The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Nathan Lane

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Legendary Broadway and film star Nathan Lane joins Andy Richter to discuss his role in the new film “Beau is Afraid,” the reviews that stick with him, finding romance in a loaf of bread, and much more. 

you are listening to the three questions with andy richter and today uh i'm very excited uh to have To have a fixture of, you pick a medium and he's a fixture. Painting, sculpture. Let me get my sculptures out. I'm talking to Nathan Lane today. Hello, Nathan. Thank you for being here. Hello, Andy. Thanks for having me.

It does seem like everyone now has a podcast except me but i'm happy to be on your podcast thank you thank you yeah no they actually i well i think uh podcasts podcasting's best friend was the pandemic oh absolutely yeah yeah one of the funny one of the things that i loved was you you know, so many people are, you know, they keep publicity at an arm's length and they, you know, and they kind of maintain a mystique and, you know, and then two months of being locked at home. And even the biggest stars were like, get me on the camera, put me on the computer. I need to be on the internet and to be seen. I mean, cause it was just hilarious how any big name. Well, we're all of a sudden, oh my God, look, there's, you know, there's Jessica Chastain.

So much of my career has been built on maintaining my mystique. Um, yeah, no, that's so true. Uh, I, you know, I, I, the, I guess was, was Mark Marin really the, the mothership, the first hot, what was the first podcast? He wasn't really like the first, first, but he got in very early on the ground floor. There's a, there's a couple other guys in comedy in LA here, like a guy named Jimmy Pardo, uh, had a podcast very early. And another, a guy named Scott Aukerman, he started a company. Oh, sure. Sure.

Because I mean, I started going on podcasts because I knew these guys before I even knew what a podcast was. Yeah. And I learned my lesson going on Mark Maron's, which was still pretty early because I talked very frankly about my family because I thought they're never going to hear this. And they heard it. Yeah. Well, his became sort of the most famous podcast for a while.

Yeah, yeah. Which actually segues nicely into what you're, one of the things you're here promoting is that you were in the new film, Bow is Afraid. The new Ari Aster, A24 film. And I saw that movie in a screening and I loved it and you were great in it. And, and, but I, all I could think was, is Ari Aster's mother still alive? Like, is she going to see this? Because it is, it is about, it's like if, um um if your mother concocted your worst nightmare for you and then made you live it for three hours because it's the most anti-mother movie i've ever seen in

my life it's fantastic yeah well um yeah i his mother is alive and well and they seem to have a good relationship as he described it to me it sounded perhaps a little passive aggressive but nothing happens in this film yeah I mean you know only Ari and his therapist could tell you what he's really trying to say I'm not quite sure Only Ari and his therapist could tell you what he's really trying to say.

I'm not quite sure. But it's certainly a masterful piece of filmmaking. Joaquin is just phenomenal. Yeah, he does so much acting, so much wonderful, perfect acting, standing and saying nothing, just looking hurt and confused. That's 90% of the movie. Like what? And that says a viewer. I think there's a lot of people will be like, what is for people that don't know? It's, it's a Fellini movie.

It's a, it is a, it's surreal. You cannot take this movie and think that this is meant to be reality. This movie is a long nightmare. Right. A very enjoyable, hilarious nightmare. I'm glad you found it funny because you have a great sense of humor and so it makes me happy to hear you. I don't know if he intended it as such, but to me it seemed mostly a comedy because there's just so much stuff that's so absurd. No, I think that is what he was intending.

But it's a very twisted. Well, yes, he and, you know, he'll say that Midsommar was a laugh riot. You know, he thought that that was big time comedy for him yeah this this is hell's a poppin um yeah i you know it's it's so funny because when you uh you work with him and he's he's like the sweetest the nicest guy so compassionate and kind and yeah and and uh and fun and smart and he's a very funny guy. But you would never think that these things were working in that brain. And that he obviously had to get out of his system.

You know, look, if anybody who says it's, well, it's a three-hour arthouse film by Ari Aster starring Joaquin Phoenix. You know this is a cocaine bear. It's not. Right, right. You have to be up for a challenge. Yes. You want that kind of experience. So it'll be interesting to see how it does.

Yeah. And he has this huge fan base, Ari. You know, it's incredible how people. Well, I'm one of them. I think he's fantastic. I think he's amazing. I know you. And I think the first movie I saw of his was Hereditary.

