

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Speaker 2: very close friend whose work I love, and so I

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Speaker 2: usually have one of his albums.

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Speaker 1: This is the stuff that carries you over the threshold.

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Speaker 2: And part of it is just I've written to this

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Speaker 2: stuff so much. There's like a sense memory almost, you know,

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Speaker 2: like now it's time to write.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: It's like it just does something to my subconscious and

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Speaker 2: then away we go. But you know, if I was

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Speaker 2: writing something sad, I might listen to sad.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: I've definitely had those like, oh, this scene has this

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Speaker 2: certain emotional feeling. I'm going to listen to music that

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Speaker 2: has that emotional feeling.

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Speaker 1: Not words. Can never have words if you're writing for

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Speaker 1: me anyway. Yeah, for me in acting, I played the

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Speaker 1: audio clips only of movies that make me sad. Oh really,

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Speaker 1: so there's a scene that breaks my heart, I'll play

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Speaker 1: that scene in my ear. I knew.

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Speaker 2: I interviewed one actor who told me to prep for

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Speaker 2: a scene he would watch because it had a similar emotionality,

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Speaker 2: totally different scene. He wasn't trying to copy what DeNiro did,

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Speaker 2: but it was just this that that feeling of total devastation,

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Speaker 2: the scene where DeNiro's punching the wall of the jail

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Speaker 2: cells and raging bull and he would just watch that.

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Speaker 1: And I've not a vast but a limited library of

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Speaker 1: those scenes that I watched a trigger with certain emotion

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Speaker 1: in me. Yeah, that's like if you say, you know

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Speaker 1: the de Niro thing, it's like Brando, you know, we

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Speaker 1: see don't leave him lying here. I'm gonna take it

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Speaker 1: out on this skulls. Yeah, when they don't leave me

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Speaker 1: here like this CD when he finds Steiger's body who

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Speaker 1: betrayed him, right, But I mean that makes me cry

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Speaker 1: even out his brother betrayed him, but he's still it's

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Speaker 1: his brother, you know what I mean? He plays that

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Speaker 1: like he just an inescapable thing.

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Speaker 2: You know what line? And I'm not an actor anymore.

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Speaker 2: But the line that always, like, when I just even

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Speaker 2: think about it, I start to get worked up is

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Speaker 2: when Hamlet says I loved Ophelia forty thousand brothers. That

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Speaker 2: line about like forty thousand brothers cannot, with all their

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Speaker 2: love makeup my son or something like that. And there's

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Speaker 2: just something so first of all, it's a shitty thing

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Speaker 2: to say to a guy whose sister has just died,

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Speaker 2: but it's also so emotionally overpowering that if I think

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Speaker 2: about it long enough, it'll trigger something.

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Speaker 1: Same the littlest things. Yeah, when you realize how deeply

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Speaker 1: deeply individualized this is and subjective and personal, I'll never

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Speaker 1: forget when Jamie Sheridan, the great actor he played Fortinbrass

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Speaker 1: and the production that pap did of Hamlet?

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Speaker 2: Where is that the Diane ve noora one that thank you,

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Speaker 2: This is really a treat we're gonna be come back

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Speaker 2: with through two episodes.

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Speaker 1: No, seriously, because because Diane Venora plays the first female.

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Speaker 1: Hammi Joe puts it right. I wish, I wish I

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Speaker 1: saw it. She was magical. Yeah, she was absolutely wonderful.

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Speaker 1: She was the fact that she didn't go on from

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Speaker 1: bird and have a great she played his wife right

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Speaker 1: with Forrest Whitaker. Yeah, now she does this and and

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Speaker 1: when everybody's dead at the end, and she comes on

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Speaker 1: and Jamie Sherion plus Fort and Bruston comes in and

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Speaker 1: just the honor in his voice of a dead soldier,

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Speaker 1: soldier to so he comes from the Battley comes in.

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Speaker 1: He goes, oh, proud death, and he's kind of eulogizing

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Speaker 1: in his ordinary statement of this. And I started sobbing

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Speaker 1: when he said this, And whenever I think about it,

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Speaker 1: I could have pushed me over the edge because it

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Speaker 1: was so rich in that there was a context. I

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Speaker 1: got it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean one of the weird things. And people

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Speaker 2: said this happened at the actors studio. Maybe you witnessed

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Speaker 2: it as well, that there could be a certain fetishization

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Speaker 2: of crying, right, It's like you just the actors just

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Speaker 2: really wanted to cry. And I think that's really fascinating

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Speaker 2: because first of all, it is totally possible to be

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Speaker 2: filled with devastating sadness and not cry. There are all

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Speaker 2: sorts of people who don't cry that much. To cry

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Speaker 2: or try not to cry is always more interesting than

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Speaker 2: crying on camera or on stage, right, whether.

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Speaker 1: It's worth the take, it's the playing against right.

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Speaker 2: And then the other thing is that there are all

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Speaker 2: sorts of things that we respond to with tears that

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Speaker 2: aren't necessarily sad, because again, emotion is so individuated. And

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Speaker 2: I think part of what Strasburg, the thing that Strasburg

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Speaker 2: was getting at that I think is really key and

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Speaker 2: why it was so revolutionary, you know, that is the

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Speaker 2: idea that each person responds differently to everything. And so

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Speaker 2: if you want to be not cliched, you need to

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Speaker 2: harness what's individual about you and figure out a way

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Speaker 2: to put it into the character. Because the way that

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Speaker 2: you know, Alec Baldwin tries not to cry and then

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Speaker 2: cries is different from the way that I would.

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Speaker 1: What's one thing you thought about? I mean, because you

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Speaker 1: were acting and you talk about it well, First of all,

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Speaker 1: talk about that when you go back into your college

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Speaker 1: dormitory room and have a mini nervous breakdown after some

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Speaker 1: of the work you did. Oh my God.

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Speaker 2: That was the experience that it didn't put me off

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Speaker 2: acting in terms of my interest in acting, but it

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Speaker 2: made me realize I was not actually tough enough to

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Speaker 2: be an actor. And I think we think a lot

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Speaker 2: of times of actors as not particularly tough people.

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Speaker 1: But there's a.

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Speaker 2: Unique toughness that being an artist requires, and there's a

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Speaker 2: unique toughness that being an actor requires, which has to

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Speaker 2: do with being vulnerable and then not vulnerable. You know,

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Speaker 2: you have to open yourself up to the world and

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Speaker 2: you have to be able to shut it out. You

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Speaker 2: have to be able to get up in front of

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Speaker 2: people an audition and you know, deal with that rejection

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Speaker 2: and humiliation over and over again. And you also have

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Speaker 2: to be able to do this thing where, particularly if

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Speaker 2: you're going in a kind of Methody Stanislavsky direction, you

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Speaker 2: know you are plumbing often in a play, if it's

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Speaker 2: a deep play, a serious play, into the shit, and

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Speaker 2: you have to be able to get out of it.

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Speaker 2: You have to be able to turn it off, you

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Speaker 2: have to be able to walk away with it. And

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Speaker 2: this is an example when I couldn't really do that.

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Speaker 2: I it was my freshman year of college. I had

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Speaker 2: had a couple years of kind of Stanislavsky ish education

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Speaker 2: at like an acting conservatory run by a local theater

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Speaker 2: in DC. And I had been a professional actor as

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Speaker 2: a kid, so, you know, I thought I was going

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Speaker 2: to do that would you do as a kid?

