Episode 779 - Martin Landau

Episode 779 • Released January 22, 2017 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:hey folks how are you i just wanted to take a moment here to say that you can go to wtfpod.com slash tour to check out my upcoming tour dates like tomorrow night i'll be at the ruby diamond concert hall in tallahassee florida i believe that's on the campus of the big uh university there i got uh durham north carolina charlotte north carolina i got

00:00:22Marc:Ridgefield, Connecticut, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Montreal, Toronto, New Haven, Troy, New York, Burlington, Vermont, Oakland, California, Seattle, Washington, Vancouver, B.C., Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colorado, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon again, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Philly.

00:00:47Marc:Washington, D.C., all coming up between now and mid-May.

00:00:53Marc:So go to WTFPod.com slash tour to see if you want to come, if you want to make it out, if you're around, if you have any interest.

00:01:02Marc:All right, let's do the show.

00:01:11Lock the gates!

00:01:12Lock the gates!

00:01:12Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:01:14Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:01:15Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:01:16Marc:What the fuck nicks?

00:01:17Marc:What the fucksters?

00:01:19Marc:What's happening?

00:01:20Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:01:20Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:01:23Marc:Welcome to it.

00:01:24Marc:Powerful weekend.

00:01:26Marc:Powerful weekend around the world.

00:01:28Marc:Today on the show, Martin Landau, the actor and acting teacher who's been around for a very long time.

00:01:37Marc:Many of you know him from the Ed Wood movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, early on Mission Impossible Space 1999.

00:01:45Marc:It's just the history of his career, but also his career.

00:01:52Marc:presence in the art of acting and in show business in general and what he's experienced going back 50 years or more is profound and beautiful.

00:02:05Marc:Very sweet guy and just a repository of amazing information about

00:02:12Marc:about the importance of theater and art and acting and also reverence for people he's worked with going back to the people's theater.

00:02:23Marc:And he's in one of my favorite movies of all time, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Woody Allen's Masterpiece,

00:02:33Marc:Definitely one of the best movies ever made in terms of dealing with the human animal, dealing with morality, dealing with choices, decisions, fears, jealousy, love.

00:02:49Marc:I mean, it's really that is it.

00:02:52Marc:It's all in there.

00:02:53Marc:And Martin Landau was a genius in that movie, and I was thrilled to have him.

00:02:59Marc:He's a young 88.

00:03:02Marc:I love talking to these old timers, you know, because even... I'm no old timer.

00:03:07Marc:I'm in my early 50s.

00:03:09Marc:But I remember when there was less information around, less outlets around, less distractions around.

00:03:19Marc:And it was somewhat a little easier to find your heart and your place and your space and your mind in that world.

00:03:27Marc:Even if we were not getting all the information...

00:03:30Marc:It might have been better in some ways.

00:03:35Marc:It's trickier now.

00:03:37Marc:I'm not saying I encourage denial, but maybe a little bit of detachment and a little bit of distance can't hurt.

00:03:43Marc:But that was not the case over the weekend.

00:03:46Marc:It was pretty amazing to see all these marches, these women's marches that were all inclusive, men, women, children of all races and ethnicities and groups and all different types of people really coming together, I think, and sort of realizing that.

00:04:03Marc:that we have ourselves to rely on, that there is a community of people that deserve and, of course, want to be good, decent people, live in a diverse and tolerant America.

00:04:19Marc:You know, it's just it's very moving to me to see so many people of so many different types, you know, coming together.

00:04:26Marc:I mean, really, it's not liberal to want equal rights.

00:04:30Marc:It's not liberal to believe in science.

00:04:33Marc:It's not liberal to want human rights.

00:04:35Marc:It's not liberal to want tolerance and diversity.

00:04:39Marc:And it's not liberal to be compassionate.

00:04:42Marc:It's, you know, it's American.

00:04:44Marc:And it was great to see so many people come together and just be who they are.

00:04:51Marc:It takes a lot of energy.

00:04:53Marc:There's really a sort of a natural humility and vulnerability to not being able to pretend you are something you are not or to try to pass or be accepted for something you aren't.

00:05:06Marc:And that vulnerability and that humility is beautiful.

00:05:11Yeah.

00:05:11Marc:And obviously there's a lot of anger.

00:05:13Marc:There's a lot of righteous anger around.

00:05:15Marc:But man, I was just happy to see everybody, you know, coming together and just, you know, being American, being good Americans and being good people to each other, being peaceful and trying to to show some solidarity in their lives.

00:05:33Marc:You know, very real nervousness and fear about what's ahead, which we don't know.

00:05:40Marc:So that was exciting.

00:05:41Marc:That was uplifting.

00:05:43Marc:So let's I'm not going to spend too much time here because I have to pee.

00:05:50Marc:But I do want to to get you excited about this interview because it is a rare thing to talk to somebody.

00:05:55Marc:who is 88 years old and has been and seen and done so much in the arts and in show business and in teaching acting and in just having a good spirit.

00:06:08Marc:It was a beautiful conversation.

00:06:10Marc:I'm going to share with you now.

00:06:11Marc:This is me and Martin Landau.

00:06:20Guest:You know, about 10 years ago, I knew who you were as a stand-up comic.

00:06:28Guest:Is that true?

00:06:29Guest:Yeah, because I liked what you did.

00:06:31Guest:You know, I was a big Mort Sahl fan, and Shelley Berman...

00:06:37Guest:I was going to be one of the original compass players.

00:06:43Guest:Is that true?

00:06:43Guest:In Chicago?

00:06:45Guest:Which became Second City.

00:06:46Guest:Sure.

00:06:47Guest:In other words, I recruited Shelly Berman because we toured in Stella 17 in the Catskills.

00:06:55Guest:Well, Shelly and I used to do shtick.

00:06:58Guest:Uh-huh.

00:06:59Guest:Jewish dialect stuff.

00:07:01Guest:Because we toured like the Concord and Grossinger's and places in the Catskill Mountains.

00:07:08Guest:Kutcher's.

00:07:09Guest:Kutcher's.

00:07:10Guest:Yeah.

00:07:10Guest:In fact, a couple of places where no English was spoken.

00:07:14Guest:So Starlight 17 got nil laughs.

00:07:18Marc:So it was all Yiddish.

00:07:20Guest:Well, a couple of places were all Yiddish and no one spoke English.

00:07:24Guest:Right.

00:07:24Guest:And we did a play in English.

00:07:26Marc:Yeah.

00:07:27Guest:So, I mean, it was very quiet.

00:07:28Marc:So, was that at the beginning of your acting?

00:07:31Guest:Well, no.

00:07:32Guest:At the beginning of my acting, I stopped.

00:07:34Marc:Let's go all the way back.

00:07:35Marc:So, you're from New York.

00:07:37Guest:I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

00:07:38Marc:Yeah.

00:07:39Guest:I was a kid in Flatbush.

00:07:42Guest:And I could draw.

00:07:44Guest:And I went to Pratt Institute and studied fine arts.

00:07:48Marc:That's still a good art school, I think, right?

00:07:50Guest:It's one of the best art schools in America.

00:07:53Guest:It happened to be my local art school.

00:07:55Marc:Okay.

00:07:56Guest:Little did I know it was a great school.

00:07:58Guest:I mean, you know, Traphaven, it was a great fashion school.

00:08:04Guest:And New York had a lot of stuff.

00:08:07Guest:But Brooklyn had Pratt.

00:08:09Guest:Right.

00:08:10Guest:And I went to Pratt because it was...

00:08:12Guest:I went to Madison, Madison High School, James Madison, and Bernie, incidentally.

00:08:19Guest:Bernie Sanders.

00:08:19Guest:Bernie Sanders went to Madison.

00:08:21Guest:Did you know him as a kid?

00:08:22Guest:No, I'm 20 years older than he is.

00:08:24Guest:Oh, that's right.

00:08:25Guest:He's young.

00:08:26Guest:I call him a kid.

00:08:27Marc:So were your parents a first generation?

00:08:30Guest:No, my father was first generation.

00:08:32Guest:He was 12 when he came to America.

00:08:34Guest:My mother was like a fourth or fifth generation New York.

00:08:37Marc:So they were there already, huh?

00:08:39Marc:She was there.

00:08:40Marc:And did your father escape?

00:08:42Guest:My father, no.

00:08:42Guest:My father came from a family of people...

00:08:46Guest:It came before that.

00:08:48Guest:His mother came first.

00:08:50Guest:He had two brothers and three sisters.

00:08:55Guest:And she brought them over one by one.

00:08:57Guest:The father stayed in Austria-Hungary.

00:09:01Guest:The border kept changing back and forth.

00:09:03Guest:And he married a Yankee.

00:09:08Guest:I mean, he was proud.

00:09:09Guest:And he lost his... Jewish?

00:09:11Guest:He was Jewish and she was Jewish.

00:09:14Marc:But a Yankee nonetheless.

00:09:16Guest:American.

00:09:17Guest:American.

00:09:17Guest:And he worked like hell to get rid of his accent.

00:09:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:09:22Guest:So, I mean, he had a New York accent, which he didn't know about, what I did.

00:09:26Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.

00:09:27Guest:But...

00:09:28Guest:you know he was great he got rid of the austrian accent he was able to that's right he got rid of any any trace of the alien you're laughing but you know uh but it was interesting i think at that time that there was a need uh that jews felt that they had to pass

00:09:49Marc:Absolutely.

00:09:51Guest:And New York, of course, the ghettos were clearly Jewish neighborhoods.

00:09:56Guest:Sure.

00:09:57Guest:On the Lower East Side.

00:09:57Guest:And Bleecker Street was Italian.

00:10:00Guest:And there were borders, literally, and walls.

00:10:06Guest:Yes, and he and my mother lived in the same house, same tenement house, different floors.

00:10:14Guest:In the city, before Brooklyn?

00:10:16Guest:In downtown New York, yeah.

00:10:20Marc:What kind of business was he in?

00:10:21Guest:Well, originally...

00:10:22Guest:When I was first born, he had a factory that did pleating and stitching and stuff.

00:10:33Guest:And then he had a partner who robbed him, and he went bankrupt.

00:10:39Guest:And World War II broke out, and everyone who had...

00:10:42Guest:He would have made uniforms and stuff at that point when he was very wealthy.

00:10:48Guest:But what he learned to do was fix sewing machines just out of the nature of his having a factory.

00:10:57Guest:So that was his business.

00:10:58Guest:So he then became a machinist and was able to make parts.

00:11:03Guest:They couldn't get parts because the war effort was using most of the metal.

00:11:11Guest:So custom parts.

00:11:13Guest:So he could make parts to a custom.

00:11:17Guest:He had a workshop in the basement.

00:11:21Marc:So he's probably a sought out man.

00:11:24Marc:I would think that the only guy that could get the parts was the guy that could make them.

00:11:28Guest:Yes.

00:11:29Guest:And fix a sewing machine.

00:11:31Guest:And how many siblings did you have?

