WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 735 - Alan Alda

Episode Date: August 22, 2016

Alan Alda always strives to play someone different. He takes Marc through the many characters he's created, from Hawkeye to Uncle Pete, and explains how he challenges himself from role to role. Plus, Alan talks about why he created an academic organization that advances science communication. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuck sticks how about that one how about it welcome i'm mark maron this is wt my podcast. Thank you for being here. I just drove back from Phoenix where I did two shows on Saturday night at Stand Up Live and they were spectacular. Sold both shows out.

Andy Steinberg opened, Ryan Singer featured. I did the nice big hour 15, hour 20 close with the new stuff and it was great. It was great. I drove i drove there i mentioned that i just drove back because i'm punchy because i wanted to drive why didn't i fly because i wanted to have the meditative experience of driving five hours and a half to phoenix three or four of those through the desert where it's just you and the horizon, my buddy singers there. We're listening to Beatles music.

We're listening to a lot of different kinds of music. We're talking and we're just having that. You kind of zone into the drive and things just get, it just got that. All the stuff that you carry with you kind of dissipates into the, uh, the horizon line of the desert. It was great. It was great. It was great. Let me get, I want to tell you this.

So this is exciting and important. I have Alan Alda on the show today. That's exciting and important. And also you can now get my special More Later as a digital download. A lot of you couldn't watch it or didn't watch it or couldn't figure out how to watch it. You can get it now.

More Later is available exclusively at wtfpod.com until september 1st for 7.99 so like get that thing now before the price goes up you can go to wtfpod.com there's a link on the home page as well as in the merch section you can just own it own more later this is how we're doing it now uh i'm very proud of that special and i know a lot of you didn't see it so here's your shot more later is now available so what's going on yeah i made the big drive to phoenix and i you know i had some that kind of uh emotional it's emotional man i some of you know a little bit about me some of you know more than others but phoenix is a relatively loaded bit of geographical for me uh my first wife was from

phoenix my uh former in-laws live in phoenix my former sister-in-law lives in phoenix and it's uh it's it's a troubling thing to me that i have not, I'm yet to make that amends. I just can't seem to pull it together. After a certain point, if it may harm myself or others or why am I doing it, stuff, water under the bridge, she's happy. They're okay. We're all good. But nonetheless, I've gone there a lot. My brother lives there and his wife and kids and his ex-wife and their kids. It's it's just it's all loaded up phoenix is all loaded up and i drove out there and um what i didn't expect was uh you know an old friend of mine my best friend in high school a a guy named Dave, who was a guitar player, Dave Bishop.

His pop owned a stereo place in Albuquerque. We were best friends in high school, and he passed away many years ago. Many years ago. And he has a little brother who I knew as well a couple years younger than me, not much younger, named Roger. And I had not seen Roger in 30 fucking years. and I had not seen Roger in 30 fucking years. And, and Roger came to the show with this other kid who went to high school with me,

but was Roger's age, a couple of years younger, but I used to drive them to school. I see them all the time. And I hadn't seen Roger in 30 years. And he came to the show. And after the show, we hung out and it was like,

you know, I, it was like almost crying. It was just like, I couldn't believe that you don't see someone that long. And so much has happened in each of our lives. But the essence of the guy is there. And I'm sure my essence is there.

And the absence of this guy that was his brother and my best friend becomes living in between us. And it was really fucking touching. And sometimes I forget, you just get consumed with life and you get consumed with the pace of what you're doing and running and doing whatever it is. And then you just have this moment where you're like, holy shit, so much emotions, so much past, so much grief that was unresolved. And it's just like in this moment, you see the person, I'm like, God damn it, man, it's great to see you. And he gave me a couple of pictures that he had

of me and Dave, Polaroids. I hadn't looked at him, you know, from high school. And his mom was in one, she's passed, and I knew his dad, and he's gone. And wow, man, it was just fucking great. And you forget that that's an amazing part of life is that you know to try to maintain these relationships or at least get up to speed with people that had a place in your life at some other time if there's no bad blood there

why not connect and it was just powerful i i you know i i took like an hour or two to really kind of process and feel what came up. Just thinking about Dave, thinking about how funny he was, thinking about how great a guitar player he was, and thinking about like all that life I missed. It was just, it was a beautiful thing. All right? It was a beautiful thing. And I saw my brother, and he's doing okay.

But I got to remember, man, you know, life, whatever life is made of, part of it is that. Where'd you come from? Who were your people? Are they still around? Do you have unresolved stuff? Is there some way to access those feelings again? It was just great hanging out with Roger and thinking about Dave and talking about Dave. It was heavy, man, but it was beautiful.

I'll tell you, there are some liabilities, folks. There are some liabilities to technology. And I'll tell you one of them. Ryan and I, we're driving back. We're driving back from Phoenix and we're listening to Apple music through my phone and through the Bluetooth in the car. We start talking about Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper. And I was like, when was the last time you listened to Sergeant Pepper?

And we decided it had been a while. So we put on Sergeant Pepper and I'm ecstatic. I just get overwhelmed with excitement. And at some point I go, there's no way Pet Sounds is better than this. I don't care who did what first. No way. Now I got nothing in Pet Sounds. Not a huge Beach Boys guy, but I appreciate it. And I understand the genius of it, but Sergeant Pepper, come on. So now we're on a roll and we're like, let's do Abbey Road specifically specifically let's do abbey road part two you know side two because that's the medley that's you know you never give your money into one sweet

dream pick up the bags get in like it's just like that whole run of side two of abbey road is fucking astounding now i don't need to pitch the beatles you know what i'm talking about so here's what happens because we're driving through the desert we're fucking going man we're going we went you know we got into you never give me your money all the way through that we're in sun king we're singing along we're in mean mr mustard we're fucking in it you know we're we're singing along to mean mr mustard then the end of mean mr mustard comes out and we're about ready to launch into polythene pam you know bam bam and right when we're both about to launch in we lose the signal it drops out we're hanging there at the end of mean mr mustard unable to enter polythene pam to get closure to get resolution to get the endorphins that come

with that song unable to do it it so, so digital blue ball-y. So horrible. It's a, you know, it is not a big problem. But man, we were in it. We were in it. And then we were fucking ripped out by poor coverage in the desert. Left hanging between me and Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam. It was brutal.

It took us a little while to get back to it. We had to shut down the music entirely and just deal with the fucking sadness of being just halted at such a decisive moment. So Alan Alda, I had this conversation with Alan Alda in a hotel room in New York City. And I just, I was talking to him about talking to Louie about casting him in Horace and Pete and how that happened. And then, of course, you know how I work.

I turn the mics on in the middle of something. We kind of enter, me and Alan enter talking here about Horace and Pete and about, you know, Louie's casting and how that worked and whatnot. So this is me and Alan Alda talking about a lot of things. He's a very talkative guy, very thoughtful guy, and one of the great actors and a great character. So this is me and Alan. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a dan dawson bobblehead courtesy of backley construction punch your ticket to kids night on saturday march 9th at 5 p.m in rock city at torontorock.com alda Alda. That's the weird thing about television. It sort of imprints people.

You know, you're on there long enough. Like, you know, my mother, everybody, everybody watched MASH. So, but, but the... Everybody plus your mother. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I was, I started to say something that I realized I didn't didn't want to sort of make it seem like... Like your mother liked me more than you do. Exactly. Well, I was sort of a kid at that time.

I'm 52, but there was... Oh, you're young enough to be my kid. Right. Almost. No, I have kids older than you. You do? Yeah. How old are you?

I'm 80. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable that you're 80. Well, you'd be 80 for a few days. You'll believe it. You look great, though. And I'll watch you 80 for a few days. You'll believe it. You look great, though. And they'll watch you in Horace and Pete. You're playing 60.

No, I don't look as old as I do in Horace and Pete, except sometimes when I walk down the street and they take my picture and put it on social media. Oh, do they? Yeah. Right. Then I look about 89. Yeah, yeah.

So the thing is you have to play a character using what I would think of as spare parts of yourself. You can't – I mean if you're going to be semi-believable in it, it has to come from some authentic place in you. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, and we all have a lot of different people in us, and the job of an actor is to find those parts of yourself that match up with the character as well as you can intuit it. And that's how you break it down, because they're very interesting. I talk to actors sometimes, not a ton, but to talk about what is the work of an actor. Yeah, it's hard to say.

