Also
for me it was different because I play a lot of villains and in this one
I play a dad and I play a good guy, basically. He's the Secretary of the
Treasury. I never had a job like that.
I
don't know. I come from a certain part of New York. Queens. And the
truth is that that's the way that people talk there.
I
remember that. I was talking to him and I said how great it would be if
actors had a tail because I have animals and a tail is so expressive. On
a cat you can tell everything. You can tell if they're annoyed. You can
tell whether they're scared.
I
think that sometimes when they see me in a movie they expect me to be
something nasty. I mean, I play a lot of villains and you show up and
they think maybe... That's why it's good to defy expectations sometimes.
I'd
love to do a character with a wife, a nice little house, a couple of
kids, a dog, maybe a bit of singing, and no guns and no killing, but
nobody offers me those kind of parts.
That
was great. That was one of the great things. You take jobs to be with
good actors and the director was terrific.
They
are funny and also they're funny together. They're a very good team. I
wouldn't be surprised if they made more movies together.
They
have a kind of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby thing going on.
When
I was a kid I joined the circus. I did that. It is true. But it's not
like you think. There was a guy, he had his own circus. His name was
Carol Jacobs and he owned it. It was a small thing.
I
don't need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own.
I
make movies that nobody will see. I've made movies that even I have
never seen.
Is
typecasting really a problem?
My
hair was famous before I was
If
you want to learn how to build a house, build a house. Don't ask
anybody, just build a house.
I
can't imagine being somebody else. And anything I play, my reference is
completely from the planet Showbusiness. I don't know anything about
anybody else, people that I've known all my life - my family, my
brothers - I don't know... I only know about me.
Emotional
power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.
At
its best, life is completely unpredictable.
I
think that a good movie creates its own world, and that world needn't
refer to anything that's real. If it's consistent, if it's entertaining,
if it's interesting, it justifies its being there.
I
always think that in movies or on stage, two people can be talking to
each other - the audience doesn't necessarily have to know what they're
talking about, just so long as they know that *you* know what you're
talking about.
I
used to be prettier than I am, but I think I look better now. I was a
pretty boy. Particularly in my early movies. I don't like looking at
them so much. There's a sort of pretty thing about me.
Bear
costumes are funny... Bears as well.
I've
enjoyed making movies for lots of different reasons. Sometimes, it was
the other people. Sometimes, it was the fact that I was really good in
it. Sometimes, it was the location. Sometimes, it was the paycheck.
Sometimes, it can be lots of different things, or a lot of those things.
Or there can be reasons why you'd like to avoid it the next time. Like
the jungle. I've made a couple of movies in the jungle, and I don't want
to go back to the jungle.
Back
home, I do the same things every day. Exactly the same. I eat at the
same time, I get up at the same time, I do the same things in the same
order. I read. I have coffee. Then I study my scripts, I exercise on the
treadmill, I make myself a little something to eat. I am a great
believer in the Mediterranean diet.
Careers
are not often as chosen as people think they are. People talk to me
about my choices. I don't make choices, hardly. Things happen, and you
say yes or no - usually 'yes', because it's always better to do
something. What's the choice? Somebody will say, 'Don't do that part,
you don't need to do that part.' And I'll say, 'Why not? What am I going
to do? Sit around the house? I'd much rather go to work, and see actors,
and have fun.
I
believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in
keeping things clean. I believe in exercising," he says. "Slow
and steady is a very good thing for me. It works for me.
I
don't choose that much. I just sort of take what's there. I don't have
much else to do. I don't have a lot of hobbies. I don't play golf. I
don't have any children. Things that occupy people's time. I just try to
take jobs. I basically work so much because I'm lazy.
I
don't even like holding them. Whenever I hold a gun, I want to get it
out of my hand as quick as possible.
I
don't particularly like to do anything dangerous. And here I was in
Bangkok (Filming The Deer Hunter). I was in the jungle and in the
mountains. Being an actor has taken me places that I never would have
gone to . . . It's been a very interesting life.
I
eat the same things all the time: fish, hardly ever meat. Chicken,
vegetables. I'm fond of steamed sea bass over leeks. I don't drink hard
liquor. I like wine.
I
get up early, at six or seven, and have coffee. I usually read in the
morning. And then, if I have a script, I do that for a while. Then I
exercise at a certain time. About noon. I like to cook, so usually, I'll
be making something. And I have my script. My favourite thing is to have
two scripts. It's great to study two things at the same time.
I
have been in movies that I thought I wasn't very good in. I think,
Chris, don't let your mouth hang open like that next time. Look at that
facial tic. Don't walk in such a self-conscious way! But sometimes, I
watch myself and I think that I am terrific - and that is really nice.
