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everyone and thank you for tuning into

0:43

the 544th episode of the Hollywood Reporter's

0:45

Awards Chatter podcast. I'm the host Scott

0:47

Feinberg and my guest today is

0:49

an actor, filmmaker and activist unlike

0:51

any other. Over the

0:53

course of a career that now spans some

0:55

45 years, he has given

0:57

unforgettable performances in films such as

1:00

1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High,

1:02

1995's Dead Man Walking,

1:04

1997's Sweet and Low Down, 2001's I Am Sam, 2003's Mystic River

1:06

and 21 Grams, 2008's

1:13

Milk, 2011's The Tree of Life and 2021's Licorice Pizza. And

1:19

he's also directed films including 1991's The

1:21

Indian Runner, 1995's The Crossing Guard, 2001's

1:24

The Pledge, 2007's Into the Wild and with Aaron Kaufman, 2023's Superpower, a

1:31

documentary about Ukraine's fight for freedom.

1:35

Described by the New York Times as an

1:37

actor of sizable gifts who makes

1:39

amazing self transformations and may be

1:41

the best actor of his generation

1:44

and also the most influential, by

1:46

the Los Angeles Times as the leading

1:48

actor of his generation, a blazing talent

1:51

in the tradition of Dean, Brando and

1:53

Nero, and by no less an

1:55

authority than Meryl Streep as simply

1:57

brilliant, he has along the

1:59

way picked up two Best Actor

2:01

Oscars, as well as SAG, Golden

2:03

Globe, Critics Choice, National Border Review,

2:05

National Society of Film Critics, LA

2:07

Film Critics Association, New York Film

2:09

Critics Circle, Gotham, and Spirit Awards,

2:12

as well as acting prizes from

2:14

Cannes, Venice, and Berlin Film Festivals,

2:16

the Producers Guild of America's Stanley

2:18

Kramer Award for Illuminating Provocative Social

2:20

Issues, an Honorary César Award

2:22

for Career Achievement, and the list

2:24

goes on. Sean

2:26

Penn As

2:29

you think that Penn is resting on his laurels,

2:31

he can now be seen giving one of the

2:33

most audacious performances of his career in Daddio,

2:35

an indie film released last Friday

2:37

in which he plays a chatty New

2:39

York City cabbie who gets into

2:42

a deep and probing conversation with

2:44

a passenger, played by Dakota Johnson,

2:46

under the direction of first-time feature

2:48

filmmaker Christy Hall. Champions

2:50

of the film and of Penn's performance include deadlines

2:53

Todd McCarthy, who writes, Penn

2:55

is at his absolute best here

2:57

in a tremendously engaging performance, and

3:00

the Hollywood reporter Stephen Farber, who

3:02

opined, Penn has shown versatility

3:04

in the past. He has played

3:06

plenty of tough guys, but he exuded humor

3:08

and warmth in his Oscar-winning role in Milk.

3:11

Here he channels some of that same charm

3:13

and makes a perfect foil to Johnson. During

3:16

the course of their conversation, Penn speaks

3:18

of two failed marriages and recalls privileged

3:20

moments in his first marriage. Penn

3:23

asks if he misses his wife, and

3:26

he answers, sometimes. The

3:28

expression on Penn's face demonstrates the eloquence

3:30

that a gifted actor can summon without

3:32

saying more than a single word. Over

3:36

the course of a conversation at Penn's home in

3:38

Malibu, the 63-year-old and I discussed his path to

3:41

a business that had blacklisted

3:43

his actor-director father, as well as the

3:45

acting teacher and theater director who changed the

3:47

course of his life. Why,

3:49

after bursting onto the film scene in the early

3:52

80s, he soon fell out of love

3:54

with acting and found himself increasingly drawn

3:56

to directing? How

3:58

some of the most memorable performances of his

4:00

career came together from fast times to

4:02

Dead Man Walking, to Mystic

4:04

River, to Milk, to Daddio, plus

4:07

much more. And so without

4:10

further ado, let's go to that conversation. Sean,

4:15

thanks so much for doing this. And

4:18

this podcast, we try to go

4:20

back through the kind of turning points,

4:22

major moments in life and

4:24

career. And so obviously, just to begin

4:26

with, can you share where you were

4:29

born and raised? I

4:31

was born in Burbank, California, raised

4:34

in North Hollywood, then

4:38

there for about five years and

4:40

then, well, no, for about two years

4:42

in North Hollywood, then Sherman Oaks, California, and

4:45

the Valley, and then Woodland Hills, California.

4:48

And when I was 10, my mother

4:50

succeeded in continuing that movement,

4:53

North and West, to Malibu. Yes.

4:57

And I guess that's where surfing

4:59

and outdoors and all that really

5:01

took hold. Yeah, yeah. So

5:03

your parents, just

5:06

prepping for this, I had a

5:08

vague idea of this, but can

5:10

you just share the circumstances under

5:13

which they met? Because

5:16

it'll, I think, kind of

5:18

reinforce just how, I guess,

5:20

in some ways it's in the blood, right? Well,

5:24

my father had a pretty

5:27

good career as an actor in the theater

5:30

going at that time and

5:32

in movies. And my mother was

5:37

in what was kind of one of the hottest tickets

5:39

in New York, which was

5:43

the production of The Iceman Comet with

5:46

Jason Robards. And

5:48

Jason Robards, as Hickey, was

5:50

committed to a film. He had an

5:52

out in his contract from the play.

5:55

And when he left the production, which

5:58

was directed by Jose Contero, My

6:01

father was brought in to replace him. And

6:06

as the cast was rehearsing their

6:08

new hickey into the play, my

6:10

mother went

6:12

to this actor and

6:14

said to him, as if a

6:17

kind of maven of his career said, this

6:20

is going to be very good for you. And

6:22

he thought, who the is that? And

6:27

so after rehearsal that day, he picked it up

6:29

as an argument with her on

6:31

the street. And she was

6:34

in motion towards her apartment,

6:36

and he continued talking to her. And

6:39

they walked upstairs, and

6:41

they didn't part until he was

6:43

77 when

6:46

he passed away. They were together from

6:48

that day for 41 years. That's great. Now,

6:51

the reason he was even in New York at that time,

6:54

it's not insignificant, right?

6:56

I mean, I know this would

6:58

have happened, the

7:01

setup for that prior to your

7:05

awareness and life. But I mean, I've

7:07

always wondered if it kind of shaped

7:09

your social conscience and sense

7:11

of social justice that we all know about. I

7:13

mean, can you just explain why your father ended

7:16

up in New York? Yeah,

7:18

he was, as I

7:20

had said, he was starting to do

7:22

well in movies. And

7:25

then he was named and

7:28

blacklisted. And he

7:32

was a self-described

7:34

social Democrat. A

7:38

lot of people forget that even the Communist Party was

7:40

a legal party at that time. And

7:44

he was by no means a Communist. He

7:47

was also a war hero. And so

7:49

this is how dark those days

7:52

were, that

7:55

we were taking people who had

7:57

fought for our country and missed their lives for our country.

8:00

heavily decorated for those risks

8:03

and battles and patriotism

8:05

and then took their capacity

8:07

to work away. In his case that lasted

8:10

five years so as it was built

8:12

up it started in California and

8:15

therefore the movie business and he went

8:17

to work in New York as an actor in the

8:19

theater and then it caught

8:21

up with him there. And so he was

8:24

working in the plastics factory for about five

8:26

years. That's what soon after

8:28

they met they were pregnant with my

8:30

older brother and it

8:33

was starting to get difficult to put the bread on

8:35

the table but my mother was

8:37

able to get employment out here in California doing

8:40

television shows. She was born Pelham Parkway of

8:43

Bronx 1927 I

8:45

think and he

8:48

would have been born 1921. They

8:50

came out they came out to California

8:53

and after about like

8:55

as I say after about five years my mom was

8:57

sustaining the family at that point and

8:59

I had been born after that. And

9:04

then in the blacklist you know felt

9:07

it fell away and the was broken

9:09

really by people like Kirk Douglas who

9:11

really the stand-up guys of that sit-down

9:15

time. And there

9:17

was a little kind of ironies of all of

9:19

it is that my dad got

9:22

in one last movie he

9:24

he was trying to be

9:27

a little stealth I suppose and he's he

9:30

went under the name Clifford Penn

9:32

because Clifford Odets was his

9:34

favorite writer at the time and

9:37

and when the blacklist was

9:39

all over and all the information came out it

9:42

was revealed that Clifford Odets had been the

9:44

one who named him. It's crazy and

9:47

speaking of people

9:49

who named people I read that

9:52

by the time you were old enough to kind of

9:54

know what was going on and you guys are out

9:57

in California was there kind of

9:59

a occasional where you happened to

10:01

Pawnelia Kazan? Yeah, you

10:04

know, it was interesting. My father

10:06

was, he was a guy that died

10:10

without an enemy. This is a, the

10:12

gentlest, I was very fortunate in

10:14

the, in the parent

10:16

club, in particular, talking about him in the father

10:18

club, he was just a very

10:21

kind man. I only saw, let's

10:24

call it another side of him twice.

10:26

Hmm. Once

10:29

was in Berlin, Germany. And

10:33

I had never been in Europe with, with

10:35

my father until my adulthood, we were working

10:37

together there on, I was doing a small

10:39

part in something he was doing. And

10:43

we took a walk when I arrived, he'd been there for

10:45

a couple of weeks at that point. And

10:48

you still saw, you know,

10:51

pits and sides of buildings from

10:53

artillery, artillery that had

10:55

been dropped by the

10:58

likes of my father and others. And

11:00

we walk in the daytime, it was a beautiful day,

11:03

and women with their children in

11:05

strollers. And he

11:07

got well-eyed. He's

11:10

there with his son, he's

11:12

seeing it differently. He's not just

11:14

looking for locations at that point. And

11:18

he really took in, this

11:20

was his first time in Europe since the

11:22

war, anywhere in Europe. And,

11:29

but he hadn't had time for a reflective day

11:31

until I showed up, as I got there, I

11:33

think, on a Saturday. And we took

11:36

that walk. And then,

11:39

you know, he said, I said,

11:41

what is it? You know, he

11:43

said, it's exactly what it

11:45

was then, you

11:48

know, just a different generation of

11:52

innocent babies that we dropped bombs on. Not that

11:54

he was apologizing for what had to be done

11:56

in that war. And

11:59

he would have done most of it. mostly nighttime

12:01

low altitude bombings, but God knows,

12:03

you know, people were killed, not

12:05

just people that needed to be

12:07

killed. And

12:11

so he was feeling that in his, you

12:13

know, later years. So

12:17

I had flown in on a red eye and

12:20

I went back, we'd been back to the hotel and I

12:22

said, well, I'll meet you in the bar at seven. I'm

12:24

going to sleep the day away and catch up here. So

12:28

I come down to the bar and there's only two people in

12:30

the bar. My father and another

12:32

guy roughly his age, who's

12:34

about 12 stools down at the

12:36

bar. You know, they

12:39

start a little later in Europe, right? So seven o'clock's

12:41

an early bar moment. So

12:43

like I said, big, nice bar and a big, nice hotel,

12:46

just the two of them. And they're in the barman and

12:48

I walk, I start, I

12:50

sit next to him. And

12:52

my father was one of those guys that doesn't

12:54

matter who you are, if he's talking to you, you're

12:57

the only one in the world. And

12:59

in this case, he was

13:01

looking past me a lot. And

13:04

you know, I was, I found it strange

13:06

because I thought that he hadn't

13:09

seen me for a bit. I had a lot going on

13:11

to share with him my life, talking to him about that.

