WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 923 - Bob Balaban

Episode Date: June 10, 2018

Bob Balaban was born into show business and he didn't even know it until he was 10. The ubiquitous actor tells Marc how his immigrant family came to Chicago at the turn of the century and broke into the movie business, eventually winding up in charge of Paramount Studios. Bob also talks with Marc about Charlie Brown, Midnight Cowboy, Altered States, Christopher Guest, Francois Truffaut, and his many roles in film, stage and TV, including his new show Condor. 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.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuckadelics? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it. If you're new to the show, thanks for coming.

It doesn't always sound like this. I'm in a hotel room and I've become fairly sensitive to sound lately. I don't know if that's a sign of aging or what, but my taste buds and my hearing has become a bit more acute. My vision is not as good as it used to be, but whatever the case, I'm self-conscious about the sound. I'm in a hotel room, as I said. Did I say it? See, that's another thing that happens when you get older. I'm in Saratoga Springs, New York,

going to Sarah the Painter's family. Going to visit. She's got a little thing. She's got a meeting at a museum up here. It's very pleasant up here. It's been a rough few days. I'm getting a lot of email about the passing, the death, the suicide of Anthony Bourdain. We were able to post that episode that we did back in 2011. It's with a heavy heart that I do that stuff, but I'm happy that I have the archive to take it out from behind the paywall

so everybody can have access again. But it seems to be a very beneficial thing to people grieving somebody who they respect and loved. There's something about that window, that portal back into another time. We've had a lot of people pass away that have been on the show, some old and some, it's always sad, but sometimes it's not so tragic.

Anthony Bourdain was a tragic situation, and I had him on recently, not too long ago. I just saw him. He seemed full of life in his rented muscle car, seemed engaged, and I don't know, I can't say happy, but he was definitely himself, cynical, intense, engaged, passionate. His heart was always in the right place, stood up for the underdog, brought people together through any means necessary around the world, usually food, but intellectually as well. And just a unique guy and a real American original, that guy. And after he passed and we had the episode, it's hard to really know just how important somebody is in,

in other people's lives based on popularity or whatever. But this, this guy went deep with a lot of people and, and I was glad to have had the experience with him and glad to have talked to him and also happy in a very unhappy way to be able to, to give that episode back or to repost it or to, to make it available to remind people, because this is, you know, 2011 that the episode came from, and it was a different guy, really.

I mean, the same guy, but, you know, looking back on it to what he's gone through in the last seven or eight years, what we've all gone through, is just that, you know, there was definitely a different tone to him. He was not as angry, was not as cynical about the world, because it's hard not to be if you are awake and engaged. But a beautiful guy and a good-hearted guy. And you just can't know the sadness in somebody or almost anything about anybody other than what they're giving you right up front. You just don't know people.

You don't know what they're going through. And this is where this one ended. And I do. It's weird, but I feel like I should say this. And, you know, don't lose hope because somebody that represented your hope or represented your, you know, ability to persevere or to model yourself after has done this type of thing. You don't know what anyone's going through. You don't know if your situations are the same. you don't know what anyone's going through. You don't know if your situations are the same.

And I know that these kind of things, if you are prone to depression or prone to that type of self-reflection or prone to taking drastic acts with your own life, don't use this as a reason or as a barometer for your own feelings. You just don't know what people are going through. We all know the act is horrible and it has its effect, but try to stay in the lane here. Try to stay in the lane of life if you can. Look, it's hard for me sometimes. It's hard for a lot of people, but just don't use this as an excuse. And if that seems like a sort of drastic or unnecessary public service announcement, I don't think it is. It's a sad thing that happened,

but it doesn't mean that what he stood for isn't amazing and what he did isn't amazing, and that it is an indicator that you should pursue drastic action. All right, I'm sorry. It's heavy. I know it's heavy, but I just felt like I had to say it. And so here's what we'll do. You know, Bob Balaban is on the show today. Bob Balaban is, I'm a huge fan of Bob Balaban.

I've been a fan of his for years. He's been one of those guys that has showed up in movies over the years. Many of you may know him from all the Christopher Guest movies. Go Google him right now. But I've actually been following him since I saw him. And I think the first time I saw him was in Altered States when I was a little film nerd in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and very excited about that William Hurt movie. I'd read about him. I loved Body Heat. I don't know. I don't remember which one came out first, but Bob Balaban was in that. He was in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But when I went to see Midnight Cowboy at a revival house, there was Bob Balaban in that bathroom scene. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. But

just an interesting guy. Comes from an interesting show business background. And he's so funny and so natural and such a self-effacing wonderful actor I was very excited he's one of those guys where a lot of people may not know him but I couldn't fucking believe that I was talking to Bob Balaban it was a big Saturday night in Saratoga Springs where it's just parades of it seems a middle-aged wine drinking people so we we want to go to bed and we we get into bed I'm exhausted. And then like right next door, seemingly in our room, a band starts playing. There's a beer garden next door and a band starts playing. And we thought we could manage it.

We thought we could handle it. Maybe we could just go to sleep. But it was just the worst kind of medium classic rock cover soul death playlist. It was just that it was it was just it i don't even know how to explain to you it's not that the music was bad because i knew all the fucking songs i knew all the songs does that mean i like them i don't know does it mean that they were drilled into my head at some point yeah uh does it mean that we're not going to be able to sleep even with earplugs in yes i mean you know we start with you may be right the billy joel song and then we just they ease into

sister golden hair do you remember that one that was from when i was like in junior high i don't even know who did it was that an america song and then they they go into a maggie may and then a tiny dancer and then oh then of course maybe a second billy joel song why not don't ask me why how would that be how about a little of that so now you're we're trying to sweep it's coming through the window the double pane window into the in through the earplugs just a an evening of of horrendous brain worms and i didn't know how to feel like i was mad at the music but i think i don't know if i that was it there was two layers going on I was mad at the music, but I think, I don't know if I, that was it.

There was two layers going on. I was mad at the music because it was loud and I was trying to sweep and I was mad at myself for knowing all of them. And I was mad that like I couldn't transcend them and go to sweep because my brain just locked into the melody of every single one of them, except for the more modern soul deadening classic rock based tunes. How much do you suck up as a person? I mean, how much do you take?

You know, obviously this is some great, you know, I'm not fighting for justice. And it's not a big fight, but the decision just to call the desk and say like, hey, you know, I don't know if you know this, but there's a band next door. I know how often it happens. But it would seem to me that on this side of the building, it would be impossible to sweep if one wanted to. Of course, I had a different tone, not yelling, but slightly aggravated. But they immediately moved us to a different room, a nicer room even that was quiet so we could sweep. And I guess I'm thanking them for that.

That's what I'm doing right now. Thank you for that. It's a little bit of a hassle, but thank you. Because I don't know what would have happened, given that I haven't eaten sugar in a week and a half, if that couldn't have happened. It would have been ugly. It would have been a bad phone call.

But yeah, so we moved and yeah got into bed and uh there was there was nothing i could do uh really i mean it's a lot quieter and as i went to sleep the you know the don't ask me why tiny dancer maggie may sister golden hair and you may be right we're all still playing in my brain there There was no stopping that. There was no earplug for that. There was no new room that was going to take down that noise. So I just wanted, before we do the Bob Balaban bit with me and Bob talking,

I'm going to read a quick email. And I think that this is an encouraging email for people that are public speakers, maybe. I just want to ease your mind a little bit. This is just a subject line. I've been ripping you off, dot, dot, dot. Hi, Mark. Hope you're doing well and settling in after the move. I'm writing this email with a bit of a confession. I've been a teacher in Long Island, New York for 11 years now, and it took me a long time to really come into my own in the classroom. After listening to your show for many years now, it recently

struck me that I've come to see teaching in some of the same ways that I've heard you discuss comedy. It's taken me years to develop a personal style dependent on timing, tone, and point of view that felt right, and I thought that I had crafted a unique persona for myself that didn't feel totally artificial. In short, I believe that I had found my voice, as I've heard you discuss with other comics. Recently, I was confronted by a pair of students who had a question they'd been meaning to ask me all year. They asked, hey, Mr. Mac, where does the whole hey folks thing come from? I guess while I was busy developing what I thought was my own style, I was really just stealing yours. For the rest of the day, I caught myself falling into rhythms

and patterns of syntax that felt natural, but I realize are unmistakably Marin-esque. I guess the hours listening to your podcast have layered into my thinking, and when I open my mouth, your voice comes out. I can't help it, but when I greet my class, I've fallen into the habit of using your, hey folks, and passing it off as my own.