And I had to watch it twice because there was so much stuff that I missed. I didn't. I wasn't like he presents movies in a way that's kind of unique where, whereas like with this movie, when I saw the bow is afraid every frame, if it stayed for a second, I'd watch, I'd look at the entire frame to see like, am I missing any clues? Is there anything in that poster in the background that i'm supposed to remember yeah and there usually is yeah yeah yeah no everything every detail is carefully thought out yeah oh you know he's incredibly collaborative and and and certainly

you know even though i thought it was beautifully written, he, you know, would have us improvise at times and play with things. And yeah, but all of those details, especially in the production design and everything, he's had his hand in and thought about it. And so he's really it's all about the details. Yeah. After I saw the movie, I called people my dude for about three days. You play a character who, a doctor who is helpful to Joaquin and helpful with a question mark in a, in a, in a parentheses. Right. And is he a doctor?

A doctor. Right. Right. Were you sure? Did you know if you were a doctor or not? Well, we discussed it. Yeah. Because I brought it up.

I said, is he really a doctor or is he just trying to fulfill a task? Yeah. And get money for it. You know, and he felt he was a doctor. Yeah. get money for it um you know it's uh and he felt he was a doctor yeah i i felt that he was probably a doctor who was uh uh having some hard luck that is practice there was some several malpractice suits yeah when you look at the the way the his his stomach wound was sutured it's terrible yeah it's just uh horrific is it hard i mean is it difficult because i mean i don't know you know how much kind of you know what kind of technique you get into when you're have a character in a movie but you know i think

everybody that acts kind of tries to think who who is this person? What is this person? And with a movie that's so uniquely itself and so particularly one person's view, is it difficult to make a character in a movie like that a real person? No, I mean, we certainly talked about that. There was Amy Ryan, the wonderful Amy Ryan. Yeah. We all talked about what their backstory was and what might be going on. And then we all sort of were left to our own devices to figure out how we wanted to handle certain things. So, yeah, I certainly felt like my character.

So I felt that I had urged my wife to do this. Yeah. Taking him in. And you also have to question, did she accidentally hit him with her van? Yes. I mean, the whole movie is like that. Is this real or is this not? Is this really happening?

Yeah. She deliberately or did she deliberately do it yeah my my scenario is that she deliberately hit him yeah uh because she was meant to find him and hit him yeah i don't want to give too much away right no i know because and also there are the the there are like chapters to this film. So our chapter, it moves from this Kafkaesque nightmarish opening to sort of black comedy in the suburbs. Yeah. With this very, I mean, you know, as written, he's a very upbeat, you know, dad humor kind of fellow. Yeah, yeah.

Loves grilling. Yeah. You know, they're very, you know, they say a little prayer for grace before meals. Yeah. And he gives his wife a lot of pills, keeps her heavily educated. Yeah.

There's a lot of strange things going on. Sure is. Ultimately, I just, I felt in a way there, even though they seemed initially you think oh he'll he'll be okay now these people take care of him and nurse him back to health and get him home yeah but really uh there's another agenda and um yeah i just think it's they're playing roles yeah and it's it and it's amy who kind of breaks free of that and tries to warn him well something else may be happening yeah well about an hour in you kind of figure out there's no

that this guy is fucked he's uh ari in some in some interview he said it he wanted the audience to get into the mind of a loser what it felt like a loser which is rather harsh i i sort of don't i thought of him more as a victim myself what happens to him but and maybe it you know he's a you know also a victim of himself and his own right insecurities. But also his mother, his mother, who is a seemingly wealthy woman, has not helped him get out of a really bad neighborhood. No, no. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's, you know, because it is, like I say, it's about a guy, ostensibly it's about a guy that's been so neurotically raised by his mother that his life is a mess. But then you also, and I think there's enough throughout the movie that you realize, yeah, but he also is kind of a coward and, uh, you know, and, and, uh,

whether that's her fault, know because it does it i think it would be difficult to for a movie like that to not just end up being kind of self-pitying like oh the poor guy you know right and but i don't feel like it's that way because there's so many different ways different points in the movie where you feel like, oh no, he's, he could, he could stop this if he wanted, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The moral is don't leave your keys in the apartment door.

That's right. That's right. Beyond that, everything would be great. Well, it's, uh, in this podcast, I mean, what I kind of do is kind of, uh, try to get sort of a sense of where people come from and, you know, how it sort of affected the people that they are now. And you're a Jersey boy, I hear. I am. Jersey City, New Jersey.