13:14

I was going to be going back as soon as

13:16

I got back to the States, I was going

13:18

to be surrendering that LA County jail. And

13:22

I still, he was distracted at

13:25

a certain point, he had a little scotch, took a

13:27

last sip of that. He kind of put

13:29

his hand on my chest and

13:32

just pressed on it to make me lean back a

13:34

little bit so he could have a beeline to that

13:36

other man down the bar. And

13:38

he said, where the fuck were you?

13:41

And now it wasn't the well-dyed, God,

13:44

what do I have to feel about having been

13:47

involved in this, you know, human

13:50

ugliness of warfare? Now

13:53

it was, this guy's my age, he's

13:55

German, he's a fucking Nazi. And

13:59

that guy saw in him and that

14:02

cash went down on the bar and out he went. What

14:07

you asked about had to do with Kazan's

14:09

The Other Moment and

14:11

I had

14:14

just, I would say

14:16

that I didn't know that

14:18

I wanted to be an actor yet. I

14:21

didn't know that at all but I

14:23

had become fascinated with an actor in a

14:25

way I had not before. I

14:28

was a moviegoer and it

14:30

was this young actor named

14:32

Robert De Niro and

14:36

I heard that that actor was,

14:38

he built a set right below

14:41

the bluff my parents lived on for

14:45

the movie The Last Tycoon directed

14:47

by Ilya Kazan and

14:51

I went, I would go, I was

14:53

in high school and

14:55

at the end of the school day I'd

14:58

get back home take the bus from Santa

15:00

Monica get back home, throw

15:02

my books down in my room, I

15:04

wouldn't be looking at them later anyway

15:06

and go down the hill just from

15:08

the outside of that observe

15:10

what they were doing and I watched them shoot for a

15:12

couple of days, not

15:15

where I could hear what was being said but

15:17

maybe I was 50 meters off something

15:19

like that and

15:21

I could certainly recognize De

15:23

Niro and I assumed Kazan

15:30

and then it was the weekend and they

15:32

were shooting on a Saturday and

15:34

my dad and I went down the hill. I

15:38

didn't say anything about Kazan my focus

15:40

was on Robert

15:42

De Niro and we

15:44

walked down I was gonna show him kind of my

15:46

little place where I and the

15:49

director of that film had wandered off on a

15:51

parallel trail they were resetting

15:53

lights or whatever and he was just in his thoughts on

15:55

the other side about 25 meters

15:58

from us over

16:00

25 meters he recognized

16:02

my dad from the

16:04

earlier days in New York and

16:08

he said Leo and

16:11

my dad looked at this man who

16:13

did turn out to be Kazan and

16:16

had no expression on his face and

16:19

Kazan said one more time Leo my

16:22

dad looked at me he said let's go and

16:25

we went down to the beach and he

16:29

gave him nothing and

16:31

no nothing

16:33

negative but nothing and

16:36

then we got we passed through

16:38

his set down onto the beach

16:40

and started walking and though I

16:42

had had conversations to some degree

16:44

and been present for conversations you

16:46

know I was not a highly

16:49

inquisitive young kid because I was

16:52

too shy to be with people outside my family and in

16:54

my family we were talking about internal

16:56

family things not so much parental

16:59

histories well

17:02

I got a little bit of history

17:04

that day I bet now

17:06

from what everything you've said somebody

17:08

might assume that the

17:11

reason you ultimately were interested

17:13

in the business beyond being a moviegoer was

17:15

because you have these parents who have

17:17

been a part of it but I learned

17:20

prepping for this there was a time

17:23

years ago where you said about your

17:26

brother quote as much as

17:28

anybody Chris got me into film as much as

17:30

my dad he did close quote and I know

17:32

it wasn't just him there were some other people

17:35

who we now happen to know

17:37

about but can you just explain how it

17:39

just was like being a kind

17:42

of an activity with your

17:44

brother that really did it right yeah

17:46

for sure that was the main entry

17:49

point he was he

17:51

was you could go to one

17:53

of those codec stands and buy Kodachrome an

17:56

ectochrome film with a sound strip on it and

18:00

I was amazed to see that he and his

18:02

friends, in particular he and

18:04

Charlie Sheen, they

18:07

were, gosh, they might have, maybe they were 10 years

18:10

old, and

18:12

they would produce these films, they

18:14

make these war films and such,

18:17

there were sound films, you know, you run them

18:19

through the projector and I was,

18:23

I suppose, quite surprised that that technology

18:25

was available before any

18:28

videotape cameras were around or anything. And

18:33

I would see these films, something

18:35

in me would get frustrated when I'd watch

18:37

them, making them, once I got a little

18:39

bit onto it. And I was a big

18:42

film goer and we were in a pretty

18:44

magical cycle of, in particular,

18:46

American filmmaking at that time. I

18:50

found that I was, I'll

18:53

call it highly judgmental of the compositions.

18:58

And that I would say is, I was the

19:00

older brother, you know, frowning on these guys, making

19:02

a bunch of noise and do whatever they were

19:04

doing over there shooting a scene. And then I

19:06

said, yeah, you got the camera in the wrong

19:09

place. This was when older

19:11

brothers were, you know, that age gap where

19:13

you were respected. So

19:15

he said, well, would you show us? And

19:18

I started setting up shots for them,

19:20

kind of directing the movies

19:22

that started to be, and I really

19:24

enjoyed it. Yeah. So

19:27

my friends and I started doing it. And

19:32

we would have, we would get them come up with

19:34

kind of elaborate little movie

19:36

ideas, make half hour long features.

19:40

And that required actors

19:42

and actors required availability,

19:45

let's say after school hours, which

19:49

goes back to you need the ones that

19:51

don't do their homework, which leads to that

19:53

while I'm directing, I also had to be

19:55

an actor to, you

19:57

know, fill the casts of these stories. So

20:00

now I'm doing that, I don't know

20:02

that that's getting into me. And

20:06

then Anthony

20:08

Zerbe, a

20:11

fantastic actor, comes

20:13

over to Career Day at Santa Monica High School,

20:15

this would have been 1978 I think. And

20:21

he did a talk about an actor's

20:24

life. And

20:26

he was wearing these boots that I remember not

20:30

having, nobody but

20:32

an actor would have pair of boots like that.

20:35

They were some kind of, they were like a cool

20:37

version of a floor sign zipper boot, like

20:41

a beetle boot, sort of. And

20:43

I thought, the guy in my head, those

20:45

are actor boots. So

20:47

the next movie we made, I had a pair of

20:49

actor boots on. And they felt

20:52

right. Then I became

20:54

an actor. The boots changed it

20:56

up. Well, the boots and the fact that what

20:58

happens when you don't do your homework is you

21:00

don't have the kind of grades that you're going

21:02

to get into higher education. And

21:05

then you're faced with that, you

21:08

mean I have a choice in this now? I don't have

21:10

to go to school. I can actually graduate

21:12

and call myself an adult in a big

21:14

world. I'd

21:16

go to school, but I'm an actor. I got actor boots.

21:20

Now, your folks, having seen and

21:23

lived through some ups and downs

21:25

in the business, how

21:28

did they feel about it in particular, I guess,

21:30

after they first saw, you know,

21:33

post high school, I think it was

21:35

theater for a little bit. I know

21:37

that they, they did, your mom didn't mince

21:39

words. No, my mother never mince words. And

21:42

she came to the first production. So I

21:44

got involved, right out of high school, I

21:46

got involved with two things. One was classes,

21:50

acting classes with Piggy Fury, who was

21:52

a great, great acting teacher. I got

21:54

very lucky. And

21:57

I was living, you know, on

21:59

people's couches, basically, at that time.

22:02

that time. And then

22:05

I was joined

22:08

as a

22:10

prospect. That's not the right word for it.

22:12

I can't remember what they called them, called

22:14

us. But over at the

22:16

GRT, which was Lonnie Chapman's group, Repertory

22:18

Theatre. Like an apprentice, right? Yeah, that's

22:20

right. An apprentice. And as an apprentice,

22:22

your job was for everything from cleaning

22:24

the toilets at the theater to helping

22:27

to construct the sets, to doing sound

22:29

and lights. And it's a great way

22:31

to learn your way into the business and

22:34

into the theater. And

22:36

you could participate in the scene work

22:39

on Mondays, but

22:41

you would be working

22:43

on the productions in

22:45

other capacities. And

22:48

so in a scene work session, we

22:50

did a section of the

22:55

film, I think John Frankenheimer

22:57

had made the film The Young Savages.

23:00

And there was a section of that that

23:02

played like a one act. And

23:05

I was a mentally challenged young man

23:09

in the thing. It

23:12

was the first time my parents were coming to see me

23:14

in something, first thing they could have come to

23:16

see me in. And

23:18

I got the classic, my mom said, that

23:20

was just terrible. And

23:23

you've got to find something to fall back on.

23:25

And I didn't even steal a line from real

23:27

life. I stole a line from the Gary

23:31

Busey charged Buddy

23:33

Holly story. And she said, you know,

23:35

you got to have something to fall back on. And I said, I'm

23:37

not going to fall back. And

23:42

so having met with every

23:45

agent and manager in Los

23:47

Angeles, and

23:50

having them and and auditioning

23:53

for the actor's studio and getting no

23:56

nothing, doing a lot of with

23:58

the GRT, ultimately. but also all

24:01

over the equity waiver scene

24:03

through a lot of theater out here. I could not

24:05

get a paid job. But

24:09

I did get it. The actors went on strike.

24:13

And I wasn't in the union, but

24:16

the Longshoremen's Union, in

24:20

solidarity, offered up a lot

24:22

of temporary work for actors. And I was

24:25

told that if you just go down there and say you're an actor,

24:27

they're not going to ask to see you for SAGCARN. And

24:30

I got a job loading trucks for Roadway

24:32

Express in El Segundo for $13 cash an

24:34

hour. That

24:37

was 1978, 79.

24:39

That was big money. And it was

24:42

on that money. Well, by

24:44

the end of it, a couple of years of

24:46

banging around doing plays out here, my

24:49

buddy Joe Vitarelli and I, we both

24:51

said, well, let's try New York. And

24:54

I went to New York on a $100 plane ticket. That

24:57

left me with $700 in remaining savings. And

24:59

then we had to put down $315 security

25:02

in whatever first month

25:04

on a place in Hell's Kitchen. And

25:14

so now I'm at

25:16

half of my savings on day one. I got

25:18

about $400. And New

25:21

York, even then, was kind of an expensive place to

25:23

be. And

25:25

somehow I got the leading a Broadway show

25:27

in three days, three days in New York.

25:30

And that was that was what

25:33

a day that was, you know, and I remember,

25:36

of course, there's no cell phones, right? Joe

25:38

had gotten a job as a playing

25:41

piano in a piano lounge. And

25:44

he was about 70 blocks uptown from

25:46

where I had been told you got

25:48

the part. He was

25:51

the only one I could have, I couldn't

25:53

call even calling home was a big deal

25:55

financially. Every call you made. that

26:00

need to share. I was quite excited. I sprinted

26:02

for 70 blocks up to that racing club just

26:04

to say, buddy,

26:07

I just got a lead on Broadway

26:09

show. That's awesome. And I

26:11

want to just go back to two things

26:13

that you've brought up. First of all, Peggy

26:16

Fury, because she's come up in other episodes

26:19

of this podcast. And I

26:21

just, I mean, you said you were there from

26:23

78 to like 80, 81, I think, four days

26:25

a week, five hours

26:30

a day. So something really,

26:33

you know, I don't want people to think like you

26:35

just show up in New York and you lucked into

26:37

Broadway part. Part B of this question is,

26:40

well, so part A, what was the biggest takeaway

26:42

of being with Peggy Fury that sort of changed

26:44

the way you looked at this? But then part

26:47

B, I read about

26:49

the audition for the Broadway part

26:52

and how it initially was not on

26:55

a good track. And then it became

26:57

this like breakthrough, kind of an emotional thing.