I know, right? I like what you just said, though. Well, that's the way I an actor? Yeah, it's hard to say. I know, right? I make up the... I like what you just said, though. Well, that's the way I imagine I'm working, because I work in a different way every time. I sort of invent a new method every time I do it. Well, when you got that script, when he sent it to your agent, when you looked at it, what was your first thought?

I thought, this is beautifully written, and I'd really like to do it. And the next thought, which I didn't divulge to Louis, was how the hell am I going to do that? You had to find the monster inside of you. But I had, no, it's not that because he may come out as a monster, but you don't go looking for a monster. Right. You find out why he's right. Right. Oh, interesting.

And why he, not only do you have to know what he wants, you have to know that he deserves to get what he wants. Interesting. So you have to decide that. You have to have the same urges and desires and the same avoidance mechanisms and things like that. Right. avoidance mechanisms and all things like that.

Nobody who's really a creep thinks that he or she is. You know, we do these things because it's the only way to protect ourselves against what's coming at us. Which is ultimately death and whatever we manufacture. Yeah, that's what I love about Louis' writing is that he can be funny at the same time that he realizes we're all going to die. Yeah, well that's the trick. Then you got everything. Then the two masks, the two

Greek masks come together. That's right. For me, the best kind of stagecraft because it's what life is really like. Life is fun and tragic yeah yeah and there's no avoiding it you can't you can't you can't you can't avoid the fun right if you're really careful and what was it like working with him as a director i mean because it sounded to me

and talking to him that you know you guys were kind of you know meeting at his house and doing read yeah you know it's funny i i said to myself i have confidence that i can do this although i don't know at the moment how that's going to happen right and i could see on his face that he was getting confidence i could do it too but he didn't have any idea how i was going to go about it and and i really admired that in him. And I was amazed at it. I don't know if I'd be that kind of brave if I were directing. But he's very smart as a director. The things that he has as a comedian, as a writer, as a person, he brings to the directing. Which is that he's very sensitive to who you are and what you're thinking, what you're going through,

and he doesn't intrude on it. And yet he's frank, very frank. He says, you know, if you do that like that, it's going to look like shit. That's good. That's way better to hear than somebody going around the corner pretending he doesn't really mind this terrible thing you're doing yeah he goes around the corner goes what are we going to do with how can we fire this guy we'll get in the paper if we fire him crazy it's gonna ruin the whole thing this guy

well that's very very really one of the best it's it's one of the best if not the best experience i think i can remember having acting no No kidding. Partly because I mean there's no doubt that MASH was an extraordinary time in my life. I went on for 11 years and and I learned a great deal. So that was wonderful. Right. This is wonderful because now I'm at this age and I'm still learning and I'm still I'm still able to do things I couldn't do before. Right. Because you have hindsight.

I've got experience. Yeah. And that makes me feel great. Yeah. I feel like a kid again when I can do something I never did before. It's like when you first learn to ride a bike, you feel like a grown-up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you're surprised you're up.

Yeah. And it's exciting. Yeah, and the wind's in your face. Yeah. You've never had that experience before. And it felt like a theater piece, didn't it? Yeah. And I'm most at home on the stage.

Yeah. So the idea that you start a scene or a clump of scenes. Yeah. And you don't stop until you get to the end of that. Yeah. It's opening night. Right. You're in charge.

Right. Nobody's going to cut your performance. Right. You have final cut on the stage. Yeah. And he let that happen. And he lets it happen. And then at the end he says that that was mostly good all the way through.

Let's try to get it better all the way through. But he lets you have the whole emotional arc of the piece. And you discover it moment by moment. That's beautiful. It's not intellectualized. Did you like working with Steve? Yeah, very much. I had always wanted to work with him.

Oh, that's great. I really admire him. And Edie Falco. Oh, my God. She's so delicious as an actor. And in that last episode, she breaks your heart. Oh, my God. Yeah.

I mean, you're a little scared for her. Yeah. You're scared for everybody in that show. Yeah. You know, even people that are fundamentally unsympathetic, like your character. But you do find sympathy for him somehow. You know, somebody said, I saw when I opened up my Twitter account once, I saw somebody said that she liked Uncle Pete, I mean. Yeah.

Because he was raw and vulnerable. Right. And being on the inside of him while I shot it, I didn't know that you could apply those words to him, that he was vulnerable. And I remembered a couple of moments where he really was vulnerable. Yeah. But he expressed his vulnerability by lashing out and being as vicious as he could. Right. But it was out of vulnerability.

And if I had known it was vulnerable at the time, it would have changed how it came out. It would have been soft. Right, right. Well, I mean, that's what makes it beautiful is it opened to interpretation. You know, you can't overthink it. Yeah, yeah. See, I started in improvising. Well, where were you born?

Here? Yeah, yeah. See, I started in improvising. Well, where were you born? Here? I was born in Manhattan on 33rd Street and 3rd Avenue. Really? Yeah.

What kind of business was your dad in? He was in show business. He was a singer and a straight man in burlesque. Really? And I spent my first years standing in the wings. I'm from the age of about two and a half, standing in the wings. At the big variety houses here? No. The big theaters well he was uh in a company that toured the whole eastern seaboard i remember being in baltimore and washington and up to uh toronto we'd go by train yeah and then we'd go to the hotel and then we'd go to the theater and they'd rehearse And I'd stand in the wings and watch the strippers and the chorus girls and the comics.

I learned a lot from watching the comics. Like who were the guys then? Phil Silvers, Hank Henry. Really? They carried me on stage when I was three. Phil Silvers did? Yeah. To a bit?

It was a schoolroom sketch. And so they brought me out in a high chair. Right. I almost said wheelchair. Now they so they brought me out in a high chair. Right. I almost said wheelchair. Now they have to bring me out in a wheelchair. Well, soon. Not now. But it was, and their story about that was that I would ring the bell,

and I had a bell on my high chair, and I would ring the bell and blot out their punchlines. Oh, really? Yeah. You didn't know you were doing it? No, maybe I did. Were you the only kid? As far as I know, I was the only kid. One time my father's partner in the comedy sketches was Hank Henry. And as a joke for Hank, he had a scene where he was drunk and trying to rob a safe. Yeah. So the idea was he was too drunk to really get to the safe very carefully.

It was a pantomime sketch. So they hid me in the safe without telling him. So when he finally got the safe open, they said, now you step out and you say, father. I don't know why they thought that was funny. Did he get a laugh? I have no idea. You don't remember. But then they said, they never let up on me.

Then they said, now go to the manager of the company and tell him you want to get paid 10 cents for being in this sketch. He had no sense of humor whatsoever for a comedy show manager. He said, what? Get out of here, boy. You bother me. So he did singing too? He was a singer.

He would stand on the side of the stage and sing in the opening number while the chorus girls paraded half naked half naked nobody paid any attention to my father yeah and what and because some of those guys i think hank henry and certainly phil silvers were you know went on to to create television in a way well before that they they got they were known in in movies they had a lot of uh character parts in movies oh both of them my father went on to be a big movie star i don't know if you know that i didn't know that yeah he he uh he played his first part was playing george gershwin in the film biography of gershwin and oh really called rhapsody in blue and he was he was known all over

the world for that no kidding yeah What name did he go by? Robert Alda. Oh, yeah? Was that the original name? No, his name and my name are the same. Yeah. Alfonso Dabruzzo. Oh, really?

You're Italian? Yeah. Well, half Italian. My father's side is Italian. Did you grow up with that? Well, I grew up thinking of myself mainly as Italian, although my mother was Irish. And was she in show business as well? She had won a beauty contest, but she was not in show business.

Now, you're the only kid? Yeah, yeah. My father then remarried, and I had a half-brother. I think I knew him. Yeah? Yeah, a little bit. Anthony Alda? Yeah, sorry about his passing.

Yeah, thank you. He was a good guy. I knew some people he knew out in LA. Oh, I didn't know that. Like Robert Zimmerman and a couple of the friends. There was a crew out there that kind of hung out that I met early on. He's a drummer, right? Yeah, he could play a lot of instruments.