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Speaker 1: I was.

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Speaker 2: I did voiceover for an industrial or two. I was

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Speaker 2: in a couple musicals and a play and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: I was in the musical Falsettos, playing Jason the twelve

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Speaker 2: year Old Boy, if you know that show. I was

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Speaker 2: in a musical about the AIDS Quilt that then performed

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Speaker 2: at like the Smithsonian. Do you remember when the AIDS

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Speaker 2: Quilt came to d C. Yeah, yeah, so we performed

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Speaker 2: as part of that. We were also at the University

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Speaker 2: of Maryland. And it was a life changing experience. Among

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Speaker 2: other things that it is what politicized me. I mean,

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Speaker 2: growing up in DC, you're always political, yeah yeah, but

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Speaker 2: but in this case it was, you know, working in

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Speaker 2: the theater and knowing gays and lesbians, knowing people with AIDS,

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Speaker 2: you know, who are my friends?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, me too. And started in the business of

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Speaker 1: the eighties, it was all just royaling then, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 2: That was really life changing. I started going to protest,

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Speaker 2: so I started really caring, you know, about something. And

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Speaker 2: so anyway, when we get to college, I was at Vassar,

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Speaker 2: I was, you know, a month into school or whatever,

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Speaker 2: and I got cast as the lead in Eric Bagosian's

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Speaker 2: Talk Radio. And uh, for anyone listening to this who

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Speaker 2: doesn't know Talk Radio the play, the movie's actually kind

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Speaker 2: of wonderful.

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Speaker 1: It's very panematic. I forgot that you're in that's so funny.

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Speaker 1: Sign of age.

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Speaker 2: No, I just think of it as just as just

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Speaker 2: Eric bagoshin and you sort.

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Speaker 1: Of forget play the station manager to do or no, no,

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Speaker 1: you're the station manager right right. Obviously not memorable. But again,

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Speaker 1: it's been a while since I've seen because I have

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Speaker 1: a traumatic relationship to this material. So I haven't seen

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Speaker 1: the movie in a while.

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Speaker 2: And so for those of you who don't know the play,

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Speaker 2: if you're playing the Eric Bagosian part and Talk Radio,

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Speaker 2: you are on stage chain smoking for ninety minutes and

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Speaker 2: then you have a three page long nervous breakdown. That's

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Speaker 2: the arc of the character, right. And so it was

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Speaker 2: two student directors, bless their souls, didn't know what they

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Speaker 2: were doing, and so I just went. Really I used

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Speaker 2: everything I knew about how to go deep into the

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Speaker 2: self right, which was not enough to be able to

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Speaker 2: control what I was messing with. I was messing with

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Speaker 2: dark forces that you know, like a like an apprentice wizard,

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Speaker 2: do you know what I mean. It's like, you know,

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Speaker 2: Mickey causing all the yeah and the brooms are just

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Speaker 2: all my self hatred. And on top of that, I'm

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Speaker 2: literally chainsmoking during the play. And I was a half

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Speaker 2: a pack a day smoker at the time. I've quit

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Speaker 2: for over twenty years now, but I was smoking like

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Speaker 2: a pack and a half cigarettes on stage. So I

357
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Speaker 2: was making myself physically and mentally ill on stage at

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Speaker 2: the same time every night, and you know, like the

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Speaker 2: performance would end, and you know, there was this girl

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Speaker 2: I had a crush on, and I made sure she

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Speaker 2: came and saw the show, and the only thing she

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Speaker 2: said to me afterwards was I'm worried about you, right,

363
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Speaker 2: And I would just go home and I smelled terrible,

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Speaker 2: and I hated myself because the character hates himself, that's

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Speaker 2: the core of that character. And I would literally stare

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Speaker 2: at the painted white or probably beige center block wall

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Speaker 2: of my seven x ten dorm room, and I would

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Speaker 2: just fucking stare at that wall until I could feel

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Speaker 2: myself come back together, like I had obliterated myself and

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Speaker 2: I had to come back together. And one week of

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Speaker 2: that was enough for me. I was like, I can't

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Speaker 2: believe anyone does this all the time for a living. Now,

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Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is, you actually get a

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Speaker 2: lot of training, and you learn how to do that

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Speaker 2: without destroying yourself.

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Speaker 1: Or you don't. You develop a drinking probably, and it's

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Speaker 1: called acting. Yeah, exactly.

378
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Speaker 2: And so I was like, you know what, I can't

379
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Speaker 2: do this. And then I realized that I really liked

380
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Speaker 2: telling people what to do, and I knew a lot

381
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Speaker 2: about theater, and so I should try directing. And so

382
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Speaker 2: I called my parents to tell them this, Hey, I

383
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Speaker 2: don't think I'm an actor anymore. I think I'm a director.

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Speaker 2: And it was exactly like a coming out scene from

385
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Speaker 2: like an early nineties play, do you know what I mean?

386
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Speaker 2: They were like, well, do you think this is just

387
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Speaker 2: a phase? And I was like, no, I think this

388
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Speaker 2: is for keeps, you know. They're like, well, you know,

389
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Speaker 2: you might go back to it sometimes, like I don't know,

390
00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:13,399
Speaker 2: you know, It's exactly like that, and then I.

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Speaker 1: Didn't think they would disappoint somewhat of you giving up acting. Well,

392
00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:19,399
Speaker 1: they had been so supportive of act. You've done it

393
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Speaker 1: for a while. I've done it for a while, and it.

394
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Speaker 2: Really saved my life. I was in a really bad

395
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Speaker 2: place when I got cast in that play as a

396
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Speaker 2: twelve year old. I was I was bullied a lot

397
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Speaker 2: as a kid. It wasn't physical, but it was very

398
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Speaker 2: you know. That's where all those brooms came from. That

399
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:32,760
Speaker 2: I Mickey style called up. I was bullied a lot

400
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Speaker 2: as a kid, and I just you know, and theater

401
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:37,679
Speaker 2: had really saved my life, and so I think they

402
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:40,680
Speaker 2: were worried that I was too casually throwing any siblings. Yeah,

403
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 2: I have three siblings. I have three siblings. I have

404
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,120
Speaker 2: an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother.

405
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Speaker 2: My older two siblings both went to boarding school, so

406
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Speaker 2: they were kind of out of the house by the

407
00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:51,680
Speaker 2: time I was, you know, ten or whatever.

408
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Speaker 1: They were smoking a pack and a half a day. And yeah,

409
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,480
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. And then many of them in the business

410
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Speaker 1: and entertainment.

411
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Speaker 2: No, no, no, not no, my younger but well, my

412
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,760
Speaker 2: younger brother's a like works for a nonprofit now doing

413
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Speaker 2: a library stuff and educational stuff for kids. And so

414
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Speaker 2: I told them, you want to go to directing. I

415
00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 2: told him I wanted to go in directing, and I

416
00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:14,159
Speaker 2: just started doing it all the time. I became like

417
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Speaker 2: a directing monster. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

418
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Speaker 2: And also I felt like I could help actors, having

419
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Speaker 2: gone through that experience and having had some training, you know,

420
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:25,440
Speaker 2: I could work with them in a way to try

421
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Speaker 2: to bring out the best of them, in a way

422
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Speaker 2: that wasn't abusive. It was about creating a welcoming room.