26:59

So just those, those two things, if we

27:01

can. Yeah, I was sparing

27:03

you some detail on that, the broad

27:05

strokes. But yeah, I'll go into that.

27:09

So Peggy had been a teacher,

27:11

a very loud teacher at the

27:13

Strutman Strasburg Institute. And,

27:17

you know, there's always that funny conversation

27:19

you hear about the method,

27:24

which is usually very misinterpreted and it's

27:26

been mythologized in a lot of ways. But

27:30

I found myself very

27:32

comfortable as the,

27:34

you know, I didn't speak

27:36

outside my house till I was five years

27:38

old. And I think

27:43

I could fairly say I was shy

27:45

until I could afford a

27:47

beer. And

27:50

then liquid courage made me feel

27:52

social. And

27:57

when I was drawn in to be an actor,

28:00

And I'm now in a world

28:03

of adults coming out of high school. GRT

28:06

was, I was youngest, a youngest one

28:08

there by at least 10 years and

28:10

mostly by 34 years. But

28:14

I was very comfortable performing

28:18

inside of my own experience. So

28:21

I could, let's say, I could make it natural. I

28:25

am, in terms of creating character, in

28:27

terms of understanding how

28:30

to support the architecture of a

28:32

story, all of that was

28:34

Peggy. And she was,

28:36

I felt

28:39

that she took a particular interest in me.

28:44

And she said, well, that was

28:46

very real. Is that enough for you? You

28:48

know, that might be what

28:51

happened after I did the scene in class. And

28:54

then she was, be very gentle. She wasn't

28:56

always gentle. And

28:59

then I remember kind of

29:02

making up my own method on something, inspired

29:05

by her. I

29:07

found something and at

29:10

the end of the scene, she

29:12

looked up and she said, whatever

29:17

you're doing is the

29:20

method that I like. When

29:24

you think about how to approach acting, whatever

29:28

works. That's the

29:30

method. Right? And

29:32

that freed me a lot too. And

29:35

still there were structures of, you

29:39

know, I'm wary of saying craft because that separates

29:41

it. You are

29:43

defining your own craft, even if it's redundant

29:45

to something that's been done, you're finding some

29:47

tools work for you. Be

29:51

building that toolbox to the point where you're never

29:53

conscious of it. And I've watched other

29:55

actors where they get to that point. So

30:00

she was just the best

30:02

guide. You know,

30:04

never let yourself tilt out of the

30:06

discipline that you're that's building, you know,

30:08

your toolboxes and the actor. But

30:12

never get stuck in an idea

30:14

of how you have to approach

30:16

it. That's going to tighten you.

30:21

And then you've you've

30:23

said even after working with her,

30:25

you know, it doesn't necessarily make

30:27

auditioning any easier or more

30:29

enjoyable. And so with especially maybe in

30:31

those early days with the starting with

30:33

the Broadway audition, but also, you know,

30:36

it's going to come up again with

30:38

some of the early films like it

30:41

wasn't necessarily working so well.

30:43

But something I'm going to just read back

30:45

because I think this I

30:48

want to just make sure we note this.

30:50

This was the film

30:53

or excuse me, the the I

30:57

think the director of that play,

31:00

Artland, right? Art Wolf.

31:02

Yes. He said it like moved

31:04

into tears. It was a big day. So

31:06

what happened was there's an actor named Jordan

31:08

Rhodes. This is how I got an audition

31:11

that fast when I got to New York.

31:14

An actor named Jordan Rhodes, who was a

31:16

friend of my father's. My father, we spoke

31:18

about the blacklist, but when he came was

31:20

was was free of that. He

31:22

started working again as an actor, but he

31:24

was kind of getting cast as babyface killers,

31:26

and he wanted to try something new. And

31:28

he started directing, directing a lot of television.

31:33

And so he had stables of

31:35

actors he liked to work with. And Jordan

31:37

was one of those. So

31:39

he was a family friend and

31:41

watched me grow up. And

31:44

when he heard I was going to New York, he said be

31:46

in touch with him because he has a friend that it's directing

31:50

a play and was a young

31:52

character. And I could maybe

31:55

he could get me an audition. Which

31:58

he did. And I went and liked. every

32:00

audition I've ever given almost. I

32:04

just tanked it. Now

32:07

it should be said that when I see these people

32:10

making industry of teaching how

32:12

to do auditions I think it's a mistake.

32:15

I think you should really find your way

32:17

into that because as soon as you're starting to approach

32:20

your work like it's a test for people

32:24

and deciding what they want to see you

32:27

don't have any voice to offer and

32:29

I see a lot of these kind of acting

32:33

for film or you know very

32:35

specific kind of approaches that

32:37

are out there as businesses and I

32:40

think you know that should

32:42

be a sort of sacred place of just honing

32:45

your expressive energies

32:47

and organizing your

32:50

approach and

32:52

creating some redundancy of challenges and

32:57

the other part of it you know I

32:59

think that you should properly be as good

33:01

or bad at auditioning as you are so

33:03

that you're really maintaining the fidelity

33:05

to the central part of this which is what is it

33:07

to play the character and I couldn't work it. I

33:10

got lucky but

33:14

and I resented auditions

33:16

in most cases. Don't

33:19

you know I've got something to say and

33:22

you should cast me and

33:24

so I went in

33:26

with that attitude a little bit and I tanked

33:30

it this audition

33:34

but I knew I had to have this part

33:36

not only did I know I had to have the part I

33:38

knew I had to have the job and

33:41

or I was gonna be you know you know

33:43

spending that last hundred dollars getting back to California

33:45

and heading back to Roadway Express to load trucks

33:49

and where there

33:51

was a camaraderie but

33:55

I wanted to stay in New York and so

33:57

I called Jordan And

34:01

I said, can you just ask him, because I

34:03

had met his friend, I had done the audition,

34:06

tanked it, would

34:08

you ask him if I could come in tomorrow and just have one

34:10

more try? He

34:12

came back to me and said, well, the director

34:14

called me and he said, listen,

34:17

you know, I appreciate what

34:19

you're doing. And he says, what I can

34:21

do is I'm going to

34:23

be working with some of the people I'm considering to

34:25

play the father in the play. And

34:29

I need a reader, someone that's just

34:32

going to read their lines. It wouldn't

34:34

be off camera, let's say, because it's not a camera show,

34:36

but it would be sitting next

34:38

to the director, not being watched by the director

34:40

while the director's watching that other actor. And

34:43

we did this long scene that was dominated by

34:45

the father, but it leads to a transition point

34:47

where the son that's seen is turned over to

34:49

the son. And

34:51

the guy who ultimately played the role was the guy

34:54

I was doing it with, an actor named J.C. Quinn.

34:58

He was auditioning the father and. We

35:02

started to click after about

35:04

three minutes, four minutes of doing the

35:06

scene together and Art Wolf

35:09

heard it and backed

35:11

his chair away so that he's now looking at

35:13

both of us. He said, keep going. And

35:17

and then it just rocked and he

35:19

did cry and he got up and

35:21

he put his arms around me. He says, you got a job. Which

35:25

had that not happened, all these different

35:28

sequence of events like your first movie

35:30

comes out of being in that play,

35:32

right? That's right. And just

35:34

if anyone needs a reminder, this is taps.

35:37

You're the military cadet

35:40

fighting for the academy. By the

35:42

way, I'll just say I saw the Harold

35:44

Becker, the director, still around. He's ninety five.

35:46

He's great. I see. I

35:48

see a fair amount of Harold. A lovely man. He

35:51

and his wife, Susie, wardrobe designer.

35:53

Yeah. Wow. So

35:56

this is your first film. It happens to

35:58

be at the Vanguard of. this

36:00

era of young, young

36:03

actor led movies. You

36:06

and Timothy Hutton, who's coming off the Oscar

36:08

for ordinary people, Tom Cruise, who's not yet

36:10

Tom Cruise, does very well

36:13

as a movie. But I guess, you know, obviously

36:17

screen acting is, I

36:19

am assuming not being an actor is a

36:21

totally different thing than stage acting.

36:23

Was that, did that take you a while to acclimate

36:26

how far into your career did you start to

36:28

feel, did it take before you started to

36:30

feel that you had a handle on screen

36:32

acting? I was pretty

36:34

resistant to, I

36:39

would say somewhat rebellious when

36:42

it came to, let's

36:45

say, marks and positions

36:47

for light being determinative of

36:50

how we limit our

36:52

instinctual approaches, let's say. And

36:57

I think I drove Harold Becker

36:59

a little crazy with that. And

37:01

I'm very appreciative that he's still my

37:04

friend. But

37:07

over time, first of

37:09

all, you see how, why things work

37:11

well when they work well. And

37:15

you also see pretty quickly that things don't

37:17

work well for a film off. But

37:21

when one is working against the

37:24

other values the

37:27

film has, whether it's by

37:29

arguing with the director about

37:33

hitting a mark, how much time is gonna

37:35

be afforded for the other actor to be

37:37

good in their role. I've

37:39

worked with people who ate up a lot of,

37:42

you know, talented people sometimes who

37:46

eat up a lot of the energy that they're having. And

37:49

they may well give performances that are terrific. But

37:53

it's not been helpful to the film overall. I

38:01

didn't, I didn't appreciate, I ultimately didn't appreciate

38:03

people like me. And

38:06

so I found kind of new

38:09

ways to look at the

38:12

technology of that film, the needs

38:14

of it that way, ways that I

38:16

could use it to actually free me more, which

38:19

is very doable for anybody who's open to

38:22

doing that. There's

38:25

a lot of, there was a lot of legend around all that

38:27

stuff. Jimmy

38:29

Dean was a great example of that, which

38:32

was just not true, the way that he

38:34

wasn't hitting marks

38:36

in an incident. But he maintained

38:38

some exploration to find that freedom.

38:44

And so over time, pretty

38:46

quickly, no, I wouldn't say that quickly, a

38:48

few years of making movies, I

38:51

started to take it on

38:53

as a good thing and not keep fighting

38:55

against it. But that first movie taps was

38:57

tricky for me because I had the,

39:00

you know, in film, in the

39:03

theater, the director's job essentially

39:05

is to wean the actor off dependence

39:07

and then you own it. In

39:10

the movies, you are strictly dependent on

39:12

that director. And I didn't,

39:14

I didn't like, I'd go with that very, very

39:16

quickly. Well, so that was 81. Ma

39:23

High comes out, but I

39:25

believe you were cast before

39:27

they'd even seen before taps

39:30

had been released. I think

39:32

as I recall, Art Lindsen, I've

39:34

heard him say over the years,

39:36

they did call 20th century

39:39

Fox who put out the taps

39:44

and asked to see some

39:46

scenes before the taps came out.

39:49

So they went over to Fox and went to

39:51

the editing room and saw a

39:53

couple of scenes. But

39:56

they didn't see the whole movie. The whole movie wasn't out yet.

39:58

And when Fast Times came up. And so

40:00

in this case, you're being

40:02

asked to play, I guess, the kind of, in

40:05

some ways, the kind of guy you grew up around

40:07

on the beaches of Malibu, right?