And was that where you were raised, too? Did you grow up there, too? Yeah, pretty much. Later on, after high school, we moved to rutherford but yes i i was i grew up in jersey city and what what was your neighborhood like it was sort of a middle class yeah you know it was uh i went to catholic school sacred Yeah, we lived very close to my grandmother. And so we were in the same, like a block away or block or two away. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a very much a neighborhood, you know, sort of Irish Catholic families. Yeah. But, you know, but a mixture of people too. I mean, there were there were black families and did it start to kind of did the name was there white flight like in your lifetime because i know you know there's so many especially on the east coast you know people that lived on long island you know there was white flight from parts of long island and white flights from parts of jersey and uh you know and and is that an aspect? You know, I didn't seem that way.

And so now I would say probably that neighborhood is primarily black and Puerto Rican. I'm sure it's changed, you know, since, you know, I was born in 1956. So, yeah, changed a lot since then. Well, so have you, to be frank, you know. Well born in 1956 so yeah changed a lot since then well so have you to be frank you know well sure yeah yes i have i have can't you tell my love's a crow did growing up so close to New York City, do you think that it made New York more mysterious and magical or made it more approachable to you as you started to feel like you wanted to be an actor? It was something that I read about really more than it wasn't. It wasn't until later on that my my oldest brother, Dan would who took he would take me to the theater

to see plays initially it was just reading about i was quite fascinated by the i was a voracious reader and i was given a lot of books as a kid and then and i read and then i started reading plays as well i i joined a play of the month club called the fireside theater that would send me you know like the first play i got was the odd couple by neil siden you know with these black and white photos of walter matthew and art carney and uh it just you know and and and so all of that and reading about i I was fascinated by the Algonquin Roundtable and these, you know, these very witty alcoholics. And this sort of glamorous New York, at least on the surface of the 30s, you know, and these people who were, they were journalists or they were playwrights or they, you know, are actors and they all gathered together. And that fascinated me.

Yeah. You know, when I started going to New York, it sort of terrified me. It seemed like a very frightening place to live. When I was young, you know, it was very exotic to be taken there to go there to see a play it was a little scary and it well then to be frank the theater district was close to times square which is at that time a pretty scary place to be yeah yeah you know i went in the well i mean i moved to new york in the late 70s like 77 78 but um yeah no it was it was yeah the theater district was for a long time yeah kind of seedy and yeah but i mean and also

is but that's the heart of the theater uh-huh broadway and and off broadway but um uh yeah new york was obviously it it you know i wasn't thinking oh i i used to when i was taking the plays i thought this was perhaps something i could do or at least i was just fascinated by it and and sitting in the dark and people telling us a story but um you know i thought you know there was a part of me that thought, oh, I'd like to try that. And so that's how it started. And all of that, it's all based in New York. And eventually when I thought about maybe I could do it for a living, you know, I knew that that's where I would have to go to go yeah did you start acting in high school then is that kind of when you started to um practice and take it more seriously and

well my you know there's a whole other you know eugene o'neill side to my dysfunctional irish catholic family where you know my my father was an alcoholic. He died when I was 11. And then my mother had a breakdown. She was, and eventually was diagnosed as bipolar. And, uh, and I had two older brothers, Bob and Dan, and they had, they had, uh, uh, gotten married, moved out and gotten married. So my brother, Dan sort of felt like, I think he felt he had to be a father figure to me. And how much older he's about to turn 80 and I'm 67.

Okay. So he, um, he had some, he was in college and he had some friends who were doing a play and they needed a kid to be in the play. I was, I guess, eight or nine or something. And he said, my, my brother will do it. He just volunteered my services. And he came home and said, would you like to be in a play at Jersey City State College? And I said, oh, I don't know.

And he said, well, you're going to be in one. And so now I found myself in this play. And so now I found myself in this play and and then he must have just felt, you know, that I had a you know, I had an interest in the arts. I know why he was doing this and taking me to see shows. Eventually, that's what he did. Took me to see plays in New York. But, you know, sometimes he was in he would later on when he was teaching he would you know sometimes he took classes or students to see plays or he but and he often took me and and not you know not like real commercial fair he took me

to see uh uh a british farce called black Comedy that starred Geraldine Page and Michael Crawford. He took me to see Alan Bates in Butley. He took me to see Hair. Yeah, these are pretty complex plays to take a kid to. And a little off-Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That was a very long-running festival production. So, you know, it was sort of where I remember, I do remember seeing that play and uh this actress and i can't recall her name now but who played nurse ratchet and she was she

was really great in it this actress and she was in it for for most of the run of this play but i remember and he we went back to see it a couple of times because we liked it so much and he loved it too and when they were different people playing mcmurphy the mcmurphy character and what we now know is the sort of the jack nicholson role right and this one night she came she said there's this very dramatic scene where this young character, Billy, I forget his name, but he's committed suicide. And she's really caused this. And you saw that he wanted to choke her. And then he went for her, Nick Murphy, and put his hands around her neck.