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Speaker 1: So being a facilitator became more important to you. It did. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was the opposite in the sense that I directed

425
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Speaker 1: one film, and it was. It was a horrible experience

426
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Speaker 1: from a financial standpoint and from a business and production stamp.

427
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Speaker 1: But what did you realize as a director that you

428
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Speaker 1: liked about directing? Because I hated having to control other

429
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Speaker 1: actors into doing what I wanted them to do.

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Speaker 2: No, I will say that part of it eventually grew tiring,

431
00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:53,439
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? But I loved the

432
00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:57,200
Speaker 2: sense of community. I loved the sense of all of us. Yeah,

433
00:18:57,200 --> 00:18:59,439
Speaker 2: and I loved it film. Yeah, And I loved the

434
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:01,920
Speaker 2: thing the thing I miss because there's there's things about

435
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,879
Speaker 2: directing I don't miss, right, the thing I'm having to

436
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,120
Speaker 2: tricks other people out of money and twelve people into

437
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:11,080
Speaker 2: coming into a room so that I can practice my art.

438
00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:11,320
Speaker 1: You know.

439
00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:12,640
Speaker 2: Now, all I need is a pen and a piece

440
00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:14,280
Speaker 2: of paper, and I'm practicing my heart, you know, Like

441
00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:17,520
Speaker 2: that was that was the grind. The professional grind is

442
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:20,080
Speaker 2: the part that really wore me down. But to me,

443
00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:25,919
Speaker 2: the pleasure of like everyone thinking together in a room

444
00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:29,959
Speaker 2: and solving these problems in real time, in physical space,

445
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:33,960
Speaker 2: in community together was so beautiful when it worked. It

446
00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,159
Speaker 2: doesn't always work, but it was so beautiful when you

447
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:37,879
Speaker 2: got there that it was worth the times where it

448
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:40,280
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this one actor is actually I didn't

449
00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:42,440
Speaker 2: realize it, but they're drunk, you know, and they're calling

450
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:43,919
Speaker 2: me at three in the morning because they drink two

451
00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 2: bottles of wine when they come home from rehearsal, and

452
00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 2: they have lots of notes.

453
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:46,560
Speaker 1: You know.

454
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:49,440
Speaker 2: It's like it was you know that happened to me

455
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:51,639
Speaker 2: once I escape, it was it was worth putting up

456
00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:53,760
Speaker 2: with that to get to this other thing, and that

457
00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 2: was really beautiful and I loved working with writers on

458
00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:58,040
Speaker 2: their plays. Is before I realized that I was a writer.

459
00:19:58,160 --> 00:20:00,720
Speaker 2: I loved giving, you know, giving no and hearing their

460
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:02,359
Speaker 2: notes to me and having them in the room. And

461
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:05,320
Speaker 2: it's just kind of, you know, idea of a community

462
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:07,119
Speaker 2: of people making each other's ideas better.

463
00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:16,639
Speaker 1: Author Isaac Butler. If you enjoy conversations about acting and

464
00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:20,400
Speaker 1: the performing arts, check out my episode with Ellen Burston

465
00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:25,040
Speaker 1: and Estelle Parsons celebrating the seventy fifth anniversary of the

466
00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 1: Actor's Studio.

467
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:29,760
Speaker 3: And I say to Peter, the director, Peter, I have

468
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:33,439
Speaker 3: eight different things to go through here and no line.

469
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:38,639
Speaker 3: And he smiles like the cheshire cat and says, I know.

470
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:41,760
Speaker 3: I said, well, am I supposed to do that?

471
00:20:42,640 --> 00:20:44,120
Speaker 1: He said, think.

472
00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:47,320
Speaker 3: The thoughts of the character, and the camera will read

473
00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:52,440
Speaker 3: your mind. That's the best advice and the director ever

474
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:53,000
Speaker 3: gave me.

475
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,960
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Ellen Burston and

476
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:04,000
Speaker 1: Estelle Parsons, go to Here's the Thing dot Org. After

477
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 1: the break, Isaac Butler talks about acting training today and

478
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 1: his conversation with Ellen Burston on young actors. I'm Alec

479
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,960
Speaker 1: Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing, Isaac Butler has

480
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:36,440
Speaker 1: directed numerous productions throughout his theater career, including classic Shakespeare

481
00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: performances and new original works such as Real Enemies and

482
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:45,080
Speaker 1: The Trump Card. I wanted to know what pieces Isaac

483
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:47,919
Speaker 1: Butler had most enjoyed directing and what he would like

484
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: to direct in the future. I don't know that.

485
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:53,080
Speaker 2: They're probably not plays that anyone will have heard of

486
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:54,879
Speaker 2: because they were in you know, they were off off Broadway,

487
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:56,840
Speaker 2: their in basement. So now I think if I was

488
00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 2: to direct again, it's actually, you know, classics I would

489
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:02,919
Speaker 2: want to do, or or lost backlist plays or whatever.

490
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:03,359
Speaker 1: I mean.

491
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 2: You know, I teach Shakespeare. I loved Shakespeare. I'd love

492
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 2: to take another crack at Shakespeare. Haven't done that.

493
00:22:07,320 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 1: I haven't directed a Shakespeare play since college. You know.

494
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 1: There's the Williams O'Neill's Shaw. Yeah, I mean, I love

495
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 1: all that stuff.

496
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 3: Shaw.

497
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 1: It's very hard.

498
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 2: I do not actually feel like I have the background

499
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:18,639
Speaker 2: to do Shaw, but I love all of that stuff.

500
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:20,679
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of this. Last semester I

501
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,679
Speaker 2: taught New American plays of the twenty first century, so

502
00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 2: it was only plays that had been done since the

503
00:22:26,600 --> 00:22:29,879
Speaker 2: change of the millennium. At NYU. It was a dramatic

504
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 2: literature class, but four Tish kids, right, And it was

505
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 2: really fun to revisit those. And there were some of

506
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 2: them where I was like, I would I would love

507
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,000
Speaker 2: to take a crack at this play. And then there

508
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:39,640
Speaker 2: were others where I was like, this play is too hard.

509
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:42,840
Speaker 2: I don't even know how they did it. What I

510
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 2: especially loved, actually was when you were doing the second

511
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 2: production of a new play, you know, like you had

512
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 2: worked on it in a workshop or whatever, and you

513
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 2: would learned all this stuff about it, and then you

514
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:55,680
Speaker 2: actually got to use what you learned, which came back

515
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 2: you know, which doesn't necessarily happen if you direct, you know,

516
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:00,240
Speaker 2: if you direct a view from the bridge or what ever,

517
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 2: it's like, who knows what.

518
00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:03,120
Speaker 1: You told me? When I interviewed him about him doing

519
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 1: repeated productions of Salamea and The Mammot American Buffalo, speaking

520
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: of which I'm wondering, you're gonna know that Glengarry's on

521
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:11,919
Speaker 1: Broadway right now? What do you think of Mammot and

522
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 1: his very arch, very mammot. I watched an interview with

523
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 1: him the other day, really, and he was talking to somebody.