After these students asked me this question, I lied and told them it just came naturally. So to ward off feelings of guilt and hackishness, I'm writing to you now to confess. I thought you'd appreciate this. Thank you for all that you do with your podcast. It's refreshing to tune into someone who reminds me to stay engaged with art, music, theater, and the human experience. You know, I'm not even going to give the guy's first name just because i you know i don't want if if by some coincidence one of the students listens to this uh i don't want to embarrass

him too much but yeah you're free to take it if it's to teach whatever you know what i mean everybody's got you know what i mean like right now i got, don't ask me why in my head, you know, sometimes brain worms fall in the form of, of styles of speaking. You know, you got to learn somewhere. And if it's working for you, I'm sure you have your own life and your own history and your own past and everything else. You just use in a certain rhythm and you can have, Hey folks, believe me, I did not. It's not mine. Hey folks is, is not a, I don't have any sort of copyright on. Hey Folks, Hey Folks, that's been around since the beginning of entertainment. So Bob Balaban, as I said earlier, is a tremendous comic actor and dramatic actor and interesting presence in

the history of modern cinema. I've always enjoyed him and I've been wanting to talk to him for a long time. So this was very exciting for me. This is me and Bob Balaban back at the new garage. He's in a series that's on the audience network called Condor, sort of a modern update of three days of the Condor. We talk about as much as we can related to Mr. Balaban. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, So, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region.

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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. Enjoy. How old is your house? Do you live in a house?

How old's your house? Do you live in a house? I have a house in the country in New York, which it looks like an old house, but it's about 10 years old. But it was built to be a traditional Shinnecock-style shingle house. It's pretty bouncy. Right? Like this old house, this thing's from 1908, and I can hear fucking everything. Well, also, it must have plaster, right? Right, I think there's a lot of plaster involved. I would believe that whatever that stupid board is

that we make our houses out of, that kind of absorbs sound. It doesn't push it back the way, you know. Probably. A smooth plaster wall would do. That's probably true. So you're not a builder? You have no...

I've never built anything much. No? I used to make, I made some puppets Oh you did What kind of puppets Well when I was in Summerstock And I was 17

It was a professional place They had really interesting It had the dregs Of leftover movie stars Would come to it Right Like they were great Like Edward Everett Horton

Sure And Marjorie Lord Came from Danny Thomas Show That was the kind of thing Where was this? Sullivan, Illinois. Guy Little Jr.'s Theater on the Square in Sullivan, Illinois.

That's right. So all these older actors that were just sort of out to pasture, they would work for what, weeks, two months? No. They would tour all the time. Oh, so it would be a summer soccer day. Most of these were one- or two-week gigs, and most of them were in the summer.

So the stage wasn't that complicated. They'd just throw it up, and they'd come do the sht the shit it's what they did yeah and i was an apprentice there yeah i wasn't hired i was like a kid and um so i would be in the apprentice musical on the alternate saturdays i did the fantastics yeah uh and then i did the and i did the children's thing where i was a i was the miller in rumple stiltzkin. Yeah. And then I was in the chorus of My Fair Lady. Yeah. And I also built all the props. And some of those were puppets.

And one of the props was in Carnival. And I had to make out of a thing called Solastek, which I think was discovered to be like the most cancerous product in the world. I made really good puppets. Yeah. I didn't know what to do, but it was good. And I had to build a couch once. How'd that go?

It looked pretty good, but I just put it together with a lot of wood. It weighed about 4,000 pounds. For a set? Crazy, yeah. For a set? Yeah. And you were like 15? 17.

17? Yeah. And that was outside of Chicago? Yeah, it was about 200 miles south of Chicago. It was in southern Illinois. How do you get that gig? I mean, why that place? Were you interested?

Because I was studying at the Second City. They had an apprentice workshop, a teenage workshop, that Viola Spillin did at the Second City, which was in the middle of not too far from where I lived. Right. And I was always interested in theater. I was a puppeteer when I was really little. My family was in the movie business in various ways.

In Chicago? In Chicago and in Los Angeles. So you grew up all in Chicago. You were like born and raised in Chicago. Total Chicago, yes. I've grown to like Chicago a lot, and I don't talk to a ton of people from Chicago. How many brothers and sisters do you have?

I had twins. My sisters, who were twins, they're both gone. Oh, no. Sorry. But they were there. Yeah. My grandparents, Goldie or Gussie, I'm not sure. Oh, my God.

I had a Grandma Goldie and an Aunt Gussie. I think everybody did. Really? I've not met that many people. Well, Goldie, she's in Fiddler on the Roof. It's Tavia and Goldie. I think it's a traditional Jewish name. My grandmother.

They were from Belarus, but I think Belarus. Belarus, that's sort of where my family was from. I just found that out. Yeah, I don't know much about it. Minsk or Pinsk or something like that. Yeah. I think that's in Belarus. Russian Polish Jews.

And they fled a pogrom, as everybody tried to do. And they fled a pogrom and ended up in Chicago on a street called Maxwell Street, which was a really interesting place. This is your grandparents? My dad's parents. Right. They're really my, age-wise, they're my great-grandparents because they had 12 children and my dad was the baby,

so the oldest child was like 23 or 24 years older than he was. Wow. So I never knew them. In fact, my grandfather probably died in about 1920, and my grandmother, I think, died in 1935 or something, but 10 years before I was born. So they get to Maxwell Street. It's the ghetto. It's the Lower East Side of Chicago.

Yeah. And it's been different ghettos. It's been a black ghetto. It's been an Irish ghetto. Yeah. And it's whoever the downtrodden are when they first get to Chicago end up on Maxwell Street. It's not there anymore.

It's their rite of passage. Here's your street. It's where everybody will speak Their rite of passage. Here's your street. It's where everybody will speak your language or something. They'll sell to you. You'll be allowed into their store because you think, you know, nobody wanted Jews anywhere. They still don't particularly. But, you know, they really didn't want them there. Wedged our way into culture.

Only to take over businesses that nobody else wanted and then get really successful with them. And then they were hated for doing that. Yeah. So they had a little delicate testessen it wasn't doing very well my grandfather was evidently a sweet nice guy and it was beneath him to like collect money at the end of the month because she had a delicatessen and everybody would go in and i want a lettuce head i want this and in the end of the month he had to go around and he never went, so they didn't make any money particularly. Gave away food. Yes, and she hated being in the delicatessen business.

So in 1908, the year my father was born, but he might have been born in 1909. I don't know, somewhere around there. But there were a lot of older brothers. She went and she saw Nickelodeon, and she got all excited about it, and she said to Barney Balaban, my dad's oldest brother, we're going to go in the movie business. So come with me. He said, well, why do you like it so much? And she showed it to him. And she said, first of all, there's no waste.

It's not like the lettuce. It gets a little soft and people are squishing it. It's like you've got to throw it away. She said, the movie gets old and stale. You send it back and you get a new one. That's how the movie business works. No rotting food. No bad smells.

No rotting food. No bad smells no running through yeah no bad smells and also unlike the delicatessen business where you buy a piece of fish it doesn't smell so good they don't like it you get your money back right you pay your nickel before you go in you don't even know what you're buying and if you hate the movie it doesn't matter yeah it's just you know and these weren't nickels guys at the time they were just that machine right there were shorts did you have to turn the machine it was one of things. It was one of those? I think in 1908, it probably-

It wasn't like a Viewmaster. It was like an actual- It wasn't quite like Sandor the Storm Man going like this, raising his arms. But they weren't movies, as we know them. So they went in. The family went in the business. They all hocked everything they had. Barney, who was the oldest, worked at an ice company.

And he provided, eventually, blocks of ice for air. He was the first air-cooled theater, basically. So they got their own little theater, and it sat like 15 people on its folding chairs. So they bought one Nickelodeon? They made themselves a little store that they turned into a Nickelodeon. One of the brothers played the piano, so he was like the accompaniment. And they all had their little specialty. My dad was a baby, so he didn't do anything too much at that time and in about they built their first real theater about five years

later and in 15 years they had built 75 theaters in the chicago area the largest of which was bigger than radio city music hall and it was called balaban and caps so that it's interesting to me isn't it to you to hear about how the when the business was just a business that there were these relationships built between you know this is before distributors so you know your your family's theaters had a relationship with zucker and you ran the movies he supplied all the movies you needed and then and that's how the movie the business was built and it was a really nationally i don't know that it always was like as as this, but they were really friends. I mean, my uncle didn't want to do it, and Adolf Zucker booked a room on a train that Barney was going in to go to California for some production reason he had to go there for. I don't know why he had to go.

And Zucker was waiting for him in his little stateroom on the train. And he said, well, I ran into you. Why are you here? He said, I'm here because I want to convince you to take over Paramount. I'm old. I love the company, and I can't run it in these troubled times. I don't know what to do. And Barney literally said, well, I'm very happy.

I'd like to stay with my family and be in Chicago and my seven brothers and everything else. And Zucker convinced him to do it. And Barney said, well, I must find a way to keep you on in some way. So Zucker was the chairman of the board. And then eventually Zucker died and Barney was both the president and the chairman of the board. But he would only do it. Of Paramount.

But Barney would only do it if he wasn't edging out Zucker and kept him part of it. And they were really friends. Wild. So just by being in the, by starting with a nickelodeon and ice in the little place he this he built this he built this market which was the chicago market for movies yeah basically yeah and then he was like the lows of chicago yeah and then he ends up you know running paramount at what at what time in history is this what movies were made under uh your uncle's uh reign 80 million of them yeah alfred hitchcock was a staple i

believe so they were so they had a lot that's right it's a famous lot so they were down right up right over here in hollywood only barney all the executive offices of paramount starting with zucker and as you know all the people who eventually created the original studios they came from the east coast because they had mostly come from poland right and they were living in upstate new york making gloves in glover Poland and they were living in upstate New York making gloves in Gloverville. But they eventually all ended up in California

except for Paramount because Zucker never went and Barney ran Paramount from the Paramount building on 45th Street and Broadway. And they would give messages back and forth all the time and he went to California somewhat.