00:11:33Guest:I had two sisters, one of whom is 10 years older than I am and is still alive.

00:11:38Marc:Oh, you got the good genes there.

00:11:40Guest:Well, she just stopped driving.

00:11:41Guest:Yeah.

00:11:42Guest:God.

00:11:43Guest:Just now.

00:11:43Guest:At 98?

00:11:45Guest:Yes.

00:11:46Marc:She stopped driving.

00:11:47Guest:She stopped driving.

00:11:48Guest:She used to go to Atlantic City.

00:11:50Guest:She lives in Queens.

00:11:51Guest:She was a designated driver.

00:11:54Guest:I said, wait a minute.

00:11:56Guest:Why are you driving?

00:11:57Guest:Yeah.

00:11:57Guest:I said, how many of your sorority sisters are still alive?

00:12:01Guest:She said, none.

00:12:02Guest:I said, well, wait a minute.

00:12:04Guest:So who are these people you're driving?

00:12:07Guest:She said, young people.

00:12:08Guest:They're in their 70s and 80s.

00:12:13Guest:But two of her sons, one is a psychiatrist and one is a heart doctor out of Chicago now.

00:12:22Guest:the psychiatrist used to call me and say, how do we get my mother to stop driving?

00:12:25Guest:I said, you're the psychiatrist.

00:12:28Guest:She said, I'm her kid.

00:12:29Guest:And I said, well, I'm her kid brother.

00:12:30Guest:No one could stop her.

00:12:33Guest:No one could stop her.

00:12:33Guest:She finally said, enough, because I think she realized she was a hazard.

00:12:38Marc:Yeah, she got scared or scared somebody else.

00:12:41Guest:I don't know what happened, but she said, you know, I'm considering giving up the driving.

00:12:46Guest:I said, really?

00:12:48Guest:You know, as if it was...

00:12:49Guest:Oh, what prompted that?

00:12:51Guest:She said, don't ask.

00:12:53Guest:So I didn't.

00:12:54Marc:So you're a kid growing up at this time and you have this talent for drawing, which I would think is not the first idea that your father and mother thought you should pursue.

00:13:04Marc:Well, no.

00:13:05Guest:Yeah.

00:13:05Guest:Accepting.

00:13:06Guest:I got a job while I was still in high school in the New York Daily News in the art department.

00:13:14Guest:Oh, really?

00:13:15Guest:By bringing some stuff that I had drawn for them to peruse.

00:13:21Guest:And they hired me.

00:13:23Guest:oh look at that i lied about i was 17 and i said i was 18 so right away i'm a liar to start with so i go to madison high school at three o'clock i walk to the bmt get on a train

00:13:38Guest:go to New York and work from 4 o'clock till midnight on the Daily News and do my homework on the train and then go to high school again at 8 o'clock.

00:13:50Guest:Were you drawing or what were you doing?

00:13:52Guest:Everything.

00:13:53Guest:I became a staff artist.

00:13:55Guest:Really?

00:13:56Guest:When you were like 15.

00:13:58Guest:I'm really good.

00:13:59Guest:Yeah.

00:13:59Guest:I'm 17.

00:14:00Guest:Yeah.

00:14:01Guest:No, I was 17.

00:14:02Guest:Yeah.

00:14:02Guest:It was a year before I graduated from high school.

00:14:05Guest:After that, I went to Pratt and still worked at the news.

00:14:09Guest:I never told them that I was.

00:14:10Guest:A kid.

00:14:12Guest:Yeah.

00:14:13Marc:How are you not going to know, but good for them.

00:14:15Guest:I was working with guys called Flavius Guglielmo and Bob Carter, a lot of anti-Semites, but that's okay.

00:14:23Guest:I mean, Ed Evans, Joe Donahoe, the news was a tabloid.

00:14:30Guest:It had a huge circulation, and they were grooming me.

00:14:33Guest:The reason I left...

00:14:35Guest:was I could do caricatures.

00:14:37Guest:I mean, really, I'm good at that.

00:14:40Guest:I was illustrating Billy Rose's column, Pitching Horseshoes, and doing caricatures.

00:14:46Guest:I did Brett Skelton, and Fred Astaire, and Billy Rose, and Judy Garland, and they were grooming me to become the theatrical caricaturist.

00:15:00Marc:Like a Hirschfeld, pre-Hirschfeld.

00:15:02Guest:Now, Hirschfeld was already on the Times, but the Daily News had three times the circulation of the Times.

00:15:08Guest:Bill Gallo, who became the sports cartoonist on the News, sat next to me.

00:15:13Guest:I mean, he was my pal.

00:15:14Guest:I went to his wedding.

00:15:16Guest:So you had a good gig going.

00:15:17Guest:I had a great gig, excepting, I said, Horace Knight was retiring.

00:15:22Guest:Horace Knight was an old English fellow who was...

00:15:25Guest:And I was going to move into that spot, which meant what that job entailed was I would go to see a dress rehearsal or an opening night and then do a cast caricature for the Sunday paper.

00:15:44Guest:Two openings, two drawings.

00:15:47Guest:And that's the job, which is a great job.

00:15:50Guest:Yeah.

00:15:50Guest:You know, I had a very Art Deco look as opposed to... Cartoon-y?

00:15:57Guest:Well, no, it was cartoon-y, but Hirschfeld had a sweeping line.

00:16:02Guest:Yeah.

00:16:03Guest:You know, and I had a very rigid kind of Deco look.

00:16:08Guest:I still have a Deco look.

00:16:11Guest:I do a lot of pen and ink stuff.

00:16:12Guest:Now.

00:16:12Guest:Oh, really?

00:16:13Guest:Still.

00:16:13Guest:I've got thousands of drawings.

00:16:16Guest:It relaxes me.

00:16:18Guest:I realized at the time if I got that job, I'd never quit.

00:16:22Guest:And I quit.

00:16:24Yeah.

00:16:25Guest:Because you were afraid to be there your whole life?

00:16:27Guest:No, because I wanted to be an actor.

00:16:30Guest:Always.

00:16:31Guest:No.

00:16:32Guest:John Ward was one of the artists on the news, but he was studying acting.

00:16:36Guest:He was a handsome guy.

00:16:38Guest:In fact, I even gave him a girlfriend.

00:16:40Guest:Bobby LeBeau was her name.

00:16:42Guest:You gave him a girlfriend?

00:16:43Guest:Well, I... Introduced him?

00:16:46Guest:I didn't want to be her boyfriend any longer, so... And she was open to it?

00:16:53Guest:Well, he was a very good-looking guy.

00:16:55Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:57Guest:And had great manners.

00:16:59Guest:John Ward, I mean, he was...

00:17:02Guest:A terrific guy.

00:17:05Guest:But he was studying acting with Sandy Meisner and talking acting a lot.

00:17:10Guest:And Frank Cosaro, who eventually at one point ran the New York Actors Studio, which I'm involved with, he was directing a T.S.

00:17:20Guest:Eliot play called The Family Reunion.

00:17:23Guest:And John was cast in it.

00:17:26Guest:And he was talking.

00:17:27Guest:He always talked about the theater and, you know, stuff.

00:17:33Guest:I went to see...

00:17:35Guest:family reunion on opening night because he got tickets for me yeah john ward's performance to this day was the worst performance i have ever seen in my life no i had seen lorette taylor yeah in glass menagerie and i'd seen lee j cobb and death of a salesman you did oh that must have been amazing they were they were both amazing so much so that i said how the hell do you do that

00:18:01Guest:I realized sitting there that I could get up right then and there and do it 100 times better without any training.

00:18:12Guest:I said, holy God, I want to do that.

00:18:17Guest:I wasn't inspired by Lee J. Cobb.

00:18:20Guest:In fact, that wiped my desires out completely.

00:18:26Guest:And Lorette Taylor looked like she just wandered in off the street.

00:18:31Guest:She'd been a drunk for 30 years.

00:18:32Guest:No one hired her.

00:18:34Guest:She was unhirable.

00:18:35Guest:She played the mother in Glass Menagerie, which put Tennessee Williams on the map.

00:18:41Guest:What I first did was went away to Summerstock.

00:18:45Marc:Before Actor's Studio.

00:18:46Marc:So you got the bug, you wanted to be an actor, you quit your job at the Daily News, and you auditioned for Summerstock?

00:18:52Marc:Yes.

00:18:53Marc:Okay.

00:18:54Guest:And I got a gig at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Maine, which was America's first summer theater,

00:19:02Guest:and it had a resident company of 40 people.

00:19:06Marc:That's big, huh?

00:19:08Guest:All living in one big clappered house.

00:19:10Guest:A lot of hormones running rampant, too.

00:19:13Marc:Yeah, I bet.

00:19:14Guest:Yes.

00:19:15Guest:And Otto Samedi was the director.

00:19:17Guest:And Al Ruscio was an actor who'd studied seriously.

00:19:22Guest:And Peter Gumony.

00:19:24Guest:All these people had done this for a while.

00:19:28Guest:I was new.

00:19:30Guest:And we did a straight play.

00:19:31Marc:How old were you, like 20?

00:19:3220.

00:19:33Marc:22 mm-hmm you're the you're the you're the greenhorn yeah i'm absolute yeah but no i didn't tell anybody it was sure i mean you know a lot of white shoe polish in the hair when i had to play older guys did you know what was there uh what was it how does that work were there several shows you'd go out with one show or you know you camp in you do like what you did every show yeah you i mean how many per season like three or four

00:19:58Marc:No.

00:19:58Guest:12 and 13 weeks.

00:20:00Marc:Oh, my God.

00:20:01Marc:A different show every week?

00:20:02Marc:Yes.

00:20:03Marc:I get it.

00:20:04Guest:In other words, we did a straight playing musical.

00:20:06Guest:We opened with...

00:20:09Guest:Streetcar, I think.

00:20:10Guest:And then we did Roberta.

00:20:11Guest:And then we did, after Roberta, I think we did the Glass Menagerie.

00:20:16Guest:And I did a marriage proposal, Chekhov.

00:20:19Guest:And, I mean, all kinds of stuff.

00:20:21Guest:With no training?

00:20:22Guest:No training.

00:20:23Guest:Just seat of my pants.

00:20:25Guest:How'd you do?

00:20:26Guest:Everyone said I was wonderful.

00:20:27Guest:But I...

00:20:28Guest:I didn't feel that at all.

00:20:31Guest:So when I came back to New York, I sought out a teacher.

00:20:38Guest:And I asked a lot of people about it.

00:20:40Guest:And everyone, you know, I heard the name Kurt Conway a lot.

00:20:45Guest:He had been a director at CBS.

00:20:48Guest:He had broken in people like Sidney Lumet and Martin Ritt and Bob Mulligan and...

00:20:58Guest:He had been blacklisted.

00:21:00Guest:He had signed a petition, a Willie McGee petition.

00:21:03Guest:He was married to an obscure young actress called Kim Stanley, who became huge and probably one of the best actresses I've ever seen.

00:21:13Guest:She was a Broadway actress.