524
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: He says you know when someone comes in there. You

525
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 1: know he didn't say this, but it was along the

526
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: lines of, you know, the guy comes in and he's

527
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: your friend, Jeff's got a cast on, and you say,

528
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: oh my god, what happened? What do you need to

529
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 1: prepare for that? But he's not understanding is you don't

530
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:33,680
Speaker 1: have to prepare for it, for a lot of it.

531
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: But there are things you do have to prepare for,

532
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,160
Speaker 1: much of which contextually is not in Mammot's pieces. People

533
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 1: aren't going through and e canthartic emotional experiences Mammot's pieces

534
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: all or it's cut. What's that film? Maintain you and

535
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: his ex wife Lindsay Kraut House of House of Games?

536
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: So House of Games. When I see that movie, even then,

537
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, well, this is obviously a kind

538
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,160
Speaker 1: of an experiment in the theater. I mean, you're having

539
00:23:56,200 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: everybody flatten out all those lines. No, Bob, No, I

540
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: won't do that. I won't do that because and the

541
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: cadence and the rhythms of it are something that is

542
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: so arch.

543
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 2: But if you watch like State and Maine, which has

544
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 2: you know you're in it, Philip Seymour Hoffman's in it,

545
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 2: w H.

546
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: Macy is in it.

547
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 2: You know, there's actors who have a lot of experience,

548
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 2: who work at a very high level, and they can

549
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 2: really playfully bring those lines to life in a way

550
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 2: that not every actor can, using the true and false

551
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 2: that's the name of his acting book, using that sort

552
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,760
Speaker 2: of true and false methodology. It is also true that,

553
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: like you said, it's like, you know, his language, his

554
00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 2: dialogue is incredibly stripped away. It's it's very you know,

555
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 2: not only is everything you need in it, but he

556
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 2: hasn't given you anything else.

557
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: No, do you know what I mean? Bob enters, Bob,

558
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,640
Speaker 1: what time is it? Exactly? No, Bob wearing a beautiful

559
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: cream colored suede jack, none of that shit?

560
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 2: Or what would those those those you mentioned Shaw? You know,

561
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 2: Shaw's stage directions are like seven pages long. It's like

562
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 2: Bob was born on a cow farm and you're like,

563
00:24:55,080 --> 00:25:00,160
Speaker 2: what the you know, O'Neill does that lactose exactly? Any

564
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 2: Latergin does that too. His stage directions are very novelistic, you.

565
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 1: Know, not that, but it's not really very useful.

566
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean it depends, right. I mean I

567
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 2: think they're useful for him in creating the characters. I

568
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,640
Speaker 2: think that if you try to do a lot of

569
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 2: you know, fruit for All or whatever you want to

570
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 2: say with Mammot's lines, it's going to be a disaster.

571
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 2: It makes sense why he doesn't like that stuff, do

572
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? But if you try to

573
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 2: do the incredibly stripped away Mammity way of doing Fagan

574
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 2: or Shakespeare or whatever it's going to be, that's also

575
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 2: going to be a disaster.

576
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,919
Speaker 1: You're right, it would apply obviously to his his text

577
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 1: because I think that, you know, actors can bring in

578
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: my time of doing this, they can bring ideas, and

579
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: you have to just understand how much of your ideas welcome.

580
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:41,640
Speaker 1: Like if I were ever to work for Spielberg, let's

581
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: say it's a salute and yes sir and no sir,

582
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: because I'm very confident, I'm supremely confident he knows exactly

583
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: what he wants. But what I also do with people

584
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: is don't tell. I don't talk. I say, let me

585
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: show you, right, show, not tell. I'm going to go out.

586
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: And but we got everything as written, you're happy, you

587
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: got what you want. Let's just do one more take

588
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: and I'll show you a little idea I had nothing

589
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: that changes the set or the budget or so forth

590
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,960
Speaker 1: of the casting. It's all inside that template. But I

591
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: really really have become more subtle, but more and more

592
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 1: management and collaborating with them, because I think that a

593
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 1: lot of younger directors today, it's not so much that

594
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: they don't know what good acting is, not that they

595
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: don't know what they want. The thing they're lacking, it's

596
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: going to sound strange maybe is they lack the ability

597
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: to communicate it to you. Right, they kind of know

598
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 1: what they want, They kind of have an idea what

599
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: they want. They can't get it out to you and

600
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 1: make you understand that a way that's practical to you

601
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: to speak actor, which I hate that idea. I said

602
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: to this one director, I goes, tell me the story

603
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: of your movie. Tell it to me as a story.

604
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: What happens. There's the longest spouse you could ever imagine.

605
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: He goes, Oh wow, man, he goes, I don't think

606
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: I could do that. That's wild. We're fucked.

607
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there's it's an interesting iadd for a

608
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:52,640
Speaker 2: director once, and you know, the thing he didn't really

609
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 2: do tablework. You know, they weren't sitting all around people

610
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,639
Speaker 2: weren't sitting around making little backslashes in their script for

611
00:26:57,680 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 2: the beat marks or you know, he just he didn't

612
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 2: want to be intellectual about it, right, And part of

613
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: what you're talking about here is that you want to

614
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 2: avoid over intellectualizing your choices. You don't want to get

615
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 2: into a long, wordy, intellectual conversation with a director. Yeah,

616
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: but also you.

617
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: Wanted that day's work and get it done.

618
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 2: But it's it's it's so much easier actually to show

619
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 2: the director than it is for you to get into

620
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 2: an abstract conversation about, well, what if what he really

621
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:18,160
Speaker 2: wants here is blah blah blah blah blah, when actually

622
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 2: what you're going to do is emphasize a different word.

623
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 2: Just emphasize a different word, you know. And what he

624
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 2: did instead of tablework was he was like, I just

625
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 2: want us to go around and say, beat by beat,

626
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 2: what happens in the play? No, no feelings, right, Like,

627
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 2: never say he feels blah blah blah, Just what does

628
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 2: each person do? That was all the book work we did.

629
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: I know that, but you know what, it was really

630
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 2: hard to just do that. You get so wrapped up

631
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 2: and he feels X I did the.

632
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 1: Carol Churchill play Serious Money and Love Love Them, but

633
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: someone's got to do that play again. It's nine eighty eight.

634
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: And then did we did the American Company and they'd

635
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: come here to the public with Gary Olb and Fred

636
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: Molina to play the two lead roles. So I replaced

637
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: Gary and we go to Broadway. This would when Pap

638
00:27:57,359 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: Joe Papp was in that mood he head periodically to

639
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: force write certain cultural Is that Max Stafford clarkter Bravo,

640
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: thanks you. Yeah. So Max Stafford Clark who says to

641
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: me one time, he who says to all of us

642
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 1: were at the table, Kate Nelligan and all these other people,

643
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: and he says, he says, I want you to write

644
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: down along the margins of your scripts a transitive verb

645
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do in that scene. And then

646
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: he sat with us, all one by one and he

647
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,200
Speaker 1: sat there with me and he goes, now this line here,

648
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,479
Speaker 1: what do you think you're trying to do there? And

649
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 1: I go, I don't know. Encourage He goes no, I

650
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: go seduce no. And finally he goes and he goes,

651
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: I've got it. Enlist You're trying to enlist them into

652
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: your cause and I go, that's great, enlist I write,

653
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: and we had to do that for every line. Yeah.