He was very talented. He could write. He could direct. He could act. He could play a couple of instruments. Yeah, I think I played with him once. Oh yeah, what do you play? I play guitar. And I think I went over to Ron Zimmerman's house and played with him. Tony, he went by. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, he's a good guy. So now,

was you destined to be in show business? Yeah, I couldn't, I mean, standing in the wings watching. My father did Guys and Dolls when I was a teenager. Here in he's here in the city and on broadway he created the part of sky masterson right right so i'd watch two shows a week and it was the same experience as when i was a kid watching the comics you know right you learn a great deal watching from the side of how you see that i love that about show business that everything that goes on backstage yeah like the effort that goes in the people that are involved sometimes there's animals

going in exactly you can't see any of that you can't see how it's put together right when you're in the audience yeah in the audience you get the illusion created but when you're standing on the side in the wings you watch the illusion being created. Right. And you learn, because you know, I used to know those people on stage really well. Yeah. And I saw how they drew on themselves. I saw how they altered the rhythms as they spoke. It was a real education. And also, you know, having the experience of being your father's son off stage and knowing

him as a man and then see him inhabit a character that sings and dances. Right. That must be a tremendous kind of shift. You understood that there was a skill set involved early on. Exactly. I mean, it wasn't that I saw my father doing this amazing thing. I saw how he did it. Right.

I saw how he drew on himself to do it. Oh, yeah? And I saw his mannerisms sometimes that I didn't admire. Oh, the bad ones? And early on, I thought I was superior to my father, who had all this experience. Like what? I was a snotty kid.

What's a mannerism that you didn't admire? He used to put his hand on his belt. Yeah. Or on his kidneys or something. I don't know what part of your it's on the side you just rest it there

I'm putting my hand there what would you call it on your hip sort of not quite the hip a little above the hip close to the stomach yeah

and it's like a way of holding your jacket in yeah yeah he'd make an entrance on the stage when he was going to announce something

uh huh he'd start from upstage and he'd have his hand on his belly for effect yeah it's like here start from upstage, and he'd have his hand on his belly. For effect? Yeah. It's like, here I come. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he'd walk down toward the audience. And I thought, that's so self-aggrandizing. What does he do? But probably he was protecting himself against his own fear of coming out on stage. Right. But to me, it was not genuine. And I really didn't like it. But there was a showmanship to burlesque

hey don't bother me with your opinions here but wasn't there a showmanship to that? exactly that's what he was doing too broad for you I got an early I guess an aversion

to the show business end of it I was really interested, I thought, in something more genuine. It took me about 20 years to get close to genuine. Well, that's interesting because that wasn't really the mode then, was it? No, you're right, especially not from burlesque. Right. You thought that if you're going to be up there, why don't you have some honesty about it?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't you have some honesty about it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know why I got that, because here I was exposed to all this other stuff. was to see them take off on a riff, to suddenly be inspired in that moment and sometimes make up new dialogue. In the comedy bits? Yeah. But then when I was watching Guys and Dolls and I watched this great actor,

and my father played opposite Sam Levine, who I thought was a kind of a genius, he would do it completely differently every night. And yet he said the same words and stood in the same spot. But a different kind of music came out of him, and the laughs would come in different places. Interesting. Isn't that interesting?

So you knew that there was... I just thrilled to this extemporaneous riff he could go off on and still be disciplined, still keep the same words. So he could mix it up. He could make it fresh. He went with it wherever it went.. So he could mix it up. He could make it fresh. He just, he went with it wherever it went. He didn't deliberately mix it up. He didn't say, now I'm going to do it.

Because you can hear that when an actor says, now I'm doing it differently. Right, right. It's intellectualized. Right, right. Yeah. And when you saw that stuff, when did you start to integrate and perform yourself? I never wanted to be anything else, except I wanted to be a writer when I was eight. Yeah.

And always have wanted to write. What kind of writing? Do you see yourself as a novelist? No, I write, well, I've written five movies. But you wanted to do that early on? Yeah, I wanted to. My father had a stack of scripts from burlesque. Right, right.

So I used to read the scripts, and I wanted to write my own sketches. Did you try? Yeah, when I was eight I wrote a courtroom sketch. Did they do it? No. But they were all proud of me for trying. Oh, that's nice. There were sketches in there I had no idea what they meant.

Right, right. Of course. Yeah, they weren't supposed to. It wasn't for you, right? Yeah, I mean, I remember one. I remembered it because I couldn't figure out what it was about. Yeah. A man gets out of bed and says, oh, my God, what a night.

Another man gets out of the same bed and says, oh, my God, what a night. Another man goes, oh, my God. Finally, a woman gets out and says, oh, my God, what a night. That was the whole bit. That was the whole bit. And I wondered what it meant. And I said, the comics are coming over sunday night to to to have fun and put on sketches can i do that sketch and he said no that's a little raw for you

oh yeah yeah you didn't know what it meant i didn't know what it meant you wanted to do it but it had a nice rhythm you know yeah yeah so when did you start uh? Well, when I was in school, I was acting. I wrote a musical comedy when I was in high school. Yeah. And naturally, I acted in that. Sure. What was that about? That was called Loves the Ticket, and it was about two college kids in France who've run out of money,

and they decide the way to get home is to get two girls to fall in love with them and take them on the boat. Oh, yeah? Yeah. That sounds nice. See, that? Yeah. That sounds nice. See, that's not Mr. Nice Guy. No, but it must have been not that loaded, was it? I mean, was it? Well, they had to come clean, finally, you know.

Right, and disappoint the girls, who I guess at that point said, it's okay, we had a good time. No, the girls rebelled. They said, what the hay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you didn't get the boat? No boat? I think we wound up on the boat. I love those musicals that took place on a boat.

The second half of it was on a boat. You're stuck there. No getting off the boat. You are stuck on a boat. I don't like boats. The worst. And the other thing is they're on the water. Yeah. Two negatives. Yeah. Yeah. The ocean is a very powerful, dangerous

thing. Yeah. Deep and scary and I don't know what's under there. I have a hard time in pools at night. Well, don't go into pools at night for God's sake. Right. I mean, either you have that fear of water or you don't. I almost drowned in the ocean once. Oh, that'll do it. In an undertow situation? Yeah. Pulling me out and slamming me down. Right. yeah and then at first i thought this is fun then i thought i'm

gonna die and that's louis ck's work that's see there is a theme to this guy he does he has that it's just yeah how about laurie metcalf oh my god is that what maybe the most amazing i've never seen performance i've ever seen right that's what i the most amazing i've never seen performance i've ever seen right that's what i said i said i've never seen a performance like this anywhere yeah it's the best thing i've ever seen in my life just gorgeous had you know have you met her before and i never met her then because she i wasn't i wasn't on the set i shot that i shot my part of it at another time because i had to go to australia oh yeah what'd you do there i have well i i have a i have i've started a center for communicating science because as you may know i'm really interested in

well no i saw that and you're doing this flame challenge yeah every year we have the flame challenge which is one of the one of the projects we have yeah and what is that and the flame challenge is where scientists um answer a question that 11-year-old kids have. This year it's what is sound. So they've got to answer it in a short video or a short written piece. But the 11-year-olds all over the world are the judges of who wins the best. The scientists? Yeah.

Oh, that's fun. The kids judge the scientists. What compelled you to do this foundation? Oh, that's fun. That kids judge a scientist. What compelled you to do this foundation? 20 years ago, I started helping scientists make their work clear to the rest of us by interviewing them on television. We did Scientific American Frontiers for 11 years. And it's a beautiful thing.

It's really exciting to hear what they're doing, if you can understand it. Right. And I was relentless with them because I took my experience as an improviser, and I just had a conversation with them. And I wouldn't give up if I didn't understand it. It wasn't about tossing them softballs and letting them give me answers that they already had. They had to make me understand it. Right.

So you had to get to the nuances of things. Well, yeah, I had to get the vague idea first before we got to nuances. And their expression changed when I did that. When I said, I don't get it. Tell me again. Their expression changed to somebody who had to talk like a person? Yeah. They had to relate to me.