40:09

And, but again, in

40:12

your words, a pretty bad, pretty

40:15

bad reading. Yeah. The

40:18

funny thing was that, so because

40:21

I was so bad at auditioning,

40:24

the one time an audition that

40:27

was successful was

40:30

when I, when the chips were

40:33

just down, where I had, I

40:35

was well-versed in my own incompetence

40:37

of auditions. And I

40:40

had impressed this back in

40:42

New York with Heartland, the play. I

40:44

knew I had impressed the people that were going to make

40:47

taps and they wanted me to come in on audition for

40:49

this big role in it. Tim

40:51

Hutton had just started the ball rolling. I think it

40:53

had been a decade and a half since actors of

40:56

our age were leading movies. You know, it was all

40:58

32, 38,

41:01

whatever, you know, older, older younger men,

41:03

let's say. And

41:06

probably been since about James Dean that they

41:08

were making high school movies, but Tim broke

41:10

the mold with ordinary people. A

41:12

little help from Robert Redford. And

41:15

now that was popular in these projects all

41:17

over town were being generated by Tim's involvement.

41:22

So he was the Trojan horse for the rest of

41:24

us. And

41:26

I had to get that part. And I

41:29

told myself, don't know why. There was

41:31

kind of an outburst moment. And I'm just

41:33

going to jump up on the desk. I'm

41:35

going to do something in lieu of being

41:37

a good audition. They will remember

41:39

me, you know, and I did some obnoxious

41:41

jump onto the desk and played the scene

41:44

from on top of the casting director's desk.

41:47

And it, and I got the thing. It now

41:49

comes. Now

41:51

I've got a movement under my belt. Don't know if

41:53

I want to keep doing it. I think I'm thinking

41:56

I want to go just work in a theater because

41:58

I had the frustrations with technology. And

42:00

I think what that later translates into is I'd

42:02

had the frustration of not being the director of

42:05

the film. And

42:08

so then I was

42:10

working out at my wood shop

42:13

in the garage and there

42:15

was a phone in

42:17

there and it was this

42:19

new agency I'd signed up with, this new

42:21

group called CAA. And

42:24

the agent's name was Paul Wagner

42:26

who later became Tom's co-producer.

42:29

And Paul said, you know, this

42:31

is this lovely young

42:34

female director who's got

42:36

this movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High and I think

42:38

you might want to read it. I

42:41

read it and I

42:43

said, oh, this is rich. This

42:45

is because Cameron Crowe had written a character

42:51

who was very much in the ether.

42:53

People were starting, particularly in

42:55

California. We

42:58

had heard this vibe and I'm going to talk about

43:00

the universal. It was in the

43:02

ether but not yet identified, right? And

43:07

let's say it's like later

43:09

like a Valley Girl beat. There was

43:11

something where

43:14

a whole generation of a certain kind of,

43:17

in this case it was mostly surfers

43:20

who combined surfing, those surfers who combined

43:22

it with smoking a lot of

43:25

weed. And I

43:27

knew those guys and I said, this

43:31

is freaking delicious. This

43:33

one, I know this guy. He

43:35

wrote him great. I

43:38

wrote, you know, originally it was a book. That's

43:40

what I read first and then the script. But

43:45

you know, I'm out there being paid

43:47

with, I call

43:49

payment permission to relax. And

43:53

it's kind of like when

43:55

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, they

43:58

hear that Sundance great

44:00

with his handgun. But

44:03

he can't just stand there and aim. He says, can

44:06

I move? You know, once they

44:08

take you to a functioning movie set

44:10

and say, action, I could

44:13

do my thing. But going there

44:15

and creating all that and audition. So

44:18

I came in, I did an audition, and this

44:20

is the beginning of a very important relationship with

44:22

the casting director on Fast Times at

44:24

Ms. Montheye, this guy named Don Phillips.

44:28

And so you imagine the people in

44:30

the room, director, producer, writer,

44:33

and casting director. And

44:36

one after another of us are

44:38

going in there and doing this scene. And

44:42

I completely jacked it, terrible,

44:44

tight. I said, here I

44:46

go, what am I gonna do? And I left.

44:48

I think they were embarrassed

44:50

with what they saw. I was.

44:53

And I left and Don Phillips,

44:56

God loved him, rest

44:58

in peace. Don Phillips

45:00

was an actor's casting director.

45:02

He loved actors. And he

45:06

evidently saw past my terrible

45:08

audition. And he, I

45:11

guess for a couple of, he said to them, he

45:13

says, we have to get him to do it again.

45:16

There's something there. What do you mean there's something

45:18

there? That was terrible. He says it was terrible,

45:20

but there's something there. We got it. So

45:23

after about two minutes of convincing them,

45:26

they have to see him. And me one more time,

45:29

he catches me just before I get to

45:31

my beat up old Mazda. He

45:34

runs out in the parking area, says, get

45:37

in there. Don't

45:40

use the pages. Just show us

45:42

the guy. And

45:46

that's what happened. That's awesome. Now,

45:48

it's interesting. I found it interesting going back

45:51

and I tried to find

45:53

a lot of the early interviews

45:55

and things that you did where, and it

45:57

was not that long after those first

45:59

two minutes. movies where you could see that you were

46:01

getting a little disillusioned with

46:04

acting and I just want

46:06

to mention there's around

46:08

you know after taps and fast times

46:10

there's the outsider excuse me there's a

46:13

bad boys which happens to come out

46:16

on the same day as the outsiders which I'm

46:19

not sure that helped it there

46:21

so there's things like that where it's just

46:23

totally beyond your control there's other

46:27

projects where you are great

46:30

in a maybe a project that doesn't come

46:32

together things that I could see were accumulating

46:35

frustrations that might have been accumulating this is

46:38

at close range 86 there's

46:41

the Falcon and the snowman 85 racing with

46:44

moon 84 that whole era

46:46

maybe up through you know through

46:49

that through a lot of the rest of the 80s

46:51

and I just wonder how much

46:53

was it not loving being

46:56

an actor versus craving to be

46:58

a director that led you by 91

47:01

to do something that I know

47:04

you were thinking about even as early as 82 right

47:06

because the Indian Runner reminding

47:09

people is inspired by

47:11

the Springsteen song

47:14

highway patrolman which was out in 82 so

47:16

we're going back to when you would have

47:18

just been coming out with fast times and

47:21

you were already thinking about

47:24

basically material to direct right you

47:26

really it's a little different than that it was what

47:29

happened to my frustrations all

47:32

of the movies you mentioned first of all I

47:34

wouldn't have known for

47:37

ten years of making movies I

47:39

would not have known whether there with the box

47:41

office on any of my films was I had

47:45

I was always just look we

47:47

made a movie it's in the LA look at

47:49

this is advertising the LA Times is a real

47:51

movie and I felt you know

47:53

in general quite lucky it could have been

47:55

a big hit or not I had no

47:57

idea and it didn't seem Didn't

48:00

feel very relevant because I

48:02

kept getting jobs. What was

48:04

frustrating was

48:07

that things were shy and short

48:09

of the

48:11

magic of the era that birthed me

48:13

in the love of film. The

48:16

directors, some of whom I

48:18

worked with, who were the people

48:20

that made some of the greatest films I've

48:23

ever seen, Case in Point,

48:25

John Steslidge, was he tired of it?

48:28

You know when we did The Falcon and the Snowman,

48:30

I didn't feel that I had the

48:34

adventurous John Schlesinger making the

48:36

film. I didn't feel in

48:38

other cases that screenwriters

48:40

were writing the kind of material that

48:42

I wanted to sink my teeth into.

48:46

And indeed we were in a transition away

48:49

from that by certainly by 19, well was

48:51

it about Was

48:54

it 74 when Jaws came out? And

48:59

you know all, so sort of what

49:01

you'd call what's happened with the Marvel

49:04

movies and all of that stuff, that started around then. And

49:09

I remember when Joel Edgerton first came

49:11

to Los Angeles, he came

49:13

out here, you know, what

49:16

do you want to ask? You know, fantastic

49:18

actor. I asked him, well what

49:20

do you want to do? And he says, well. I

49:23

think I just want to make it, I want

49:25

to make it out of Hollywood without having put

49:28

my underwear on the outside of my tights. And

49:32

I felt him on that, you know. And you

49:36

know nothing, by the way, nothing against it.

49:39

In Balance, some of those movies are fantastic,

49:41

you know. And I could

49:43

have seen maybe not really but myself

49:45

doing something like, you know, with the

49:47

right movie. You know,

49:49

you look at something, I mean, in

49:52

its own way, Robert Downey Jr. does in an Iron

49:54

Man, as good as anything, right? But

49:58

again, in Balance. And we're not getting the balance. And

50:01

I was looking

50:03

for to be part of the

50:06

70s American film that was dying. And

50:09

I think, and then I kind of

50:12

stopped, thought I was just going to stop acting.

50:14

And I remember Dustin Hoffman said to me, he

50:17

says, you're not retired. You're

50:20

disappointed. And that really

50:22

hit it on the

50:24

mark. And then I thought,

50:27

well, it's sort

50:29

of like today when people, and I've been one

50:31

of them, who complain about the state of film.

50:35

You know, I realized I had a conversation with myself the

50:37

other day on this and I played both roles. And

50:40

one role is, man, they

50:42

just look at this movie

50:44

they're celebrating. It just sucks in the

50:46

sense everybody's jerking themselves off over it.

50:50

And then the other me comes in and says, yeah,

50:52

well, oh, oh, oh, oh,

50:54

really? Did you write five

50:56

easy pieces yesterday? You know, what have you

50:59

done to contribute to this

51:01

being the film of the 70s lately, right? And

51:04

I think

51:06

maybe that's going to come back around. And

51:09

I don't know in what form because we

51:11

have all the streaming and all the people

51:13

watching things in their silos and in

51:16

their convenience, not in theaters. But

51:18

it could come back. You

51:22

never know because

51:24

it just takes some. I

51:26

just saw this documentary May at Last on

51:29

the Aved Brothers. And

51:33

if nothing else, that'll show you that that kind

51:35

of pure creativity and

51:37

talent and kind of dignity of

51:39

mission of creating that stuff and

51:41

sharing it with audiences. Still

51:45

being born in America. You know, there's a young

51:47

guy. And I was

51:50

very moved by that. Anyway,

51:53

does that lead to the directing? Is that what it

51:55

sounds like that? Yeah, like you're saying a desire

51:58

to in some ways. Try

52:00

to make the kinds of movies that you wanted to

52:03

see ya. Yeah. Yeah, it pushed me there

52:05

Disappointment pushed me to that. Yeah, and

52:08

that's starting with the Indian Runner in

52:10

91 and then four years

52:12

later the crossing guard and

52:15

in between you've said I guess

52:17

after seeing what it was like to do

52:19

it once but before doing it again you

52:23

wanted to kind of See

52:26

see a master up close. Is that how

52:28

you and Scorsese connect?

52:31

Yeah, I had known because

52:34

I Bob

52:36

De Niro kind of you know

52:39

sort of took me under his wing

52:41

I could say in a certain way from the time of early

52:44

days, New York and which

52:48

wasn't awfully Inspiring

52:51

big brother to have and

52:53

so I knew Martin Scorsese a little bit to

52:56

Bob Not

52:59

well, but but well enough that

53:01

what happened is after I do after I directed

53:04

I Thought okay,

53:06

you kind of get to the I'll

53:08

speak for me I I get to the end of

53:10

a film of shooting a film and

53:12

in those last days. I now know how to

53:14

make a movie But

53:17

that's sort of a perishable skill set And

53:21

Maybe rightly so, you know to so that the

53:23

next time you're gonna really focus

53:26

and get it back up for that and

53:28

find your path to discovering things in unique

53:30

unique ways and and

53:33

So I thought but now having made a film

53:36

and kind of knowing what I'm doing. I Really

53:39

want to go. I would know how to Observe

53:42

Scorsese in a way that I wouldn't have before

53:44

I made a film, right? How

53:46

is he solving these problems? So

53:50

I either called or wrote him

53:52

and said Who

53:55

could I come and audit on the set

53:57

of Cape Fear? Yeah

54:00

I spent about a week down in Florida. And

54:03

it was great because, what was he doing? He

54:06

was doing something he'd never done. He was shooting a cinemascope.