But he was famous for being very businesslike. He kind of took it out of trouble. He was the one who declared that no movie that Paramount made, he did a little analysis and he said, some of our movies cost $3 million. He said, there is no reason to spend more than a million dollars on a movie because he looked at the ones that cost more, didn't do any better business. He said, so let's just not make anything over a million dollars.

And he was, hey, there were people, I forget i forget who but i don't know great old fancy directors were like i don't want to work at paramount but they all worked at paramount and it was sure and who how did you get the stories how did i hear about it yeah i mean like my parents never like to talk about it i'm you know where are you from uh my people are from Jersey. I grew up in New Mexico. Okay. Well, Chicago. Yeah. If you're Jewish in Chicago, at least in my family, it's very important that you not seem hoity-toity.

Keep your head down low. Just be as much like American Gothic as you can possibly be. So I didn't know much about any of my relatives. I kind of did. It didn't seem special to me. I liked it and I loved movies and I loved theater and all that. But I was 10 years old. I broke my arm.

I was a puppeteer, but that didn't help anything. But I was interested in this stuff and I broke my arm and I was hyperactive and they didn't know what to do with me. So my mom and dad and I got on a train and went to visit my grandparents who lived in Bel Air. My mom and dad and I got on a train and went to visit my grandparents who lived in Bel Air. It was my mother's mother and Sam Katz, who is now married to my mother's mother. And I can't talk too much about him because he did some bad things. But, you know, not that bad. He didn't kill anybody. But anyway, he was kind of complicated.

Now it's still not good to talk about him? I don't know. I'm from Chicago. I don't like to get in trouble. A hundred years ago. What did Sam Katz do? He tried to fuck my aunt, who was his stepdaughter. Oh, yeah.

So that wasn't nice. Yeah, no good. And he had millions of affairs with people, which is fine. So he's notorious. Sam Katz is a notorious, slightly predatory film guy. Yes. From the old days. From the old days.

And when Louis B. Mayer was away, he always wanted Judy Garland to be Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. So he did an end run about Louis B. Mayer who wanted Shirley Temple as you probably know. Who cares? But I mean, I like the movie. I think it's better because Judy is in it. Judy's great. And he kind of made Judy be in it. And that was like a good thing.

This is Sam Katz, your grandmother's husband. My grandmother's husband used to be my father's sister's husband. Right. It's really weird. Yeah. So I get to the studio because I finally get to California. He'd be in trouble right now sam cat possibly possibly yeah you know because i'm i mean i think it's great that we're finding getting into this

what how the world is run all the time everywhere so you go out there to sam katz's house and they're making and we we stay at the beverly hills hotel because my grandparents are very formal and you're like 10 11 11? I was 10. Yeah. And they take me to the studio to watch a movie being made. Well, this is, you know, like if you're, I was like my nose was pressed up

against the glass. It was so exciting all the time and yet they were in California so they might as well have not existed to me. Do you remember the movie you were watching being filmed?

Oh, totally. I remember everything about it. Citrus and Dan Daly were starring in Meet Me in Las Vegas. It's a mid-level comedy where she puts her hand on Dan Daly while he's gambling, and he wins. It's magical. It's kind of like a little supernatural romantic comedy.

Yeah, yeah. It's not very good. Right. But I was just overwhelmed by the whole thing. Yeah. Because I like scenery. I'm like a scenery fanatic. Yeah.

And it was in a casino was in a um a casino and and there were 300 extras and it was all very quiet and they're all standing there and then they went action they go oh hit me hit me I'm on two more throw the dice and thousands of things are going on and then they go cut it's quiet and I had a chair with my name on it like little Robbie Balaban or something yeah and I was excited, and I never got over it. And I came home and made puppet shows about Hollywood. And that was it for you? You were show business all the way?

I wasn't show business because I was small and funny looking. So I thought, who would I be? It didn't occur to me I could be Arnold Stang, which is not exactly my dream, but it's better than nothing. I love Arnold Stang. I was in all the plays at school and did all those kinds of things and studied at second city what what was the scene what was second city like because did you go see the shows that were going on in the main stage i saw the caretaker i mean they were serious you know it wasn't all funny and everything but it

was all based on improvisation who was it like asner and who was there at the time no the people that you would know i can't even remember their names. Oh, really? I mean, they're famous in Second City lore, but Mike Nichols and Elaine May had left and Zora Lampert was there. I can't remember. They were there from the, there was the Compass Players before. Right. And they sort of morphed over. Yeah.

And they were great. And Paul Sills, if you remember Paul Sills. Alan Arkin. Alan Arkin was no longer there. He had already come to be a star in New York. Uh-huh. But Paul Sills, he started Story Theater Alan Arkin was no longer there. He had already come to be a star in New York. But Paul Sills, he started Story Theater. And the woman who taught improvising for teenagers, which is what was the class that I took, was staggeringly great. And she wrote a book called Theater Games, which you can buy now. It's still in print. What's her name?

Viola Spolin. And she's literally like the mother of improvisational theater. She invented the games that unlock the world of improvisation. But we have to remember old improvisation is a little bit different from what- Than Del Close? From stuff now. Del Close was there, I'm sure. Yeah.

Maybe Hamilton Camp, but I can't remember. How is it different? Improv. Well, because now it's so commercialized. It doesn't mean it's bad, and there's still great people come out of it, especially, you know, like Second City in Toronto. I mean, great things. But it's very oriented towards, okay, let's improvise and improvise, and now we'll set our favorite routines, and we'll do them every Saturday night in the show. But originally, you would go to see a show, and they really would be throwing throwing out a name and they really would be making it up on the spot.

And the great ones never bombed. They just didn't bomb. They maybe were less funny sometimes, but it was intriguing and interesting. So it's all comedic improvising. No. In fact, it's the opposite. It's just anything that's real that you can do. It can be funny.

When you learned it. Yeah. But I learned some great things. Like what? Don't come in with preparing any stories. Yeah. Don't write a script.

Yeah. Be there, know your circumstances and then literally Know your circumstances. Backstory? Everything you can do. Where did I come from?

Whatever the circumstances are. Once you get the character. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And then don't anticipate anything. You have to actually be, I mean, it's corny to say it, but you have to be in the moment. And what you're doing is being fed by somebody else. You're not coming in being somebody spewing all over everybody.

It's got to be give and take. So when you say know your circumstances, that means you put together a story for yourself of the person you are. And then when you're interacting, you kind of react in relation to that and you can make who you are gets refined as you're going on depending on what the other person is doing yeah you'll learn not to deny other people yeah so so you somebody can't say to you blah blah blah blah blah and he says no i'm not your father after all oh yeah, yeah. Shut up. I guess you could if it turned out there was a story

and it was important. Right. But you are not supposed, you are supposed to support the other person. It doesn't mean make it easy for them. Yeah.

Fighting and having an argument and improvising is the deadest end you can find. It just, it can become, it's the easiest thing for many people to do

is fight in an improvisation. And the best fights in improvisation do you know a woman named mina kolb does this occur she was one of like the un the unheralded geniuses of the early days of improvising and i put together an improvised movie that we never made but we did a we did two weeks of workshop for it with great wonderful phil hoffman was in it oh yeah um lisa kudrow was in it oh wow and minor minor cold played lisa kudrow's mother and i had set up a movie that and we did in two weeks we basically improvised the movie going one scene at a time that i had organized and then we had

somehow like we could make a script like mike lee would do if he was sure we never made the movie but the circumstance was that this young couple was getting married and it was really about, it was a comedy about getting married and what can go wrong. And they were about to appear on a big quiz show called Kiss the Bride, which I tried to set up desperately as an actual quiz show, but I still can't get anybody interested. I think it's a great idea. What is it? Well, what is really, what's Kiss the Bride? Kiss the Bride. The show. Kiss the Bride is a game show. And it's, there's a giant board laid out on a movie studio, in a TV studio, and

the Bride and the Groom play for various prizes, and you land on a square, and it says, what three things did your mother-in-law do this morning? And you have to know it, and you guess things, and then there are games like Beat the Clock, and you have to, you have to, there's a game called