00:21:14Guest:She and Geraldine Page were members of the actor's studio, who I became quite familiar with.

00:21:20Marc:But this guy Conway was with the studio as well?

00:21:22Guest:Yeah, he was with the group theater.

00:21:24Guest:The group before.

00:21:25Guest:He was with Strasburg and Klerman.

00:21:28Marc:Odette's?

00:21:29Marc:Was Odette's?

00:21:30Guest:Odette's started as an actor and then became a writer, yes.

00:21:33Marc:In the group theater?

00:21:34Marc:In the group theater, yes.

00:21:35Marc:And a lot of those great plays he did were done for the group theater.

00:21:38Guest:Waiting for Lefty and Golden Boy and Rocket to the Moon.

00:21:43Guest:And, you know, yes, all of that.

00:21:45Guest:He became a writer.

00:21:47Guest:In other words, what the group realized is there was more drama in the streets of New York than there were on the stages.

00:21:53Marc:So the idea, though, like this was a socially active, this was building on a revision of the sense of community that the theater had and how it would impact the culture.

00:22:05Guest:Both Harold Klerman and Lee Strasberg were young guys at the Theater Guild.

00:22:13Guest:They were doing plays, watching people like Alfred Luntel and Fontaine and much more classical music.

00:22:22Guest:chestnuts really yeah you know as opposed and they realized that the theater needed something contemporary Chekhov for instance in Russia had done his plays about the dying aristocracy at the time right that's how the Moscow Art Theater embraced him and

00:22:46Guest:There were people like Irwin Shaw and a lot of writers who wanted to write stuff about what was going on, the Depression and Roosevelt and the NRA and WPA and stuff.

00:23:03Guest:That's what the group theater did.

00:23:04Marc:And theater at that time had a little bit of vitality to it.

00:23:09Guest:People were engaged with it?

00:23:10Guest:New York theater was huge.

00:23:13Guest:The plays were opening all the time and closing all the time and being panned and being hits.

00:23:19Guest:And you had, you know, a lot of, you know, and the Jewish theater, too, the Yiddish theater with Marie Schwartz and Manasseh Skolnick and people.

00:23:30Guest:I mean, theater was alive.

00:23:33Guest:But...

00:23:35Guest:These guys all went to Moscow because they had heard about the Moscow Art Theater and Stanislavski.

00:23:46Guest:And doing those plays about the dying aristocracy, the comedies that Chekhov was writing.

00:23:55Guest:you know, the Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya.

00:23:59Guest:And also the Brecht, the Brechtian Theater was alive in Germany at the time.

00:24:05Guest:We're talking about the 30s.

00:24:06Marc:So Strausberg and they all went to study or to see?

00:24:14Guest:Went to sit at his feet and listen to him as he talked.

00:24:18Guest:Stanislavski.

00:24:19Guest:Stanislavski.

00:24:21Guest:Konstantin Stanislavski became...

00:24:24Guest:surrogate father to them.

00:24:26Guest:The Buddha.

00:24:27Guest:Yes.

00:24:28Guest:And Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner and Harold Klerman and Lee Strasberg.

00:24:34Guest:Lee Kazan, a young actor.

00:24:37Guest:They all went there and gleaned.

00:24:41Guest:Now they all came back and they all interpreted over the years differently.

00:24:47Guest:Strasberg, sense memory.

00:24:50Guest:I mean, their emphases were all different.

00:24:52Marc:But this was the birth of the method.

00:24:54Guest:This was definitely Stanislavski never called it the method.

00:24:58Guest:It was a bad transition.

00:25:00Guest:He called it the system.

00:25:02Guest:Actually, we're system actors.

00:25:04Guest:We're not method actors.

00:25:05Guest:Okay.

00:25:06Marc:Finally, it's been clarified.

00:25:09Guest:Well, it's crazy.

00:25:12Marc:Is it the same, the fact that Stella Adler and Strausberg and the other people that were, Sanford Meisner, that they all broke off and did their different schools of the system or the method.

00:25:24Marc:What were those infights about?

00:25:27Marc:I mean, what was the decision making?

00:25:29Guest:Well, it's the same infights that I saw as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, which is known as a city of churches because every other corner had a church of a different denomination.

00:25:40Guest:And I used to hear, I'm talking about Episcopalian and Presbyterian and Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox and Jewish and Muslim as we called them in those days.

00:25:53Guest:You know, arguments all the time.

00:25:55Guest:And I used to say, wait a second, nobody chose their religions.

00:25:59Guest:They were handed them for Christ.

00:26:01Guest:What are they arguing about?

00:26:02Guest:They were all saying the same thing.

00:26:04Guest:Oh, if you don't believe in our religion, you're not going to heaven.

00:26:08Guest:You've got to believe in Jesus.

00:26:11Guest:Oh, wait a minute.

00:26:13Guest:There's some conditions.

00:26:15Guest:Yeah, all kinds of conditions.

00:26:17Guest:If I confess my sins to this guy, it's going to be clean until next weekend.

00:26:26Guest:Wipe it clean, weekly.

00:26:28Guest:Anyway.

00:26:29Guest:So when you get involved... Okay, I am artistic director of Active Studio West.

00:26:35Guest:Now.

00:26:36Guest:I have been for a long time.

00:26:37Marc:But at the beginning, when you decide that you need an acting teacher and you got this guy Conway's name, you know, what year are we talking?

00:26:45Marc:This is long after the establishment of... Yeah, this is...

00:26:49Marc:This is after the group theater, it's now the actor's studio.

00:26:53Guest:I have to go backwards.

00:26:54Guest:I got into the actor's studio in like 54, 55.

00:27:00Marc:And who was in charge?

00:27:01Guest:Strasburg.

00:27:02Marc:Okay, and who was this guy Conway?

00:27:04Guest:He was teaching privately on 54th Street and 6th Avenue.

00:27:13Marc:So they could just be part of the studio and then teach privately.

00:27:16Guest:Yes.

00:27:16Guest:Got it.

00:27:19Guest:Most of the people I teach today are acting teachers, actually.

00:27:23Marc:Interesting, because I pictured at that time that you'd go, you'd sit with Strasburg, there'd be 20 of you.

00:27:30Marc:More than that.

00:27:31Marc:Okay, so that was part of it, but then you could do private study with a teacher of your choice.

00:27:39Marc:Yes.

00:27:39Guest:Okay, I get it.

00:27:41Guest:Before I became a member of the studio, I studied with Kurt, who was much more Sandy Meisner than Lee Strasburg.

00:27:49Marc:What is that differentiation?

00:27:51Guest:Well, Sandy Meisner talks much more about intentions, actions, what a character needs to do.

00:27:59Guest:Yeah.

00:28:00Guest:Strasburg is much more interested in the sensory life of the character.

00:28:03Marc:Isn't that interesting?

00:28:04Marc:Because, like, there's so little examples, cinematically, of Lee Strasburg acting that, you know, having known about him when I was a little kid.

00:28:11Marc:Yes.

00:28:12Marc:And, you know, you watch that one movie with him and Art Carney where they play the bank robbers.

00:28:18Guest:That's right.

00:28:18Guest:And George, right?

00:28:19Marc:George Burns.

00:28:20Guest:George Burns.

00:28:20Marc:So like, you know, like as a guy in high school or junior high or wherever I first started learning about Straussburg, you're watching that, you know, this is the guy.

00:28:27Marc:Right.

00:28:27Marc:And you're watching.

00:28:28Marc:And then, you know, Godfather II, right?

00:28:31Marc:He plays the Meyer Lansky character.

00:28:33Guest:Exactly.

00:28:34Guest:And in fact, that's his first job.

00:28:37Guest:Al Pacino, who studied with Lee.

00:28:40Guest:Yeah.

00:28:40Marc:Talked him into doing and I'm watching everything the first time like he's got his leg draped over the chair He's making strange noises, you know, he made a lot of decisions Yes, and I've never seen Sanford Meisner act but like, you know I was always one of these guys you when I was younger and you know I start respecting people who come from that the method was very Romantic in a way of course and me too.

00:29:04Marc:Yeah

00:29:05Marc:Right.

00:29:06Marc:So you watch, you know, what are the tricks?

00:29:07Marc:And then you see some of these guys.

00:29:09Marc:It's very interesting to me, and I'm going to ramble for a second.

00:29:12Guest:Don't worry about it.

00:29:13Guest:Ramble.

00:29:14Marc:Well, these guys that, these method actors of the generation of Pacino and De Niro, and, you know, I guess that would be really second generation, right, of the actor's studio.

00:29:26Guest:Yeah.

00:29:27Guest:Eli Wallach and those guys would be the first generation.

00:29:30Marc:And James Dean, Montgomery Cliff.

00:29:32Guest:Well, Jimmy Dean was my best friend.

00:29:34Marc:yeah yeah and you met him in new york i met him in new york i met him when he before i almost anyone knew who he was right but when i watch you as an actor like you're in crimes and misdemeanors which is one of my favorite films is one of my all-time favorite i've seen it so many times thank you so much and and i could see in your performance the depth of experience and emotion and choices you were making in in how and i wasn't directed a whole lot by woody uh

00:30:00Guest:Yeah, he doesn't do that much, right?

00:30:03Guest:No, he doesn't.

00:30:04Marc:He hires you to do the job.

00:30:05Guest:If he doesn't like what you do, he fires you.

00:30:07Marc:Right.

00:30:08Marc:And it was a beautiful performance.

00:30:09Marc:The same with Ed Wood, same with Tucker, same with the big movies that we know you from.

00:30:12Marc:But what's interesting to me when I watch, like, there's something that happens, like Pacino and De Niro, that was very interesting to me.

00:30:20Marc:Because you watch them, and when they were younger, they're really engaging people.

00:30:24Marc:The method alone.

00:30:25Marc:Oh, absolutely.

00:30:26Marc:And then in the mid-period, once they've got their fame, they kind of start relying on some quirks and ticks.

00:30:33Marc:You know, patterns of behavior.

00:30:35Marc:And now as they've both gotten older, if they're given the right role, they can really lock into it again.

00:30:40Marc:Absolutely.

00:30:40Marc:And it's fascinating.

00:30:42Guest:You're absolutely right.

00:30:43Guest:And those are stages that I agree with you about.

00:30:48Guest:They became almost caricatures of themselves.

00:30:50Guest:Right, because it's sold.

00:30:52Guest:because it was successful.

00:30:54Marc:Right.

00:30:55Marc:Okay, so let's get back.

00:30:56Marc:So you lock in.

00:30:57Marc:You're studying with Kirk.

00:30:58Marc:You're studying with Strasburg.

00:31:00Marc:It's the 50s?

00:31:01Guest:Well, I start, yeah.

00:31:02Guest:I go from Kirk.

00:31:05Guest:Everyone told me not to do the scene I did for the actor's studio because Lee Strasburg directed it on Broadway.

00:31:14Guest:Clifford Odets had written Clash by Night.

00:31:17Guest:That's the piece I did.