And I remember someone in the audience yelled out. It was such a tense moment. He yelled out, killer, killer. A little ancient Rome. Right, right. It was so, I just remember like, wow, the theater can have that effect. You can have that effect on, they can be so emotionally involved. They're literally like uh yelling out

yeah i that is kind of amazing because it's it is different than than film because film you're not present with the people that are telling the story there's you know there's a remove so i think it can be a little easier for it to reach kind of a dreamlike state that you've been drawn into. Whereas with a play, these are other human beings and you're in a room with these other human beings. And I don't know, I just think it's, at least for me, I've always found it easier to lose myself in a movie because it seems more private, you know? I mean, you certainly can lose yourself in a play. I mean, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you've done theater.

I came from improv. Yeah, I've done some theater. Not a ton. I did, in New York, David Sedaris wrote a play and he wrote a part for me in a play. And I had done a lot of shows that we sort of wrote as a group in Chicago. Um, but they were all kind of comedy, but I didn't, I only took a couple of acting classes

in college and I, I, I, I wanted to be an actor, but a, I don't think I could admit it. It seemed too fancy and too self-indulgent, you know, it's, it was, you know, because there is, you are saying, I want everyone in the room to be quiet and listen to me. You know, there is a, there's a certain amount of self-regard that's inherent in, in even doing it and even getting up there. You're like, well, all these people are going to want to see me and hear what I have to say. So I'm going to do it, but I want to have cards made up and say, Nathan Lane, fancy and self-indulgent. They have to be nice. So they have to be like the raised letters and

really nice card stuff. But I went to, I went to film schools and, and so I kind of always was kind of pushing towards acting in movies, you know, and that was kind of, and as time has gone on, I've done live stage shows, but I, I like the, the sort of, but like a little gang of people going around and making this story that then they'll cut together and put together later. this story that then they'll cut together and put together later um and you know when people ask me you know like how much i played to the audience for all those years on the conan show and i always say the most rewarding laughs for me were when i could see the cameraman laughing and trying you know to not laugh because they saw every every bit of my bullshit over the years. So if I could sort of reach them, I always felt like that was something more, because certainly you were more than a sidekick. You were sort of Conan's secret weapon.

You were there. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It was something hilarious and witty. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, it was a fun gig. It was a fun gig.

And, you know, people, when they've complimented me about my batting average, I say, yeah, but I only swung at pitches that I wanted to. I could let, I could let a whole show go by and not say anything if, you know, there wasn't the opportunity. So it is, I mean, I appreciate, I appreciate that people liked it, but do you think, do you think that because it's, I'm struck by such a, it's such a loving thing of your brother to do that, to see that you have an interest in something maybe before you even realize you have an interest in it and to then nurture that. I mean, it's, it comes from such

a place of love and caring and caretaking. Oh, both of my brothers, I've told this story a few times, but they took me out to throw a football around at one point. And, uh, and so we were, he, they were throwing the football to me and I would throw it back and we did it, you know, a few times. And then I caught the football and I stopped. Again, I was around 10, something like that. And I called them over and they said, what's wrong? Are you okay? And I said, yes.

But listen, I am not a sportsman. I said, okay. All right. Well, let's go get some ice cream i had other you know i was going in a different direction yeah i have a 22 year old son and he was my first child and i felt this kind of societal pressure to go out and toss the ball around with a kid which i never the person that tossed tossed the ball around with me was my mother. So I didn't really exactly have the same paradigm that everyone else had.