They weren't talking out into the ineffable blue to some unknown audience. They were talking to me. Right. And they had to read my face and see if I was getting it. Right. Yeah. So the vocabulary changed. Yeah.

The tone of voice changed. And suddenly they were, and they got a greater sense of humor. They were really, we were together. We were in it together. So I realized when the show was over, what if nobody's standing next to these guys like me, pulling it out of them, making them relate? Is there any way to get them to relate to their audience? So they have that same intimate approach that they had with me

when I pulled it out of them. I got it from improvising. So how about if we teach them improvising? So that's what we do. We've now taught 7,000 from improvising. So how about if we teach them improvising? So that's what we do. We've now taught 7,000 scientists improvising. Plus we teach them how to distill their message so they get to the point and make you know why you should care about it. But it all comes from paying attention to what you're thinking, not to what I want to tell you. I mean, while we were talking about this just now, I saw your eyes open up and I saw you lean forward.

I saw I had made a connection with you. Yeah. Up until then, I saw I hadn't because I was still trying to find the way to get to you. Yeah, and also because I think I know the answer and I'll spit that out and then it's not the right answer. And then you've got to like... And also, and I came at it mechanically.

I started telling you when I started doing this. Instead of getting to the good stuff. Yeah. Which is the improvising. The alive stuff. Yeah. Where we were together. I was talking about being together with the scientists.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's such a difference between that connection and not having the connection. Right. And sometimes when they're starting to work with a scientist, say, because they're busy, they have a lot on their dish, you know, they say, well, why am I doing this exercise? How's this going to lead to improvise? How's this going to lead to communicating science? Say, we stick with it and we keep reminding them.

What kind of improvising do you do with them? We use the, you know, Viola Spolin's work? No. We used, you know Viola Spolin's work? No. About 75 years ago, she started creating this kind of improvising that's very pure. It's not comedy improvising. And the basis of it is to make a connection with the other person, just what I've been describing.

Yeah. And your point of concentration is not on yourself, not on how am I doing, am I funny, am I smart, am I witty, but it's sharing the moment with the other person. And when that happens, you lose these protective measures you take to protect yourself against being watched while you're on the stage. And you get into this community with the other person, and the two of you make things happen. So this is what's at the core of you make things happen so this is what's at the core of your acting as well it is to me it's all about relating now like where did you learn that from improvising i i it's the only it's the only studying of acting i ever did except standing in the wings right but you're in college and you wrote your musical did you study theatrical in in college where'd you go coach here i? I went to Fordham. Right up here.

Yeah, in the Bronx. And I went there partly because I thought they had a good theater department, but they canceled the theater department the year I went. So what'd you end up studying? I studied English, finally. Yeah, that's what I did. It's a good language. It is a fine language.

There's a lot of good work done in it. And there are many good words in it. Yes, some of them are really exciting and interesting and explain things. Wait, they're coming to get me. Can you hear that? Yeah, I can. There's a lot of action down the street. It's not the greatest room sound-wise.

It's a nice view, but not the best room for sleeping. So after college, where did you do? How did you start to pursue acting? Well, when I was 16, in between college and high school, I got a job as an apprentice in a summer stock company so that was the first time i was there and those in that theater they actually paid you 25 a week where was it is barnesville pennsylvania and it was like shakespeare what they do just no no no repertory movie stars would come through and do the plays. Right, right. Who'd you see?

I was on the stage with Mae West. Really? Buster Keaton. Really? Isn't that amazing? It is amazing. And at the time, I didn't realize I was on stage with a genius. I just said, how does that guy do a backward flip and land in the seated position?

And he must be 60 or 70 years old. Oh, he was that old already? I think so. Well, I was 16. He seemed older than he was probably. So he had no point of reference for him at the time? No. And then I later realized what a genius he is. And when he saw him do the, other than the back flip, was he pretty astounding? Oh, he was wonderful. He was a real master. He was an acrobat when he was a kid. Yeah, and they used to throw him around the stage. Right. I think he was one of those vaudeville kids that started out with a family of performers

and was thrown around on the stage as a child. So I used to watch him from the wings every night during the show. And Mae West, who was kind of a comic genius. She was, again, another brilliant woman. She was, again, another brilliant woman. And every night there was Alexis Smith and Victor Jory, two movie actors, came through doing Noel Coward's private lives. Right.

And I stood behind the scenery every night and just listened to the music of Noel Coward's dialogue. It's so brilliant. Yeah, yeah. To hear something so well written as that over and over again. And witty. So witty. Witty. Yeah. There was one exchange I'll never forget. It's a married couple who are on vacation with other spouses. They're divorced, but they're on vacation with other people. And they meet on vacation and fall in love and have an affair again, even though they're divorced. So they're having breakfast.

And she says, isn't this, aren't you a little worried we're living in sin? And he says, well, we're not according to the Catholics. We're not living in sin. We've never been divorced. And she says, but darling, we're not Catholic. He says, I know, but it's good to know they're backing us up. Yes, very clever. That's a paraphrase, but I love that.

The way it just bounces back and forth like a ping pong ball. Yeah, great comedy writing. Yeah. So you're doing that. You do the apprenticeship, and you're building sets and moving things around. Yeah, and then I played parts. I played a long part in Charlie's Aunt. And I always had a lot of chutzpah.

Right. I had raw talent and nerve, and nerve is really important. That'll carry you a long way. Yeah, but it took me a—I was afraid I'd lose my natural genius if I took lessons. I mean, I had a little too much nerve. That's interesting because that's something you obviously carried over from childhood watching your dad. You had already made decisions about what authenticity was.

Yeah, right, right. So, I mean, this was all, I mean, I want to make clear that this was the wrong way to look at it. You did all right. Well, but what I thought was my natural genius turned out to be obnoxious mannerisms that took me 20 years to get rid of. Oh, yeah? Yeah, but I got rid of them by hook and by crook mostly.

So what'd you do after that? Where'd you go? I got a job understudying a leading part in a Broadway show that opened and closed on my Christmas vacation from college. So I didn't miss any school. And then when I got out of college, I was already in love with my wife, Arlene. We got married. She was a musician. She was playing clarinet in Houston. And I was in the Army for six months in Georgia. So we got married in Houston.

I think we had $600 between us. You enlisted? No, I was in the ROTC. Okay. And then we went to New York, and I spent the next eight or nine years trying to get some kind of work. And it was all kinds of things when I couldn't work as an actor, as a doorman and cab driver, sold mutual funds, mostly to myself. Right.

I just couldn't resist the sales talk. Yeah. I'm so good. Yeah. I'm really good at this. I bought another bunch. So, little by little, I got more jobs and got a little better at what I was doing. Yeah.

Where'd you learn the improvising? Along the way, around in there, I worked with Paul Sills, who ran Second City, and he had a workshop. Here? Yeah, in New York. You never went to Chicago? No, I did Second City a little bit here. I did Compass in Hyannisport. Oh, they had a traveling troupe, the Compass?

It was just a summer show we did in a cabaret in the basement of the hotel where John Kennedy gave his press conferences. And that was sort of improv driven, wasn't it? That was totally improv with all the sketches in the first hour of the show were derived through improvisation, but they were set sketches. Then I would take suggestions from the audience and we had, uh, during the intermission, we'd say, okay, let's take this as it, let's do it. You play that character, wear this hat.

I'll do this one. We do total spot improvs for the whole second act. Right. And that was with no training. That was just guts improvising. Well, that was what you were good at, you said. Well, I had nerve. Yeah.

Yeah. So we'd mush our way through these sketches, but the whole purpose was to get laughs and get to a blackout that deserved the lights going out. And the guy on the lighting board has to be sensitive to when that is. Sometimes we just step off stage and throw the switch ourselves. Oh, really? We've had enough of this. And scene. The guy just left to shut the lights off.

But then after that, I took those real serious classes based on theater games. And I really recommend that to young actors now. With who? Who'd you take with? With Paul Sills and sometimes with Viola Spolin. A couple of times she came in. But somehow or another you managed to avoid the more method-driven. Yeah, that's why I make up my own method every time I act.