I
have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say `Pass the
salt.'It could mean, you know, `Can I have some salt?'; or it could
mean, `I love you.'; It could mean `I'm very annoyed with you'; really,
the list could go on and on.; Words are little bombs, and they have a
lot of energy inside them.
I
put aside an hour every day to go over that monologue again and again
for months, and every time I got to the end of it, I would crack up.
I
was already 35 years old, and I'd been in show business for 30-plus
years, and suddenly there was this big movie and I was getting an Oscar,
and this enormous thing happened," he says. "In Annie Hall, I
played the strange brother who wanted to drive into oncoming cars.
Immediately
after that was The Deer Hunter, where I played this nice guy who shoots
himself in the head. Something happened there. The fact that they came
so close together, and they were both important movies, two big public
things where I was simultaneously . . . 'disturbed.' That got the ball
rolling for me in terms of being an actor.
I
won't do commercials either. I don't want to sell anything.
As an actor, it's tricky. You have this platform and it has to do
with your face, your charisma. It's tricky when you endorse
something because people are liable to believe you. Be careful.
I
would like to be a very old man and still be acting. So I feel lucky to
have stuck around for this long. You have to be good and all that, but
you also have to be lucky. I guess in everything. But especially if
you're an actor. So I got no complaints.
I'm
serious. I do not like the unknown or the unexpected. I cannot stand
being surprised, yet as an actor I like surprise. I get very upset if my
bills aren't paid immediately.
I've
always been a character actor, although I'm not quite sure what that
means. All my scripts are absolutely covered in notes, so any time I say
anything - even `pass the salt' - I have six subtexts, comments on what
I really mean when I'm saying that. Maybe that's what gives the
impression that I'm saying one thing and thinking something else.
Lots
of things. The script, the directors, the location, the actors, how much
are they going to pay me? How long is it going to take?.
No.
The soul is in the words, comes from the words, not research. [Research
is] useless, waste of time. And exhausting. I just don't know how
to do it. I only know my own experiences. People are
completely mysterious to me. Even in my own family I have no idea
what any of them are thinking.
People
always comment about my hair. It is unusual for a man my age to have so
much.
There
were years when I didn't do anything but collect unemployment. I worked
a lot, but I worked for nothing. I worked for 15 years as a kind of
janitor at the Actors Studio. I would do manual things. I did lots of
plays, theater workshops, for nothing.
What
I do has a lot to do with the words. My favorite thing is to have two
scripts at the same time, and study them simultaneously in the kitchen.
Go over the words, over and over, do them different ways, different
inflections and rhythms. For me, rhythm is very important. I think we
express ourselves as much with rhythm as with the words. It's not what
you say, it's how you say it. I think it's very true.
If
you start to say your lines and it sounds right, usually I stick with
that. If it sounds right, it probably is right. It's curious, how you're
not collaborating with anyone at that point, and by the time you get
there with other actors on the set, usually what you've done at home
makes sense, and it's acceptable to everybody.
The
thing I have trouble with, because I'm so dependent on knowing my lines,
is that if suddenly somebody says, "Here's a big speech. You're
going to do that instead," I get lost. At that point, I understand
why Marlon Brando loves cue cards.
What
I used to do was, I'd get the script and see who the character was - a
spy, a lumberjack, whatever - then I'd try to dress the part for the
audition, to give the impression that I was tough or funny or whatever
the part seemed to call for. That was always a disaster. I would never
get the job. If I learned anything it's not to do anything like that.
Now if they want to look at me, I go in and let them look at me. Let
them figure out their own reasons for why they'd want to hire me.
When
I don't have any work sometimes, a kind of thing sets in where my mind
shuts down. It's almost like hibernation. It's not that I'm unhappy, but
I'm not thinking anything. Then I'll go and watch television. And after
an hour or two, I'll think, 'You're just sitting there watching
television and it's not even interesting.' And there's nothing to do.
Life becomes meaningless.
With
stage fright you keep on doing it and eventually the fear goes away. If
you stick around long enough you become very hard to intimidate. It is
very difficult to make me nervous about working these days. There have
been so many times when I thought I was finished, but it was not true -
you just keep going. I am scared of sickness, pollution and crazy people
but, work-wise, there is nothing to frighten me.
You
know. it's really tricky. People have no idea. How do you do it? Most of
the time I don't. I mean, I can't. You just do it as well as you can.
And, hopefully, you did some good stuff here and some good stuff there.
The best part is going home in the car at the end of the day, and
thinking, 'I was good.'
I
think that movie sets when they're good, are a lot like sandboxes.
People
think that my favorite roles to do are villains, but I find comedy to be
the most challenging and rewarding.