So, okay. You know, I got him a mitt and I like baseball, but I'm not a big, I'm not a big sportsman myself, but we went out and we were playing catch for about five minutes. And then my son said, can we just stop? Can we just stop this he's like i want to go in and draw and i was like go on in and draw and then i didn't feel like i was like okay well you know at least we're on the same page with this playing catch with dad stuff well it's so it was sweet that he was able to say that to you that you know, I want to go in and draw, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I never, it drives me crazy when people try to force their kids into stuff, you know, I mean, but then you never know whether to push or whether to let, especially with sports, because my kids playing team sports, they both were like, nah, no way. And then I respected their wishes wishes and there's times i think was i supposed to force them like i you know it's too late now but you know yeah it's there's something good about it about the you know finding out yeah to be on a team to be part of a team yeah you know but it's yeah no you don't want to force that on anybody. It's funny.

I, I'm sure you've heard of Chita Rivera, the sort of legendary Broadway. Yes. A performer. And she's a firecracker. Firecracker for sure. And she just turned 90. She just wrote a memoir and she talks about when she was a child, she was just like running, you know, always around the the living room

and she at one point crashed the broke the coffee table um you know she was dancing at it or carrying on and and her mother looked at her and said uh you know you've got to calm down but then she took her to she immediately said i know what i'm going do. And she took her to like a dance school and enrolled her. And she had never really, you know, she hadn't shown any interest in dance per se. She just had a tremendous amount of energy. But it was her mother who thought, I know, I know where she can put this energy into something positive and artistic, you know, it's a smart thing to do her life yeah yeah i hope she didn't get by another glass coffee table after that no no no more glass coffee tables

can't you tell my loves there's the difference between the urge and the drive to do something and then the time when you start to feel like it's doable and that you have a facility for it and that and that you're good at it and i'm wondering if you can describe what that evolution for you is like you know wanting to do this thing and then starting to feel like, okay, I can do this. It's also the thing of, I can do this for a living is a huge hurdle, you know, because you just, you go into this business thinking, nah, you hear about how hard it is and it is hard and it's all, none of it's a lie. So, you know, to even do it is, is a little, a little crazy, actually. Yeah, that's a good question.

The urge, going from the urge to doing it, to wanting to do it, to actually thinking you can do it. Yeah. Well, that's a long process. Yeah. It's a very long process. Uh-huh. long process uh-huh and and you know i i could say it's only it's only in the last decade or so that i feel like oh yeah i know how to do this wow and so i've been doing this for i've been a professional actor for 48 years yeah you know i've gone through various stages of yeah i i think i could do this i think i'm funny yeah that was my foot

in the door i was funny i was funny you know uh just people looked at me and would laugh i came on stage i was just something yeah about me and my sense of humor and and quick-wittedness would you know certainly add to things and you know at one point this is over a long period of time but i did a play with um i did this play like three times i did it in uh at the long wharf theater in new haven connecticut and then in la and then we did it off broadway Broadway in New York. But it was a play called The Common Pursuit by Simon Gray, who was a wonderful writer, kind of an underrated writer. And he and I became good friends. And he actually was, you know, my brother took me to see Alan Bates in Butley. That was his sort of big, actually was you know my brother took me to see alan bates and butley that was his sort of big first really big success and and eventually i did it on broadway many many years later but he he and

i were in new haven and we're doing this play of his and it was a you know i had a great part it was just a wonderful part for me and the character would just fit me perfectly and and he said to me um we were drinking heavily in a bar in new haven and he said to me you know nathan you know he said you're gonna have to make a decision do you want to be a great comedian or do you want to be a great actor and he was talking about this performance that we just just given, and I don't know what I, I must have been pushing for laughs or doing things just to be funny because I could.

And he said, I think you should be a great actor. And I sort of knew what he was trying to tell me. And so that had an effect. And then, you know, I, you know, I look, I've been very lucky. I've gotten, I, I, I've done, I, I worked with some tremendous writers and directors and, and gotten some, you know, it, you can't do anything unless you have the part. Right. Unless you have some great part, you know, that does a lot for you.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you get a great part, I mean, when I, I did a play, the first play I did with Terrence McNally, who became a long time at a very close friend and a long time collaborator. Yeah. He wrote a play called the Lisbon Traviata,

uh, that was done, uh, off Broadway. And when I did it, I, I, I i when i was asked to do it i was far too young but they couldn't find as someone to play this part and i read it and i was like this is this is one of the greatest parts ever written it's like it's unbelievably funny and it was all it's all about you know it's about these two uh opera queens the first act is just them talking about