Right. Were you off-put by that? No, no. I admired those actors. I thought Brando was brilliant. Over the years, I think I've seen some of the same mannerisms, same kinds of mannerisms among those people from that school that they were replacing when their new kind of authenticity

came in well everybody becomes a collection of ticks eventually yeah it's kind of it's i think it's one of our jobs to try not to i think you're right it's very interesting as some of those guys get older you see that there is there there is something they fall back on physically yeah i mean if you look at movies for when that style of acting was most popular and a woman, an actress, sees something that affects her, she puts her hand to her mouth as if I'm about to cry.

I've almost never seen anybody do that in life. It's true. It's almost like what they were replacing, which was the Delsarte method, where you hold your hands up to avoid some awful thing. You know, put your hand on your head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't take any more of this. And these gestures that are supposed to convey something.

I mean, it's really interesting. I mean, it's how you act, how you can act believably for your generation. Yeah. Well, there's a couple of guys. Strange question. Those method movies or at least the actors like Montgomery Cliff and James Dean and certainly Brando. They all seem to be sort of constantly squirming.

Yeah. Well, I think that came out of a decision to be aware of their own body, their own space, which was very successful in many ways. And I said a second ago, it just occurred to me to say, to be believable to your generation. Your generation has just seen the past generations acting, and you have a new way of looking at things, and people will emerge who are convincing to you, but they may not be convincing to the next generation.

Right, or even to the generation before them. Look at these kids. Yeah, what are they doing? They don't know what they're doing. Can't even speak Right. Or even to the generation before them. Yeah. Look at these kids. Yeah. What are they doing? They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing. Can't even speak up. Yeah.

You know, that kind of thing. Can't understand that kid. Sometimes I have trouble understanding the other actor because they don't talk as loud when they're acting as they do when they're ordering pizza. It's weird, right? Yeah. I don't get it. I mean, like some actors, I guess they know they're being miked or but on stage you would think they would project well it does there's a there's a i think a feeling that

if you on camera especially if you do nothing it's better than doing something do you believe that well i don't think in life you ever do nothing. I think you're always trying to achieve something. In every moment? All the time. Yeah. I mean, even if you're catatonic, you're trying to avoid the pressure from the outside. Right. Because there's, I mean, I'm probably now trying to impress you with my sense of art or something like that.

I like it, yeah. But I'm also trying to find the right way to find the words to do it. We're always trying to do something. I mean, there's all kinds of things. When you're ordering coffee in Starbucks, some part of you is just getting coffee. Some part of you is trying to find out something about the person behind the counter.

Are you really paying attention to me? Did you hear what I said? Yeah, yeah. Things going on that are active. Yeah. And so if you just mumble, I'll have the latte. Yeah. Not wanting anything.

You're intentionally doing that to counteract something that is not true. I think in one way it sounds more real. Right. But in another way it sounds more real right but in another way it sounds lifeless right and and that may be okay for for some audiences because it's like radio you put your imagination puts the life in it sometimes yeah people bring their own stuff to every role you know that story about i think it was was Eisenstein, the great director in Russia, who made a movie where he showed a man in a window. This is the first example of editing.

Montage, yeah. Showed a man in the window looking at, and he was looking down at the street, then the editor cut to what he's looking at, a baby in a baby carriage. And he cut back to the guy looking. Cut back to violence happening in the street, a fist fight. Cut back to the guy looking cut back to violence happening in the street a fistfight cut back to the guy cut back to a young couple kissing cut back to the guy right somebody watches the movie and is supposed to have said what a brilliant actor how sensitively he reacted to each of those different scenes and it was the same shot. Yeah. His expression never varied. That's a great trick of motion pictures.

Yeah, and that theory is probably behind doing nothing. Because you know they'll save it in post. Well, doing nothing can be interpreted in so many ways by the audience. Right. Just like the guy in the window. But not in a live theater situation. I mean, this is just film acting. You need a little more energy on stage anyway.

So you've been able to manage a very prolific show business career as an actor being here on the East Coast. Yeah, I mean, when did you start doing the movies and bits of television? Well, I was still in my 20s. Yeah? What were the first gigs? All little nothing parts. Yeah. Little by little grew.

Actually, one of my first parts was a good part on the Bilko show with Phil Silvers, who had carried me on stage. Did he remember that? Yeah. He was very avuncular with me. He was very kind. He was a real character, huh? He was brilliant. I thought he was a, very kind. He was a real character, huh? He was brilliant.

I thought he was a really funny guy and a very sensitive guy. And when he would open in a show, he'd get laryngitis out of nerves. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any experience of that? Do you get nervous? I don't get nervous, but I lose my voice often.

You do? Yeah. I think it's partly because in the Army, when I was 21, I got partly deaf in one ear. It's still that way? From the firing line. Really? I never really heard my voice.

Yeah, yeah. I couldn't hear my own resonance. Right, right. I think I didn't. Did you yell? No, I probably talked more softly than other people. Ah. So, all right, so you did Bilko,

and you did some other little parts. Yeah, and then I got bigger and bigger parts on Broadway, and I had my name over the title on Broadway, and then people knew me, and then I started making movies. Yeah. And then I was in the Utah State Prison when I got offered Match. What does that mean? What do you mean you're in the Utah State Prison?

I was making a movie in the Utah State Prison. What movie? It was called the, wait a minute, that was the Glass House. And we made it with inmates playing parts of, you know, being background people. Oh, yeah? Who directed that? A guy who's no longer with us, and I can't remember his name right now. He kept telling the inmates, you know, if you want to escape, you ought escape you ought to make all the hostage says they're not going to stop you if

you have an actor do you believe this so two guys made me a hostage no for real well they held a razor to my throat so i don't know how real they they then later they said we're getting out you think we're kidding we're getting out and And they later said they were kidding, but. In the moment. The razor was real. So that director got you. We were right by the door to the outside. I think they were thinking, if this works, it's not a joke.

If it doesn't work, it's a joke. They could slip out with the production. Yeah, and I don't think they got punished for that. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a movie set, right? So I went over to the i went over to the director and i just stared at him and he said i don't think the guard was in on it so you get masked you're on the set yeah i said i first told my wife from when i was in the in

the prison yeah i said this is a great script but I can't do it because it has to be shot in California and we live in New Jersey. So, I mean, I said, this thing could run for a whole year, 11 years. So she called me back the next day. She said, look, if it's that good, maybe we can accommodate it with travel. Work it out. Yeah. So I, whenever I had two days off,'d fly home really so is that much did they come

out as well your family during the summer they came out and we were done shooting in january so for a few months out of the year i would fly so after a year or two years you didn't think like maybe we should get a place here no when the well we got a place but right but the kids were in school in new jersey and i didn't want and I didn't want to move them. They were just entering puberty, and it was their time to make their own world, not to be transplanted. That's generous. Good parenting.

Well, I mean, as it turned out, I went to the trouble of traveling, and they thought, hey, he's never here. What is this? You can't win. Because I'd get there Saturday morning, you know, and be groggy, and I'd take a nap, and they'd say, okay, see you. We're going out now.

Right. So you weren't there, and you're doing the right thing for them. Yeah, but it worked out great. They all turned out okay? It's now a family tradition to travel to be together. Oh, really? Yeah, they're all over? Everybody sees it that way.

How many kids you got? Three daughters and eight grandchildren. Oh, that's great. Yeah, it is. You love it? I love it. It's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What about you? Are you married? No, I blew it twice. No kids. Oh, really? Nothing? No, I'm special like that. I'm a special kind of asshole.

You know, when you're 52 and you don't have children, somebody's right. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm okay like that. I'm a special kind of asshole. You know, when you're 52 and you don't have children, somebody's right. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm okay with it. But it's not too late. 52 is still young. That's what I hear. But I'm starting to think, like, well, is that something I really need? Is it something I need to do?

Well, if you don't think you need to do it, keep away from it. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Because you can destroy about 18 people. That's right. Repercussions for generations. That's right. Yeah. My brother has three kids. He did what we needed to do. Yeah. Leave it up to him. Yeah, let. Repercussions for generations. That's right. My brother has three kids.