Bridal Night, and you have to do six things that are sort of like metaphorical silly sexy things blindfolded and fallen vats of dough and you know just all you just have to frame it as a reality show then you'll sell it oh no nobody wants it okay you've tried oh i tried so hard it was stupid but but what but in this thing yeah minor colb's character was she was just a bitch and she was the grandmother of the family

and Lisa was her Kudrow was her granddaughter and Lisa's one situation we didn't tell her anything about lunch

was she's out of rehab and she shouldn't have left rehab but she wanted to come home for the wedding so she's just like this vicious bitch but because it's Lisa it's hysterically funny but it's real it's completely a bitch

and she sits down and her grandmother maybe minor was young enough then to be her mother it was a while ago now mine is about 92 she could have been her mother when we did it and we don't have footage but we tape recorded it they sat there at the table and destroyed each other but because it was a family and there were other people there yeah it had rules you had to you could do things but it was more like you would really do it if you were in a family right you just don't say get out of here i hate you i'm never talking to you right you had to deal with each other and it's the funniest hateful relationship between a child and a grown-up well at least being a you know 34 year old child at the time yeah than i've ever seen in anything but in general fighting is a rule you do not want to fight in in your improvisation you want to disagree and you can do different things

but out and out fighting is it can be a closed door to anything and you don't play the weird thing is like you say it's funny because it was her but like you don't play for laughs right i mean like when you're improvising like i always wonder that i mean there's a slight tweak in people i think i noticed it best where you know like when you watch this isn't improvising this is acting but like you know what is the difference between you know deniro playing you know the character in casino and deniro playing the character and analyze this well you just put your finger on one of my favorite things I'd like to think about what makes things funny and why aren't they funny yeah and it can be the same thing and the same person and thing and and some people can't do it you know I mean there are people who are only made not to be funny and there are some people

who are made don't be not to be serious yeah but an awful lot of people can go either way. And it's very hard to analyze it, but you just sort of brought it up. So I'll tell you, I believe that the best funny actors can turn on a little switch in their head. Right. That knows it's going to be funny. Right. And then proceeds to be very real, but it's funny. Right. And I think it has something to do with the script.

It's everything. But the same material. Yeah. You can do a lot of tragedies and have them be funny if you really want it. Right. And also who you're playing off of. And yeah, but yeah,

it is a little switch, right? A lot of it has to, I work with Milton Berle. Yeah. You obviously, you know, Milton Berle.

Sure. I directed him on a, on an episode of amazing stories. That thing that Steven Spielberg produced. And I, he, he was Martians came down to earth and they had to find the funniest person on earth.

Cause they were looked, cause they loved American television. Did you, did you end up seeing his penis at all? No, but my father did. Okay. He came to be,

he did, he did an act. Somebody in your family saw his penis at the Chicago theater. Yeah. There were seven brothers and he came there to get the box penis. At the Chicago Theater, there were seven brothers, and he came there to get the box office receipts. The Ballard Band brothers, Abe and Barney and my dad and Harry and everybody else, were in the office because they had offices above the theater.

And Milton came by and he said, okay, we got the receipts. We're going to do two shows on Wednesday, but don't forget I can't do the show on Thursday. And I know you all want to see my penis, so here it is. And he took out his penis and he put it on the table. Seriously. I don't even think, I don't want that penis. But did you bring that up to Milton when you work with him? Do you remember my uncles? I think he did it everywhere. I don't think he could have differentiated who it was. When I worked with him, he would say to me, okay, I know we're doing this little scene now.

Now, is it supposed to be funny? Yeah. Because I'll be Miltie. Yeah. And if it's not supposed to be funny, I'll be Milton. So who am I in this scene? Am I Milton or am I Miltie? And I would have to tell him which he was.

And generally, because it was an Amazing Stories episode, he was Miltie like all the time. But it was kind of, he could be, and most of the better comedians. Alan King is a great example. He can be funny mad in a movie and he can be in The Godfather. I mean, he's that good. That's right. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

I don't think it's that difficult for comedians to not be funny. I do. But I mean, they can actually be good actors. Yes. That's the, you know, more than many other people. No, I believe that's true. If they get past the self-consciousness. I think it has to do with self-consciousness, with comics, acting. The ones that are good are the ones that can get beyond that.

Right? I don't think they even control it. I just think they can. Sure. They can't. Yeah. I think that's true about acting in general. I would say so.

Yeah? So when did you really start in earnest to act? Never, I'm sorry to say. I was in the plays in, I would say in second grade when I was the troll in the Three Billy Goats gruff. I was by then pretty interested in being an actor. So you do this, what do you do after, did you go to college? I went to Summer Stock because I went to Second City.

I met people. And this girl that I knew was really nice. She was H.L. Mencken's granddaughter or niece or something, Robin Mencken. She was really smart.

One of these people was going to Summer Stock. It got a little junior's theater on the square in Southern Illinois. So she said, come with me. You'll audition. You'll sing. You'll get a thing's theater on the square in Southern Illinois. So she said, come with me. You'll audition.

You'll sing. You'll get a thing. And I went down and I auditioned. They said, oh, yeah, you could fit into this thing. Are you willing to work for free and clean the toilets? And I said, yes, I'd love to do that. And I went and did a season of Summer Stock there. And that's when I started acting.

So I ended up there and then came back for a second season and got my equity card. And then, you know, I was very, very aggressive, much more aggressive. I would be doing so much better if I could have never changed and been 17 all the time. I was so aggressive as a young person. And I auditioned and I got in a play when I was 18 in Chicago at Carl Stone's Pheasant Run Playhouse and got a part on a television series and went to California and was on a TV series. Which series?

You've never heard of it. It's called Hank. Hank. Yeah, it's a misbegotten television series. And then I went back to be a freshman in college. But so the only training you really had was at the Second City. Yes, and then after a couple of years in New York,

I studied with Uta Hagen at the HP Studio and I took class with Uta. So you come back and then you go to college after the Hank experience. Then I go to college. Do you stay with your grandpa Sam? No I went yeah I did sometimes stay with them. Yeah when you came out.

No but he died when I was about 15. So he died and then my grandmother moved to Chicago. Alright so you go back to your freshman college and what do you do? You just All right, so you go back to your freshman college and what do you do? You just do four years or you do acting? I do two years and I get a little part on the guiding light,

like an under five. In New York? In New York. And you're on the show and you're allowed to say three things, like hello or oops or something like that. And I did that. Yeah. And then my wife-to-be, who is my best friend in college she played

all my musical auditions because i'm seeing i pretended i could sing and dance and all that stuff because i didn't know what i would ever do yeah and she came to me and she said look they're casting for charlie brown the musical and you can sing and they need people who are five foot five and under think of the chances of you getting a part it's like already not that many people are as short as you are yeah so suddenly my being a dwarf became sort of a positive thing in my life and i went and i auditioned to be the the the brilliant linus yeah and began a succession of the only parts i get if you're supposed to be really really brilliant like you're a doctor or a scientist and that's what i've been doing my whole life so you got i don't intend to. I'm not that smart.

I'm not that well-educated, but I give the impression to people that I'm studious. Yeah. You seem like, yeah. I'm not. Okay, but you can act. Sort of. Yeah.

But I mean, so you play Linus. So I was in Linus, and that was for about a year. On Broadway? It was off-Broadway. It wasn't on Broadway, but it was a huge hit. It was the first giant money-making off-Broadway musical because off-Broadway. It wasn't on Broadway, but it was a huge hit. It was the first giant money-making off-Broadway musical because off-Broadway used to be avant-garde. And with Charles Schultz there?

No, he doesn't travel, so he never, ever came. He didn't fly, but obviously it was with his blessing, and we all got a little thing signed, Charles Schultz, welcome, Bob. I hope I can find it. I'll sell it next year on eBay. And then I got cast in two movies. I got cast in The Midnight Cowboy when I was in my senior year of high school after I was finishing Charlie Brown.

You were that young for that bathroom role? Yeah. Well, I was supposed to be 16 or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I was like 19 or something. I remember being very excited because i i think when i saw midnight cowboy the bathroom roll is that what you call it that's funny the uh no but when i remember like because i'd gotten familiar with you i think the first time i really knew who you were was in

altered states like because i was in high school and i was a fan of hertz and you know we're very excited about the movie. I mean, I don't remember. That was Bill's first movie, by the way. Right. Yeah. And I was into, like, I liked William Hurt. I liked it.

And I liked, I'm trying to see when, so that's 1980, right? So a year before I graduated high school. Okay. And then I'm like, who's that guy? So then, you know, I start to follow you a bit. And then at some point I saw Midnight Cowboy either for the first time or again. That was like 11 or 12 years before Altered Stage. That's right.

So I was 54, so I don't know that I would have seen it when it came out. But I remember seeing it at the Revival House. You had to because if you saw it on television in those days, I wasn't in it. Right. You couldn't have my scene. Right. So I saw it at the Revival House, and I'm like, holy shit, that's Bob. There was an excitement knowing that was you.'s like where's waldo you know he doesn't have the

biggest part but it's interesting look he's in the store you had the waldo glasses yes but i don't wear red and white ever no well i don't want you know yeah people think that's really waldo yeah but the bathroom scene like uh that was a that was a good scene it was fine and i got the part because i because the auditions for that thing that scenes were didn't have a lot of dialogue in them so john schlesinger john voight was there and john just called me in and i didn't know much about this thing or what it was i thought it was a tv show frankly really why how could it be a tv show literally thought, I wasn't sure what it was. I thought maybe it was a TV show. Yeah.