54:12

And he was ready to ask the

54:15

stranger walking by, what do you think, am I

54:17

getting the frame right? Are you using

54:19

the format right? There was no

54:22

pretense about being a

54:24

master. It was just a

54:26

kind of, there's

54:29

a great story about Shimon Peres,

54:31

where his friend has said to

54:33

him, because

54:35

he was out in California in his 90s, trying

54:37

to raise a bunch of money for his foundation. He

54:41

was talking to one more group of

54:43

deep-pocketed, Hollywood people, until

54:46

the late night. He was gonna get into his car after

54:48

hours of talking to people,

54:50

most of whom weren't gonna give him any money, just

54:52

wanted to dine out on the fact that they'd

54:55

had dinner with Shimon Peres. And

54:57

his friends walk in the car, and he knows he's going to

54:59

San Francisco to do the same thing the next night. He's on

55:01

a tour of trying to raise money for this thing. Shimon,

55:04

what are you doing? You've got

55:06

the Nobel Peace Prize. You've

55:08

done everything. You're in your 90s. What

55:11

do you wanna go talk to these schmucks for three hours? They

55:13

give you $10 for you. He

55:16

says, VB, he says, the guy

55:19

says, listen, if

55:21

you've got all of your

55:23

dreams in

55:26

one end, and all of your accomplishments

55:28

in the other, if

55:32

the accomplishments are heavier than

55:34

the dreams, you're dead. And

55:37

I think that that translate

55:40

to what I saw with Scorsese. He

55:42

was still making his first movie. And

55:45

if it was up to you at that time, it sounds like

55:47

you would've probably been quite happy to just continue

55:50

directing, not doing much acting. I

55:52

saw a thing where you were

55:54

saying, apart from

55:56

financial considerations, it wasn't something you were

55:59

itching to do. do. But

56:01

in that period, you did do for Dapama,

56:04

Carlito's Way is 93. And then Dead

56:06

Man Walking for

56:09

Tim Robbins, who I know comes back

56:11

around again with Mystic River, but just

56:16

did anything there. I guess in

56:18

particular, you know, you've spoken about

56:21

Dead Man Walking and working with Susan

56:24

Saranen and some of these like, just

56:26

it's you two, you're in shackles,

56:28

there's some really powerful

56:32

scenes there. Did it kind of, I mean, I'm just

56:34

thinking about the sexual taunting

56:37

and the coming

56:39

around at the end,

56:41

kind of surrendering

56:44

in a sense. But like, did

56:47

that give you back a

56:49

bit of the acting bug? Or was

56:51

it, has it remained just

56:53

sort of a thing you you

56:56

do begrudgingly?

56:59

No, I would say so. In

57:01

one case, you could you could say that I

57:03

was, because it had been four or five years

57:05

that I had not worked

57:08

as an actor. I made Indian Runner.

57:11

I thought this feels good, not

57:14

being an actor. And then the

57:16

first case, I was conned. And

57:18

I say that lovingly, but I was conned

57:20

by Brian Napalna, who told me, you know,

57:22

he's, he's all these years,

57:24

he's been doing his thing. And every time

57:27

he comes up with something, Marty tops him

57:29

with something grittier. And

57:32

he wants to make his gritty movie, you know.

57:35

And I don't want Al to just be a

57:37

talking head, you know, because Al's

57:39

not doing what Bob's doing. I was making

57:42

movies with actors that aren't as, you know,

57:44

challenging to him. And I think you'll be,

57:46

it was all that flattery. Now, there

57:50

were two things he, he, the one

57:52

thing he knew he had on me, which is that

57:55

I had not worked with Al and I wanted to

57:57

work with Al. And

58:00

And but also he was kind

58:03

of inferring that we

58:05

were going to, you know, make a more

58:07

realistic movie that say that it is

58:09

tends to be his style. Something

58:12

more my taste. That

58:15

didn't happen. I

58:18

knew when I walked into the place

58:20

that one of the clubs that that

58:22

character Carlito had in in

58:25

real life because these were based on

58:28

the writers. A lot

58:30

of real people we went into one

58:32

of the places that it was based on. It

58:34

was like a sawdust on the floor. A little

58:36

bigger than this little kitchen here. I

58:39

remember the first day I walked on set to see the

58:41

place and it was so far

58:43

out of the reach of what that character could have

58:45

afforded. You know, Dick

58:47

Silberts got lights underneath his disco

58:50

floors and I thought, okay, I'm

58:53

all right. Well, he's got me now making

58:55

this fucking movie. But I

58:57

was without which I love. And

58:59

I was I was certainly, you

59:02

know, enjoyed making the movie. I

59:04

was still enjoying acting in movies

59:07

sometimes once I got back at

59:09

it. And then dead

59:13

man walking, I got flat out bullied into Tim

59:16

Robbins just was so annoying. He wouldn't take no

59:18

for an answer and flew out

59:20

here without letting me know and knocked on my

59:22

door. And after I'd already told him four

59:25

times on the phone, I wasn't going to do it. He's just

59:28

doing it. And I was I was glad that he did

59:30

that. That was a that was a great

59:33

challenge of a thing to do. It

59:36

was it was great to work with Tim and Susan

59:38

on it. And then but

59:41

then I started

59:43

feeling sporadically on jobs

59:47

less. And then, you know,

59:49

and then that would change and a good one. And

59:51

then in 19, whatever it

59:53

was, whenever I did milk. Yeah.

59:57

Oh, wait. I had I had a great time

59:59

on that. that and with Gus

1:00:01

Van Zandt was one

1:00:04

of the top directors for me.

1:00:06

The way he works and how he helps

1:00:08

you. As

1:00:14

Woody Allen had been, so I had

1:00:16

some good experiences. But

1:00:20

then it died. I

1:00:25

found it, I was just miserable on movie

1:00:27

sets. Even when everything was good, good

1:00:30

material, good acting. I

1:00:32

was having to fake the leadership

1:00:35

role that you have a responsibility to take

1:00:37

on when you're

1:00:40

leading a

1:00:42

piece and you

1:00:44

want to encourage

1:00:47

that. You

1:00:49

don't want to share your lack

1:00:53

of feeling about it.

1:00:55

What do you think it changed? Was it

1:00:57

the way that

1:01:01

movies get greenlighted these days, the kinds of

1:01:03

movies or the way that they now have

1:01:06

things changed about the way they make them? Or was

1:01:08

it just something in you that had changed? I

1:01:11

think finally, I'm guessing a little bit

1:01:14

now that that

1:01:17

thing that had concerned me about or disappointed

1:01:20

me early on, about

1:01:22

where film was going, which

1:01:25

I don't have a binary type of

1:01:27

attack to because as I said,

1:01:31

we all have accountability in this, not

1:01:34

just the studios about creating the material

1:01:36

that would keep

1:01:38

audiences interested. But I

1:01:40

guess I was uninterested in most

1:01:43

movies in the theaters at that point. I

1:01:46

wondered what we were

1:01:48

doing it for. That

1:01:52

with the other corruptions around it, the

1:01:55

structure of how movies are financed is all,

1:01:58

here's the money you're going to get. going to back

1:02:00

yourself into figuring out. And movies were not

1:02:02

being made, they were being represented. So you'd

1:02:04

read a great script, you'd see a great

1:02:06

potential vision to be made from it. You

1:02:08

might hear that vision from the director, but

1:02:10

there was the financing

1:02:13

wasn't going to be there for that because they were

1:02:15

just trying to build a library content. And

1:02:20

so yeah, so often it

1:02:22

felt not like we were really doing the movie, but

1:02:25

kind of coloring in by the numbers with

1:02:28

budgetary constraints and that the

1:02:30

big money was going to things that were, you know,

1:02:32

that you could use as toilet paper. And

1:02:35

so yeah, I think I just got

1:02:38

to where I wondered what the, what

1:02:40

place it had, you know, I knew

1:02:42

that it was no longer what the

1:02:45

experience that I had, say going to the local movie

1:02:47

theater and when I was in school and seeing Lenny

1:02:49

or, you know, Scarecrow

1:02:51

or Badlands or, you know, name

1:02:53

it. That

1:02:55

era had passed. Well,

1:02:57

as you say that it occurs to me

1:02:59

that some of the movies

1:03:02

that you did in that

1:03:04

period that the

1:03:07

business was changing in a way you didn't like, I don't know

1:03:09

if it's coincidental or not,

1:03:11

but Woody Allen,

1:03:13

Terrence Malek, a number of

1:03:15

people who actually were still around

1:03:18

from that era, their heyday was in that era. So

1:03:21

and it sounds like those were some of the better

1:03:23

experiences that you'd had.

1:03:25

Right. And maybe they're except maybe I'm wrong

1:03:27

about some of those. Yeah. I mean, we're

1:03:30

talking like Sweden Lowdown for

1:03:32

Woody is 97 at

1:03:34

a time. I know that, you know, you've

1:03:36

said it was personally difficult because you're doing this sort

1:03:38

of comedic part at the same time you're losing your

1:03:40

dad. That's 97 with Woody.

1:03:43

There's Malek for the first

1:03:45

time in 20 years making a movie with Thin

1:03:47

Red Lion. Just

1:03:51

you know, going through the through the rest of the

1:03:53

90s, is that sort of the lifeline that at least

1:03:56

at least you can work with people who you

1:03:59

respect. Well, it was

1:04:01

also going back to like with Auditing

1:04:04

on Cape Fear in there at

1:04:07

this point and as we

1:04:09

sit here, I would say that my dominant

1:04:13

interest in film is what it started as

1:04:15

which is Picking those

1:04:17

shots and casting those actors and letting

1:04:20

those things see how they rock together, you

1:04:22

know that one to direct movies And

1:04:25

so I was accepting or not accepting

1:04:27

movie roles based on who the professor

1:04:29

was Yeah, you know I wanted

1:04:31

to get an audit that class and

1:04:34

get a front-row seat Yeah, and so I that

1:04:37

was Terry Malick for sure. I

1:04:39

wanted to see how that happened How

1:04:41

do how do his movies happen and I and

1:04:43

the same with Woody? In

1:04:48

it and it wasn't always Terry

1:04:51

I love Terry and and

1:04:53

I Remember saying to Terry

1:04:55

when I first met him before oh, maybe

1:04:57

two years before He

1:05:00

made the Thin Red Line. I Was

1:05:03

sitting with him at a bar in Hollywood. I

1:05:05

said that I had just been introduced

1:05:07

to him by Martin Sheen and

1:05:12

We met up for a drink and He

1:05:15

wasn't telling me then what he was concocting, but he

1:05:17

was ready to make another move He didn't tell me

1:05:19

that I said well

1:05:21

if you ever do make another movie You just send

1:05:24

me one dollar bill in an envelope and tell me

1:05:26

where to go and I'm in you know And

1:05:28

that's essentially what happened, right? And

1:05:31

then you know made two movies ultimately true

1:05:33

life And and

1:05:36

Woody that was it that was a gift that

1:05:38

one when I remember when he sent the script

1:05:40

over Because he

1:05:42

was known for not giving actors the

1:05:44

whole script, you know, and

1:05:46

I said no I kind of have

1:05:49

to read the whole script also, I think he

1:05:51

was easy convinced because Most

1:05:54

of his movies were you

1:05:56

know ensemble pieces and this one.