He did what we needed to do. Yeah. Leave it up to him. Yeah, let him do it. Poor guy slaving away, traveling, flying on planes. Hard. Sounds hard. The thing is, I had a friend once who said, because I said, I had made the mistake of saying, you know, I don't think you really know who you are until you have kids to show you who you are.

I heard that too. So he said, you know, I want to have children. He had never had children. So I want to have the experience. He said, I said, wait a second. It's not an experience. It's a life sentence. Yeah. Right. It's a responsibility, but you enjoyed it. Oh God. Yeah. It worked out. Yeah. I just, I'm one of those people, I love babies, I love children. Yeah. And it gives me a lot of pleasure to pass them on the street and look at them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. I don't know, I never had that thing in my head where I had to have them.

I think maybe I'm too selfish or I'm too nervous. But you know that, so it's so good that you didn't. Yeah. Because now you can spend your time doing what you want to do. And there are plenty of babies in the world. Yeah. There's no shortage of kids. We have a young couple who are relatives of ours, cousins, who are perfectly capable of having babies.

But they've adopted two because they want to help some of the babies that don't have anybody. My brother adopted three. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. Isn't that nice? Yeah, yeah. That's great. It is. It's really something.

So you're schlepping back and forth. You're doing MASH, and it's a huge hit. You're working with Larry Gelbart. Yeah. And what was that relationship like? He was great. He was such good company and such a wit. I often think about the wit he had because when he said something,

he had never heard it before, and he would smile at it too. But I thought, like all of us, he must have hundreds of lines going through his head, but he only says the one that's really good. Yeah, and he comes from that amazing writer's room with a show of shows and oh yeah all brilliant people that must have been a big change for you i mean to go from new york show business to la show business and see how that whole machine works and and see how that all kind of transpires out there right i mean you'd never done that type of television before right

uh no although i no i had i hadn't i i hadn't i hadn't done a show as far as i can as far as i can remember i had never done a show where every day you go into work right and you work long hours and however the show turns out you got another one to do the following week that was a an unusual experience because I'd come from years of not knowing what my next job would be. And now for 11 years, I knew exactly what the job was. And we all devoted ourselves to the job and to one another. When did you know that it would be picked up year after year? Was there a deal made after a certain amount of time where you just knew it would be renewed? At the end of the first first year we were successful enough that we knew we could keep going on right for a long time and and when you say that

you didn't know where hawkeye came from you know in retrospect where did it come from i was standing in the shed in the aluminum shed on the compound waiting for the first shot to take place. Where was that shot? Out somewhere? The exterior shots were in the mountains in Malibu. Right. Same place the movie was shot. Yeah.

And I'm standing there in the shed by the door, and all I had to do was just a silent shot. You just have to walk across the compound. And I'm thinking, this is the first time I'm going to be Hawkeye. And I still, after 10 days of rehearsal, I still don't know who this guy is. Yeah. How am I going to do this? And I hear outside, quiet on the set, and I'm thinking, it's getting close.

Yeah. And then they hear, scene one, take one. And the clapper slaps. Yeah. And the guy says, action. And I say, well, I got to go out that door now. And I open the door and I walk out on the compound and there's a nurse coming toward me.

So I just reach out and grab her around the waist and pull her to me. Yeah. And she gives me a pat and she walks on. And I think, geez, that wasn't so hard. I'm Hawkeye. That was it. I mean, I didn't, I wasn't supposed to grab her i just reached out for her that was that improv impulse yeah yeah so i jumped into it some things you jump into and some things you agonize over

and sort of ooze into and sometimes you agonize over and then jump into and and when you saw these scripts as these scripts came out when you had that gelbart sort of timing you know that and you were obviously the comedian yeah of the whole uh enterprise there yeah and you're playing off of wayne and and whoever but like uh did you like someone mentioned to me that that that maybe you know groucho had some influence on you no you know have you heard that yeah just as a gag sometimes i would read some of the lines with a groucho rendering uh-huh and at one point as a as a as a joke on a joke larry wrote a whole episode that sounded like it was narrated by groucho did anyone anyone know that? And I did Groucho. Oh. And people said to Larry, how'd you get Groucho to narrate that episode?

No kidding. So I must have been okay with it. But I never, I'm not a fan of the Marx Brothers movies. Right, yeah. For me, they're a little too silly. Too slapstick, yeah. They don't quite make me laugh.

But what about Groucho's wit in general? I loved him when he did the talks, the McQueen show. Sure, sure. What was it called? You Bet Your Life, was that it? quite make me laugh but what about groucho's wit in general i loved him when he did the talks right yeah we show sure sure what was it called uh you bet your life was that it yeah i thought i thought that was really he was really fun funny when he did that now in the shift in mash yeah because this is where like how did that all happen you know you've done what six or seven seasons before you started directing and no i think i started at the end of the first season oh really i think so i wrote the first script at the end of the first season so i don't know maybe it was a second i don't remember uh was that exciting and i direct yeah and i i loved i learned a lot yeah

and the first show was uh a picnic scene first show i directed was a picnic scene with about 80 people uh-huh and i had several cameras so I really leapt into it with both feet. Yeah, and it's nice to be comfortable on a set and to know that you're supported by a crew. Yeah, and after a while, several of us took turns directing. Right. And whoever was directing took it very seriously, and everybody else kept kidding around. So whoever was directing would say, all right, people, you know, and then everybody would say, get out of here.

We know who you are. Look at the big shot. It was great fun. I wrote about 20 episodes of MASH, and I directed about 35. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, and I really loved it. And how did you find the writing experience?

Because you were writing under Larry at one point, right? Yeah, for four years. And then he left the show eventually? After four years. And what was the difference in when he was there to sort of show run and when you were able to do that? Well, it all went, he was the last person to touch the script. After he left, there were about eight people in a room, all pitching lines.

Right, I'm sure. And sometimes it lost its focus because of that, I thought. And sometimes it got too filled with puns. I used to complain about puns. I don't like puns. Some puns are brilliant, I think. Some I would call classic puns are brilliant, I think. Some I would call classic puns. If they take something that's in the language, that's an idiom, and twists it with meaning, then I think it's worth saying.

And Larry could do that. And they'd say to me, well, Larry wrote puns. I'd say, yeah, but Larry wrote classic, great puns. Right. Just to say a word that sounds like another word, that's not funny. No, it's got no depth to it. Yeah. Because I have found, just in my small experience with doing television,

that if you're not careful, jokes will actually stifle the emotional flow. Oh, no question about it. That's what they're supposed to do. That's the subconscious intention. That's interesting. I never thought of it that way. I guess that's true. Tell me more about that. that well i think that it's just my analysis of myself is that you know when you're doing a joke it's to deflect an emotional reaction from who you're

talking to or yourself uh you know i mean you can't put a lot of punch and power in a joke and i thought it was just the experience of making you helpless with laughter that i was looking forward to somehow that relieves it. That's the indication that you've gotten away with it. That's what that means. Good. Now I don't have to deal with the real shit again. But there is something about the helplessness of laughter that I really think is interesting. Oh, no, it's a great relief. If two people can laugh together, they're open to one another. They're vulnerable to one another.

Yeah. Victor Borger, the great Danish comedian, said, laughter is the shortest distance between two people. That's a beautiful way to put it. But I just know in writing, because I know that some people have said that when you had more writing power in MASH, that it was able to get a little deeper i don't know some people don't they they there's like a myth on the internet that i made it more political and i made it serious more serious larry was the first one to write a show in which a guy died on the

operating table yeah he went for serious too right uh in fact the the guy ran the network when he saw the show with the guy dying on the operatives what is this a situation tragedy uh-huh so they they didn't they already didn't like some of the seriousness because we realized we were doing if we didn't show the bad effects of the war and just did a standard service comedy. Yeah. We were, in a way, denying the real experience of the people who had lived through that. Trivializing it.

Trivializing it, yeah. Absolutely. And there was more of interest if you took it more seriously. So we had silly, stupid, farcical, buffo stuff that we did, but it always had an, or we tried to find an underpinning of of the hard stuff yeah but i i didn't actually i don't like to write political messages and i don't like plays that have political messages so i i don't think i'm responsible for

that i think it's just what people assume. Because at the same time, I was trying to help get the Equal Rights Amendment passed, so everybody assumed that I put that stuff in my writing. So that was a spin? Was it a slag from the opposing? It might have been partly that. I'm not sure. Well, it's nice that we can discredit it at the source. Yeah, that's good.