And I went in and he said, now you and John Voight, you've just blown him in the theater. Now you're in the bathroom, improvise something. And he wants your watch. And that's the circumstances. You don't want to give him your watch because your mother will find out that you might have to tell your mother you were giving some guy a blowjob and gave him your watch. So that was improvised? Well, it was in the audition.

Yeah. But believe me, I could have gotten an Academy Award for best teeny little part. I wasn't really a supporting player, but you could have said the best teeny part. I was wonderful. I could always improvise much better than I could ever act. Yeah. And then we get there and we have to do this. And we did the scene backwards.

There were three scenes. One, I meet him on the street in front of the theater. Then I'm in the theater on my knees for like 100 hours with my knees getting rubbed red. And we did not commit a sexual act or do anything. I just disappeared below the seat and he watched a movie where a rocket ship was taking off thereby telling you what was happening. And then I'm in the bathroom. I came up with a wonderful piece of business that I'm throwing up.

I don't know if they kept that in the movie. I can't remember. I was washing my mouth. It was really kind of sleazy that I was doing that. And we did that part first. And that was in May. And then in July, we did the thing in the movie theater. And then in October, we did the part where I meet him in front of the theater.

So it's like, well, I guess I've really been introduced to movies because like i don't even know who i am or where i'm going at this point and he grabs my watch in the first scene and we're doing it and i rest my hand away and i go and crashed my i i really hit myself in the face really badly with my with my i almost got knocked out i remembered i was like dizzy for the rest of the day i thought well it'll be good for my part. And that's how actors are. Look, they cut my foot off. It'll have real pain.

It'll play. Yeah, real pain. Well, you should have seen. I went to visit Uncle Barney, who was president of Paramount, which released. So I came to see him. I was in his office at the Paramount building. Yeah. Or maybe by then it was Gulf and Western in New York.

And he was only the chairman of the board then because it was all getting corporate and everything else and i walk in and i notice the cans of film for the midnight cowboy sitting on his desk and he said yeah i'm going to see it this weekend and i'm like oh really you know that'll be fun i think he knew i was in it but i don't think he really knew what it was about yeah and he never mentioned it i didn't i saw him like at passover or whatever he did not a word not a word yeah so then you're sort of off and running huh often often i wouldn't call it running i would call it creeping forward but you did like some hippie movie then i got into um i got into plaza suite which mike mickles was directing on broadway with george she's got, that was the play.

Oh, really? It was a Neil Simon play and I had a little cute, funny part in it and it went well. George C. Scott. Yeah. How was that? Oh, for your first thing

to be with people of that magnitude, I loved them both, but George was very, very complicated, but not to me personally much. And Maureen was

the Earth Mother, the great mother the great loving fabulous amazing earth mother they both drank a lot but when maureen drank she just got funnier and sweeter and very outgoing and kind of inappropriate but lovely and sweet all the time yeah the non-drunk maureen was like a church lady practically but the drunk maureen would like we took her to dinner with my dad once at some fancy restaurant we went to. And literally in the middle of dinner, she got up, stood on the table, and started putting cigarettes out, spitting in her palm and putting cigarettes out in the palm of her hand. But it was never bad.

She was never mean to anyone. And how about George? George could get really wicked because he was tormented. I mean, you know. And he hated being an actor. He thought it was, I don't know if he ever said it, but I mean, clearly he thought it was debasing. It wasn't man's work to be an actor he thought it was i don't you don't know if he ever said it but i mean clearly he thought it was debasing it wasn't man's work to be an actor but it was the thing he did brilliantly that he got rewarded for yeah and i loved him but i was always scared he might turn on me but he never did i mean i was too insignificant to turn on right so you know i loved him and when we got to out of town in philadelphia and the play was about to have its first public performance

george wasn't there he just simply went away for a week um and and we weren't supposed to talk about it or anything but I mean understudy did it no we just didn't have a play and we'd come in maybe he'll show up you know oh my god he was yeah and then a week later they came in maybe five days later they came in well obviously we knew what had been going on as cool as he was he knew every line he was so professionally he always was really professionally didn't perform drunk or anything like that but he'd gone on a bender and they just had to wait for it to be over you couldn't you can't push a drunk to get off a bender i mean you know especially if they're famous movie stars and volatile so they came to us There were only like four people in the play, maybe five.

And they said, here's the rules. Nobody says welcome back. Nobody mentions that he was gone. We just pretend nothing happened. And it was fine. And he never, never had any trouble, no problem. He got great reviews. He was brilliant.

He and Maureen adored each other. You know, great actors working together really do appreciate each other. And he was great with the other actors. Oh, yeah. Seems so intense. Yeah. Well, he was very ambivalent about his work. It's interesting, isn't it?

Is it good? It's weird, isn't it? I guess not. No, it's not uncommon for actors to desperately not want to be in front of people. Such a big career, though. I mean, but it sounds like it was more than not wanting to be in front of people. It's not like... No, he didn't not want to be in front of people. Such a big career, though. I mean, but it sounds like it was more than not wanting to be in front of people.

It's not like... No, he didn't not want to. He thought it was... He thought it was... Right. It made him, I think, repulsed that what he did repulsed him. Huh.

So when was the next big movie for you? I mean, like, I see... Well, that's when I got Catch-22 from being in that play. And when I auditioned for Mike, I mean, I couldn't believe I was auditioning for Mike Nichols, and I was only like 21 at the time or something.

Right. And during the audition, he said, have you ever read the book Catch-22? And I said, yeah, we all read it. And he said, maybe you'll be in Catch-22. And I said, okay, that's okay with me. At my audition, you know, my God. Yeah.

And then during the play, I probably had to read for it. I don't remember really. And then I got to be in, I was going to be Milo Minderbinder, which would have been, and that's what John Voight ended up being, Milo. That's right.

And instead I got to be Yossarian's roommate, Alan Arkin's roommate, Captain Orr. Yeah. Did you see the movie? I saw it then and I saw it a year ago. And how did it hold up? I think it holds up better

than it did when it came out because it was under a great burden when it came out which was the most famous book in the world, the most beloved book

in the world and a very hard book to translate into anything. And it also had the double burden that M.A.S.H. also had the double burden that mash came out weeks before catch-22 came out and all i know is mash was you know the history of mash and all that no they hated it the studio was going to burn it oh really well i did a little documentary about

robert altman before i knew him terribly well um and in it he told me the story of uh they had done tora tora krakatoa east of java you know things like that they were all like 20 million dollar movies right which now is like a 200 million dollar movie yeah and they let robert altman make mash for two million dollars or a million point six dollars yeah because it's like oh he's some famous tv guy we don't care it'll be nothing he was 48 years old he's a has-been. It'll all be over. But in his contract, it does say, DGA,

I don't know if they had a DGA then, but you had to get one preview. So they reluctantly said, okay, we'll go to San Francisco and give you a preview. And whoever the head of the studio was like, now, Robert, they're going to hate your movie.

We hate it already. We're about to burn the negative. So we're willing to do this, but just let's leave after the first 10 minutes. We don't't want to even see it yeah so they go they see the movie the rob just robert described this to me you know it gets dark the audience is sort of seeing they know nothing about it because they don't in those days they didn't warn you too much about what the preview was going to be and he said they were sat nobody said a word during the first 10 minutes of the movie but they they didn't laugh but they just didn't

rustle or do anything so Robert thought maybe this is going well and the studio had said they really really hate it are you sure you don't want to leave

right now so the movie goes on and it builds and it builds and it builds there's some laughter there's some laughs there's like

people are getting so excited and at the end of the movie the movie's over for ten minutes people stood on their chairs and screamed because it captured the anti-war movement. It captured the spirit of it.

Nobody had seen a movie like MASH before. There was Robert who had only done scripted television before this. And I don't think he had done That Cold Day in the Park yet. I can't remember. But there was like no chance that he was going to do something. And can you imagine being in the audience the first time a genius shows you what he can do and he never showed it to anybody before. It was very, very exciting.

And then it became a big hit deal. Wow. That's a great story. It's a good story. Yeah. Did you do any Allman movies? Yes. I produced and I was in Gosford Park.

Oh, Gosford Park. Yeah, of course. But did you act in any of the other ones? No, except I made a little documentary about him, which is actually kind of vaguely interesting. Did you do that during Gosford Park or because of Gosford Park? No, I did it in about 10 years before Gosford Park. No kidding. So you're sort of fascinated with him. I loved him and all my friends were friends with him.

And he was very much of the community of actors. He really did. Whatever demons he had or didn't have, he adored actors. He was great with actors. He didn't like movie stars. The only people he ever really didn't get along He adored actors. He was great with actors. He didn't like movie stars. The only people he ever really didn't get along with, there were a couple of movie stars. I don't have to mention them. They know exactly who they are. They were like oil and water.

It was like, no, you don't get a special trailer. No, you don't get the only close-up. You know, people say, why are those people having lines? They're just extras. Well, shut up. You're in a movie. You have to do what i tell you everybody's going to be babbling yeah yeah and and some people did not react well to it

mccabe and mrs miller's are my favorite movies yeah they're they're it's great to see them after some time goes by too oh man i gotta watch catch 22 now so you work with arkin early on that must have been fun and alan cast me in a jules pfeiffer called Little Paul, The White House Murder Case, after I worked with him in Catch-22. And I got to be in that with all the great people from Second City and the next generation, like Paul Dooley and Andrew Duncan and Tony Holland. And you probably don't even know who they are, but they were really like as great as Mike and Elaine were. They were in that ilk, kind of.