1:05:58

I'm in every scene So

1:06:01

he justified letting me read the whole script.

1:06:04

But he flew a guy from New

1:06:06

York to California. I

1:06:08

was up in the Bay Area at the time. He

1:06:10

would rent a car, drive to my house,

1:06:13

give me the script, I read it while he sits

1:06:15

in the driveway, I give it back to him. Because

1:06:19

he wanted to keep it undercover. And so I

1:06:22

did, I called him right after I read it. I

1:06:25

started to hear the music of that character in my head

1:06:27

and I said, oh, man, I'm in. Well,

1:06:31

can I just

1:06:33

toss at you a few of the parts that again, as

1:06:36

a non actor, but they strike me as particularly

1:06:38

complex and

1:06:43

interesting what you had to do with them

1:06:45

building. And these are gonna lead us right

1:06:47

up to the most recent. But chronologically, I

1:06:49

Am Sam, 2001. This

1:06:53

is the same year, by the way, that you're directing for,

1:06:57

or at least that the pledge comes out. Jack

1:07:00

again, with a second time with Jack

1:07:02

Nicholson. But with

1:07:04

I Am Sam, obviously, seems

1:07:09

like that could have gone wrong in so many different

1:07:11

ways. And yet you did a amazing

1:07:14

job with that, that just remind people, is

1:07:17

developmentally disabled guys fighting for custody of a

1:07:19

seven year old daughter, playing a

1:07:22

character with those challenges, working with children. There's a

1:07:24

lot of things that I

1:07:27

imagine you

1:07:29

had to really carefully consider. What

1:07:32

stands out to you when you think back about

1:07:35

that one? Well, I think

1:07:37

there's for me an acting lesson or

1:07:39

at least an enhanced articulation, which

1:07:41

is first of all, Jessie

1:07:44

Nelson, who

1:07:46

had written a really, really, I

1:07:48

would say loving script. And

1:07:52

she's the light and smart.

1:07:56

And Michelle, well, Michelle was

1:07:58

everybody's, acting

1:08:01

school crush, she was at Peggy Furies also.

1:08:04

And so to do something with Michelle was to do,

1:08:07

to work with the

1:08:10

girl you wanted to kiss when you were in acting

1:08:12

school. And wouldn't have

1:08:14

ever had made the

1:08:16

attempt. And so that was, so

1:08:18

there was something fun about all that. And then, but

1:08:22

when it came to the character, what it

1:08:24

really, what

1:08:26

got articulated for me is, human

1:08:31

beings in

1:08:34

so many ways are exactly the

1:08:36

same animal as each

1:08:38

other, right? Personalities

1:08:41

are not. And those

1:08:44

are qualities in some

1:08:46

cases. Their talents

1:08:48

in some cases, their

1:08:50

fears, their corruptions,

1:08:53

their courageousness.

1:08:57

What does it take to build a

1:08:59

personality? Well, that's

1:09:01

what an actor does, right? That's what

1:09:04

you're doing. You're not playing an afflicted

1:09:06

person. You're playing

1:09:08

that person's personality. And

1:09:12

we were immersed with people with

1:09:14

similar challenges or what we're referring

1:09:17

to, I don't know what politically

1:09:19

correctly today. And

1:09:22

as you spend more time, you

1:09:25

realize, okay, this is like, now I'm

1:09:28

starting to speak the language. And

1:09:31

it's not, well, there's

1:09:33

a lot of limited in

1:09:36

that culture, limited

1:09:39

sexual development. And

1:09:43

so that might not be the

1:09:45

subject on the table. But

1:09:47

other than that, just slow down a little

1:09:49

bit, which

1:09:51

we maybe should all take some lesson from.

1:09:54

And you're gonna start having conversations with these

1:09:56

guys and gals that

1:09:58

are completely. you

1:10:01

know, you're just different personalities. And

1:10:04

so it kind of, it's

1:10:07

like, okay, who am I playing in

1:10:10

this next story? I'm

1:10:12

playing you, I'm playing everybody, but

1:10:15

what's the personality that

1:10:18

makes that person unique? So,

1:10:23

the next two happened to both come out in the same

1:10:25

year, which was a crazy year,

1:10:28

not just professionally, but I think you were also

1:10:32

very busy. This was, I

1:10:34

think, literally coming from

1:10:36

Iraq to the set of 21 grams

1:10:40

with Inyari 2. In

1:10:43

that case, just to remind people, a guy

1:10:45

who desperately needs this transplant. And

1:10:48

then I think, I don't

1:10:50

remember the order that they were released or shot

1:10:53

might be different, but then there was Mystic River

1:10:55

with Clint, where I

1:10:57

believe you had almost, you know, he

1:11:00

wanted you right before that for blood work, but

1:11:02

it ends up being Mystic River. So these

1:11:04

two, which again, are well in

1:11:06

this case, Boston guy whose

1:11:08

daughter goes missing. So is

1:11:11

it extra complicated to go essentially

1:11:13

back? Like, you've generally paced

1:11:16

yourself out a little bit, I think,

1:11:19

between projects when you're doing something that

1:11:22

in quick succession and also have

1:11:24

all this stuff going on in

1:11:26

your real life. How does that

1:11:28

affect things? Well, there are two

1:11:30

directors that I have used that same line

1:11:33

with about you

1:11:35

send me one dollar an envelope.

1:11:38

The second one is Alejandro Gonzales in the V2S. And with

1:11:40

Clint, of

1:11:46

course I wanted to work with Clint. When

1:11:48

that first movie came up, I flew up

1:11:50

to Carmel. We had a dinner around it.

1:11:52

I just decided this movie wasn't for me.

1:11:55

Now in many cases, that means, you

1:11:57

know, the director will feel...

1:12:00

snubbed and not call you again.

1:12:02

But he called me right at the next one.

1:12:04

And I'm a fan of Clint

1:12:07

Eastwood. And I mean,

1:12:10

he's Clint fucking

1:12:12

Eastwood, right? So

1:12:15

when he called me about, he had another script, I

1:12:17

thought to myself, oh my God, this better be good

1:12:20

because I don't want to say no to him two

1:12:22

times in the same year. And

1:12:25

I do want to say yes to him. I want to

1:12:28

get on with that professor, see how

1:12:30

that career has been run and

1:12:32

how he attacks it. And

1:12:35

I think I might have already been committed

1:12:38

to Alejandro, but that was going to be

1:12:40

after. Okay. And I

1:12:42

got 10 pages in and

1:12:45

I called Clint, I said, this is a

1:12:47

beast I'm in. And that was great. I

1:12:49

do remember

1:12:52

the overlap because being

1:12:55

a little challenging, because I remember Alejandro

1:12:57

came to Boston and

1:12:59

we sat for a weekend that

1:13:02

I had off. We just sat in that room and

1:13:05

went over the 21 grams

1:13:08

script over and over. And because

1:13:11

he had to make some final

1:13:13

decisions about some things he was going to do. And

1:13:18

some of that would have to be nicely

1:13:20

coordinated with, you know, whatever I

1:13:22

was going to bring to the party. And so

1:13:26

yeah, there was a little overlap. And then

1:13:28

in between there was Iraq. And that was

1:13:31

a tough time for the world and for

1:13:33

the country, you

1:13:36

know, following 9-11 and all of

1:13:38

that. Yeah.

1:13:42

Just a quick follow up because again,

1:13:44

it's Clint for an actor, turned

1:13:48

director to see what

1:13:50

he's done and how he worked up

1:13:52

close with, believe it's usually the

1:13:54

same people. It's like a super

1:13:57

efficient from what I hear and not a lot of takes. all

1:14:00

of that, like what was your takeaway

1:14:03

from from working with him on that one

1:14:05

which and maybe if you if

1:14:07

it's possible to answer that through the prism of the

1:14:10

scene that probably comes up more than any

1:14:12

other in that about that movie

1:14:14

where you you're basically being kept

1:14:16

from seeing the body of your

1:14:19

daughter I don't know if maybe we could use that as a case

1:14:21

study of just how he works. Yeah.

1:14:28

It won't surprise anyone to hear that Clint

1:14:31

doesn't ruffle easy. He

1:14:34

has an incredibly calm,

1:14:38

fun approach to life.

1:14:41

I think it's why he has worked into

1:14:44

his 90s. You

1:14:48

know each movie it seems to me

1:14:50

is just part of a body of

1:14:52

work and it's part

1:14:55

of a life in film. So

1:14:59

you know it that will have its ups

1:15:01

and downs and what's a down is he

1:15:03

does that mean you got to get down

1:15:05

or maybe this particular cast and this

1:15:08

script not work out so

1:15:11

special yeah but

1:15:13

you know that cloud will pass and I'm

1:15:15

gonna get a beautiful sunny day and it's

1:15:17

on weird way Mr. Cribber was a beautiful

1:15:19

sunny day and he I

1:15:21

got really lucky that group of actors and

1:15:25

and Clint and he had such

1:15:27

an easy hand you know you know you

1:15:29

someone on the outside they had drone footage

1:15:31

you wouldn't identify who the director was there's

1:15:34

nobody waving his arms around telling things you

1:15:36

what to do I've been known to do

1:15:38

at times as a director it

1:15:41

was all and he had a crew so tight and they

1:15:44

talked him whispers and the actors came in and

1:15:46

everybody had was ready to go and and

1:15:48

it was it was really good I think

1:15:51

from the day I arrived in Boston till the time

1:15:54

that movie was finished and

1:15:56

Clint's also scored it from my

1:15:58

first day In

1:16:01

Boston on location nine weeks

1:16:03

later that movie was completed. It was

1:16:05

edited and scored How

1:16:08

did he do that? Well, that might have been one of

1:16:10

the things I would have learned of being on that set

1:16:13

I still have no idea how we got so

1:16:15

much work done in so little time right now

1:16:19

And and that never felt like it was crazy now.

1:16:21

Oh hundred He

1:16:25

he worked so goddamn hard That

1:16:29

you do it with him, you know, and

1:16:32

I totally different approach, right?