00:31:18Guest:Yeah.

00:31:19Guest:For the group theater, but the group disbanded.

00:31:23Guest:Strasburg directed it on Broadway commercially with Lee J. Cobb, Tallulah Bankhead, and Joseph Schilkraut.

00:31:34Guest:And it flopped.

00:31:37Guest:So everyone said, don't do that.

00:31:40Guest:Don't remind him.

00:31:43Guest:Well, don't remind him.

00:31:44Guest:Even if Kazan passes you, I had to be judged by the final auditioner.

00:31:51Guest:Kazan, Sheryl Crawford, and Lee Strasburger.

00:31:54Guest:You have to get one votes.

00:31:56Guest:One means pass, pass, pass.

00:32:00Guest:One, one, and a two, no.

00:32:04Guest:Two means I like you, but come back in six months.

00:32:07Guest:And three means, hey, don't dock in my doorway ever again.

00:32:12Marc:You got to get them all.

00:32:13Guest:You've got to get them all.

00:32:15Guest:So everyone said, even if Kazan loves you and Cheryl loves you, Lee would never like anything you do because that show, after that he went to Hollywood and he struck out there, unlike Kazan who hit in Hollywood.

00:32:36Marc:As a director?

00:32:37Yes.

00:32:37Marc:Oh, Strasburg.

00:32:39Marc:Strasburg wanted to direct.

00:32:40Guest:Yes, he wanted to direct for movies.

00:32:42Marc:So he really didn't make it as an actor or a film director.

00:32:46Marc:He was a teacher.

00:32:48Guest:Eventually, and then became an actor after 40 years of not being an actor.

00:32:52Marc:But teaching some of the greatest actors alive.

00:32:54Guest:Yes.

00:32:55Marc:Isn't that something?

00:32:56Marc:So did you pass?

00:32:58Marc:I passed.

00:32:58Marc:All three?

00:33:00Marc:Yeah.

00:33:00Guest:Obviously.

00:33:01Guest:And what did Stroudsburg say to you?

00:33:02Guest:Only two of us passed that time around.

00:33:06Guest:Two actors.

00:33:07Guest:One guy called Steve McQueen and me.

00:33:09Guest:Steve McQueen, I've heard that name.

00:33:10Guest:Yeah, me too.

00:33:13Guest:I learned that he was pretty good.

00:33:14Marc:Yeah, he did all right for himself in the movie business.

00:33:17Guest:He did, he did.

00:33:18Guest:Was he a good stage actor?

00:33:20Guest:He started as, he went on the road for Time Out for Ginger and playing Tennis Anyone, one of those parts.

00:33:27Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:28Guest:I mean, he then replaced Ben Gazzara in Hat Full of Rain on Broadway, and that kind of established him as an important actor.

00:33:37Marc:But it's interesting that guys like you and people that we know from television and from movies, you know, rarely at this point, historically, do we know the dues you paid in theater.

00:33:49Marc:Right.

00:33:50Marc:And that's where a lot of this stuff gets done.

00:33:52Marc:Like, I don't even know if I've ever even considered Steve McQueen a stage actor.

00:33:56Marc:Yes.

00:33:56Guest:In my mind.

00:33:57Guest:He started in New York.

00:34:01Guest:In fact, the first time I ever met Steve or new Steve, well, I've Steve.

00:34:06Guest:Yeah.

00:34:07Guest:I was on the back of Jimmy Dean's motorcycle, which was sputtering.

00:34:12Guest:And we drove into a garage on 10th Avenue.

00:34:17Guest:And one of the mechanics was a young guy who looked like Steve McQueen, whose name was Steve McQueen.

00:34:25Guest:And he fixed Jimmy's motorcycle.

00:34:28Guest:And that was the Steve McQueen.

00:34:29Guest:Yeah.

00:34:30Guest:And he hated Jimmy because Jimmy was getting all the parts on television.

00:34:34Guest:So you're there.

00:34:35Guest:Marlon Brando.

00:34:38Guest:Yeah.

00:34:38Guest:I mean, Monty Clift.

00:34:41Guest:They were all there.

00:34:43Guest:Yeah, I mean, I was... Surrounded.

00:34:46Guest:When I did a scene.

00:34:48Guest:I mean, Kim Stanley was there and Geraldine Page was watching.

00:34:52Marc:Geraldine Page, she's the genius.

00:34:54Marc:And Patricia Neal.

00:34:56Marc:Oh, my God.

00:34:57Marc:I mean... This is the crew that you're in with.

00:34:59Marc:And you're 20, what, 24?

00:35:01Marc:I'm young.

00:35:02Marc:Yeah.

00:35:03Marc:I'm a kid.

00:35:04Marc:And when you're watching them, you know, working with them, did you... Is that where you... Well, Lonnie, I did a bunch of projects with Lonnie Chapman.

00:35:12Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:35:12Guest:Who is, it's funny because Frank Cossaro had a group of New York guys.

00:35:19Guest:Yeah.

00:35:19Guest:And I was adopted by a bunch of Okies.

00:35:24Guest:Yeah.

00:35:25Guest:Lonnie Chapman and Pat Hingle and those guys.

00:35:30Guest:Pat Hingle, he's great.

00:35:31Guest:He was in all the Clint Eastwood movies.

00:35:33Guest:Yeah, but he's, again, actor studio.

00:35:35Guest:Isn't that fascinating?

00:35:37Marc:Great character actor.

00:35:38Guest:Most of the people who were at the studio were pretty good.

00:35:45Guest:To this day, it's hard to get into the studio.

00:35:48Guest:Recently, we had final auditions.

00:35:51Guest:We had 25 on one Sunday and 25 on another.

00:35:56Guest:We took a lot of people for us.

00:36:01Guest:Yeah.

00:36:01Guest:We took three people out of 50 scenes.

00:36:05Guest:Yeah.

00:36:05Guest:Probably, I would say, 30 of those scenes were dual scenes.

00:36:11Guest:Yeah.

00:36:11Guest:Dual auditions.

00:36:12Marc:Yeah.

00:36:13Marc:Two auditioners would work together?

00:36:15Guest:To audition for the actor's studio, you have to do a scene that's not classical, five minutes long with a partner.

00:36:22Yeah.

00:36:22Guest:Anything you want to do.

00:36:24Marc:So you've got to have a friend who wants to audition the same day you do.

00:36:29Marc:I mean, you don't just put people together, right?

00:36:31Marc:Or are they already taking classes?

00:36:32Guest:No, they sign up six months in advance.

00:36:36Guest:Yes.

00:36:37Guest:The West Coast studio right now is in very good shape.

00:36:40Guest:Good.

00:36:41Guest:The work that's being done is brilliant work.

00:36:43Guest:The best acting I see in this country.

00:36:46Mm-hmm.

00:36:46Guest:Every day of the week, Monday through Friday, we have at least one session, which is breaking down a script, how to rehearse, sense memory, effective memory sessions, speech, all kinds of stuff.

00:37:03Guest:On Friday, I run and moderate an acting session with two scenes, usually two people in each scene, but sometimes more, and I critique it.

00:37:14Guest:usually 80 to 100 people show up.

00:37:19Guest:Because if by the same token, I as an actor wasn't doing what I was telling them to do, I don't think anyone would show up.

00:37:28Marc:Well, I've been doing some acting and what do you look for?

00:37:33Marc:If you were to tell me right now.

00:37:38Guest:What's the most important thing?

00:37:40Guest:That, yeah.

00:37:41Guest:Okay, that's good.

00:37:45Guest:Trust.

00:37:48Guest:What I've come to, talent is one thing, but to trust your talent.

00:37:57Guest:is a hard thing to do.

00:37:59Guest:To trust your choices.

00:38:02Guest:To use the rehearsals in ways that you're not watching yourself.

00:38:08Guest:Right.

00:38:09Guest:Self-conscious.

00:38:10Guest:Well, more than that.

00:38:12Guest:It's the director in you.

00:38:14Guest:Leave the director outside.

00:38:16Uh-huh.

00:38:16Guest:When you break down a script and make choices on a scene or a character, there's an objective part of you that looks at stuff.

00:38:31Guest:You make a choice that's conscious and then either trust that to your subjectivity or don't.

00:38:43Guest:Now, if you do,

00:38:46Guest:let it take you where it will if it does what you hope it will it will end the scene oh as opposed to you're deciding to end the scene right i get it it's hard to explain no i i think i i think i understand it because

00:39:10Marc:It brings a lot of things together, you know, from what I'm projecting onto.

00:39:15Marc:Go ahead.

00:39:17Marc:Is that, you know, if you are in it, if you're available, if you're trusting your own emotions in the moment of the scene, that you're going to make choices.

00:39:26Marc:Now, those choices in and of themselves could be, that'd be the director in you.

00:39:32Marc:So to follow, once you put the choices in place and you trust your emotions to ride through what is scripted,

00:39:39Marc:There has to be a certain amount of trust in the material that you're going to get somewhere, but that's on you.

00:39:44Marc:That's right.

00:39:45Marc:Right.

00:39:45Marc:So if you're engaged with your emotions and you've made your choices and you trust those things together, it will deliver you to the end of the scene.

00:39:54Marc:Absolutely.

00:39:55Marc:I understand that only now recently.

00:39:58Marc:Okay, good.

00:39:59Guest:I'm glad you do.

00:40:01Guest:But applying it is hard.

00:40:05Guest:Trusting yourself to the degree that you don't be objective, that you trust your subjectivity and allow it to go where it needs to go.

00:40:15Guest:That's what rehearsals are for.

00:40:16Marc:Yeah.

00:40:17Marc:To find out.

00:40:18Marc:But the interesting thing about television or, as you know, film is that, you know, especially television is that, you know, your rehearsals are going to it's going fast, man.

00:40:27Marc:And your coverage is coming up.

00:40:28Marc:And hopefully, hopefully they're going to cover you last.

00:40:32Guest:so so you know you've got but but you still have to do it a lot of times right i mean you know again i mean okay i tell you a joke yeah and it's funny okay but then i if i tell you the same joke 15 or 20 times is it still funny

00:40:51Guest:How do you find the funny in it?

00:40:52Guest:Right.

00:40:53Guest:Okay?

00:40:54Marc:Well, I have to do that for a living.

00:40:55Guest:Okay.

00:40:56Guest:There are all kinds of things that are going to come your way.

00:40:59Guest:Right.

00:41:00Guest:You have to be able to think on your feet, make choices on your feet, and fulfill those choices.

00:41:07Guest:That's amazing.

00:41:08Guest:To trust yourself to the point where you're not going to get a lot of help from a director who's got all kinds of things to worry about.

00:41:16Marc:They might not even be looking at you.

00:41:18Guest:Probably doesn't.

00:41:21Guest:If you know the lines and hit the marks, it's one less thing for them to worry about.

00:41:26Guest:I mean, it's like, thank God, because they have all kinds of decisions and problems to make.

00:41:36Guest:The wonderful thing about trusting yourself, again, you know, I use analogies all the time.