They just didn't get to be famous. They were just character actors. And Alan directed it? Alan directed it, and it was fantastic. He's a bright guy, right? I'd love to talk to him. I have no sense of him. It would be very hard for you to find him.

It would be kind of like... You mean sitting there? It would be hard to even... In conversation, or just... No, if he ever came. I mean, he's delightful and smart and wonderful. And I've worked with him like five or six times. He's elusive.

He doesn't want to talk about himself. He doesn't want to talk about acting he just would like to live his life and be and star in a movie once in a while yeah which he does yeah so i would say to you i'll find out i'll tell you to come he's not he wouldn't come he's not gonna do it i don't think so but he you have a great instinct of who would be good to talk to obviously and he would be great he's one of those guys funny or not funny it would be like if you said you good to talk to, obviously, and he would be great. He's one of those guys, funny or not funny. It would be like if you said you wanted to talk to Christopher Gust. What are the chances that he would sit down with you? He might. He's less reclusive than Alan is, but I don't know that he would come.

So then you go on, you do the Close Encounters, which you play. Is that how you got Altered States, because of Close Encounters? I don't really know. It all sort of blends like mush. I States? Because of Close Encounters? I don't really know. It all sort of blends like mush. I mean, I love Close Encounters. But in Close Encounters, you're a scientific guy too, right? I'm another scientist, yes. Yeah.

And I was in three, and I did three out-of-space movies. I did, well, Altered States, I consider an out-of-space movie. Yeah. And Close Encounters. And then I did 2010, the sequel sequel to 2001 where i mysteriously play the indian guru dr chandra without any makeup or anything i'm just dr chandra and i invented hal and i have to kill hal yeah you did i killed hal oh so it was very sad for me and i actually chandra is based on like uh you know uh ramdas. Yes, Baba Ram Dass. He's another, well, they all hoodwinked people,

don't you think? Well, maybe Baba Ram Dass was a good guy. Ram Dass is still around, I think. He's become sort of the guy to deal with transitioning into death. Well, that's a good thing. Yeah. But if you don't transition into death,

do you die anyway? Yes, you do. It's just how you want to feel at the end. That last second. That last second. How do you want to be okay? You want to be okay with it or you want to fight it? I'm not sure.

I don't know. Yeah. No, I want somebody to hit me on the head. Why is that hammer sitting on the desk? For you to hit yourself on your head. It's for an easy transition. I will say this, that your heart attack in Deconstructing Harry was a genius well thank you i didn't think of it you know very funny that wasn't about the writing it was just a way how it happened i remember i really enjoyed

that movie i thought he made a very good movie i do i did too i did after we made the movie and i don't know if you remember this but there's a scene in it where i'm dead and i visit woody allen in jail yeah he's dead and he visits me in jail I forget what it is yeah and there's a line in that scene says what's jail like I think I said to him and he said I think he says it's a lot like being on jury duty yeah I think that's what he said yeah so two months after that I'm on jury duty and all the stuff is happening with Sun Yi and it's a mess and it's all terrible maybe it's six months later yeah and we're in the giant pool in the beginning before we get put into individual groups

to be selected to see what juries we're going to be on. And he gets to A first and like, Woody Allen. Woody raises his hand. Oh, Woody's here. Bob Balaban. And then he looks over and sees me and it's like, oh shit, we're on jury duty again. And then we get taken into a smaller room.

Yeah. And that's where the voir dire, I guess they call it, whatever. And they have to figure out who's going to be on the jury duty again and then we get taken into a smaller room yeah and that that's when the voir dire i guess they call it whatever and they have to figure out who's going to be on the jury duty and is there anybody in here who has any reason they think they should not serve on a jury duty on a jury and woody raises his hand he said yes and why do you think you shouldn't be on a jury and he said well i've had some interaction with the law lately and i don't have a lot of faith in the judicial system and it's like okay get out of here you don't have a lot of faith in the judicial system. And it's like, okay, get out of here. You don't have to be on jury duty. And then we go along and I'm about to get selected. And a court, maybe I shouldn't be telling this story,

and a court person comes in, whatever they call those people. A bailiff? Well, one of them. Yeah. I don't think he was his, he was a clerk. He wasn't as fancy as a bailiff. And he came in and he said, excuse me, Mr. Ballantyne, I see you. He said, come with me.

And I'm like, oh, shit, what did did i do maybe they discovered an old crime i committed and they take me out i said what's happening he said woody says you don't have to be on jury duty so you don't have to be a jury oh my god so what he said get my get bob off get that guy came and it was sweet so how did your relationship with um i mean i love altered states i love that movie and i it was a very painful movie to be involved with. Really? Well, he's dead, so I can talk about it. Ken Russell? Yeah. I loved him, but he hated Patty.

And his goal in the movie, his goal in directing the movie was to kill Patty. Chayefsky. That was his goal, and Patty died not long after the movie. That's terrible. Patty was a genius. He was a genius, but he was used to the New York school of movie making in which everybody was your friend. And Howard Gottfried was the producer of all of his other movies.

And Arthur Penn would be a friend of his. And they'd all sit around. And Patty would whisper to Arthur, I think that shot's a little this. Or do you think he really should be this agitated? And it was like a play. You don't do that in movie making in the hard, harsh world of real movie making. But nor do you get a contract that Paddy had. I think he was literally the only screenwriter that I've ever heard of who had a Dramatist Guild contract, which meant that you could not change a word of his dialogue or anything else that was spoken in the movie without checking with Paddy.

He had complete approval of it. Yeah. As you know, people buy people's movies and they turn it into Cinderella. They can do whatever they want. You couldn't do that in the movie. So Arthur Penn was the director of Altered States. And it's getting kind of close to doing the movie. And we get this little message, well, Arthur isn't directing the movie anymore.

Well, this is a huge rupture because they're all rock solid friends. You know, the New York kind of friendships that really span decades and decades. Artistically anyway. And well, what's going to happen? Well, Ken Russell's directing the movie, and he's approved the four of you who were cast, Blair Brown and me and Bill Hurt and Charlie Haid. And he's approved you.

So we're just going to make the movie, and it'll be fine. And I'm like, well, that's interesting. They're very different, you know, Ken and Arthur Penn. Sure. And what had Ken done at that point, like Women in Love? Everything. Oh, he'd done all the crazy things, Music Lovers and all sorts of things where everybody transmogrified into demons. In some way, it made sense because Ken could deal with the world of psychedelics, only he was a little too involved with the world of psychedelics, and it really wasn't a very good match.

But you liked the movie, so it worked on some level. But on the first day, we had four weeks of rehearsal because Bill Hurt comes from the movie, so it worked on some level. But on the first day, we had four weeks of rehearsal because Bill Hurt comes from the theater and it was his first movie and he and his agent wanted him to have a real rehearsal period. And frankly, his character talks a mile a minute from the beginning to the end of the movie. So having rehearsal was really good. It was quite a normal rehearsal period with the four of us. They didn't have, you know know the other parts and for about a week it was kind of going on and then we noticed in the second week that the lunch break was taking

two or three hours and in the third week it was like all day there was a lunch break and we like said hello at the end of the day yeah because he was drinking who ken was going off and doing whatever he was doing and patty's coming up to us and saying, well, I'm so surprised. I was really worried about Ken Russell. And here we are, and it seems very normal. And like, it's going to be okay. We're so encouraged. And you can't, what do you say? I mean, I didn't, you know,

I'm not going to be the one to say anything. And it's up to him if he wants to drink. He can probably direct very well when he's drunk. Right. But not really. Yeah. So what happened was the first day of shooting, everything's very normal. It's a very relaxed little scene the two couples who are best friends who are scientists

have come back from they haven't seen each other somebody was on sabbatical the woman playing the character of my wife is nine months pregnant yeah blair brown is there with bill because they've been away and we're all together yeah and we're having lunch in a beautiful little cafe outdoor cafe somewhere. And the first few hours are like a normal movie. And then all of a sudden, Ken suggests that everybody

get drunk during the scene. Well, I don't, I hate to drink. I think alcohol is repulsive. I'm sorry to say that if the alcohol industry is listening, I'm sorry.