1:16:37

I forgot the original question Maybe

1:16:39

if they're just cuz it's when anytime

1:16:41

people are oh the sea

1:16:43

celebrating your career whatever that scene comes up

1:16:46

So I'm just curious. Yeah, so what happened

1:16:48

was I written the way that so

1:16:53

Brian and Dennis Dennis LaHain

1:16:56

who'd written the book and and he was

1:16:58

around with involved with the production and

1:17:01

And and Brian Huggland who had

1:17:04

written the script You

1:17:08

know, there was just this description of me

1:17:11

trying to get to the crime

1:17:14

scene and to

1:17:16

see if that was if the victim was my daughter and

1:17:22

You know a couple of cops stopped

1:17:24

me And

1:17:26

I'm not a big guy but Under

1:17:30

those emotional circumstances at

1:17:33

the very least Somebody's gonna

1:17:35

get hurt If

1:17:37

a couple of cops stop try to stop me. I

1:17:40

don't care how big they are I'm

1:17:42

gonna bite him. I mean and and this is not one

1:17:44

of those scenes where I

1:17:46

want to be constrained by By

1:17:51

it not being feeling real I

1:17:54

don't want to talk to the stunt coordinator about how we're gonna do it

1:17:58

And I and I don't want Hurt someone

1:18:00

or be hurt by somebody, you know, I'm not

1:18:02

an idiot Often

1:18:05

I'm not an idiot So

1:18:08

I went to Clint and I just registered this

1:18:10

complaint. Basically. I said, I don't know how we're

1:18:12

gonna do this He

1:18:14

said he'll be fine. Go go

1:18:16

to your trailer and what

1:18:18

he'd been choreographing while I

1:18:20

was getting into my wardrobe Was

1:18:24

a situation where I got to set

1:18:26

and I just trusted him because I

1:18:28

told him and

1:18:31

cop those two cops were there

1:18:33

to stop me and so

1:18:36

were about seven others

1:18:38

and they were all bigger

1:18:41

than me and by

1:18:43

the time I was I was

1:18:46

allowed to fight as hard as

1:18:48

I humanly could fight and Every

1:18:51

joint on my body was locked up by

1:18:53

somebody bigger and stronger than me and I

1:18:55

could not move Mm-hmm Which

1:18:58

I discovered it should be I should have

1:19:00

patented it as an exercise program If you

1:19:02

want to hit every muscle in your body,

1:19:05

right? get get

1:19:07

you know wrangled by these

1:19:09

guys and I just thought what

1:19:11

a Because God knows that's

1:19:13

how a Father

1:19:16

would have to be stopped. It would have

1:19:18

to be a complete shutdown So

1:19:23

that's Clint, that's great Just

1:19:25

last couple things if it's alright,

1:19:27

I mean, I know that there was a

1:19:30

period there in the mid-2000s where we have

1:19:32

assassination of Richard Nixon which a lot of

1:19:34

people think is one of your

1:19:36

best performances but Thinking a movie that didn't get

1:19:39

a great release There's all

1:19:41

the Kingsmen which on paper

1:19:43

a lot of people thought was

1:19:45

gonna be you know, giant the original Swept

1:19:48

the Oscars and all that this was now Steve

1:19:51

Zaliens version and then there's you directing

1:19:53

into the wild which I know you

1:19:55

have expressed Frustration where about

1:19:57

the fact that you know

1:19:59

you spend 10

1:20:02

years getting the family. By that time I

1:20:04

was aware of whether something was being well

1:20:06

distributed. Right. That's right. Right,

1:20:08

but also just the investment of 10 years

1:20:11

of your life getting the trust of the

1:20:13

family, then you spend eight months

1:20:15

making it, and then you run into basically

1:20:19

just, I guess, I don't know what you call it,

1:20:22

the business side of things where it can, so

1:20:27

having heard you speak about those three in

1:20:29

particular, to even

1:20:31

you get, I mean,

1:20:34

is it hard not to get a

1:20:36

bit disillusioned when you're that

1:20:39

invested in projects and then you realize you

1:20:41

could do everything right on your end and

1:20:44

it's still sometimes beyond your control?

1:20:48

I could tell you that I had violent

1:20:50

thoughts. Ha ha ha. You

1:20:52

know, when Into the Wild came out,

1:20:57

it was per screen the number one movie in

1:20:59

the country. That's

1:21:02

the moment when you go

1:21:04

wider, more screens. Nothing.

1:21:09

You had myself and Emile

1:21:12

Hirsch and John Krakauer all

1:21:15

together on what was at

1:21:17

the time the most watched show

1:21:20

that would vote in America,

1:21:22

Oprah Winfrey's, and having it

1:21:25

very celebrated. Everybody

1:21:29

in the internal press machine call

1:21:31

that people that I

1:21:33

work with, not

1:21:36

as a studio, were

1:21:39

doing a great job, and

1:21:43

then he had

1:21:45

somebody running the studio who

1:21:48

was making his bets

1:21:50

on two other

1:21:52

films that they had, two, one,

1:21:54

you know, and formidable

1:21:57

films. It

1:22:01

was what there will be blood there will

1:22:03

be blood and all the and and no

1:22:05

country for old man well

1:22:10

You can like walk and

1:22:12

chew gum make me

1:22:14

too, but this this studio didn't seem to

1:22:16

endeavor to do that and they

1:22:20

just basically let into

1:22:22

the wild disappear and and

1:22:25

Yeah, when you put the kind of that

1:22:27

time in and when you see the beautiful work

1:22:29

that the people who've come there and trusting you

1:22:31

and And they

1:22:34

don't that's it's heartbreaking Then

1:22:36

it's infuriating And

1:22:38

then you make a deal with yourself to stay out of prison and

1:22:44

At least that was followed by milk which As

1:22:49

you say was like one of the last times

1:22:51

you really enjoyed yourself on a phone you've said Just

1:22:55

looking back now we're talking 16

1:23:00

years since then things that people

1:23:02

have noted. I mean it was just a in

1:23:04

terms of the vibe of the character I don't know

1:23:06

if we often gotten to see you play,

1:23:10

you know a guy as optimistic

1:23:12

and happy as and you know

1:23:15

as he was and yet

1:23:17

this movie comes out at a time also

1:23:19

when prop 8 was Happening

1:23:22

where it's like in the real world. We're seeing

1:23:24

a step backwards from the things that he was

1:23:26

fighting for but you know and I

1:23:30

also think about the fact that could you have even

1:23:32

would you even have been Given

1:23:34

the opportunity to play him. Would

1:23:36

you have wanted to play him given

1:23:38

the way that people now talk about? You know who

1:23:40

can play what and all of that? So I guess

1:23:42

there's just a lot of thought I just always I

1:23:44

don't know if I've ever been more Blown

1:23:48

away by a performance of yours tonight So I

1:23:50

just wonder how you think about that one looking

1:23:52

back now with again the benefit of a lot

1:23:54

of hindsight Look

1:23:57

I'm totally on board with

1:24:02

any industry, every industry, the movie

1:24:04

business as well, confronting

1:24:09

the problem of what

1:24:12

had been minimal diversity. There's

1:24:16

nobody of any

1:24:18

gender or any race

1:24:23

or any alternate

1:24:25

lifestyle that I'm not interested in if they

1:24:27

have a story in their heart they want

1:24:30

to tell. What

1:24:34

I know is that the solution is

1:24:38

not limiting the casting of Hamlet

1:24:40

to Danish princes. And

1:24:43

not only is it an

1:24:46

attack on imagination that is

1:24:49

our bread and butter, but

1:24:51

it is a demonstration of the unimaginative

1:24:53

who would ask it. And

1:24:56

I find it culturally

1:24:59

offensive and

1:25:02

venal and

1:25:05

sad that

1:25:07

that's the easy

1:25:09

solution for people to have group

1:25:11

think on and

1:25:13

all those defenses. Now God knows,

1:25:17

I'll just pick one movie out of the

1:25:19

air when it comes to more black actors

1:25:22

working. Thank God the

1:25:24

fight is in them when

1:25:26

you see something like Straight Outta Compton. Great

1:25:31

movie, great performances. Wouldn't

1:25:35

have had it without the fight being in it,

1:25:38

but it's got to mature and that

1:25:40

should not disrupt.

1:25:44

You know I feel so lucky I

1:25:46

got to play Harvey Milk because guess what?

1:25:50

For me as an actor that wasn't

1:25:52

a gay man or a straight man,

1:25:54

that was a different personality. And

1:25:57

that's what we're supposed to be able to do. I

1:26:00

don't know the solution. I don't know where it'll go,

1:26:02

but I would not be allowed to play that role

1:26:04

today. That's that certain That's

1:26:07

certain Yeah so

1:26:10

this basically brings us up to Present

1:26:13

obviously glossing over just I

1:26:16

don't want I don't mean to but there

1:26:18

you know can't talk about all of these

1:26:20

But there's in there your reunion with Malick

1:26:22

on Tree of Life. There's your First

1:26:25

foray into TV with the first

1:26:28

as a astronaut going to Mars I

1:26:30

remember seeing I think that was your

1:26:32

first episodic TV thing There's licorice pizza,

1:26:35

which was part one of now two

1:26:37

with PTA I think you're on number

1:26:39

two now, but in the

1:26:41

midst of all this you get approached

1:26:44

about a project called Daddio

1:26:46

which I Assume

1:26:49

from the time you first heard about it was always gonna have

1:26:51

the same Director who's

1:26:53

who's a first-time filmmaker you did know

1:26:55

that it was also Dakota

1:26:58

Johnson who's you know gonna

1:27:00

be producing as well, but just how what

1:27:02

what was the pitch that hooked

1:27:04

you here because I'm sure there are

1:27:06

a lot of first-time filmmakers who would love to win

1:27:09

your attention and get you to do something with

1:27:11

them But what was it about this one that

1:27:13

that got the hook in you? Well

1:27:16

consider the messenger Dakota

1:27:19

not only is a Wonderful

1:27:25

beautiful talented Creature

1:27:29

and a friend She's

1:27:31

this actress who had this huge splash

1:27:36

And I'd known her I'd met her when she was pretty

1:27:38

young newer parents and But

1:27:42

I didn't get to know her until later

1:27:44

when we were we are neighbors now And

1:27:48

we'd become friends her and her

1:27:50

boyfriend and I spent a lot

1:27:52

of time together and

1:27:58

But she when she She exploded

1:28:00

with the Fifty Shades

1:28:03

stuff. You

1:28:05

watch her career path and

1:28:08

the way she found scripts

1:28:10

and directors. None

1:28:14

of us are going to have no

1:28:16

bumps in the road, but she's been

1:28:18

particularly... I

1:28:23

consider it an

1:28:25

ethical pursuit for somebody who's been given

1:28:28

those talents. How to

1:28:30

share them and who to collaborate

1:28:32

with on doing that. That's

1:28:36

the messenger who brings the script. I

1:28:39

was flattered, frankly, that she wanted to...

1:28:41

We didn't talk about, you know, do

1:28:44

you like me as an actor? Do you like you as an actor?

1:28:46

Whatever. I don't think we'd had that

1:28:48

talk. So

1:28:51

it was kind of like, oh, she must think I'm

1:28:53

okay. And then

1:28:55

I read it and that took care

1:28:57

of the rest. And that took care of

1:28:59

Kristi Hall. Because if Kristi could write that,

1:29:02

it was on too high a level that she couldn't

1:29:04

direct. And so I

1:29:06

met Kristi. Oh,

1:29:09

God, maybe the next day on Zoom with

1:29:11

Dakota. And I

1:29:13

said, hell yeah, count me in. Let's go.

1:29:18

I wonder if Dakota knew when she approached

1:29:20

you. Maybe again, because you've spent time with

1:29:22

her. Just the...

1:29:25

There's something that you seem drawn to actually.

1:29:28

Again, maybe this is purely coincidental. Maybe I'm

1:29:30

just over analyzing. But you've

1:29:32

always talked again, going back to interviews

1:29:34

forever, about how

1:29:37

when a project's over or when you need

1:29:39

to get your thoughts in order or whatever,

1:29:41

you go for a long car ride,

1:29:44

right? You've said a zillion times you've driven across the

1:29:46

country. You were once going

1:29:48

to make a film about a road trip, I think, with

1:29:50

Eddie better. So I

1:29:53

guess, does that have any relevance to

1:29:55

the fact that you found this taxi

1:29:57

driver who's schlepping her and other people?

1:30:00

around? Just something interesting about this guy? I

1:30:03

think more in terms of something on

1:30:05

the outside of the description of

1:30:07

the project, you

1:30:11

know, what we were talking about just before in

1:30:13

terms of the legislation

1:30:18

of creative freedom that's

1:30:20

gone on. There

1:30:23

were things being discussed about the sexual politics

1:30:26

between men and women in this

1:30:29

woman-written script that, let's

1:30:31

say, probably a man

1:30:33

would not get away

1:30:35

with. And

1:30:37

so it was an opportunity to

1:30:40

be freer than, let's

1:30:42

say, one might in another circumstance.