00:41:44Guest:I say, if you can swim well, why are you worried about drowning?

00:41:49Guest:Right.

00:41:49Guest:Why are you spending so much time thinking about it?

00:41:52Guest:Right.

00:41:52Guest:If you're afraid of earthquakes, don't live in California.

00:41:56Guest:Otherwise, you're going to spend all your time.

00:41:58Guest:Worried.

00:41:58Guest:Worried about stuff that you can't.

00:42:02Marc:control right if you can learn how to do what you do well learn it because that's the one thing you have control over that's right because i my experience recently in in in doing an acting job yes was that there was a scene yes that was an emotional scene but i i you know i was a fairly a guy that you know stuffed his emotions down but this scene you know was was explosion

00:42:31Marc:It wasn't an explosion.

00:42:32Marc:It was emotion.

00:42:33Marc:It was a crying.

00:42:34Marc:But it wasn't scripted.

00:42:36Marc:So I had this scene where I find something out that is emotionally completely upheaval.

00:42:41Guest:Right.

00:42:42Marc:And I didn't know that I was going to cry.

00:42:46Marc:Of course.

00:42:47Marc:And then we did it again, and I got there again, but I said, I think two is it.

00:42:53Guest:I understand.

00:42:54Guest:But if you have craft, you can do 15 of them.

00:42:58Guest:Really?

00:42:58Guest:And the reason you have to do 15 is, again,

00:43:02Guest:You do a master shot, two or three of those maybe, and then 50-50 shot.

00:43:09Guest:And then over the shoulder, maybe two or three times, over his shoulder or her shoulder, two or three times onto you.

00:43:18Guest:You still have to act.

00:43:19Marc:i know but like fortunately for me we did coverage but you know that i that well you were lucky i was lucky but like let me ask you about the craft so so you know like i i run i fly by the seat of my pants a bit but i do make i do rudimentary you know acting you know from experience you know from having done a show but when you say craft that would enable me to cry every time what is that well

00:43:46Guest:You were moved twice, and you said, whoops, I think that's it.

00:43:51Guest:I don't think I have any more tears.

00:43:53Guest:Well, you have more tears.

00:43:55Guest:And once you know.

00:43:58Guest:So you say I got insecure.

00:44:00Guest:Well, yeah.

00:44:02Guest:Doubted my.

00:44:03Guest:You then, you know, the doubts occurred, and I don't think I can do this again.

00:44:11Guest:I'm amazed.

00:44:13Guest:Instead of being amazed by it.

00:44:15Guest:Yeah.

00:44:16Guest:Expecting it.

00:44:17Marc:Just say, get there again.

00:44:19Guest:I can get there 50 times if I have to.

00:44:21Marc:And that comes from rehearsal and from doing the work.

00:44:24Guest:That comes from learning your craft.

00:44:27Guest:With that kind of thinking, you never dry up.

00:44:30Guest:You're always a student of life.

00:44:33Guest:You're learning stuff.

00:44:34Guest:You're reacting differently to different things.

00:44:38Guest:And you're beginning to realize that certain things affect you in certain ways.

00:44:43Guest:The more you live in your body.

00:44:44Guest:I mean, there are a lot of actors who stop training themselves.

00:44:50Guest:Why?

00:44:51Guest:Life is a lesson continually.

00:44:55Marc:But the fundamental you're saying is that once you don't doubt yourself.

00:45:00Marc:Right.

00:45:00Marc:that because like what i did was i said no to myself i said right as opposed as opposed to i can do that i can do that and i can and just figuring out making note of of the the journey i took emotionally exactly and hold on to it hold on find it again right

00:45:17Guest:Don't hold on to it.

00:45:18Guest:Find it again.

00:45:19Guest:Right.

00:45:20Guest:Take the same road.

00:45:21Guest:Right.

00:45:22Guest:I always say, if you stay on Route 66, you're not going to see the Grand Canyon.

00:45:26Guest:You're not going to see Indian Reservations.

00:45:28Guest:Right.

00:45:28Guest:If you want to get off those roads and learn stuff about yourself...

00:45:35Guest:That's not sense memory, that's emotional discipline.

00:45:39Guest:That's also sense memory.

00:45:40Guest:It is.

00:45:41Guest:It is, because if you practice something again and again and again, and it works again and again and again, it's sense memory.

00:45:48Marc:So that is the essence of scene study, and that's why you do it.

00:45:53Marc:That's right.

00:45:55Marc:I talk to a lot of actors, and some have a system, and they have a craft, but a lot of times it's not so specific.

00:46:03Right.

00:46:04Guest:Yeah, and it's hard.

00:46:06Guest:I mean, I find that there are actors that I've talked to for five and 10 years saying the same things, and suddenly they're enlightened as if they've heard it for the first time.

00:46:19Marc:But that happens in life.

00:46:20Guest:That's exactly what you're talking about.

00:46:22Guest:Actors that I respect will come up to me and say, you know, I finally understand what you're saying.

00:46:29Marc:After 20 years?

00:46:30Guest:Yes, but they're talking about understanding it viscerally.

00:46:34Guest:Yeah, because they- As opposed to not understanding it bodily.

00:46:39Marc:I get it, I get it, right.

00:46:40Marc:Like I can understand you intellectually and I can put A plus B equals C together.

00:46:44Marc:Yes.

00:46:44Marc:But for me, but sometimes- You still have to do it.

00:46:47Marc:Right, but sometimes people have been doing it and they just never were able to identify it.

00:46:51Marc:And once they identify it, they're like, I can do it again.

00:46:53Guest:Exactly.

00:46:54Guest:Got it.

00:46:54Guest:It's part of what I can put in my kit bag.

00:46:57Marc:Right.

00:46:58Marc:Like in both, I don't have a clear memory of Tucker, but I have a clear memory of the work you did in the Ed Wood movie and of Crimes and Misdemeanors, of course.

00:47:08Marc:And Crimes and Misdemeanors, that was a varied and emotionally deep performance.

00:47:16Marc:It was the deepest.

00:47:17Marc:Very deep.

00:47:18Marc:To make the decisions that you made.

00:47:20Guest:Well, I also wanted, I didn't, I wanted him to be every man in the sense of.

00:47:27Marc:That was the genius of it.

00:47:29Guest:I even said to Woody when he flew me in, this is crazy because he's in New York, and for four weeks he'd been trying to cast the part and hadn't, and I had just done Tucker, and he, Juliet Taylor, and he saw it the same week, and they said, what about Landau, even though a very different character?

00:47:53Guest:And he flew me in to New York, put me up at a hotel, and I met with him.

00:48:01Guest:And Juliet Taylor was there, he was there, and I was there.

00:48:07Guest:And I walked in, and nothing was said.

00:48:11Guest:I sat down, and we kind of looked at each other for a while.

00:48:18Guest:And then he says, after it seemed like a long time, I just wanted to spend a few seconds with you.

00:48:30Guest:And that's all he says.

00:48:33Guest:So I get up and walk to the door.

00:48:35Guest:I guess my time's up.

00:48:37Guest:He said, no, no, no, sit down.

00:48:38Guest:So I sit down.

00:48:40Guest:I'm sitting on a kind of a backless thing.

00:48:45Guest:And he's on the couch and she's on the chair in this dark room.

00:48:51Guest:And he starts to talk.

00:48:56Guest:I don't know what the hell he's talking about because I haven't read the script.

00:49:00Guest:Anyway, he's talking.

00:49:02Guest:And then he says, in the middle of this, I thought I'd been lobotomized.

00:49:07Guest:I swear to God.

00:49:08Guest:I mean, it was like, what the hell?

00:49:09Guest:I have no clue what he's talking about.

00:49:12Guest:He then says, Edward G. Robinson.

00:49:16Guest:That's the only thing I recognize.

00:49:18Guest:Uh-huh.

00:49:18Guest:Now, I had done Middle of the Night on Broadway with Edward G. It was Patty Champsie's first play on Broadway.

00:49:25Guest:Jenna Ronas played my wife.

00:49:26Guest:Edward G. Robinson played the lead.

00:49:29Guest:I toured with it also.

00:49:31Guest:That brought me to California.

00:49:32Guest:That's what Hitchcock saw me in.

00:49:34Marc:For North by Northwest.

00:49:35Guest:I didn't know what it was for, but- But that's what you were in, yeah.

00:49:39Guest:He plays kind of a heavy.

00:49:40Guest:I played him as a gay character, actually.

00:49:44Guest:Oh, really?

00:49:44Guest:He wasn't written that way.

00:49:45Guest:Yeah.

00:49:46Guest:But he wanted to get rid of Emery Sink with such a vengeance.

00:49:50Guest:I thought it was a great choice.

00:49:51Guest:Everyone told me not to do it.

00:49:53Guest:Yeah.

00:49:53Guest:My first big movie, I'm playing a gay guy.

00:49:57Guest:I'm not gay.

00:49:58Guest:And I said, everyone's going to think you're gay.

00:49:59Guest:Yeah.

00:50:00Guest:Did everyone pick up on it?

00:50:04Marc:Some people did.

00:50:05Marc:Yeah, I don't know that I did.

00:50:06Marc:Hitchcock did.

00:50:07Marc:Yeah.

00:50:08Marc:Was he okay with it?

00:50:09Marc:He loved it.

00:50:10Marc:All right, so you're with Woody.

00:50:13Guest:He says, after this talk,

00:50:16Guest:He says, where are you going to be in an hour?

00:50:19Guest:And I said, in the hotel.

00:50:21Guest:That's what I'm here for.

00:50:22Guest:He said, I'll send the script over in an hour.

00:50:26Guest:I said, oh, good.

00:50:27Guest:So an hour later, the phone rings, and it's Julia Taylor saying it's going to be another half hour.

00:50:35Guest:He's writing you a note.

00:50:37Guest:I said, okay, I'm here.

00:50:39Guest:Yeah.

00:50:40Guest:Half an hour later, she comes and delivers the entire script to me.

00:50:43Guest:She said, very unusual.

00:50:45Guest:I said, what?

00:50:47Guest:He's letting you read the whole script.

00:50:50Guest:I said, what's usual?

00:50:52Guest:He said, just your sides.

00:50:56Guest:And he doesn't want you to know the rest of it.

00:50:59Guest:So then she leaves.

00:51:04Guest:I read the script.

00:51:07Guest:It's the best script of all the Woody Allen movies that I've read.

00:51:12Guest:I agree with you.

00:51:15Guest:The second I close it, the phone rings, it's Julia.

00:51:18Guest:I swear I was doing Mission Impossible again.

00:51:20Guest:I thought, the room is bugged.

00:51:25Guest:I better look behind the pictures.

00:51:29Guest:She says, he wants to talk to you tomorrow.

00:51:33Guest:I said, great.

00:51:34Guest:I run off at the mouth because I haven't talked for two hours.

00:51:37Guest:I'm excited.

00:51:38Guest:And she says, 9 or 9.30?