654
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 2: He called that actioning, and that is Stanislavskis script analysis.

655
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 2: That's a very basic thing Stella Adler taught her students

656
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: to do that. You do it as an infinitive verb

657
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 2: with Stella, But that was a very Stanislavsky script analysis

658
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 2: thing that like, every line has an action behind it,

659
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: and that's the thing you're trying to do. And so

660
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 2: write it down as you know, to enlist, to enlist,

661
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: and try to keep those you know, those words, be

662
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 2: really specific and keep the stake.

663
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: It was a great director. So as you as you

664
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: come into this business, as actors come into this business,

665
00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: and writers and directors and everybody having consumed a diet

666
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 1: of other material. I watched films as a child. I

667
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: was obsessed with films. There was no cable back then,

668
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: no streaming nowadays. What people have out there to bathe in,

669
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: to lather their body with and to try to get

670
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: some essence of the of what movies are in acting

671
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: is just abysmal. I call it the training table of donuts.

672
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you say that, because you know

673
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 2: I do often use the food metaphor when talking about

674
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 2: one's cultural diet, right, and then it's like, you know,

675
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 2: I like donuts. There's nothing wrong with having a donut,

676
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Medoships, Yeah, but a

677
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 2: diet that was all donuts, I think we would all agree.

678
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:45,479
Speaker 1: The other are in the potato chip business right now.

679
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a lot of kind of

680
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: flooding the zone with hastily made violent violent. That acting

681
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 2: is often very kind of surface y, you know, there's

682
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 2: nothing required of it, there's nothing required of them. I

683
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 2: remember who was I talking to, may have actually been

684
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 2: Ellen Burston and I were talking at one point. She

685
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 2: was talking about how little training a lot of the

686
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: people she, you know, the younger actors she was working with, have,

687
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 2: and she's like, you know, it's enough to get you

688
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: a Netflix show, but it's not enough to make you

689
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 2: a good actor, which I think the way that she

690
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 2: phrased it, people today don't care about being a good actress. Yeah, yeah, no,

691
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 2: I mean some people do. And I think those people

692
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 2: who really care, I think.

693
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: That that they're less than before.

694
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 2: Totally totally, but like you know, my students, anytime I

695
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: mentioned a movie this. I had a really great group

696
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 2: of students this semester. They blew my mind with how

697
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 2: amazing they was a school at YU. Are you a Titian?

698
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you really?

699
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 2: I'm in the dramatic studies departments. It's like the liberal

700
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,440
Speaker 2: arts part of the theater degree. So undergraduate for undergrads,

701
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:41,480
Speaker 2: for the for the BFA programming. Yeah.

702
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: In your bick with they mentioned that new school.

703
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 2: That's because when the book was published, I was at

704
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 2: the new school and she started just recently, like a

705
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: couple years ago.

706
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: Yeah.

707
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they, you know, any time not just me,

708
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 2: but anyone in class mentioned a movie that they hadn't

709
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 2: heard of, they wrote it down. I saw them do it.

710
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 2: Paths of Glory, write it down that Paths of Glory

711
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 2: is an incredible movie. We could turn this into your class. Yeah,

712
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 2: I'll come visit your class please.

713
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: Dude. Oh, I'd love to tell my view of movies

714
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: they should watch to improve their acting. Yeah. Yeah, no exactly.

715
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: And so you know, I do think there are people

716
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: who are hungry for that, just like I think that

717
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 2: like when you eat only junk food, like it's fun

718
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 2: for a while, but you do get to a point

719
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:16,680
Speaker 2: where You're like, am I poisoning myself?

720
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: Or this is wrong? But I think the business itself

721
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 1: is not encouraging people to appreciate a history film acting,

722
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: and so for the film in general, from an historical perspective.

723
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: You go out there. Now, there are films now that

724
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: when the Oscar you would never watch a second time.

725
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that never never.

726
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 2: I mean I am such a big fan of the

727
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: Criterion Channel that I just started pitching them until they

728
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 2: let me do things my Criterion lists.

729
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: Oh great, I did my Criterion list of ten movies.

730
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: That's great.

731
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 2: I'm actually doing an event with them tonight where I'm

732
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 2: the interviewer. So the interviewing Brian Cox.

733
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: No, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. I worked with Cox.

734
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: Hell the Nuremberg Trials for TT. Yes, he talks about it,

735
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: and he plays Goebbels, Yes, he plays Gourbls. And you

736
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: were the prosecutor, right, I was a Jackson, the judge

737
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: who was sent by Roosevelt to go over there in

738
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: form the ural right, right, amazing? Yeah.

739
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 2: He talks about that in his in his memoir and

740
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 2: finding that role. And you know, how was it that

741
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 2: Goring was able to sort of tap dance around the

742
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: people asking him questions and you know, so how to

743
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 2: get into the psychology of that person without judgment because

744
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: you have to bring them to life.

745
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: And of course you see guys like them score late

746
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: in their career. He did that succession. They're going to

747
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: gasp of a look at him doing this TV show

748
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: and just running the ball all over one hundred yards

749
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: down the sideline with that. I mean, he was really

750
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: really took a lot of chances and he was great

751
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: in that show.

752
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 2: I mean there's decades of history, right, decades of roles

753
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 2: in that role, in getting in getting the logan, you know,

754
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 2: in getting the logan role, And.

755
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: How are you going to play those roles if you're

756
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: not playing the roles for decades. I always say to people,

757
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: I say, just give yourself a couple of years in

758
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: the theater when you graduate, right, because if you graduate

759
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 1: from college and you have a degree granting program from

760
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: a university, I'm not so sure that the acting part

761
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: of that is that pungent and that good. If you

762
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: want to go to class and work in a classroom

763
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: for another year or two, great, But after two years

764
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: of classroom acting, you're going to become clas get the

765
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: fuck out of there and go and audition for shows,

766
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: and you know in a show.

767
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 2: Bobby Lewis was very worried about that with regards to

768
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 2: the Actors Studio. You know, he felt like there were

769
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 2: a lot of people with good reason. Yeah, you know

770
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 2: Bobby Lewis who was one of the founders of the

771
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: Actors Studio, and then he and Kazan got into a

772
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 2: He and Kazan had a falling out as Kazan was

773
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 2: one to do with various people, and he quit the

774
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 2: Actors Studio. And that's actually why Kazan brought Lee Strasburgh in,

775
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: because Kazan had originally iced Lee Strasburg out of the

776
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: studio and did not want him involved because he had

777
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 2: so they had sort of a father son drama relation,

778
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 2: kind of very dramatic relationship, and so that's how he

779
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 2: brought Lee in and how Lee wound up taking over

780
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 2: the Actors Studio. So a few years after that, almost

781
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 2: Lewis gives this series of lectures called Method or Madness,

782
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: which are collected in a book that isn't it's out

783
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 2: of print, but it is one of the most extraordinary

784
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 2: books about acting and in the Method or Madness lectures,

785
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 2: Bobby Lewis says the problem with acting class and he

786
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: says this as an acting teacher, is that you get

787
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: stuck in classroom acting. You only know how to do

788
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 2: scene study, you don't know how to do you know,

789
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 2: you only know how to do the big moments. But actually,

790
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 2: like seventy five percent of the actor's job is like,

791
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 2: how do you pour a picture of glass of water

792
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 2: out of a picture?