Take this opportunity. And did you win some Emmys? You won a bunch, right? Yeah, yeah. Over the years? Over the years, I've won seven Emmys. That's exciting. But I lost 33.

In an Oscar? You lost an Oscar? I lost an Oscar. I have a whole empty shelf at home. That's where the Oscars go. Yeah. This would have been my Oscar right here. Well, you've certainly done some performances that obviously I think were Oscar worthy. I mean, I think that this is what's interesting to me, getting back to the Louis casting and the idea of you, is that post-MASH, you didn't not challenge yourself,

and you didn't always play. No, I wrote parts for myself that were people who were not admirable. Right. In which movie? The Four Seasons? I'll tell you, even the Four Seasons, he was a schmuck.

That was Carol Burnett? It was Carol Burnett, yeah. How good is she? Oh, she's wonderful. Wonderful to work. Everybody in that wonderful. Wonderful to work with. Everybody in that company was wonderful to work with. We had three weeks of rehearsal, and I said, all we have to do during these three weeks is get to be friends,

because that'll show on camera. And did it, right? And everybody immediately started telling personal stories about themselves. It was so much fun to be together. That's a very funny bunch. A lot of New York guys there in that cast, huh? Tony Roberts. Yeah, Tony Roberts and Jack Weston.

It's interesting. I wrote a part for myself of a kind of annoying guy who's always controlling the conversation. Yeah, yeah. And a critic interviewed me after we saw the movie. Yeah. And he said, tell me about your character. And I don't like to talk about characters that I play or that I write.

I like to keep it sort of in my head. Yeah. And he ended by saying, you don't really get it, do you? You don't know what a schmuck you are in this movie. And I thought, what a schmuck you are. You don't think I know? I wrote it that way. I didn't contradict him, though. Oh,is was in it she was wonderful she's amazing

and okay so you know when i took the movie to china yeah i showed it to chinese audiences yeah and somebody came up to me and said how did you get that woman with no acting experience in the movie they thought that that Sandy Dennis was so believable that she was somebody off the street. Really? Well, she kind of had that, huh? She was totally credible. Every moment

was believable. Is she a method person? I think so, yes. I mean, that was an example of how well that can work. Yeah. And also, like, in Crimes of Misdemeanors, which I And also, like, in, like, Crimes of Misdemeanors, which I think is... That's his best picture,

I think. And one of the best pictures in America. Ever. Yeah. Ever. Like, I went through a period where I couldn't shut up about it.

I was like, you know, how is this not being heralded as one of the best movies ever made? It's a fucking mess. Well, some people say that, but not enough, in my opinion, because I think it's got everything.

The serious story is a very unusual theme. Yeah. And it's everything that he was working towards, you know, that balance of comedy and tragedy. Yeah. The comedy is very human comedy. It's not sketch comedy. Right. And it blends perfectly with the dramatic story.

And it's a tantalizing story to me to me the basis of it is if you do something really terrible are you plagued by guilt the rest of your life or is it possible to just shrug it off well it's so funny with him because you know being you know just from reading his writing and sort of knowing that he read like the you know the russian literature yeah you know and dostoevsky and stuff right there's this like this horrible thing eating at you for life. It's like an answer to that. Yep, it is. It's pretty fascinating.

And working with him, because I've only talked to a few people, but I get the sense that he hires people that he knows can do the job. He's sort of a little hands-off, huh? I guess. Well, in those days anyway, he never spoke. Right. I made three movies with him. You and I have now spoken more than we've spoken in those three movies.

What do you think that is? I think he's just uncomfortable talking to people, and he doesn't like to see things over and over again. So he's made these two things the hallmark of his directing style. If you shoot close-ups, you have to shoot the same movie three or four or five times. Right. So he does everything in master shots right almost entirely uh-huh so he only has to see it once he doesn't you know you don't have to break it down right go back and do the shot again once in a close-up when i was working with him if he wanted a close-up he'd call you when you'd say one line

and go home right you know usually you play the whole scene. But then he doesn't like to talk to people, so he doesn't give you... Maybe he gives more direction now. It might have changed. I haven't worked with him in a few years. You did a couple of pretty big movies. The Joe Tynan movie was a big movie. I remember seeing that when I was a kid.

Yeah, I wrote that. And that was a political character. Yeah, but I wasn't trying to make a political point. It was a personal story. It was a political character. Yeah, but I wasn't trying to make a political point. It was a personal story. It was a moral story. Yeah, well, it was about can you keep your head when you get big? Right. And you stay focused on things that matter to you.

Was that something you were struggling with? I don't think so. I think it was something I was wondering about. Flesh it out? Yeah. Through fiction? Yeah. I don't think, I don't know, maybe it came,

maybe unconsciously came a little bit from the fact that I had teenage daughters and I was away working a lot and trying not to be drawn too far away from them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't think I did that consciously oh yeah you know all of the stuff that we do writing and acting and i think probably even comedy too although i've never done stand-up but i get the impression that in all of these endeavors we're trying to find some relationship with our unconscious that's workable, that's usable. Because in the unconscious, that's where all the work is going on.

Brain scientists have told me there's what they call the default mode, where you don't think you're doing anything. You don't think you're focused on anything. Time is just drifting by. You might be driving a car, or you might just be sitting staring out the window. Yeah. If you were in an MRI machine, a functional MRI machine where they can watch what's happening in your brain right now, they'd see all kinds of activity during that default mode when you think nothing is happening. That's when the machine in the background is churning out answers to questions and problems and sorting things out, figuring out what's the best course to take. And I think that when we sit down to write or we get ready to do a performance,

we're getting in touch with that stuff in the background, letting the stuff come out, which is why I think improvisation was so important to me because it put me on a path to that. You not only get connected with the other person, you get connected to your own inspiration. Oh yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I do all my comedy writing through talking it through on stage and waiting, waiting. It comes to you. Well, yeah, sometimes things are okay. They're funny enough. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, and I'm

so thrilled by that moment where you say something new and it becomes the punchline of the thing and then and then it becomes your act that's right but it comes out of the air and you know you know if people go you wrote that i'm like it was delivered yeah right you're like the lightning rod right i don't know where it came from and some of them like i have no idea where they came from obviously they came from my mind in that moment see that must be similar to what a famous scientist said. I can't remember his name right now. He said, inspiration comes to the prepared mind. Yeah.

Everything you did before that was setting things up probably in the back of your head, and then it comes from apparently out of the blue. Right. Well, that's like acting. It's like what you were saying. It's about improvising. Once you find a certain comfort zone in the territory of the stage or whatever, and once you're no longer afraid,

and that's where you live, then that's the work. Right. If you go up there and say, I'm not afraid of this, and I have an audience, something's going to happen. Right. Even if it's not great, it'll be compelling. Yeah. And it all, to me, comes from the fact that the whole process is associative yeah when we remember things by

associating them with other things yeah and i think we create things in the same way some some new idea comes to us because it's got a hook on it that's attached to the hook of something else that might even seem unrelated but oh yeah it's great in the back it that's attached to the hook of something else that might even seem unrelated, but in the back of the head, one pulls the other out. Yeah, that's a creative process, right? That's why when you're writing, you've got to put anything down because that'll make other stuff come out. Yeah, well, that's the interesting thing that Louis said about Horace and Pete

is he had this idea, and he says when he has ideas, he doesn't know whether or not they'll write yeah yeah like so you put him down it's like is it gonna write and he told me uh he did he wrote it like a written improvisation yeah right it wasn't uh now here's my outline now i'm gonna write this scene now i'm gonna write that that's how he does everything he puts it He puts it down, not a lot of going back. See, he's got a really fertile mind. He's a brilliant guy. I just loved watching him.

I loved watching him act, write, direct. Yeah. It's interesting when you know somebody a long time, and if they get to a certain place in life where, like before Horace and Pete started, when he was about to do it, he told me the whole thing.