00:51:42Guest:I said, well, make it 9 o'clock.

00:51:46Guest:She said, he's worried about how fast you wake up.

00:51:49Guest:I said, tell him I'm worried about how fast he wakes up.

00:51:53Guest:At 9.30 in the morning, I go there.

00:51:57Guest:And...

00:52:00Guest:I understand.

00:52:01Guest:I said, tell me what you meant when you said it with G. Robinson.

00:52:06Guest:I said, I love the script.

00:52:09Guest:He said, in days gone by, I would have cast him in the part.

00:52:14Guest:And I say, oh, that's terrible.

00:52:20Guest:That's wrong.

00:52:22Guest:I said, what the fuck are you doing, Landau?

00:52:25Guest:I've got Jiminy Cricket on my shoulders saying, you're just talking to one of the great filmmakers in the world, telling him he doesn't know what the hell he wrote.

00:52:34Guest:I can't stop myself.

00:52:37Guest:I said, you know, I think you're singing much heavier than I do.

00:52:43Guest:I said, you know, whomever plays his part has to be...

00:52:48Guest:I mean, he's a spoiled brat.

00:52:51Guest:He's an embezzler.

00:52:54Guest:He's a womanizer.

00:52:58Guest:He's a murderer.

00:53:00Guest:He doesn't do a single redeeming thing in this picture.

00:53:02Guest:It would be very easy to dislike this guy.

00:53:05Guest:I said, he's your protagonist.

00:53:08Guest:Whomever plays him, the audience has to join up with him and see themselves in him and be horrified at the same time, or you don't have a movie, is what I said.

00:53:20Guest:You're right.

00:53:22Guest:And I realized, but I couldn't play it any other way.

00:53:27Guest:Yeah.

00:53:28Guest:So he sits and looks at me with these two Coca-Cola bottles.

00:53:32Guest:Yeah.

00:53:37Guest:It's very quiet.

00:53:38Guest:And I said, oh, Jesus.

00:53:39Guest:Yeah.

00:53:40Guest:I just talked myself out of a great part.

00:53:43Guest:Yeah.

00:53:46Guest:What time is your flight back, he says.

00:53:48Guest:I said, well, it's supposed to be at noon.

00:53:51Guest:He said, can we make it 4 o'clock?

00:53:54Guest:I'd like to fit you for wardrobe for the character.

00:54:00LAUGHTER

00:54:03Guest:And then about two weeks into shooting, he said, you know what, I wrote it, I didn't think of it the way you're doing it, but it's better, I trust you, and I trust your instincts enormously.

00:54:12Guest:And he left me alone.

00:54:16Guest:He reshot his half of the movie again and again and again.

00:54:22Guest:He did reshoot one scene that I did on my birthday.

00:54:27Guest:I did the scene in her apartment, and then she's going to ring my doorbell.

00:54:34Guest:Yeah.

00:54:38Guest:We reshot it.

00:54:39Guest:He said, we go back to the apartment too many times.

00:54:42Guest:He said, I'm going to have it coming onto your turf.

00:54:46Guest:So we did the same scene in the car at the gas station.

00:54:52Guest:Right.

00:54:52Guest:In the rain.

00:54:52Guest:Yeah.

00:54:53Guest:Before the murder.

00:54:55Guest:Before I call my brother and go through that catharsis at the house.

00:55:00Guest:So we did that again.

00:55:03Guest:And I agreed with him.

00:55:04Guest:I said, yeah, how many times can we go back there?

00:55:08Guest:And it's more menacing.

00:55:09Guest:And I have to go much more menacing.

00:55:11Guest:She's going to ring my doorbell.

00:55:13Guest:I mean, this is my birthday, and she's going to blow the whistle on me.

00:55:19Guest:So...

00:55:19Guest:And that was re-shot verbatim.

00:55:25Guest:She gives me the record and Schubert and all of that.

00:55:30Guest:I mean, I still remember this picture because I worked very hard on it.

00:55:34Marc:It's a masterpiece.

00:55:35Marc:You were a genius in it.

00:55:36Guest:Well, thank you.

00:55:37Guest:But, you know...

00:55:40Guest:He invited me to see dailies, and I didn't go because I didn't want to just keep my subjectivity alive and not be objective about it.

00:55:52Guest:The day I finished, he ran two and a half hours of dailies for me, and I saw the stuff because I knew I couldn't do anything about it or could not get self-conscious about it.

00:56:06Guest:But that was important to me.

00:56:09Guest:Whereas, like in Tucker, I went to the dailies all the time when I did Tucker because Vittorio Storaro, the cinematographer, his contribution is so important.

00:56:22Guest:Whereas Crimes and Misdemeanors was very flatly lit by Sven Nykvist, who was Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer.

00:56:31Guest:I knew what that looked like.

00:56:34Guest:So I didn't have to look.

00:56:36Guest:With Vittorio...

00:56:38Guest:And that's Coppola, right?

00:56:40Guest:That was Coppola.

00:56:41Guest:Yeah.

00:56:42Guest:And the dailies were at Lucas Ranch.

00:56:45Guest:Yeah.

00:56:46Guest:The Tortillo's dramatic lighting was impressive.

00:56:54Guest:Was elevating the time.

00:56:56Guest:Yeah.

00:56:57Guest:But I made my choices with relation.

00:57:01Guest:Yeah.

00:57:03Guest:lots of contrast yeah i eased up on my choices i made my character a little more bland because the drug the drama was in the lighting and i didn't it would be like a white and white shirt and that was your decision always my decision i don't talk to the director much about anything

00:57:25Marc:Except when you tell him that he's got the wrong conception of his lead character.

00:57:29Guest:Well, that's before I'm hired.

00:57:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:33Guest:Once I'm hired, no, I try to make the director feel like all the ideas are his.

00:57:39Guest:Interesting.

00:57:41Guest:That's the best way.

00:57:44Marc:Sure.

00:57:44Guest:I mean, you know?

00:57:47Marc:No, no.

00:57:47Marc:It makes complete sense.

00:57:49Marc:I think what I'm stunned by in hearing it is how aware you are of it.

00:57:54Guest:Well, also lenses.

00:57:57Guest:I mean, for instance, let's say there was a picture that I did where at the beginning of the movie, I get good news.

00:58:08Guest:And it was a wide-angle lens.

00:58:11Guest:I can do a dance.

00:58:15Guest:Sure.

00:58:16Guest:Ah, yeah.

00:58:16Guest:You know, I'm excited.

00:58:17Guest:Because you're way back there.

00:58:19Guest:I said, how are you going to cover this?

00:58:21Guest:He said, I want to use a 200-millimeter lens.

00:58:24Guest:On this scene, he says, yes.

00:58:27Guest:With the 200 millimeter lens, I'm out of frame if I do this.

00:58:33Guest:I'm out of frame if I do this.

00:58:35Guest:I'm soft if I do this.

00:58:37Guest:You've got to split the focus between my tip of my nose and my eye.

00:58:43Guest:I can't do that dance.

00:58:44Guest:Yeah.

00:58:46Guest:I've got to do something else for joy in that first scene that's wide.

00:58:53Guest:Yeah.

00:58:54Guest:17, 25 millimeter.

00:58:56Guest:The whole world's in that shot.

00:58:58Guest:It's got to match though, right?

00:58:59Yeah.

00:58:59Guest:It's going to match.

00:59:01Guest:And the money shot is that shot.

00:59:04Guest:I said, could you use a 50?

00:59:06Guest:He said, no, I want the background to be blurry.

00:59:11Guest:I don't want to see any of it.

00:59:14Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:16Guest:Okay, I gotta think of my feet fast.

00:59:20Guest:So, I mean... I get it.

00:59:22Guest:I do that stuff ahead of time.

00:59:26Marc:You know what's fascinating to me, though, in thinking about crimes and misdemeanors, because I've watched it so many goddamn times, is that there was... You're absolutely correct, obviously, but it's interesting that Woody had perceived this guy without giving him the emotional depth necessary to carry the film.

00:59:46Guest:He was a little bit more of a cheater in Woody's eyes.

00:59:52Guest:I feel that this guy, his big crime is that he led her on and didn't cut it off earlier.

01:00:06Right.

01:00:07Guest:his lack of dealing with it creates a big problem for that he wrestles with like raskolnikov yes so it's it's it's very russian yeah it's very chikovian yeah it's very it's very oh and that dostoevsky yep those stuff the stuff you did with jerry wow jerry orback

01:00:29Marc:Oh, my God.

01:00:30Guest:Now, the interesting thing, for three days, a different actor played that part.

01:00:35Guest:And it was freezing cold in New York, and we shot the stuff in the car.

01:00:42Guest:He happens to be a brilliant actor, but he's playing it like a racetrack tout.

01:00:47Guest:And Woody, it's freezing cold.

01:00:50Guest:It looks like a Michelin.

01:00:51Guest:I can't even describe it.

01:00:55Guest:It's hilarious.

01:00:57Guest:I never heard him direct.

01:00:59Guest:He's saying, don't do that.

01:01:03Guest:That's his direction.

01:01:04Guest:Yeah.

01:01:06Guest:Just talk the way you would.

01:01:10Guest:The deed speaks for itself, he tells the guy.

01:01:15Guest:The guy, who's a good actor, does it more.

01:01:20Guest:I said, uh-oh.

01:01:22Guest:Don't talk out of the side of your mouth.

01:01:26Guest:He talks out of the side of his mouth more.

01:01:29Guest:Woody fires the guy a couple of days later, because Jerry Auerbach is available, who was not available when we started the movie.

01:01:35Guest:And Jerry and I, I mean, I knew Jerry Auerbach when he was singing in coffee houses, and he was 18 years old.

01:01:47Guest:I mean, in Greenwich Village.

01:01:50Guest:Jerry was great casting.

01:01:52Guest:He could have been my kid brother.

01:01:54Marc:So now, Hitchcock, let's go back to this because it seemed important to you.

01:01:57Marc:And it was a big deal.

01:01:59Marc:And we can talk about all the TV appearances and this and that.

01:02:05Marc:But these, to me, for you as an actor, seem to be loaded up.

01:02:09Guest:Right.

01:02:10Marc:Right?

01:02:11Marc:Well, everything has...

01:02:13Marc:Well, I'm not trying to trivialize anything, but we could be here.

01:02:16Guest:I mean, there were points, everything I've done, I could talk about.

01:02:20Guest:In this way?

01:02:23Guest:In interesting ways.

01:02:24Guest:Sure, sure, sure.

01:02:25Guest:Because, I mean, I never, you know, a lot of actors use the expression, just fold it in.

01:02:32Guest:Yeah.

01:02:33Guest:And I never have done that.

01:02:35Guest:I've always, you know, I've never met two people who are alike.

01:02:38Marc:Well, this is that great story that when they were shooting A Few Good Men, he was talking to Nicholson.

01:02:43Marc:The story seemed, I think, gravitated from A Few Good Men because when they weren't doing his coverage, apparently he was still giving it 100% for the other actor.