at at that time in that time period in the when we did it in 1989 this sort of lost recording that maria collis did of la traviata in lisbon yes and so he he's the one friend says to my character i i have the recording i just it. They just put it out and I'm desperate to hear it. So the whole first act is about me trying to get this record in my apartment so I can listen. And then you find out about their lives and their whole long personal history and so forth. And, and it's just a tour de force, you know, and, and so, um, and with Terrence terence's work i was just it was just one of those things where i picked it up and i went i know exactly who this person is i know exactly and i knew what you know terence's sense of humor and his use of language you know he loved language he

and he you know so this person would talk and talk and talk and there were long conversations on on the phone you know which i've over the years i've become an expert at doing phone calls um it's one of my my special skills one of my special right there on the resume yeah uh it was one of those parts that just and it was it it and it's sort of the show the play that put me on the map in a way i had been doing things you know i made my broadway debut in 1982 but that play really um established me in the theater community and yeah because it was such a tremendous role that was incredibly funny but also very poignant and um and so and that was sort of the big you know that's where i started to i remember i remember i had said to terrence um i had this long monologue and we did the play we did it at manhattan theater club that

we did it it moved off broadway and then eventually we did it in los angeles i did it with richard thomas there in san francisco and then at the martin and i remember when we opened you know and i had always had trouble with emotion with you know finding emotion within myself and and you mean on stage or off stage or both on stage on. Onstage. Yeah. We got to this, I had this speech, I'm on the phone, and I'm talking to this young man about, who's basically said, well, who was Maria Callas? And so he would start to tell him and what she had meant to him in his life and how, you know, he sort of knows how ridiculous it is but then he tries to explain collis's artistry to this person who doesn't really quite get it right he gets angry and then tells him off and hangs up but there's this sort of emotional so it's a long speech and it it gets emotional and when we we were in Los Angeles

and I had done this speech, I don't know, hundreds of times, and I talked about Collis so much and I suddenly got incredibly emotional. I could barely talk doing it. And I started to understand sort of where that was coming from and how to summon it and and also you know i also started to figure out how you have to have reserves of that on hand yeah you know that you can go to um in your work in terms of emotion and yeah there was

another level where you know i've talked i've told i've talked about this a lot but there was a moment i was doing a play a musical called the adams family which had been it was reviled by the critics they hated it and uh and yet the public liked the idea they wanted to see it. And so I was in it for a year. And at one point, the guy that used to write for the Times, Charles Isherwood, he wrote a very complimentary piece about a career assessment piece about me. But in it, he referred to me as the greatest stage entertainer of the decade he said oh wow now and of course i could find the dark cloud in any silver lining and right of course the word entertainer irked me as if well what does that mean what am i yeah al jolson yeah

whatever it was it it made me a little crazy and it, it, and I, and I guess, and I guess it's, it provokes me to, you know, I felt like I was at a crossroads. I'm, I'm, I'm stuck in this, this musical that's, you know, a lot of terrific people involved, but it just didn't work. And, you know, you're making the best of it and entertaining people. But I thought, is that all there is? And,

and, and I wondered, could I shift people's perception of me a little? They all, they all want to see me just as this, whether it's a comic actor or an entertainer, or I'm just, I'm just that guy,

or they just associate me with musicals or the birdcage. And I thought, I have a lot more to offer. And certainly over the years, I had done plays by serious playwrights who, sure, humor and drama, it wasn't like I hadn't been acting, but people had seemed to forgotten that or at least they had put me in in this box and so i made this decision to see if i could shift that perception just a little and i i read an interview with brian dennehy and robert falls who had a long collaboration in the theater in chicago at theman. They did, in particular, The Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey.

But Brian would always go there. Brian was a longtime friend of mine, and he would always go there to kind of, it was really, that's where his heart was. He would go and do these great, great, impossible plays with Bob Falls. And so I read about this interview, and they were talking about revisiting. with Bob Falls. And so I read about this interview and they were talking about revisiting. They had done the Iceman Cometh in 1990 and Brian had played the role of Hickey, the part Jason Robards did and sort of changed his career with that performance. And they were going to revisit it and maybe he would play this other part of Larry Slade. And they were talking about maybe doing the play again.

And I thought that's what I should do. I should play Hickey in the Iceman Comet. That would shake things up. Yeah. You know, I had had a conversation with, I had worked with Ken Branagh. And he had said to me, we had talked about this very issue. And he said, well well you can't just talk about these parts you have to go do them yeah and it doesn't matter what people say what you will

learn will be life-changing because these are those those parts will change your life and will yeah we're so much and it so that's what you have to do and so i finally did it and i i i contacted bob and i and he said well there is no production plan but if you would like to do it let's do it and so you know eventually we worked it all out and i went and did it and and it it it was ken's words were prophetic it it changed my life and it changed really the way I approach the work because it's such that play is, it's just sort of a, it's a monumental piece.