793
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: Nothing? How do you do nothing and be comfortable with me? Listen? Right?

794
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, there's that sort of running joke

795
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 2: within the industry that we all know of the background

796
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 2: actor who does too much because they know they're being

797
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 2: observed by the camera and so like, I can't do

798
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 2: it because background actors can't talk, they're not allowed to.

799
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,359
Speaker 2: But they're making lots of faces, they're pointing there. Yeah,

800
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,439
Speaker 2: I mean there's an amazing Saturday Night Live sketch about

801
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: that with I think Fred Armison and Sherry Oh Terry,

802
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 2: and you know, it's that thing of like how do

803
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 2: you actually just be when you know you're being observed?

804
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 2: So simply and Strasburg actually had a lot of exercises

805
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 2: for that private moment. I'm sure you've had to do

806
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 2: private moment in your time or some dance and stuff

807
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 2: like that, and how do you And those were all

808
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: designed to make you forget that the audience was there, right,

809
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 2: But then you get to scene study and you're just

810
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,399
Speaker 2: doing the huge moments you never loved me mom right,

811
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 2: as opposed to the like, oh your arm's broken.

812
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: Author Isaac Butler, if you're enjoying this conversation, tell a

813
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on

814
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,919
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

815
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: When we come back, Isaac Butler talks about the original

816
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: disciples of method acting and his thoughts on actors like

817
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando and al Pacino. I'm Alec Baldwin and this

818
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: is Here's the thing. Isaac Butler's book The Method chronicles

819
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:48,839
Speaker 1: the history of Stanislavsky's method of acting. The book details

820
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,839
Speaker 1: acting coaches such as Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, who

821
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: refashioned Stanislavsky's method for the next generation of actors. Both

822
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: Stanislavsky and Strasburg would often say that the actor can

823
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: only be ninety percent of the character. I was curious

824
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: as to whether or not Isaac. But the regrees with

825
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 1: this statement. It's actually impossible to fully become the character.

826
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: That's madness.

827
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 2: I mean, if you were to fully become Hamlet before

828
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 2: me right now, well, for one thing, you wouldn't be

829
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,439
Speaker 2: speaking an iambic pentameter. That doesn't make any sense because

830
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 2: no one speaks an iambic pantaminter. But also instead of

831
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 2: being able to cross the stage or whatever, you just

832
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 2: be like, holy shit, my uncle killed my father.

833
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: What am I supposed to do my mother? Yeah? Yeah, exactly.

834
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 2: You wouldn't be like, oh that this two two solid

835
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: flesh would melt thowed result of itself into a dw

836
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 2: You know, you wouldn't be doing that shit. You'd be

837
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 2: like comatose. So fully becoming the character is a form

838
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:45,320
Speaker 2: of madness. Only you know that it's not actually possible.

839
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 2: Stanislavski's whole idea, this idea of what is translated as

840
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 2: experiencing the Russian word is perishavanya, this thing where it's

841
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 2: like the actor's consciousness and the character's consciousness meet and

842
00:36:57,920 --> 00:36:58,880
Speaker 2: they sort of have a baby.

843
00:36:58,920 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?

844
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 2: That's what you're doing. You're really in the moment, you're

845
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 2: feeling these things. You're live to the imaginative reality. But

846
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 2: you're also not going to walk off the lip of

847
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 2: the stage and fall into the orchestra pent or whatever.

848
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 2: You know, you're trying to fly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

849
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 2: also you're going to do the blocking you've been told

850
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,280
Speaker 2: to do, you know, because you've agreed to do the blocking.

851
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: So much of what you're doing is almost all with

852
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: few exceptions. I mean, even monologues have some context this

853
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,360
Speaker 1: way with inside the play, you're performing with other people

854
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: on stage with other people. And when you do that.

855
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: What I always try to do, not even recently, from

856
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:33,439
Speaker 1: not from the beginning, but as I was going further

857
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: and further, is what was the disposition of the character? Right?

858
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,720
Speaker 1: And I always talk to people that about dispositional acting.

859
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: When you are you weak? Are you strong? Are you

860
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 1: boo Radley where everything terrifies you and you're frail and

861
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: fractal in the world and you're not brave and confident?

862
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 1: Are you boisterous? Are you affable and backslapping? What is

863
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: the nature of that person terms how they talk, how

864
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: they behave, are they happy, sad? Are they strong? Weak? Whatever?

865
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,399
Speaker 1: You got to kind of get that adjusted. I think

866
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: from the The word we use is authorization. Yeah, for

867
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: that I do want. I need authorization if I go

868
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: to see a surgeon. I watched Hours of Surgery before

869
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: I did the movie Mallie, why not to study surgery?

870
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: But the point, what were the disposition of these men?

871
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: Did they really yell at nurses? Did they really throw

872
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,879
Speaker 1: the instruments on the ground? Did they really play ac

873
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: DC at seven o'clock in the morning, Yes, they did.

874
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: They had to go into another zone. They had to

875
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: empty their mind. So then get in there and do

876
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: stept couple bypasses at SEMN I can barely watch the

877
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 1: Today Show at seven thirty in the morning, let alone

878
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,439
Speaker 1: do fucking stept couple bypassers. You know that's interesting.

879
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 2: There's this play called Men in White, which births the

880
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 2: hospital drama genre. Right, it's where er comes from. Really,

881
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 2: if you think about it and the group it's a comedy, no, no, no, no,

882
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 2: it's a legit play won the Pulitzer Prize. It's the

883
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 2: thing that put the Group Theater on the map. Lee

884
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 2: Strasburg directed it. Oh, the Group Theater was, of course

885
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,319
Speaker 2: the company that Lee Strasburg and Harold Clerman and Cheryl

886
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 2: Crawford founded that all of twentieth century American acting comes

887
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 2: out of this organa Stelle is there, Bobby Lewis is there,

888
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 2: Kazan is there, John Garfield's there. Anyway, So they did

889
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 2: this play called Men and White, and they would do

890
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:02,719
Speaker 2: these summer retreats. Most of them were juice. They were

891
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 2: often in the Catskills. They would do these summer retreats

892
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 2: where they're rehearsing these plays. Okay, so they rehearsed Men

893
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 2: in White and they kept doing it, and they were

894
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 2: sort of like, you know, they they went and they

895
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,320
Speaker 2: met doctors and nurses because there were doctors and nurses

896
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 2: around this hotel, and they interviewed them and they looked

897
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 2: at what they did. And Lee Struser said, we're going

898
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 2: to learn what doctors do. Let's learn what doctors do,

899
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 2: and let's bring those habits into the play. And they

900
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 2: were doing these run throughs and they're like, something is

901
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 2: not working. And I think it was actually Lee who

902
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:32,439
Speaker 2: figured this out. He's like, doctors don't reveal this much

903
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 2: emotion actors do. Like, doctors are actually very you know,

904
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:38,799
Speaker 2: when they have a patient who's going to die that

905
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 2: they're worried.

906
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: Is going to die.