01:02:53Marc:And I guess someone asked him, why do you put everything into it?

01:02:58Marc:And he just said, because I love to act.

01:03:00Guest:That's right.

01:03:02Guest:Jack was my student for three years.

01:03:04Guest:What years was that?

01:03:06Guest:59, 60, 58, half of 58, 59, 60, until I left for Cleopatra in 61.

01:03:18Guest:And I had him do exercises.

01:03:21Guest:There's a New York Times article on Jack

01:03:25Guest:And the opening paragraph, he says, the reason I'm a good actor is because of exercise I did in Martin Landau's class, which was a singing exercise, getting the voice, the body, and the emotions together, no splits, where everything works together.

01:03:44Guest:That's a Strasburg exercise.

01:03:46Guest:It's designed to...

01:03:51Guest:get the voice to allow it to be colored by what's going on as opposed to learning the line in a certain way.

01:04:01Guest:What's the exercise?

01:04:03Guest:You sing happy birthday or three blind mice holding each note the same length of time with a lot of vibrato and leave yourself alone and try to relax and you'll find tension starting in various places and

01:04:20Guest:If you can relax the voice suddenly, you start to laugh at odd times that colors the voice.

01:04:28Guest:You start to cry.

01:04:29Guest:You start to get angry.

01:04:32Guest:You're looking at your fellow class members.

01:04:35Guest:And the second part of it is very physical, where the voice follows the physical exertion.

01:04:44Guest:As opposed to the voice leading, the body leads and the voice follows the body's effort.

01:04:53Guest:And it's an interesting exercise because once you can do it, you look forward to doing it because it opens you up.

01:05:03Marc:Once you get past the fear of doing it.

01:05:05Guest:It can take years.

01:05:07Marc:Well, there's a vulnerability that we're sort of like moving around, whether it's being confident in what you're doing, having faith in what you're doing, and then you talk about these exercises.

01:05:19Marc:But what really is at the core of the risk of it is that vulnerability.

01:05:24Guest:Being vulnerable.

01:05:25Guest:And vulnerability is something men don't like to reveal.

01:05:31Guest:Intimacy is something that men don't like to reveal.

01:05:37Guest:Yeah.

01:05:38Guest:Dancers have other problems, you know.

01:05:42Guest:They're lined up pretty nicely, and it's hard for them to be ugly physically.

01:05:48Guest:There's all kinds of stuff.

01:05:50Marc:But when we talk about, like, when you talk about somebody like, like you can see it in your own performances and the ones that I'm familiar with, that you carry your vulnerability, you know, you don't hide it at all.

01:06:01Guest:No, ever.

01:06:02Marc:Yeah.

01:06:03Marc:And that's a gift, or is that something you learned?

01:06:05Guest:No, it's something I'm always aware of.

01:06:07Guest:I mean, I always...

01:06:08Guest:Sure.

01:06:09Guest:I mean, come from Brooklyn.

01:06:11Guest:I don't want anyone to see this softness.

01:06:14Guest:Yeah.

01:06:16Guest:No, it was something I felt I had to work on.

01:06:20Marc:And then somebody, when you talk about James Dean or you talk about Montgomery Cliff, like, you know.

01:06:26Marc:And Marlon.

01:06:27Marc:And Marlon.

01:06:29Marc:Those three.

01:06:29Marc:Those were just the raw.

01:06:31Guest:Well, you saw vulnerable guys.

01:06:34Marc:Yeah.

01:06:34Guest:Different kinds of vulnerability, but vulnerable.

01:06:38Marc:Was that earned or were they like that?

01:06:41Guest:I don't know.

01:06:41Marc:I can't answer that.

01:06:42Marc:Well, you were hanging out with James Dean.

01:06:44Marc:Was he naturally like that?

01:06:45Guest:Well, Strasburg was rough on Jimmy, and Jimmy stopped working at the studio.

01:06:52Guest:That's why he was gentle with Steve McQueen and rough on me.

01:06:57Guest:Why do you think he makes those decisions?

01:07:00Guest:Because it's Lee Strasberg.

01:07:03Guest:I mean, you're asking me questions.

01:07:06Guest:I can only tell you what I think.

01:07:07Guest:Okay, sure.

01:07:09Guest:Strasberg.

01:07:10Guest:What you feel.

01:07:11Guest:There were people that he absolutely, he was tough.

01:07:16Guest:Yeah.

01:07:17Guest:Really tough.

01:07:18Guest:Yeah.

01:07:18Guest:And there were actors who couldn't.

01:07:20Guest:survive it.

01:07:23Guest:I think one of his reasons was he realized that if you didn't have that, that stick-to-itiveness, you're better off not doing it.

01:07:33Guest:That it took a lot of effort and work.

01:07:37Guest:So he's probably harder on the more gifted that could have slouched through it.

01:07:41Guest:Yes.

01:07:42Guest:He was tough on you.

01:07:44Guest:He was gentler with women, harder on men.

01:07:49Guest:If you were Marilyn Monroe, you had it better than anybody.

01:07:59Guest:I mean, I could tell you stories about, you know, I played John the Baptist on Omnibus with Arthur Kidd as Salome, and he had me come up with something he never did and bawled the shit out of me.

01:08:11Guest:because Eartha Kitt came in.

01:08:14Guest:John Styx was sitting right next to him who directed that episode of Omnibus.

01:08:20Guest:He said, Landau, Landau.

01:08:22Guest:This is like two or three weeks after I did the live show of Salome on Omnibus.

01:08:30Guest:He said, I want to discuss your performance.

01:08:33Guest:He said, any English actor could have done what you did.

01:08:36Guest:You didn't have the cistern as deep, the cistern, which is the well.

01:08:44Guest:You should have been more physically connected to that.

01:08:49Guest:I said, well, the director, I never said John Styx, who was sitting right next to you.

01:08:54Guest:I said, the director and I discussed it because Eartha Kitt came in with a performance.

01:08:58Guest:And I felt if I did that, I would come off as being very indulgent.

01:09:04Guest:I sort of used her as the choices I made.

01:09:11Guest:He said, inexcusable.

01:09:13Guest:and chastise me.

01:09:17Guest:And I remember Maryland was there that day,

01:09:22Guest:Gerald E. Page was there that day, and Kim Stanley was there, Maureen Stapleton was there that day, and Eli Wallach was there that day.

01:09:30Guest:And then the following week, he called me up again because he got a lot of letters saying that he was rough on me, unduly, that I tried to explain.

01:09:44Marc:From other actors.

01:09:45Guest:from Frank Casaro and other people.

01:09:48Guest:He read the letters and then he bawled me out again.

01:09:53Guest:But everything he said was right.

01:09:58Marc:Which was what, that you were depending, you were reacting as opposed to acting?

01:10:03Guest:that I didn't play the physical fatigue and the fact that I wasn't eating good food and the fact that I was dying.

01:10:13Guest:And even before my head was chopped off, that I was physically wearing down in that environment.

01:10:25Guest:And I needed to have a little more of this.

01:10:29Ah.

01:10:31Guest:even though it's Oscar Wilde and written in a poetic way.

01:10:37Marc:Where is he anyway?

01:10:41Marc:Right, right.

01:10:41Marc:So that was a big lesson.

01:10:42Marc:So now you don't do that anymore.

01:10:44Marc:You keep aware of that stuff.

01:10:45Guest:Yeah, but I also realized, too, that if there's an actor that comes in who's not doing his job...

01:10:53Guest:I've got to make a scene work.

01:10:55Guest:I may have to make adjustments that don't show me off well to make a scene work.

01:11:03Guest:Otherwise, I look bad, just as bad as he does or she does.

01:11:09Guest:So what I decided that day with John Sticks was that I couldn't

01:11:17Guest:do it as fully as I would have liked to.

01:11:23Guest:I said, it'll look like I'm a sore thumb in this.

01:11:28Guest:I said, Patricia Neal is playing.

01:11:30Guest:I said, I'm the only one who's shot.

01:11:36Guest:I'm going to look bad.

01:11:38Guest:Earth is going to look wonderful.

01:11:41Guest:I better...

01:11:44Guest:I mean, this is not going to be good for the piece if I do this.

01:11:50Guest:But he never stood up for me.

01:11:53Guest:Two times it was brought up at the studio, and he was there, and he never spoke.

01:12:00Guest:And he wound up teaching drama at Juilliard, John Sticks.

01:12:07Guest:Did you have a resentment towards him?

01:12:10Guest:I never trusted him after that.

01:12:15Marc:That's reasonable.

01:12:17Marc:Did you work with him again?

01:12:19Guest:No.

01:12:19Marc:Yeah.

01:12:20Marc:I wouldn't.

01:12:21Marc:So let's talk about Ed Wood.

01:12:25Marc:Okay.

01:12:26Marc:You won an Oscar.

01:12:27Guest:Yeah.

01:12:28Marc:Spectacular.

01:12:29Guest:Yeah, Tim Burton's pretty, I love Tim.

01:12:34Marc:And we talk about your awareness of direction, of lighting, of cinematography, of what the director's going for.

01:12:42Marc:These are innate things that you do on set that you keep to yourself, in a way.

01:12:47Marc:So now you're working in black and white.

01:12:48Marc:You're playing a known quantity, somebody you grew up with watching, I imagine.

01:12:54Guest:Yeah, but you have to realize, too,

01:12:56Guest:I mean, the black and white aspect, when we first started, we were going to shoot that picture in color.

01:13:05Guest:Uh-huh.

01:13:06Guest:And I wasn't sure whether I could do Lugosi without making it.

01:13:15Guest:Farce?

01:13:16Guest:Yeah.

01:13:17Guest:Yeah.

01:13:18Guest:I mean, everyone, every impressionist.

01:13:21Guest:Sure.

01:13:22Guest:You know, it's like.

01:13:24Guest:Uh-huh.

01:13:25Guest:I even told him that at the first meeting we had, he called me.

01:13:29Guest:First of all, I didn't think it was him.

01:13:31Guest:I got a direct call in my house from Tim Burton.

01:13:35Guest:Yeah.

01:13:37Guest:He said, hello, this is Tim Burton.

01:13:38Guest:And I said, yeah, well, this is Thomas Jefferson or something.

01:13:42Guest:Yeah, right.

01:13:43Guest:I mean that.

01:13:44Guest:Sure.

01:13:44Guest:I thought it was one of my friends.

01:13:47Guest:Tim Burton's not going to call me directly.

01:13:51Guest:Well, it was Tim Burton.

01:13:52Guest:He said, there's a script on its way.

01:13:54Guest:Check out the part of Bella and get back to me.

01:13:58Guest:This is my number at the studio, and this is my home.

01:14:01Guest:And I wrote the numbers down, and I said, sure, Tim.

01:14:05Guest:And within half an hour, a messenger comes with a script called Ed Wood.

01:14:10Guest:And I read it, and I love it.

01:14:13Guest:And I call him at the studio, and he's gone.

01:14:16Guest:So I call his home number, and he answers the phone.