1:30:45

And without that freedom, I just say,

1:30:47

no, I'll stay home. But

1:30:53

I felt like it was just this

1:30:57

filmmaker, Christie, was

1:30:59

not going to be

1:31:02

restricted by this kind

1:31:04

of random categorization

1:31:08

of what is and isn't allowed.

1:31:10

And she let her imagination

1:31:13

run into a revelation

1:31:15

of something that's

1:31:17

true in this world and needs to

1:31:19

be shared and discussed in

1:31:23

ways where Stephen

1:31:26

Fry gives this great closing argument

1:31:28

in a debate, the Monk debate,

1:31:33

where he talks about, you know, what's

1:31:35

the way he put it? It's

1:31:37

sort of like, we want to

1:31:39

say we want diversity, but we

1:31:41

don't want diversity of behavior or

1:31:43

language. And well,

1:31:46

I do. And films

1:31:50

lose and characters lose and life

1:31:53

loses color without that. And

1:31:57

so we'll see where it goes in the culture.

1:32:03

It's a limbo a little bit now, but

1:32:05

I got very lucky in terms of being

1:32:07

offered to do that in this

1:32:10

time. I feel like I

1:32:12

was, you know, the film talks about breath and

1:32:15

breathing. And it was

1:32:17

a great breath in

1:32:19

this underwater, increasingly underwater world.

1:32:23

And amazing to read that you guys did it

1:32:26

in 16 days, basically on

1:32:28

a soundstage, which I couldn't believe because it looks

1:32:30

totally real with the commute. And

1:32:35

I guess, you know, it's been getting

1:32:37

out there between the film fest. Telluride

1:32:39

started, I think, last year and finally,

1:32:42

you know, rolling out now. Are

1:32:46

you just as happy to do a tiny

1:32:48

little film these days if it tells a

1:32:52

story with people that you want to work with like

1:32:54

this as something with

1:32:57

more of a budget and infrastructure?

1:32:59

You know, look, this one was

1:33:01

already a gift towards beyond what,

1:33:03

you know, I wish so

1:33:06

many classics who are really supportive believers in this.

1:33:09

I wish them all the luck. I hope

1:33:11

for everybody involved. But

1:33:14

it's for me, it's a

1:33:16

win. They were actually putting out a

1:33:18

movie as a movie. They've

1:33:20

got a good amount of theaters going

1:33:22

to come out. And really, now it's up to the

1:33:24

audiences if they want to come or not. I

1:33:27

think from what I understand, they're getting it out there in

1:33:29

the world. But you're talking

1:33:31

to somebody who the

1:33:34

last last film I had come, like

1:33:36

I only found out two

1:33:38

months later that it had come out. So

1:33:41

I'm up. I

1:33:43

am aware this one comes is coming out

1:33:45

soon. But most

1:33:49

of my jobs in the rearview mirror. Right. Right.

1:33:51

Right. Well, with the last minute, can I just

1:33:53

do a first thing that comes to your mind?

1:33:55

Just a bunch of random kind

1:33:57

of funny stuff. But how would

1:33:59

you? react if you got a ride to the

1:34:01

airport and the guy was as chatty as your character

1:34:04

is here. If I got a

1:34:06

ride with a character like that, I've had many rides

1:34:08

with characters like that. I

1:34:10

always like to entertain the conversation. You

1:34:13

do? Yeah. Okay.

1:34:16

What's the biggest discrepancy between the way

1:34:19

you believe you

1:34:21

see yourself depicted in whatever,

1:34:24

let's say the media versus the way you see

1:34:26

yourself? I

1:34:29

increasingly put

1:34:32

up blinders as to how I'm perceived by the

1:34:34

media. I don't think that it's very relevant to

1:34:36

me anymore. You get one

1:34:38

do over of something that you've done since

1:34:41

whatever, 81, let's say when you were first entered

1:34:43

into the public eye. What's the professionally,

1:34:46

what's your one do over if you get

1:34:48

it? This

1:34:51

is interesting. I

1:34:56

watched The

1:34:58

Crossing Guard again recently. Because

1:35:04

it had mixed response, I

1:35:08

let myself forget how special a

1:35:10

movie it was. Now, Jack Nicholson

1:35:12

is the extraordinary period.

1:35:18

It was a hard movie. It

1:35:20

was about something tough and the loss of a

1:35:24

child. What's

1:35:28

interesting, I thought this

1:35:31

before. Maybe

1:35:34

it's provoked because one of the

1:35:36

inspirations for that was a film,

1:35:39

not about on the same subject, but

1:35:42

there was something in the territory of killing

1:35:46

of a Chinese bookie. I

1:35:49

remember John

1:35:51

Cassavetes saying

1:35:54

that he loved that

1:35:56

movie of his, but

1:35:59

he wanted to make it again. There's another

1:36:01

approach to it. And

1:36:03

I have felt that about the crossing guard. I

1:36:05

wouldn't want to redo it in a way that

1:36:07

would erase the first one. But

1:36:11

I think that I have

1:36:14

another understanding of some

1:36:16

of the aspects of it. That's all that comes

1:36:18

to mind. That's

1:36:21

fascinating. Which of your

1:36:24

two Oscars did you give to Zelensky? That's

1:36:26

been bothering me. I saw you

1:36:28

loaned him one and I can't figure out which one. Yeah,

1:36:31

I'd rather not identify it because

1:36:34

then somebody thinks so. They mix up in

1:36:36

their head. And I'm not talking about the...

1:36:38

I'm talking about colleagues on those movies. I

1:36:41

don't... I know somebody thinks, oh, he didn't

1:36:43

care. I might...

1:36:46

I didn't know which one

1:36:48

I was giving him because I was going

1:36:50

to give him both of them. Honestly,

1:36:53

I was going to give him to him that he

1:36:55

might melt them down and turn them into bullets. Just

1:36:59

symbolically. But when

1:37:01

I packed my ruck, it

1:37:03

was pretty heavy. Those are heavy things. So

1:37:05

I took one out and then I... I

1:37:08

know which one he has, but it doesn't

1:37:10

matter. Fair enough. Would you ever

1:37:12

go back to Broadway? Maybe for a limited engagement

1:37:15

or something? There

1:37:18

is a project that I,

1:37:22

as a director, want to do on the

1:37:24

stage, whether it's Broadway or not, that

1:37:26

is a classic piece that has never

1:37:28

been done the way it should be,

1:37:30

which is as a musical. Wow.

1:37:35

I won't name it because

1:37:37

I still genuinely think I'm going

1:37:39

to try to do that at some point.

1:37:41

I'd like to think that. That's awesome. And

1:37:44

then there's been some talk about Dakota and I

1:37:46

doing a Daddio on the stage. Oh, that would

1:37:49

be great. That would be great. Okay, almost there.

1:37:51

If you could go back in time and do

1:37:53

a movie that you opted not to do, which

1:37:56

would it be? Well,

1:37:59

I'll say this. There are a couple of movies.

1:38:02

I never think it's very, unless it's

1:38:04

gotten out there on its own somehow, very

1:38:09

respectful to mention, you know, I

1:38:11

was offered that part and turned it down. And

1:38:14

so whoever the actor they know to have done

1:38:16

it was not their first choice or something like

1:38:18

that. I can

1:38:20

tell you had this experience twice where

1:38:24

for whatever reason I

1:38:26

turned down, there were

1:38:28

two of them, three.

1:38:33

Two of them was the same actor who

1:38:35

ended up doing the parts that I was offered. The

1:38:39

movies were better

1:38:42

than I even thought they were going to be. And

1:38:45

the reason they were better than I thought they were going

1:38:47

to be was because that actor played the part and not

1:38:49

me. And he was incredible

1:38:52

in them. And some

1:38:55

part of you is really, you

1:38:58

get excited by projects when you feel like

1:39:00

you have value added to it. If

1:39:03

I can think of six other actors, which

1:39:07

I often do, who are in for this role,

1:39:10

whatever it is, let's

1:39:12

say, I don't want to say better. Let's say more

1:39:15

the movie eyes I would like to see it than

1:39:17

where I am in that part. I

1:39:20

don't really get excited about doing it. So,

1:39:24

you know, I've gone to movies and thought, gosh,

1:39:26

I've had a great experience as an audience. But

1:39:29

I'm grateful that I didn't do it. Yeah. Let's

1:39:33

say they're teaching a class at Harvard or

1:39:35

Yale or something on the

1:39:37

filmography of Sean Penn. Or

1:39:40

it's the films of the

1:39:42

last 50 years and they're going to do one class about

1:39:45

Sean Penn and they can only screen

1:39:47

one movie. Which it

1:39:49

doesn't mean you think it's your greatest or

1:39:51

whatever, but what would you want people to

1:39:53

see to get what you are

1:39:55

about? And this could be years from now. I

1:40:00

remember Lawrence Kasdan talking about when

1:40:04

there was this point in time, he was describing

1:40:08

agents, where they

1:40:10

were in their earpieces for

1:40:12

their phones, and they're in

1:40:14

the mix of the deal all the time, and

1:40:17

studio executives. And

1:40:20

of course, we know there are exceptions

1:40:22

within the ranks. But it's

1:40:25

a pretty generically true bloodbath,

1:40:29

and it's about money, not

1:40:33

movies. And he was

1:40:37

giving a talk at the AFI, Kasdan, and he

1:40:39

said, you know, movies

1:40:43

can be very entertaining, it

1:40:46

can be a lot of fun, they can make a

1:40:48

lot of money, money's good, it gives you a lot

1:40:50

of freedom, you can help causes you're interested in, live

1:40:52

a... He

1:40:54

says, but if you're in the movie business,

1:40:58

just for money, I'm

1:41:02

against you. Because

1:41:04

movies can be big medicine. So you

1:41:06

asked me, like, what movie? Well, what's

1:41:09

today? On June 25, 2024, what's

1:41:12

the contribution to of

1:41:17

medicine that I think is of most

1:41:19

value today with what's happening in the

1:41:21

world? I'm

1:41:23

going to say, into the

1:41:25

wild. That could change

1:41:28

tomorrow, might have been different yesterday, but that's what

1:41:30

I'm feeling, we have to say right now. That's

1:41:32

great. Finally, if,

1:41:34

you know, we're all our,

1:41:36

all of our clocks are going to run out at

1:41:38

some point, there are things

1:41:41

we all want to do, what would you be most

1:41:45

frustrated in if you, if you don't get

1:41:47

to it? You know, like, what's, what have

1:41:49

you not done that you most

1:41:51

want to make sure you do? My

1:41:53

kids know exactly what I want on my gravestone, but

1:41:57

it's got to be true. And

1:41:59

I'm getting close. close.

1:42:02

It wouldn't appear so today here with

1:42:04

the chairs missing, but

1:42:07

it's part of the mission. I

1:42:09

would like it to say it's

1:42:12

squared away individual. I

1:42:14

just want to be squared away. I

1:42:16

want to know where everything that

1:42:18

I want of

1:42:20

material is. I want to

1:42:22

know what its purpose is, that it has one or

1:42:24

it's out. And I want

1:42:27

to have things suit my eye, simple

1:42:30

things, and

1:42:33

be a squared away individual. Well,

1:42:35

can't thank you enough for all the films

1:42:38

and for the time today and all of

1:42:40

that. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank

1:42:43

you. Thanks

1:42:49

for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate

1:42:51

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