907
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 2: They're not like, oh my god, he's gonna die. They're like,

908
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 2: we're losing him. Bring me that ido the other room. Right,

909
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 2: they're not, And that's actually a thing. The pit is

910
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 2: really great at. If you've watched that TV show that

911
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 2: you know, there's a level of you can't get worked

912
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 2: up about everything. This happens to you every day. You

913
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 2: can't let this bobby the deck of the carrier. And

914
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 2: so it was through that little bit of withholding, you know,

915
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 2: pulling back five or ten percent on the emotionality that

916
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:04,280
Speaker 2: allowed the play in its power to come to life

917
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 2: because they had seen how those people really work in

918
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 2: the world.

919
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about in a couple of minutes we

920
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: have left about some of the disciples of method acting

921
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,240
Speaker 1: that people were. I mean, I was a fan of Brando.

922
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: I was drawing. He was a beacon to me like

923
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 1: anybody else. But as the years went by and I

924
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: saw how much he was just sending up his career

925
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: and other people, and he was so bad. When I

926
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: tell people what's the flame? You know, when Pacina, I

927
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: mean I could cry in this when John Randol was

928
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: trying to put the shield on Pacino's chest, and surproco,

929
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: here's your shield, Frank, and he's like, doesn't want it

930
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: shot through the cheek. Pacino was the one that made

931
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 1: me want to be an actor. Brando kind of then

932
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: that ended, yes, because Brando's just you know, his antics

933
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: just turned me off, whereas Pacino was the person that

934
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: made me want to be a movie actor. What do

935
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: you think about Brando's contribution.

936
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 2: Well, I mean there's a point where Brando stops doing

937
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 2: the wonderful thing that he can do, and it's after

938
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 2: the failure of One Eyed Jacks. You know, he was

939
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 2: so mad about how that movie had been treated, which

940
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: was his directorial debut. And you know, he always had

941
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 2: an ambivalent relationship acting anyway. He wanted to be a

942
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 2: jazz drummer. It just turned out he wasn't a genius

943
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 2: a jazz drumming. He was a genius at acting. You know,

944
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 2: sort of almost dragged into acting. You know, his sister

945
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 2: was the one who cared a lot more about being

946
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,399
Speaker 2: an actor. And so there's a point where the joy

947
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,479
Speaker 2: you're going to get from his performances is not the same.

948
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 2: You know, it's going to be like, wow, that's a

949
00:41:25,200 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 2: really weird choice. And sometimes it works, and that's interesting.

950
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 2: He did this movie called Missouri Breaks where his performance

951
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 2: is insane. I mean it is legitimate. It's actually I

952
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 2: find it brilliant and delightful. It is not a conventional

953
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,160
Speaker 2: performance that works. He is an Irish bounty hunter and

954
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 2: then at one I don't know why he's doing an

955
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 2: Irish accent, but he has a brogue throughout it. And

956
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 2: then later on he disguises himself as an American and

957
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:54,280
Speaker 2: does literally does the scene as Brando doing an Irish accent,

958
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 2: doing an American accent. It is breathtaking. It's insane. Why

959
00:41:57,719 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 2: would you do that. There's another scene where he's like

960
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 2: dress up as an old woman. It's almost like Looney Coconuto,

961
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 2: you know. And that movie is delightful. It's delightful. Is

962
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 2: that conventionally good acting?

963
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 3: No.

964
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: I think he's someone who and again the essentiality here

965
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: that he had the youth. Yeah, he had the sheen

966
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: of his youth. He's a street cud, but he's twenty

967
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: four years old on Broadway. I had the street crum

968
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: bro I was thirty. That's ten years is a huge difference.

969
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 1: And you were the actual age of the character when

970
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: he's too young for he was. But the thing is,

971
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: I think that he's someone who again with my lame

972
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: analogies here in metaphors, they hand him the Rubik's cube

973
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: when he's twenty four years old, and he looks at

974
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 1: it for a minute. Then he goes, zizit and he goes,

975
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: you mean like that right, and they go, oh my god.

976
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: I mean he puts the pieces together before anybody. You

977
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 1: have to be forty right before, you know, but the

978
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 1: time you old to play Hammick, you're too old to

979
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: play hamm at that old line. And he puts the

980
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: piece together while he's young and beautiful, and he got bored,

981
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 1: you know, I mean he got bored.

982
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can see, you know, his Julius

983
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 2: Caesar when he plays the marc Antony, the film of

984
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 2: that with a John Gilgood is he's great in that.

985
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 2: I mean he worked as ass off that there's a

986
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 2: period where he's working and then he sort of stops working.

987
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,839
Speaker 2: The early I am also really interested in, you know,

988
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,360
Speaker 2: a couple of other of that earlier generation. One is

989
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 2: of course Montgomery Cliff. But the most natural screen presence

990
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: of that generation, I think by far, there's that idea

991
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 2: of public solitude. Strasburg talks about that, Stanislawski talks about

992
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 2: that that you're not you don't know your private or

993
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 2: public to be. No one is better at that than

994
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 2: early Montgomery Cliff. But the other one of that era

995
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: that I think, you know, I constantly talk about and

996
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 2: want more people to go back to is John Garfield,

997
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,760
Speaker 2: who is the first method actor. He's the first actor

998
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 2: trained by Strasburg to break out in Hollywood and be

999
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:38,720
Speaker 2: a star in his career is very sadly cut short,

1000
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 2: but first by Hugh act and then by his death

1001
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 2: of a heart attack after he was all but blacklisted,

1002
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 2: and he is an extraordinary screen presence.

1003
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: In a sense, I also view method acting in the

1004
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: way that was among other things in that period the fifties,

1005
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 1: on a labor relation sense, but in a psychological sense

1006
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 1: that method i've can become the unionization of acting. Right this,

1007
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: this is what we do. We decide what we do. Yeah,

1008
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:04,879
Speaker 1: we You don't decide what we do. We'll tell you

1009
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: what we do. I'm going to go to work now

1010
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: and I'm going to educate the director. Now, We're going

1011
00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: to do this this way. And I found that fascinating

1012
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: as it was almost like them kind of claiming in

1013
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,760
Speaker 1: order to do good acting, in order to do better acting,

1014
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 1: more preciselycing, I couldn't rely on directors anymore to help

1015
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 1: me get there. I couldn't. It's the advent of what

1016
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: I call the self directing period of acting. Yeah, I

1017
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: mean that makes a lot of sense, and that SUSPC.

1018
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:27,600
Speaker 1: I mean.

1019
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 2: The other thing that's happening that encourages that is, right

1020
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,760
Speaker 2: when method acting is emerging, the studio system is falling apart.

1021
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 2: So you're no longer in this factory essentially making seven

1022
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 2: movies a year like Clark Gable did.

1023
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: We're doing what they told you it was in your

1024
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,320
Speaker 1: interest and paid back then you know, eighteen hundred dollars

1025
00:44:43,360 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 1: a week.

1026
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, fortune, right, So you're not on salary anymore.

1027
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 2: And one of the things that the breakup of the

1028
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 2: studio system does is for the actors who are successful,

1029
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 2: it empowers the actors and especially their agents. You know,

1030
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 2: that's a huge change in the industry. When the studio

1031
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 2: system falls apart and method acting is totally wrapped up

1032
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 2: in that, right that it's like, well, now I actually

1033
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 2: do want to be a serious actor. I don't want

1034
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 2: to sign a seven year Montgomery Cliff is like, I'm

1035
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 2: just going to sign a one year contract and I'm

1036
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 2: going to go back to doing place, because doing place

1037
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 2: what a serious actor does, and I want to be

1038
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 2: a serious actor or you know, whatever it is that

1039
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 2: maybe they want to live in New York, you know,

1040
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:15,800
Speaker 2: maybe they don't want to be full.