And that part is pretty impossible. It's an impossible part. It's, but yeah, such a mountain to climb and it asks of you everything. And, and, and then,

you know, in the last act, you, you, you have to talk for 30, 40 minutes. uh and then you know in the the last act you you have to talk for 30 40 minutes you have a you know essentially a monologue where you tell your life story so yeah that was uh the beginning of a whole new uh change in in my work and in how i approach things and and because of doing the o'neill. When you say it, it changed your approach. Could you describe what that, what you mean by that? You know, in that particular play, I knew in advance I was going to do it. So I had about 10 months and, you know, I, first of all, learned it, which is, it's an

enormous role. Yeah. I worked with an acting coach, which i had never done before this wonderful coach larry moss um which was incredibly helpful and you know and i had read everything that was ever written about the play or the productions of it and and and and you know from the original broadway production to the robarts off-broadway production that Jose Quintero directed that changed the reputation of the play. I knew everything there was to know about the play.

Eugene O'Neill, you know, when he wrote it and what he was after. Nevertheless, you do all of that. And, you know, what happened was, so we opened and it was a big success in Chicago. It was just sold out for the entire run yeah you know i had said to brian you've played this part so now you know because you you show up you rehearse for six weeks you have nine performances because it's a it's a

theater and then you open and yeah i because i was doing it they all showed up the new york times showed up everybody showed up to review this thing after nine performances which is nothing with a play yeah nice man come but i said to brian tell me give me some notes and he said he said you're doing great and he said but you know you had to prepare the way you did because it's such an enormous role. But he said, now what I would say is throw it all away. Just let the play happen to you and see where that takes you. Don't feel you have to reach certain heights, you know, because of however it's written or because, you know, that's what Jason Robards did or, you know, it's. Yeah.

You let the play happen to you. And then, so I started to do that and it was sort of, and, and sort of certainly had a couple of breakthroughs through the whole run of it. And, um, you know, it's just a really, uh, it's just, you know, I mean, it's not like I haven't always done preparation but a kind of intensive preparation like that and then and then also but also as you get older it's sort of like you also want to just see what happens with the people in the room yeah it's about the collaboration and what they bring and what the how that affects you and yeah you know you must get asked for advice and you know you know is there something something that you advice and, you know, you know, is there something, something that you've learned that you think is kind of like the sort of, you know, the, the, the stitch

it in a sampler and hang it above the, the mantle of your life, you know, that kind of thing. Um, you know, uh, it's, um, you know, it's the, the take the work seriously, not yourself. And I think be kind, come in, come I think be kind. Come in prepared. Yeah. Come in prepared. Be a professional, I would say. And come in with lots of ideas and enthusiasm and support. And I always remember the, look, it is something we love to do.

I mean, I still love doing it. Yeah. And there's this old story that Jack Lemmon used to tell about when he went to his father to tell him he had decided he wanted to be an actor. Yeah. His father was a baker, and he was a little nervous because, you know, acting was sort of, especially at that time, was sort of looked down upon. It seemed like a frivolous thing to do with your life. And so his father listened to him and said, you know, he said he wanted to go to New York. And his father said, well, do you love it? And he said, yes, yes, dad. I love it with all my heart. And he said, well he said because the day i don't find romance and a loaf of bread

i'll walk away that could be taken two ways well nathan thank you so much uh I know you've got to run. You've got other stuff to do. And I really appreciate you spending time on your day off. And Bo is Afraid is coming out. And then you've also got a movie called Fucking Identical Twins. Another A24 film.

I can't wait to see that on a marquee. A24 film. I can't wait to see that on a marquee, you know? Yeah. It's an R-rated, satirical, absurdist, queer musical based on the parent trap. That's awesome. I can't wait to see that. Well, thank you, Nathan.

And thank you so much for all your work and all the joy you brought me over the years. And thank all of you out there for listening. We will be back next week. Bye-bye. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Doherty and engineered by Rob Schulte. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Joanna Salataroff, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Maddie Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl. Don't forget to rate and review and subscribe

to The Three Questions with Andy Richter wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.