Like he was at my house, he did a little voiceover thing for my show. And he was about to do it, he told me the whole thing. He was at my house. He did a little voiceover thing for my show. And he was so excited about it, but it was so secret, he couldn't talk to anybody. And we talked for two hours. He's like, you didn't record this, did you? You can't tell anybody about this. No one knows about this. He was so funny when he begged us not to tell anybody. It worked. I didn't tell my children, my grandchildren, and tell anybody. But then it was funny, though, because a week later a week later he was like god we should have recorded that how long have you been doing interviews since 2009 oh wow yeah yeah i've talked to a lot of people so do you like

playing like in the west when you play like a republican yeah gunning for the presidency do you like doing that i'm just trying to play people, you know? And if I can play people, you know, a wide range of people, that makes it more interesting. Instead of playing the same person. I haven't consciously played the same person ever, although some people might think so. No, no, you're actually one of those people that I don't think does that.

It's only because the expectation is drilled into their head from Hawkeye. Yeah, partly that. And partly I may have undermined myself by going on television and in interviews as myself. Right. So people have some impression of me from that. Well, here's what I learned or what I got from watching you. And in The Aviator, too, you know, that guy's a heavy guy.

Yeah, he's a bad guy. Yeah, and it seems to me like what you were saying before about finding these people within you is that you know you can make a few different decisions within your own sort of personality that completely change the emotional direction of who that character is like you know i still see alan alda but i don't think of you as Alan Alda in any of those parts because of a tweak you do within yourself

because you're not, you're not doing dialects. You're not. Yeah, and I wear a putty nose and things like that. That's right. You know what I mean, though? But there's a skill of it.

I really try to see how different I can be without exterior changes. Once in a while, I mess my hair up or something like that. I wear a beard you know but not too much but there are certain actors like it's like a a challenge to myself right right it's

just there's a minor like like nicholson does that too where it's like you know it's jack nicholson but he just removes or adds something yeah you know to the to the emotional dynamic all i try to do is all comes from improvising i try to discover something it all comes from improvising. I try to discover something. It's what you described before about the line coming to you from out of the blue. Right. I just keep doing it until something in me is behaving like this person seems to. Feels right. It's how the person would be. But I don't decide to do it.

I don't put it on if I can if i possibly can did you like saying fuck so much yeah well like i say that in real life a lot yeah it's a good word right yeah so in terms of like you know do you enjoy comedy better or do you just don't you just do whatever it's going to come well i i love making people laugh you know i to help raise money for this yeah the oldest center for communicating science i go out and talk yeah for an enormous fee and the whole fee goes to the center right but it's like a one-man show yeah and i, and there are as many laughs in it as I can find, although I talk about something that's meaningful.

I try to. But I love to make people laugh, but it's what we started talking about before. I'm also interested in meaning. So, I mean, that's why I never really got off on the three stooges. Yeah, I'm not a slapstick guy either. It needs to hit me a little deeper. And I recognize there's a tremendous amount of skill in slapstick.

Oh, yeah, definitely. When someone's a good physical comedian, it's astounding. I mean, like, I love Buster Keaton, and I love so much of Chaplin. There's some guys that can do it really well. When Ben Stiller puts his mind to it, he can really do physical comedy. Yeah, he's a very, very, he's a wonderful actor. He's got a lot of sides to him i i i have a tremendous envy for people who are naturally physically funny like you

know there's certain guys that can just stand there and be funny without doing nothing yeah and it's like it's a gift it really is yeah like gleason yeah even what always he was like a genius yeah it's just he he he could just do flat out sketch comedy and then act a part in a movie where he was heavy and totally believable. Right. It's rare. Moment-to-moment believable. And there was no sense. You know, Milton Berle was a funny guy.

Right. But when he played a serious part, he put a mute on himself. Right. And you could see him muting his comedic instinct. His impulse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he wasn't the person

he was trying to play. He was Milton Berle with a mute on. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Gleason didn't have that. Gleason could be the person. What do you,

what, do you want to direct more movies and write more movies? No, I don't want to direct anymore. I didn't have a good time the last time I directed. Which was that? Betsy's Wedding.

No good? I didn't enjoy it. Yeah? What happened? Never mind. Okay. Studio issue? I should use that what a young director used when he was asked about an actor he didn't like working with. They said, was he hard to work with?

He said, I don't remember. But what about writing? Well, I write books now, and I wrote a couple of plays about science. I wrote a reading for the stage about Einstein, and I wrote a play about Marie Curie, and I'm working on a book now. Oh, yeah? About your life or a fiction? No, it's about what i've what i think i've learned communicating science but how it applies to everybody yeah this is like your

mission right now yeah i mean i i love acting and writing and i still do that yeah you know when i i felt so lucky to to meet with louis yeah yeahace and Pete because that's like my ideal thing, to have this chance to come in and do something hard and work with brilliant people. It was great. For an audience that gets it, that's what I've wanted all my life from the time I was a kid. Yeah. life from the time i was a kid yeah so i have that and i have this other thing where i really can be helpful to scientists and they're they're flocking to us to for us to help them so and also getting kids interested yeah yeah we were at the other day i was online with kids from seven schools and they were discussing the finalists in this flame challenge contest. 11-year-olds.

11-year-olds. And they were talking with the intelligence of some of the people on some boards I've been on. Well, boards are not known for their intelligence. That's why they're bored. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I said a pun. Yeah, you did. I blew right by me.

I know. Thank God. I know you didn't flinch or anything. I didn't. I know you didn't flinch or anything. I didn't. So these kids were so smart, and they were actually, they were talking about whether or not the writer of the entry knew his audience or didn't know it. They were already thinking about how to communicate science, and they were 11.

That's great. It's a great thing. Yeah. It's something I missed out on. You know, I take a lot of things for granted, and my curiosity doesn't tend that way. But you're curious. You wouldn't be a good listener if you weren't curious. I'm very curious about human things.

So there's a lot of science that's about human things. Yeah, I know, but I don't want it to ruin the poetry. It doesn't. It's more poetic. I know. That's what people say. Look, you look at a daffodil. It's pretty.

It's yellow. Right. There's a lot of stuff else about it. There's stuff Crawling all over it. Yeah, I know I mean I did a little I can get into that rabbit hole and learn those things and it makes me happy I think I'm worried about the brain stuff more that like yeah, well that there's a whole world of that's like a new frontier Yeah, I don't know if it goes anywhere good. Does it? Oh sure Okay, the more you know the better right these are the, I don't know if it goes anywhere good, does it? Oh, sure. Okay. The more you know, the better, right? Are there things you don't want to know?

No. If you don't mind knowing you're going to die, then there's nothing that should hold you back. No, you're right. You're right. Maybe it's just a matter of discipline in terms of managing my curiosity properly. Yeah, well, you also,

the way things are communicated now, you have to go to a little trouble to learn the lingo. Yeah. And I'm trying to help little trouble to learn the lingo. Yeah. And I'm trying to help fix that. Crack the code. Yeah. There's a movement that I'm part of that I'm very happy to see growing so that scientists won't speak in code that only they understand. And not all of them understand one another's code, so it's not helpful to them.

Right, right. So if we can keep in mind what's happening in the mind of the person we're talking to, then we'll all share it. It belongs to all of us. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. You should be able to enjoy it. A daffodil all the way through. And your brain.

Yeah, I think you're right. I think maybe I'm being willfully ignorant just out of laziness. Well, somebody will excite something in you. Oh, no, I can get excited about stuff. Yeah, in science. I'm going to try. No, don't try. It'll come over you the same way the joke does when you're out there on stage.

All right. Well, thanks for talking to me, Mr. Alder. I really, Alan. Alan. After all this time. I know. I mean, we've been in that bed already. I know.

It was unmade and you still laid in it. Thank you, Al. Thank you very much. Beautiful man. Beautiful conversation. It was a real honor to talk to him even though he gave me his cold yeah i i forgave him i wrote it out he gave me his cold i gave it to sarah we're all connected after alan left i actually carried his cold with me for another few weeks go get my more later special if you'd like it's there at wtfpod.com until september 1st for 7.99 after that it's going to be up on

itunes for a little more uh there's a link on the on the home page as well as the merch section great great tired made the drive i think i'll play a little laid-. Maybe. Hold on. Boomer Liz! Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com.