01:14:20Guest:It's Tim Burton.

01:14:24Guest:I said, I don't know whether I can do this or not.

01:14:27Guest:I said, you know, it's Bela Lugosi.

01:14:29Guest:I said, you go into any video store, and there's a whole section of horror movies, and there's a whole... Ten years ago, I probably could have gotten away with it.

01:14:42Guest:I said, I've got to be Bela Nugosi.

01:14:47Guest:He said, you think you can?

01:14:48Guest:He said, you've worked with great directors and terrible directors.

01:14:53Guest:You worked in good movies and bad movies.

01:14:56Guest:You worked in...

01:14:59Guest:I don't know anyone else who could play this part.

01:15:02Guest:I said, well, that's very flattering.

01:15:04Guest:I'm not sure I can.

01:15:06Guest:But he was almost drawing a comparison between you two.

01:15:09Guest:Yes.

01:15:09Guest:He was saying that if there's anyone who could play it.

01:15:12Guest:Emotionally.

01:15:13Guest:Yes, I could do it.

01:15:15Guest:Right.

01:15:17Guest:So he says, come in tomorrow.

01:15:19Guest:We'll talk about it.

01:15:20Guest:So I said, let's do some tests.

01:15:25Guest:We did some color tests.

01:15:28Mm-hmm.

01:15:29Guest:I don't know.

01:15:31Guest:I'm not Lugosi, and I'm not me, and I don't know who the hell that person is.

01:15:37Guest:It's somebody else.

01:15:39Guest:Along the way, we're doing tests.

01:15:43Guest:I have two Polaroids that were taken in a makeup chair.

01:15:47Guest:I run them through my fax machine.

01:15:49Guest:They come out black and white.

01:15:53Guest:Legosi never made a color film.

01:15:55Guest:Ed Wood never made a color film.

01:15:59Guest:I said, that's the problem.

01:16:00Guest:The phone rings while I'm doing this, I swear to God.

01:16:06Guest:Tim Burton.

01:16:06Guest:Yeah.

01:16:08Guest:I got a problem, Martin.

01:16:09Guest:I said, what?

01:16:10Guest:He said, Mark Hanton doesn't want to make the film in black and white.

01:16:16Guest:I have to make this film in black and white.

01:16:19Guest:Mark Hanton of Columbia Pictures says it's got to be in color.

01:16:23Guest:And you hadn't heard any of this yet?

01:16:25Guest:No.

01:16:25Guest:Yeah.

01:16:26Guest:He said, I'm going to Disney.

01:16:28Guest:They're willing to do anything I want to do, but it's going to be another month, and you've got an on or about date on your contract.

01:16:37Guest:Are you still available in a month, and do you still want to do it?

01:16:43Guest:My eyes, I have to collect them from the coffee table and put them back in my head.

01:16:50Guest:I said, yes, you're damn right.

01:16:54Guest:I didn't even tell them that I'd gone through the same fucking thing.

01:16:59Guest:Right.

01:17:00Guest:It was like serendipity.

01:17:01Guest:Yeah.

01:17:03Guest:Years later, I told him.

01:17:05Marc:Yeah.

01:17:05Marc:I never told him.

01:17:06Marc:What'd he say?

01:17:08Marc:Wow.

01:17:10Marc:So now, this is an Oscar-winning performance.

01:17:13Marc:It deserved an Oscar-winning performance.

01:17:16Marc:Well, thank you.

01:17:17Marc:Now, what was the process of building this character out from the inside?

01:17:23Guest:I looked at a lot of... I was doing a movie called...

01:17:30Guest:that Mark Rydell directed with Richard Gere and- Intersection?

01:17:37Guest:Intersection.

01:17:40Guest:shut in canada tim kept sending me bella lugosi movies yeah including one that i i became a huge fan bella lugosi meets a gorilla uh-huh it's it's got martin and lewis look-alikes who one sings and one does spastic humor and they're on an island running around with moo-moos

01:18:07Guest:And there's a castle on the island, and there's a mad scientist in the castle, Bela Lugosi, who's injecting serum into monkeys that overnight become actors in a terrible gorilla suit.

01:18:28Guest:And it's called Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla.

01:18:32Guest:And it makes...

01:18:36Guest:Ed Wood's movies look like Gone with the Wind.

01:18:39Guest:I mean, I'm not kidding.

01:18:43Guest:You've got to see this movie.

01:18:45Guest:Because Lugosi is working his ass off, playing this part of this piece of trash.

01:18:56Guest:My heart went out to him.

01:18:59Guest:And I saw that in Vancouver.

01:19:03Guest:And then I looked at a bunch of pictures, movies, of him being interviewed when he was on top of his game, wearing a tennis sweater and looking handsome.

01:19:18Guest:And then I saw him coming out of the hospital after going through rehab and just shaking hands with all the hospital staff.

01:19:30Guest:So, yes, I'm going to start the film with Edward Wood again, you know, and stuff.

01:19:37Guest:And...

01:19:39Guest:I became a huge fan, and I said to Tim, I said, if after five minutes they're saying Landau's doing a good job, we don't have a movie, they've gotta believe I'm Bela Lugosi, and I'm gonna break my ass getting there, and I did.

01:19:59Marc:Was there something, it seems to me that when you talk about it, that there was something as an actor that you identified?

01:20:06Guest:Well, a lot of things.

01:20:08Marc:Yeah, because this is an aging guy.

01:20:10Marc:He's got a morphine problem that he's in and out of.

01:20:13Marc:Yes.

01:20:14Marc:And he's washed up.

01:20:17Marc:Completely.

01:20:19Marc:And you found empathy and sympathy and connection with him.

01:20:23Marc:Yes.

01:20:24Guest:Everything you're saying is what I would say, too.

01:20:30Guest:Everything he said goes for me, too.

01:20:33Marc:Was that, would you say, at that point in your life or maybe in your whole life, the most rewarding thing?

01:20:42Guest:It came at the right time.

01:20:46Guest:I was going through a lot of, you know, we do go through different things.

01:20:51Guest:I have a picture that I just finished recently with Paul Sorvino.

01:20:57Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:20:57Guest:And the guy who directed it and wrote it is a Harvard doctor.

01:21:03Guest:He's 70 years old.

01:21:04Guest:It's his first movie.

01:21:06Guest:Just finished?

01:21:07Guest:It's finished.

01:21:08Guest:I saw it.

01:21:10Guest:It's one of the best things I've ever done.

01:21:12Marc:What's it called?

01:21:14Guest:It's going to festivals first.

01:21:17Guest:It's called The Last Poker Game.

01:21:19Guest:It's a doctor's view of a retirement home as opposed to a Hollywood view of a retirement home.

01:21:26Marc:You see, it's interesting.

01:21:27Marc:I talk to musicians sometimes.

01:21:29Marc:I talk to all different kinds of people.

01:21:30Marc:Yes, of course you do.

01:21:32Marc:And a lot of the guys who have had success in their life and are now seemingly not as relevant as they used to be.

01:21:44Marc:Yes, of course.

01:21:45Marc:Always believe they're doing the best work of their life right now.

01:21:48Marc:But it's interesting in talking to you for this hour and a half or however long we spent and talking about acting, there's absolutely no reason that couldn't be absolutely true as opposed to some manifestation of an insecure ego.

01:22:03Marc:That there's some part of people that they have to believe that they're still relevant to doing the best work they ever did.

01:22:08Marc:But in hearing how you talk about what you do and who you are and the growth that you seem to do, I believe you.

01:22:15Marc:And I want to see the movie.

01:22:16Guest:Well, I want you to see this movie.

01:22:19Guest:It's deep and interesting.

01:22:22Guest:And Paul thinks it's the best thing he's ever done.

01:22:27Guest:And I agree.

01:22:29Guest:The reason I did it was because it smacked of realism.

01:22:34Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:22:34Marc:And Paul... Which is the group theater.

01:22:37Guest:All the same thing.

01:22:38Guest:I mean, and...

01:22:40Guest:I've known him a long time, but we never worked together before, so we had a great time.

01:22:46Marc:He's done some really kind of powerfully deep performances.

01:22:49Guest:And he's an opera singer, too, and he sings in this.

01:22:53Guest:I mean, Howard used our gifts and encouraged them, and we encouraged him in a certain sense.

01:23:05Guest:I mean, we would rehearse before we got on the set so that we knew what a scene was about before the crew lit it.

01:23:16Guest:Right.

01:23:18Guest:Which is important.

01:23:19Guest:Yeah.

01:23:19Guest:Otherwise, you know, it's lit and then you're blocking it and adjusting to the movement as opposed to what's really going on.

01:23:29Guest:Sure, sure.

01:23:30Guest:And as a result...

01:23:33Guest:You know, we didn't go onto the set until we were...

01:23:37Guest:Really there.

01:23:38Marc:There.

01:23:38Guest:Yeah.

01:23:39Marc:It's beautiful.

01:23:39Guest:And then we could play with it.

01:23:41Marc:Oh, it's beautiful.

01:23:42Guest:So it has that.

01:23:44Marc:Great.

01:23:45Marc:And it was great talking to her.

01:23:46Marc:It's so exciting that you're so engaged.

01:23:48Marc:Well, how old are you?

01:23:49Marc:53.

01:23:50Guest:God, I wish I was 53.

01:23:53Guest:You're a kid.

01:23:54Marc:Good.

01:23:55Marc:I hope so.

01:23:55Guest:You know how old I am?

01:23:56Guest:88.

01:23:57Marc:Yeah.

01:23:57Guest:Yeah.

01:23:59Guest:I feel like Adolf Zucker, when he honored him on his 100th birthday, he got up and he said, well...

01:24:08Guest:If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.

01:24:13Marc:You're doing great.

01:24:15Marc:Hey.

01:24:15Marc:I've talked to guys your age.

01:24:17Marc:You got it all going on.

01:24:18Marc:Hey, I still can think.

01:24:19Marc:Yeah, it's beautiful.

01:24:20Guest:Most of the guys I came up with, well, they're either dead or they forget what they had for lunch.

01:24:26Marc:Not you.

01:24:27Marc:It's astounding.

01:24:27Marc:You got a better memory than me.

01:24:29Marc:Well.

01:24:30Guest:You know, I'm fortunate.

01:24:35Guest:Come in.

01:24:35Guest:Yeah, hello.

01:24:36Guest:I appreciate you taking the time.

01:24:39Guest:Well, I appreciate your allowing me to take the time.

01:24:42Guest:Thanks, Martin.

01:24:47Marc:That is amazing that, I don't know, it's just a life well lived.

01:24:55Marc:And a lot of wisdom there.

01:24:56Marc:It was a real honor to have him, to have Mr. Landau join me here in the garage.

01:25:02Marc:You go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:25:06Marc:Tour schedule, get on the mailing list if you want my little update.

01:25:10Marc:And I can play a little guitar.

01:25:13Marc:Sure, thanks for asking.

01:25:17Thank you.

01:25:49Marc:Boomer Lives!