Don't worry about it. They can take the hit. I just don't like to. Yeah, they can take it. So, you know, some people are drinking and then it's like, well, pretend to throw up

and it just got wilder and wilder and all this is is one of those little interim scenes in a movie that's necessary because now the story's going to begin because we're all back together again and it just got wilder and wilder and suddenly it's lunch and we're hearing yelling from the trailer you couldn't quite tell who is yelling and what's happening and then patty's not there anymore this is the first day of filming and he was going to be there every second of the day and he did do a lot of leaning over ken's shoulder and saying do you really think a pregnant woman who's a scientist who's nine months drunk is going to drink 20 gallons of you know beer i mean this is unlikely this would have aside from everything else so they and i've had a screaming fight patty left for new york and ken had just gone wild and the image that ended that day

was 12 studio executives in giant limousines everybody had their own limousine have come to watch the debacle and ken is on a crane a crane shot we're just four people having lunch and nothing much is happening he's on a crane i remember i could be wrong he had a cowboy hat he was going yippee yippee in a crane like 30 feet up in the air shooting the you know being the cinematographer i think he kicked off the cinematographer and he was just shooting yeah and that was the beginning of the end of the movie if it would say in a scene uh the the mysterious little monkey-like creature played by miguel goudreau a great ballet dancer yeah you see

a shadowy hand it's got a little hair on it you see a you see a distant shadow and the thing and instead of that there's a shot of miguel goudreau fully naked with a little hair covering his genitals because monkeys have hair standing in front in the bright daylight you see this thing well it's not scary and it's not mysterious he's just a small ballet dancer with a lot of hair on his body yeah and he'd anything that patty wanted in the movie that ken could fuck up he changed because his contract patty's contracted in the dramatist guild only said you can't change the words if it said they're in a dark cave yeah and they're wandering around and there's a little snake over there it would become literally bla Brown and Bill Hurt wearing white suits, drinking tea in a white room in a white garden.

Yeah. Where did that happen? So it's done a spite, you think? Well, I think so because when he would send dailies, Ken would get Las Figuras de las Muertas and little puppets and the skeletons would be dancing around saying, fuck you, Patty. I think it was spiteful. I don't think he did it because it was like he thought patty so maybe i gotta watch the movie again but i remember it was sort of like you know you had to

suspend a lot of disbelief to think that you know like you know yeah the primordial beginning of the universe was happening in that lab uh that you guys were working in and that he was you know you know it they became matter and antimatter in a hallway of an apartment or whatever it was. But I remember... Well, it would have been easier if it had been subtler.

You know what I mean? There were ways that you could have... Sure. I think, I don't know. But listen, Ken, whatever horrible things I said about Ken Russell, there was something really,

the sign of a real director is that somehow their personality gets mixed up with the movie and you get that, you get some kind of feeling during the movie and I think you did get the feeling. It wasn't what the writer wanted. But also, Ken gave instructions to the actors to everybody speak twice as fast as you would normally speak because again, he couldn't change the dialogue. But if he could make it unintelligible, that was a step in the right direction oh my god what a what a nightmare i just don't know where these guys get the entitlement to do this shit well he was an auteur director and his first

directors his first movies were really interesting uh and he went out on a limb and he just got too far on a limb and that was his psyche working he didn't do it. He was malicious in a way to Patty, but he didn't do it to be malicious. So how did you start your relationship with Guest and those guys? Christopher Guest and I were the two husbands of the two girls in Girlfriends, Claudia Wilde's movie. So we met when we were 30, about. And I loved him and we liked each other and i trusted him because in the end of the movie the girlfriends go off together no i don't think you know not to fall in love or anything but they become pals right and the ex-husbands of the two girlfriends

we drive off into the sunset on christopher's motorcycle which he really christopher is so macho do you know do you know about that he's like he was like a black belt karate he was a motorcycle driver i mean he's just everything i mean i just i just am very in awe of his many gifts so okay so you guys meet on the movie and so you're in all of him and i trusted him so much that i was willing to get on the back of a motorcycle and hold on to him for dear life as we drove off into the sunset and i don't like motorcycles yeah i'm kind of a chicken as you could probably tell yeah no and then 10 years later he maybe 15 years later i hadn't seen him or known him or anything i just liked him yeah he called and he said you want to be in a movie i'm doing an improvised movie it was the first one waiting for guffman because people

sort of think that he directed the rob reiner movie Tap, but he was in it and was very crucial to it, as was Michael McKean and Harry Shearer and others. But he didn't direct it. So this time, the reason these movies got made is because Rob Reiner was the big executive at Castle Rock, and nobody in the world at that point, nor should they ever do it again, would give a green light to an improvised movie. It's a recipe for disaster. But Rob knew Chris well enough to know that Chris could probably do something special, and he really did. give a green light to an improvised movie it's a recipe for disaster but but yeah but rob knew chris well enough to know that chris could probably do something special and he really did and so chris called me and he said would you be in this thing and i said yeah sure i'd love to be where do we go what does it start and he explained it was completely improvised i didn't realize that

that meant literally there's an outline it's not terribly long and it will say they all meet and they discuss the show and that's the first scene and then christopher and bob talk about making plays or whatever it is so this is for guffman yeah for guffman and then christopher on the phone said oh by the way you're going to be the musical director and you know they make an assumption because michael higgins and michael mckean and christopher they all play 100 instruments and they can sight read and they could, I don't know if they can dance, but like, God, they can do everything. I can barely do one thing properly.

So he says to me, so your character, of course, plays the piano. You probably play the piano. And I said, I couldn't do my Close Encounters thing all over again and pretend that I spoke French when I didn't really speak French. So I said, okay, I'll be honest with you. I've had piano lessons and if you give me,

I can't read lead sheets, but if you give me the music written out six months before the movie and a coach, I can learn all my music that I have to play. He said, we'll give you an assistant who plays the piano. And that's how that worked out. And I had the best time I ever had being in a movie. To feel

the joy of just coming to work and going, I kind of vaguely know who I am, but I'm going to learn today and I'm going to be with these other actors who were only there to give each other things. supposed to be about is taking from people who are giving to you and you giving back to them it's not like it's you know whenever anybody's in trouble however i'm in trouble which is not infrequently necessarily the first thing i do is oh i i did i forgot to listen i have to listen and when you're listening i'm not worried about well how will i act how will react what will happen it's like you don't do anything it's just like okay now I'm listening. And then you go to places you weren't planning to. Right. Because it's actually happening. Yeah, yeah.

In the simplest of ways. I just didn't improvise movie. I found it to be very, I should have had a better, I should have had your attitude about it. I found it to be kind of exhausting and intense. Well, it's all up to the director. You know, Christopher sets, when I say rules rules they're non-rules really right very early on about you know please don't come prepared except if you're fred willard and then fred will his characters come prepared fred doesn't really come prepared right his characters tell jokes so

he's got a his character has to come up with a bunch of jokes and then he comes in and and does something that i don't i've never seen anybody else do that well. But mostly it's, you know, Bob, just be there. You can, I don't know. And he, do not try to be funny. This is not a, you know, if you are funny, that's great. Whatever it is, he carries a very unspoken feeling of, you're going to be great. Not everybody's great.

If you notice it, there are some people who are in these movies that don't get to be a number two three and four right so a few people drop out along the way but your director in your improvised movie no she was great i just found it to be like there was a part where i i don't um i it was hard for me to find a way not to get stuck in some character things like you, you know, like through a few scenes, I'm like, well, I'm going to be this guy. Well, the decision.

But you sort of, I mean, I would, in the Christopher Guest movies, when it worked out the best for me, I would, by mistake, which is so scary to know that you're going to be

in a movie and you're trusting for a mistake to happen for you to be okay. Right. Christopher did write a little joke for me to say in one of the you know where we introduce ourselves to the camera and this is

who i am he gave me a joke about how my mother was so protective that when i played chess she made me wear a helmet in case i fell on the bishop and that was it for me i knew and plus the fact that it's easy for me to be afraid and i knew always that any time I could find a way to be afraid or not understand show business, because I was in a show business family, but I wanted it, I somehow knew that my character was just a rich kid. He didn't want to, he didn't know anything. So, you know, I, everything made me afraid. And that's it, that was, and it was the key to everything. Yeah, that you were terrified of.

But I didn't know how or why or what, but it's like, oh, look at those giant plants. I mean, people could trip on them. You know, my uncle has a cane. What if he dies? Do we have insurance? And that was the key to the guy. That was the key. But it was totally real because I come from fear.

Yeah, you do. And I'm also very brave every once in a while. Yeah. What do you mean you come from fear? Who doesn't come from fear? I think I'm more fear and caution. I mean, I'm also very brave every once in a while. Yeah. What do you mean you come from fear? Who doesn't come from fear? I think I'm more fear and caution. I mean, I'm really cautious sometimes.

And you always show up on TV in a lot of shows that people love. I often do. Seinfeld, Broad City. I was on my favorite one, The Good Wife, a couple of times. Oh, yeah. And that was to be with those actors. And when I saw the show a couple of times, do you watch the show? I don't, I don't watch it.

I couldn't understand it because they would always, every show seemed to be kind of the same, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet, when I got involved with it for only a couple of episodes, I was like, no wonder it's always the same because each time it's so much fun

to do the things that they get to do on that show. Because usually you're inside of one of those things. It's not quite as delightful as it is to watch it. Right, sure. But this was like, I'm in the middle of the best built machine I've ever been in. It was great, huh? I just loved it. And I loved the actors.

And it was really, really fun. And what's this thing? What's the Condor thing? The Condor thing is a television series for the audience network. I think it's called Condor thing. The Condor thing is a television series for the audience network. I think it's called Direct TV. It's got more names attached to it, but everybody seems to know where it is. I just don't know where it is. It's got great...

Bill Hurt and I had a reunion in it because I haven't seen him since I was 33 years old, 32 years old. It's been that long? I just saw him in the Billy Bob Thornton thing. Not Goliath. Yeah. Oh, okay, because he did a year of that or two years of? It's been that long? I just saw him in the Billy Bob Thornton thing. Not Goliath. Yeah. Oh, okay, because he did a year of that or two years of that

or something. Well, I mean, he's in the whole first season. Yeah. Yeah, it was good to see him. I love him. So we had our reunion. And how was that?

Great? I loved seeing him. How's he doing? Good? He's totally unique as he always was. Nothing has changed. He's older and wiser

or not wiser. And I love him. I was very happy to be with him. Brendan Fraser is has changed. He's older and wiser, or not wiser. And I love him. I was very happy to be with him. Brendan Fraser is in it. He's fantastic. I don't know him that well, but he'd had Passover at my house once about 20 years ago. And I always, I was always pretty tickled. This is in Condor, right?

He's in Condor. Yeah. Amira Sorvino. Wow. And some other wonderful people. It's based on Three Days of the Condor. It's actually based on the book, I guess. So it's based on that. It's about the CIA. It's based on Three Days of the Condor. It's actually based on the book, I guess. So it's based on that.

It's about the CIA. It's adventurous. We've done a season of it, and we don't know if it's picked up, but it could be really good. Are you going to direct something now? I don't know, you know. I'm acting in a show.

I directed a couple of episodes of my show. Maybe it would be nice to try it without being in the show and to sort of... But on TV, I found it relieving to be directing the show that I was... To be acting in the show I was directing. Really? I don't think you... In TV?

Yeah. Well, I didn't feel like I was directing. I feel like I was doing a scene, then running back and checking with the DP if it came out good and then going back. Well, then you mustn't be in one and then you must direct one. That's what I mean. But you should do more of that. Okay.

If you like it. I think I would like it. I don't know what to, I'm just looking at all of the stuff that you've been doing because you direct a lot of television here and there. Yes. I directed for two seasons of Nurse Jackie. So you know the people I'm working with probably. What was Betty Gilpin on?

Betty Gilpin, the actress? Yeah. Her father's a friend of mine and I've worked with him since I was 25 years old. Yeah, she's in Glow. She's so talented. We did readings together. I really like her.

Say hello for me, please. I will. Do you know her father at all? I know his work, yeah. We did a show at Yale Rep with Patty Clarkson when she was a student and we were like in the repertory company and Jack, I think I killed him. I can't remember. It was a comedy, we were like in the repertory company and Jack

I think I killed him I can't remember it was a comedy but I think I might have killed him and he's just always been one of my favorite actors and he's a minister too now is he? yep he's an ordained minister did he have a congregation or? me I'm like his

I'm his congregant or something no but I mean he's some, some people, I guess, could become a minister and become very heavy handed and bombastic. It's just part of his real spirituality because he's by nature, just whatever you think of, whatever I think is spiritual, Jack's the real deal. Huh. And wait, you glossed over a story that you didn't tell, but it sounds like you've told it before. What was the pretending to know French for closing?

Oh, it's like playing with my little story. Should I tell my little story? Yeah, let's end with your little story. So I get a call. Oh, Steven Spielberg. I was, I don't know, 30.

Yeah. Steven Spielberg would like you to be in this new movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I said, what's that title? I can't hear that title. And it took me like a long time

and I thought well this movie won't who knows what it'll be if you don't you can't even say the title what had he done before already he had already done Jaws

yeah he did Jaws that was pretty big but he didn't do 20 Jaws's in a row maybe he was a sort of one hit wonder except he had also done the thing

with Dennis Weaver the duel yeah and the duel which was like that's even more i mean really more amazing because there's nothing but speed in a car yeah anyway well i knew he'd be great obviously um and they said but you know you don't have to audition or anything but they just want to make sure you can speak french because you're going to be translating for francois truffaut said he's actually going to be in the movie francois truffaut oh shit, shit. Right. This is great. I said, oh, I speak fluent French.

Yeah, I'm like, great. I'm really good. And then I go, what am I going to do? Because I do have a really good French, a pretty good French accent. And I did study for four years in high school. Right. But that was 13 years ago. And here I am right now.

So I made up a thing to say. And then I rehearsed a poem that I had memorized in eighth grade. And I went in. It was like Julia Phillips and Steven Spielberg and the casting director. It's like, well, Bob, you know, we just love you to be the translator, and you'll just translate whatever Francois says, and you'll have to translate for him into French. And sometimes maybe it'll be scripted,

but you'll just have to really speak French, so you'll have to, you know, like go with the flow. So, yeah. Well, so can you speak, really speak French? Yeah. Well, speak, you know. Yeah. So I said,

It's been many years since I've spoken French. And if you give me this job, it will be very difficult for me. But fortunately, nobody in the room spoke French. And they were like, hooray, great, you can speak French. So we talked a little bit more and then it became clear that I was really going to have to make my way in French about this movie. They said, well, it's a leaving thing. Say a few more words in French. And I said,

So I had to bury the rhymes because it's the rhyming story of the ant and the grasshopper. I can do it for 10 minutes. I memorized it in eighth grade and I rehearsed it every week or two in case somebody asks me to speak French. Yeah. So they said, congratulations. So I rushed to Berlitz and I immediately had the script translated into French. And then I met François Truffaut in Wygella, Wyoming where the first exteriors were being filmed

at Devil's Tower and go say hello to François but he doesn't speak English and he didn't want to speak English because it embarrassed him. He wanted to be cool and adept and he wasn't in English and every day he would get up in the morning

and he'd turn on his little tape and say, my name is François Truffaut. I live in Paris. I mean, he would really do that, but he never got very far. And so we're at some little Tex-Mex thing or wherever we are in the middle of Gillette, Wyoming. And what is that?

He said, I sort of said, that wasn't his accent. I do very bad accents. And he pointed to chicken fried steak. And like, you try saying chicken fried steak in French. It's like, and I somehow, because I wasn't just not that good at French. I was better at this point. But I was awestruck to be with Francois Truffaut in the middle of Wyoming summer. And we're going to be like standing together for the next eight months talking to each other.

I just couldn't get over it. And I managed to somehow explain to him that even though I was playing his translator, I basically didn't speak French and I had lied my way into the movie. And it won him over right away because I thought, I'm Antoine Toinel. You know, like I'm fucking up.

It's like, it's human. And he just from then on, it was like, I don't know that we were best friends, but I felt like we were best friends and I loved him. And I got to just chat away in friends about movies and life and our families. And we double dated with Terry Gard going around with Francois. My wife came and we all had a double date. And it was just a dream.

And did he eventually speak English to you? No, but I translated for him. He had a paid translator to be with him, as you would do., but I translated for him and he kind of avoided, he had a paid translator to be with him, you know, as you would do. Oh, I get it. But he preferred me to do the translating because he sensed somehow that she was serious and she never really knew when he was kidding. And it's very hard when you translate to and from and in and out to maintain humor. It's a really difficult. But you had a good ear for it? Well, I knew him, you know. Right, right, right.

And he was very scary to people. Yeah. Because he wore great clothes. He wore, like, Chanel outfits, and he had matching luggage, which nobody I knew had matching luggage. And we're talking about Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss and Julia Phillips, and, you know, these aren't grown-ups. They were just, like, wonderful children.

Yeah. And I think he scared people a little bit. Huh. But if him believe me i mean he was the opposite of scary he was just all he was doing was like talking about women's shoes and how pretty her leg was yeah who were you in love with and and just the world and life and made some great movies okay i don't think he really ever made a stinker except he made he me, he said his philosophy, many things he told me. And I remembered like everything. And I put it in my book that I wrote about the movie called Spielberg, Truffaut, and Me. But he said he wanted to just keep making movies over and over and over again.

He said, because, you know, we don't get to live that long. Little did I know we'd be dying of a brain tumor nine years later. He was quite a young man when that happened. In his 40s? He was like 51 or something like that. And he said, so I'm only interested in the relationship between men, women, and children. And that's it. I mean, that's a lot.

Yeah. It's almost all of it. Would you ever be directing Close Encounters? No, no. He said, too much vroom vroom. Because he had been asked to direct that some giant race car movie somewhere. He said, I don't much vroom vroom, because he had been asked to direct that, some giant race car movie somewhere. I said, I don't do vroom vroom, you know. You didn't want that.

That's funny. It's great seeing you, man. Lovely to see you, Martin. When are you going back? As soon as I can. No, I'm going back on Sunday. Okay, well, have fun out here. Thank you.

I'm already kind of amusing myself. Do you see friends? I see a lot of friends, and run into people, and and catch up on stuff and try to set up my next projects. Okay, buddy. Thanks, Bob. Thank you. That was Bob Balaban. The show is Condor on the Audience Network among all the other things he's done.

All right? Okay. Awesome. Take care. Be careful out there in your head. Boomer lives! We'll be right back. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

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