1041
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 1: Time in film. Finally, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, And.

1042
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 2: That's that is a huge change in the industry. And

1043
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 2: method acting is right there helping the fuel.

1044
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: In this online interview, I see a little clip of

1045
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:27,800
Speaker 1: Merrill and she's saying to somebody, you know, the condition

1046
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: of the actor really is that life itself is so

1047
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 1: unpredictable and so uncertain, but especially so for actors. Yeah,

1048
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: their lives are more uncertain than the average person. Last thing,

1049
00:45:36,840 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: So Angels in America, your previous books. Yes, I am

1050
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 1: of the mind that you know. Obviously, great musicians, composers, writers,

1051
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 1: and so forth have a houseyon period. Then they run

1052
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: a little dry as time goes on. Now, I'm not

1053
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: going to suggest that Angels in America sapped Kushner of

1054
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 1: all of his creative abilities. That's far from true. But

1055
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: you wonder, did you get the impression. You talk to

1056
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:00,879
Speaker 1: him many times, so I admire him beyond anything. He's

1057
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: just the most amazing individual, one of the most amazing

1058
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,240
Speaker 1: people I've ever met in this business. However, I wonder

1059
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: I sometimes look at Angels like, go, this must have

1060
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: nearly killed him.

1061
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean it didn't. Only yeah, I mean Angels.

1062
00:46:12,280 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 2: The story behind Angels. You know, my co author Dan

1063
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 2: Koyce and I it's an oral history because we were like,

1064
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 2: there's no way that we can write better than Oscar

1065
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: Eustace and Tony Kushner and Joe Mantello and all these

1066
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 2: people can talk, you know, so we're just we're gonna

1067
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 2: interview them, We're going to range their quotes. There's nothing

1068
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 2: we could possibly write in a sentence as good as

1069
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 2: something Tony says. And so we did an oral history,

1070
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:32,959
Speaker 2: and it's got interviews with two hundred and fifty plus

1071
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 2: people in it. And what you learn is that that

1072
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 2: play nearly kills anyone who comes in contact with it.

1073
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 2: I mean, it's the mountain, it is really the mountain.

1074
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:41,439
Speaker 1: It's Lear.

1075
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:44,280
Speaker 2: It's fucking leir, you know, like it's actually two lears,

1076
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 2: because it's you know, it's eight hours long and you know,

1077
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 2: the theater company that developed Angels in America, Eureka Theater

1078
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 2: that Tony Tacone and Oscar Eustace ran it basically went

1079
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 2: under in the process of doing Angels. The original woman

1080
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,239
Speaker 2: who played the Angel died of breast cancer over the

1081
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 2: course of developing the play.

1082
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: You know, it.

1083
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:05,919
Speaker 2: Requires the totality of your being to do that play right,

1084
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 2: you know, to do both parts right. It requires so

1085
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,399
Speaker 2: much of you, and it required so much of him

1086
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,760
Speaker 2: to especially finish the second part. A lot of the interviews,

1087
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 2: the parts of it that were so difficult for him,

1088
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,640
Speaker 2: had to do a lot with. You know, the first

1089
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 2: part was a huge hit, critically acclaimed, Gonna Go to Brabba.

1090
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 2: He hadn'tritten the second part yet, you know, figuring out

1091
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 2: how to finish the thing that he had started took.

1092
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: Millennium was first.

1093
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, Millennium was first. And you know, Millennium's like a

1094
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 2: perfect play, Like a high school production of Millennium is

1095
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 2: still delight.

1096
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,800
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be brilliant engage. You're still gonna have

1097
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: a great time. You know.

1098
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 2: Parastrika is very hard. It's a brilliant play. It is

1099
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 2: incredibly hard to do. If you do it right.

1100
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: It's incredibly fun.

1101
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: Wat Yeah, but it's you know, the interplay of ideas

1102
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: and imagery, and it takes so much of your theatrical imagination.

1103
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 2: And you know, for the actor playing Prior especially, it's

1104
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 2: so hard. And part of that is because of how

1105
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 2: difficult it was, I think for Tony to finish it,

1106
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 2: you know, because he's a guy who you know, he

1107
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 2: obsesses over every word. Every word has to be the

1108
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 2: right word. You know, He's really deep in the nitty

1109
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: gritty of everything. And that's why that took so long.

1110
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 2: You know, Lincoln took like a decade longer than he

1111
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 2: expected to to write, and it's because he really wants

1112
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 2: to do right by the things he's choosing to write about.

1113
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 2: And I just find it incredibly admirable. It is not

1114
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 2: how I necessarily approach my own writing, but it's just

1115
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 2: you can't argue with the results of it.

1116
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 1: It's so brilliant. How long did it take you to

1117
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: write that book? The Angels in America book?

1118
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 2: It started as an article, and so the article was

1119
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 2: originally we spent six months working on the article, and

1120
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 2: our first draft of the article was forty thousand words long.

1121
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 2: But when we handed in was forty thousand words long,

1122
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 2: and they were like, are you nuts going yeah, and

1123
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: so we had to cut twenty five thousand words out

1124
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 2: of it, you know, something like that. And so the

1125
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 2: only way we could deal with the heartbreak of that

1126
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 2: was to be like, we're going to turn it into

1127
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 2: a book.

1128
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: It'll go in the book.

1129
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 2: Don't worry about it, you know, don't delete it. Put

1130
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:55,400
Speaker 2: it in this file to put.

1131
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:55,680
Speaker 1: In the book.

1132
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 2: And then the article was a hit when we were

1133
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 2: able to sell it as a book, and I think

1134
00:48:58,360 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 2: it came out a year or two later.

1135
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,280
Speaker 1: How long did it you to write the method? Two

1136
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 1: ish years? Two ish years.

1137
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 2: I would have maybe gotten it done a little bit

1138
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 2: faster than that, but.

1139
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: The pandemic happened.

1140
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 2: The third part of the book was written mostly in

1141
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 2: my mother in law's basement during the pandemic because we

1142
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 2: had left the city and so we were in the

1143
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere in Virginia, and I was sitting in

1144
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 2: the basement watching a movie every day. And then you know,

1145
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,399
Speaker 2: writing the third part. And after the book came out,

1146
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 2: my mother in law, who I love very dearly, we

1147
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 2: have a very good relationship. My mother in law said

1148
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 2: to me. You know, when you were living in my basement,

1149
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,839
Speaker 2: I kept thinking, I'm watching this guy's kid, and he's

1150
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 2: watching a goddamn movie, you know, every day, And now

1151
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 2: I get it. Thank you very very much, Thank you

1152
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 2: so much for having me.

1153
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: This was a joy. Yeah, my thanks to Isaac Butler.

1154
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:55,800
Speaker 1: This episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City.

1155
00:49:56,239 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin.

1156
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is

1157
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,479
Speaker 1: Danielle Gingrich. Hi'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought

1158
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio