S3E38: "My Old S'Ghoul"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between costart and Touchstone Productions and the dads from. [00:00:04] Speaker B: The Crypt podcast people all set for the show? [00:00:07] Speaker C: No. [00:00:07] Speaker B: No. Well, if you don't know what to do, you just follow me, because this is my fifth time here as host, and I'll try and, you know, set everything up so it'll be easy for you. Have you seen a script yet? [00:00:18] Speaker C: No, we've only been given one line. [00:00:21] Speaker B: Well, can I hear it? [00:00:23] Speaker D: Live from New York, Saturday? [00:00:34] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. In honor of it being September, at the time that I'm recording this episode, I'm haunting that part of my long distant past. Back when I was a student at Vassar College, I really enjoyed my college experience. It was a very good time socially and even better creatively. I was in the drama department a few years after an actress named Meryl Streep had blown the doors off the place. She graduated in 1972. I think I got there in 1977, and they were still talking about it and predicting the moon, the stars, the whole rest of the universe. For her, they weren't wrong. Vassara was a great place to grow, personally and creatively. I had the honor of directing a drama department show as my senior project, a production of August Strindberg's Dance of Death, newly translated from the Swedish for the production by my department advisor, one of the world authorities on Strindberg and Ibsen, Professor Everett Springshaw. It was a very cool experience. I got an a. My lead was an actress named Connie Crawford. After Vassar, Connie would go on to juilliard. She became a member of the acting company and toured America for two years. She appeared both on and off Broadway, acted in soap operas and lots of small independent movies. Eventually, she became a theater professor at Brown University. One of the ivies she's done well by herself, but confession. I've always been desperately jealous of Connie because she was on Saturday Night Live in a sketch, a couple of sketches while she was at Vassar. She got to say the words, live from New York, it's Saturday night. How that happened, what the whole experience was like. We talked about it all in this episode recorded earlier this season, and we talked about everything else Connie's doing now, including some fascinating work with horses and actor. She uses the horses to get the actors to be better actors. If you're not familiar with horse therapy, stick around. It's amazing what horse therapy can accomplish. We also zoomed in on the casting business and how it can wreak havoc on young actors, old actors, too, but especially the young ones, as theyre coming into the business and learning not only their craft, but the business of being a craftsperson. Its not like any nine to five job. And while casting is necessarily competitive, there are elements of negative commodification that do need to be addressed. Connie articulated it far better, as youll heard. One more note before we please forgive the technical issues that crop up. About an hour in. We tried a new recording platform, and I'm being kind. We fucking heated the results. So there's a little patch job in place. Actually, if you're not looking for it, you'll probably miss it entirely anyway. But don't miss Connie, or we'll both come and haunt you. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Well, you've been on the faculty at Brown University for 20 years. [00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:04] Speaker B: How's the weather in Providence today? [00:04:06] Speaker C: Freezing. It's brutal. It's 14 degrees with wind chills. So. [00:04:15] Speaker E: I'm up in Vancouver, Canada, where we just had a foot of snow, and then it started. It snowed for two days. It was great. Then the rain came and washed most of it away. But we got a lot of snow, and it's warmed up now. It's like almost 40 degrees. [00:04:35] Speaker C: Oh, my God. That's crazy. [00:04:37] Speaker B: If it's any consolation to you both, as I sit here in Los Angeles today, it's raining. [00:04:43] Speaker E: It's raining. [00:04:44] Speaker B: It's raining. [00:04:45] Speaker A: It's raining in LA. [00:04:46] Speaker B: We're supposed to have rain all weekend. We're not getting the worst of it. Northern California is getting another atmospheric river. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Hey, we need the water desperately. Actually, I think most of the state of California is now out of a drought. So what do you love about teaching at Brown? [00:05:05] Speaker C: Are we recording? [00:05:06] Speaker B: Yes, we are. [00:05:07] Speaker C: Oh. What do I love about teaching at Brown? Well, the students. That's it. The students are amazing. So, you know, they come from all around the world. I get all sorts of different people that. The theater department is very small, so I get a lot of students interested in other things, so. But the other thing I like is I like having my own studio to do the things that I wanted done when I was in studios, specifically in colleges. And after college at juilliard, you have. [00:05:56] Speaker B: Your own little version of a powerhouse theater. [00:05:59] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. But it's not as nice as the powerhouse. [00:06:04] Speaker B: We were so lucky. [00:06:05] Speaker C: We were so lucky. The powerhouse was a great space. [00:06:09] Speaker B: What a toy. [00:06:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:06:11] Speaker E: Did I hear you say you came out of juilliard? [00:06:13] Speaker C: Yes. So after I went to Vassar, I took a year off and then I went to the Juilliard program for acting. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Would you say there's a difference between a typical brown student and a typical Vassar student? [00:06:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we were a little wilder. I think we were a little looser. These students have to work so freaking hard to get in that they come in a little correct, and there's a lot of undoing, whereas I think we all kind of just fell in. And Vassar, you know, wasn't as hard to get into back then. And so I think we were just wilder. I think we were more willing to experiment. And also, I think we were meaner. We were meaner to each other. We were more racist, sexist. You know, we just. They're a lot kinder to each other, and they accept things with a lot more grace and just openness than we knew how to do. I think, you know, it's not who we were. It's what we did. [00:07:22] Speaker B: Before Vassar, what part of the world did you come from? [00:07:26] Speaker C: Well, I was born in New York City, and then I lived just an hour north in Westchester. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Where, in Westminster? Yeah. [00:07:33] Speaker C: Well, originally in Bedford and then Katona. [00:07:38] Speaker E: I'm from Yonkers. [00:07:40] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. What is that great film about the mayor of Yonkers? [00:07:46] Speaker B: I don't. I don't know. Did you know I thought you were the mayor of Yonkers, Gill? [00:07:53] Speaker C: Maybe it was about you, Gil. [00:07:55] Speaker E: Right? [00:07:55] Speaker C: I could be wrong. It's not Yonkers. Maybe it's. But I think. I don't know. We'll look it up and follow up with that. Because if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's brilliant. [00:08:05] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Brett Goldstein, our classmate. Do you recall what you wrote for your essay to get into Vassar? [00:08:12] Speaker C: No. [00:08:13] Speaker B: You don't? Okay. [00:08:15] Speaker C: No, you got to understand, I came out of an open. What was called the open community school. It was no grades. [00:08:24] Speaker B: You were one of those kids. [00:08:25] Speaker D: Oh. [00:08:26] Speaker C: That school had 50 students, and it was kindergarten through 12th grade. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Wow. [00:08:31] Speaker C: So I was in a graduating class of two, and so I was at the bottom of my class, and that. That school ended up falling apart and becoming a real, you know, psycho weird place. And so I technically never graduated from high school. [00:08:56] Speaker E: I think they moved that school to Yonkers. [00:08:59] Speaker C: Point is, I don't know how the hell I even got an application in. I was. It was such a mess at that time, and I was half out of my mind. But I do remember my interview, and I remember that I just really clicked with the interviewer, and because I just thought I didn't have a chance. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Why did you choose Vassar, or why did you want to go to it? [00:09:23] Speaker C: Yeah, because my grandmother and my great grandmother went there. [00:09:27] Speaker B: You were legacy. [00:09:29] Speaker C: Yeah, and my grandmother loved it also. It was small, and it had no. Like, you didn't have to. There were no classes you had to take. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Like math or science. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:09:47] Speaker B: You're right. Hey, no math or science. I'm there, man. I'm there. Plus, the drama department was small. It was intimate, and. [00:09:56] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I actually wasn't that interested in drama. I was interested in literature, so I studied. I was a double major. I ended up studying old English and Middle English. [00:10:12] Speaker B: What about old English and Middle English appeals to you? [00:10:16] Speaker C: Well, I wanted to work my way up to Shakespeare, so I figured I'd start with old English. And also I was studying German, so it was kind of in the same pool. And because I loved. I just loved Shakespeare. I loved literature. And then when I was at Vassar, there was an incredible teacher named Julia McGrew, who taught old English, and studying with her was incredible. So we read Beowulf, and then with her, we read a lot of Chaucer and other, you know, Sir Gawain and the Green knight in middle English, and she was just amazing. And after I graduated, I went to visit her. Cause when she retired, she retired to a pig farm in Denmark. And she, as one does. [00:11:09] Speaker B: A pig farm in Denmark. Wow. And so you visited her on the pig farm in Denmark? Oh, yeah. [00:11:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. It was amazing. [00:11:15] Speaker B: How was the pig farm? [00:11:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it was incredible. And pig farm. [00:11:19] Speaker B: Little pig farm. [00:11:20] Speaker C: Well, it's old fashioned. [00:11:23] Speaker D: So. [00:11:23] Speaker C: So, basically, the house, if you looked at it from the air, it made a rectangle with an open, you know, space in between the buildings so that you never had to go outside. So the pigs would. Could be in across the courtyard, but you never had to walk out to feed them. And she also bred these cool little weird dogs, and it was super fun. And so, you know, feeding the hogs in the morning and then having the big danish breakfast. [00:11:56] Speaker B: What is a danish breakfast? [00:11:57] Speaker C: Well, what I'm thinking of, I call it a danish breakfast. Cause it was my experience, which was after you do your chores, you. Then they just lay out food, and, of course, incredible bacon, sausage, pat, but the cheeses, the coffee, the milk, you know, it was just. It was incredible. And you were super hungry because, I mean, I didn't do any of the work because they wouldn't let me. But, you know. But those farms. They were small, the ones I saw. You know, it's how pigs should be raised. [00:12:34] Speaker E: I'm surprised, Alan, you don't know about a danish breakfast. I used to have a danish breakfast every day when I lived in Manhattan. I lived in New York. I used to go in and get a prune danish from the deli and a cup of coffee. [00:12:46] Speaker B: All right, so you have one great professor adviser. Who would you say she altered the course of your life? [00:12:57] Speaker C: No, but I didn't think I would stay so deep in it in that study. And I just ended up doing so many plays that come my senior year, I was like, oh, I've got enough credits to do a double major. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Which. Bravo, by the way. Bravo. Well done. That is. That is harder than it looks. Yeah, no, it was a lot of work. [00:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah, a lot of. [00:13:30] Speaker B: Were there any other professors advancer that. That you still think about a lot? [00:13:36] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, a lot. There was another professor in the english department named Walter D Maria who was just a. Yeah, no, it was. [00:13:45] Speaker B: It's a lot of work. [00:13:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a lot of. [00:13:50] Speaker B: Were there any other professors at Vassar that. That you still think about a lot? [00:13:55] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, a lot. There was another professor in the english department named Walter di Maria who was just a really. I just. Did you ever study with him? [00:14:05] Speaker B: I didn't. He was not one of the ones because I took a number of classes in the english department, too. [00:14:10] Speaker C: Yeah, he was great. I remember studying Wallace Stevens with him and also a literary criticism with him, and he was just great. And I got along really well. [00:14:20] Speaker D: But. [00:14:20] Speaker C: But, you know, listen, the people in the theater department were also really important to me. And listening to you and Brett talk about them was a lot of fun. And I don't want to wax too memory, because. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Go to town. [00:14:38] Speaker A: Go to town. [00:14:40] Speaker C: But screw them. [00:14:43] Speaker B: It's our podcast. [00:14:44] Speaker A: We do whatever the hell we want. [00:14:46] Speaker C: But William Rothwell was an incredible. I mean, truly incredible person. Not the greatest teacher. By the time we got to him because he was usually drunk, he was a mess. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, but, okay, that raises a question. Had he been a noteworthy teacher at any point? I'm not aware of this. [00:15:07] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Okay. [00:15:09] Speaker C: But, you know, I assume so, because I could tell that he loved good acting. He loved Tennessee Williams. He loved them, like, deeply. But he. I always think of him as Miss Havisham because he was locked into a period of time. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Gosh, yes. [00:15:33] Speaker C: And that was it. As you and Brett talked about, you know, he would show up in full hunt apparel, boots and jodfers and the coat and half out of his mind, he's so drunk. And he also had this way of talking, you know, and he'd roll into, you know, I remember our senior acting class. We hardly ever had it. I don't know if you were in the same class I was, but he would roll in and say, you're all exhausted. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Go home. Do you remember that? Yeah, I don't, but, you know, senior year is. I remember a lot, but, man, it was very blurry. Cause so much was happening both in real time, but also emotionally, psychologically, it was utter chaos. I don't remember a lot of my academics from senior year. I just remember the extracurricular stuff. And it was all such as what we got to do together when we first got to Vassar, though, in our freshman year, as we're all sorting each other out now, obviously you were a fan of Saturday Night Live. [00:16:50] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Back to the beginning. [00:16:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Because I remember I grew up in a house where we did a lot of drugs. So my mother grew marijuana, and so by the pool in Westchester, instead of a garden, was marijuana plants. [00:17:11] Speaker B: What did your folks do? [00:17:12] Speaker C: Well, they were separated. So my father was a hardcore conservative, hard conservative, right. Corporate lawyer. And my mother was just this wild entrepreneur poethe person who was incredible. Like, she would do things like. Like in, like, around 72, she staged a poetry reading with William Burroughs, and nobody came because he was deemed sort of passe, you know what I mean? He hadn't yet been out of the limelight long enough for people to go, oh, my God, he was great. And so she would. [00:17:54] Speaker D: She. [00:17:54] Speaker C: She would do things like that. She was really interested in art and promoting art. Like, who is the director who did sweet, sweet, badass song? [00:18:09] Speaker E: You're not talking about Melvin Van Peeples, are you? [00:18:11] Speaker C: Yes. Yes, that's it. Right? Melvin Van Peeples. What was his son's name? Mario. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Mario Van. [00:18:18] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah. Melvin Van Peebles. [00:18:21] Speaker B: Wow. [00:18:22] Speaker C: Yeah. So she. She would, you know, back him in some incredible theater piece in New York that, you know, I, of course, never saw it because I was too young, but. So she was just really interested in the arts. [00:18:37] Speaker E: I was great friends with Melvin. [00:18:39] Speaker C: You were? [00:18:40] Speaker E: Yeah, because I did. I started out in theater in New York as well. And Melvin. Melvin had an apartment above the Carnegie deli. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Wow. [00:18:49] Speaker E: Right above the Carnegie deli. So anytime Melvin wanted to see me, he would call me and he'd say, I need to talk to you. Why don't you come on over? And I'd go, well, Melvin, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And he goes, listen, if you come over, I'll get a sandwich from the Carnegie deli, I'll bring it upstairs, we'll split it. And if I was really cagey, I could sometimes get him to get me a bowl of soup as well. But I knew Melvin until he passed, and he lives in that apartment all that time. [00:19:18] Speaker D: Wow. [00:19:20] Speaker C: So what's, you know, so you must remember some of the theater stuff. [00:19:26] Speaker E: Two plays, I can't remember the names of them. It'll come to me in a minute. That were very successful on Broadway, but he was really a delightful person to be with. I loved being with Melvin, you know, he was. We just got along so well. [00:19:42] Speaker B: I'm going to drag us back to SNL. You were a fan going way back. [00:19:47] Speaker A: You. [00:19:47] Speaker C: It comes to drugs is what I'm trying to get at. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It comes to drugs. [00:19:53] Speaker E: Doesn't it always? [00:19:56] Speaker C: So one night, you know, of course, what do you do? You smoke some pot and you get high and you watch tv. So I'm watching tv, and I suddenly. [00:20:07] Speaker D: See this commercial, and I think it. [00:20:11] Speaker C: Was something about Chevy Chase's like a psychiatrist on call or something, something. And of course, I didn't know who Chevy Chase was. And I remember just going, what? What is this? You know what it, what this is? This is so what the fuck is this? And then it went into the next piece. I'm like, holy shit, this is a show and it's live. And that was it. You know, that was it. I mean, it really caught me. And Mister Bill was on at that time. And so you're high and you're just like, you've never seen anything like this. And so much of it back in that time was political, you know, because they had all those Harvard Lancoon writers and, I mean, it was. And of course, that time was, you know, anyway, so, yes, I was a huge fan, and I'd even written Dan Aykroyd a fan letter. I'd never done anything like that, you know, so it. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Every one of the. [00:21:14] Speaker B: The original not ready for primetime players. Yeah, they became iconic. I know in my head, those not only we wanted to be theme, really desperately wanted to be them, but what kind of path was there for any one of us just watching the show? There was no way to get from point a to point whatever point that was. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Connie and I were freshmen when SNL entered its third season in season two. Chevy Chase had left. Bill Murray had arrived. They were still in flux. Thinking outside the box, SNL came up with a cool idea. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Anyone can host, and I think there were going to be five finalists, and one of those in the audience was going to vote on one of those finalists, and that person would get to host an episode of SNL. I cannot imagine how many. They must have the inundation of postcards because you didn't get a whole lot of time to work that room. You had a three by five postcard, as I recall. [00:22:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:21] Speaker B: And there was a. Was a word limit. 25 words or less. Yeah, yeah, 25 words or less. Why you should be the host of SNL. And I. I can actually remember what I wrote. It was so fucking stupid. I can't believe I wrote that and thought that was because when I heard what you did, it's like, wow, you were so outside the box. What, what was your solution to that problem? [00:22:48] Speaker C: Yeah, so I stapled my vassar Id to a Holiday Inn postcard and just wrote free me. And the, you know, the picture was, you know, of course one of those pictures, but underneath it, in big black letters, it says, you know, expires 615 78. And. But again, it comes to drugs. I got the idea tripping on acid, and I remember exactly where I was. You were in noise. You and Brett talked about that cool noise dormitory, and there was this beautiful. The building was kind of roundish, and then there wasn't. [00:23:31] Speaker B: Where were you living? What dorm were you in, freshman? [00:23:33] Speaker C: Oh, I was right next door, but old fashioned building. So I was in what they call two sq. And Sq stood for servants quarters because it used to be when the rich ladies would come to Vassar, their servants would live in these little tiny rooms. But it meant I got a single as a first year, which was great. Near Noyes, the Noyes dormitory, there's this big, beautiful round field, and around the edges of that field was this cool little wooden. And it was so beautiful. I mean, Vassar campus, let's just say it's so beautiful. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Extraordinary. Really wonderful to spend four years there. [00:24:16] Speaker C: Just fantastic. And so I was in those woods with a friend, and we were tripping. And I don't know why, but I pull up my id and I said, oh, my God, wouldn't it be awful to be the person who lives in there? And so we started saying, oh, yeah. And, you know, you can't do anything without your id card. So if the id cards staged a revolution, the whole institution would shut down. So, you know, we're running around the woods with our cards, having, staging their revolution. And I said to myself, yeah, that's it. My card is going to sacrifice itself to freedom and slip out of my pocket at night. It's going to one of its mates. It's going to staple it to the holiday and postcard and it's going to. Of course, they didn't get the subtleties of the political statement I was trying to make. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Okay, okay. But you're getting to explain them now and it's genius. It's genius. Hey, it got you the gig, didn't it? [00:25:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really fun. It was a fun experience. [00:25:25] Speaker B: What was it like? All right, all of us are watching the mailbox thinking, oh, God, please let it be me. How did you, how did they tell you it was you? Yeah. [00:25:36] Speaker C: So again, I mean, it's so funny to realize how technology has changed our lives. But nobody had phones. You didn't have phone in your room? There were these old, in cushing dorm, there was an old series of phone booths, you know, with the wooden doors like in a Raymond Chandler movie. And, and then when somebody called, there was a person who would take messages and they'd fold them and put them in your little slot. And so that's how I found out was the talent coordinator left me a message and then I had to go to the phone booth and feed it. [00:26:17] Speaker B: What did the message say? [00:26:19] Speaker C: It said, call Barbara Burns, talent coordinator, Saturday Night Live. [00:26:23] Speaker B: All right, so it didn't say you, you're a finalist. [00:26:28] Speaker C: Oh, no, no, because they had to, you know, they had to do some screening. And so they talked to me on the phone and then I had to send. [00:26:39] Speaker B: What did they want to know? What, what were they screening out? What were they afraid of you, of. [00:26:43] Speaker C: You being, you know, they could get anybody. I mean, I think they wanted to make sure you were going to be relatively sane. And also they were looking for categories, you know, so they had, because they had the 80 year old grandmother from New Orleans. They had a mother of three from Peoria, Illinois. They had the college dropout from Oregon. They had, the governor of South Dakota was one of the finalists. And then I was the Vassar co ed, because at that time, Vassar being co ed, Washington knew. [00:27:19] Speaker B: Right. [00:27:20] Speaker C: So, you know, they, they were basically looking for types. And so then, so it was just a little bit of a process. [00:27:31] Speaker B: Then you give her a call and she tells you, yeah. [00:27:35] Speaker C: So then, you know, again, I would, you know, it would be this relay and I would get these little folded messages. And so after, you know, some conversations and stuff, she, she said, call Barbara burns. And then she said, yeah, you're it. And come to New York tomorrow. And Vassar is only an hour or so from New York. So it was just. [00:27:57] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:27:57] Speaker C: Here we go. [00:27:58] Speaker B: How would you describe. All right. I assume that was. That was good news. And. [00:28:04] Speaker C: Oh, my God. Yes. [00:28:05] Speaker B: I mean, what kind of. What noise? How would you describe the noise you made? [00:28:09] Speaker C: I don't. I mean, so I still am very good friends with two of my friends who were in the dorm, and they knew about it, so we just all, you know, hooted and hollered. [00:28:21] Speaker A: And. [00:28:22] Speaker B: Who were these? [00:28:23] Speaker C: So Carol Goodman, who is an author. She's a great author. She writes a lot of wonderful mystery books. And Gary Feinberg. And Gary is a real estate person in Miami and a painter. And. And then Shari Norton. Do you remember Shari? [00:28:47] Speaker A: I do. [00:28:47] Speaker B: I do. I do. [00:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Shari was the hipster from Manhattan, and she was the first person to have purple in her hair that I ever saw. And she recently died, which is too bad. But anyway, so, yeah, so it was super exciting and going down. It was just beyond exciting. It was. And, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, it's too exciting. You just can't believe nothing. [00:29:16] Speaker B: It's a pure pinch me moment from start to finish. [00:29:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. [00:29:20] Speaker B: And you got to. You got to meet the cast, but you got to work with some of the cast. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah, well, work with. I mean, I wouldn't say that because they just, you know, they kept us in kind of a clump, and they'd stick us in a scene and, you know, kind of move us around as a unit. Although. So the first thing was, you go to the. I went to the Marriott in Manhattan, and they said, okay, come to this room. And I show up in the room, and it's Gary Weiss and his filmmaker. Right? And because he used to do those short films, you know, he was kind of the Robert Smigel doing these. Really cool. They didn't have to be funny. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Really esoteric. [00:30:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:30:13] Speaker B: That's a good word. [00:30:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And anyway, and then there's Buck Henry, who was the host of the show. And so you're like, holy shit, it's Buck Henry. You know, one of the funniest human beings ever. And anyway, so they said, okay, here's the deal. You know, each one of you is going to bribe Buck so that you'll win. Each of us filmed a little thing with Buck. So I was on a podcast with, and I wish I could remember their name. I should have looked it up. But there's a group of super fans of Saturday Night Live who do a podcast about. And, I mean, they go deep into the facts and their. So, you know, if you ever. [00:30:57] Speaker B: I mean, we will. We will link to that podcast. It does go far deeper than we're going to go. [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:03] Speaker D: No, I mean, they're super fans. [00:31:05] Speaker C: It's. They love it. You know, I'm 18 at this time, and I. They say, okay, connie, you know, so when it was my turn, they say, you know what to do to bribe buck Henry. Right. And so it was kind of an interesting, of like, oh, yeah, okay, what does the young woman do? You know, I seduce him or I try to. And so, you know, that's what you did. You just did it. And it was very, very short. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Congratulations on being one of the finalists. [00:31:37] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:31:38] Speaker B: It's terrific. [00:31:38] Speaker C: Oh, I know. [00:31:40] Speaker B: I guess everyone up at Vassar advancer is pretty excited. [00:31:44] Speaker C: Yeah, most definitely. They're all, you know, quite excited. I am, too. This is a big thing for me. [00:31:51] Speaker B: Oh, it's. Well, it's nice for us, too, you. [00:31:53] Speaker C: Know, and I'm certainly glad that you're the host. Geez, if anyone else was the host, I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't. I don't know. I wouldn't know how to feel comfortable with. But somehow with you, I'm instantly comfortable, if you know what I mean. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Are you sort of interested in becoming hostess? [00:32:11] Speaker C: Oh, am I interested? I've never been as interested in my life. Do me a favor. Sure. Take off your glasses. Ah, that's what I like to see. [00:32:26] Speaker B: Well, Connie, buggy boy. So basically, just an improv. [00:32:30] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, it was just an improv. And they used the first one because after that, you know. You know how well. But you know how it is. Sometimes you hit fresh and. [00:32:41] Speaker B: And there's improv. [00:32:42] Speaker C: Right. But the fun, the. I mean, although that was super fun. And Buck Henry was very, you know, he was great because he was very not threatening, but he wasn't invasive in any way. And he was just a gentleman. [00:32:57] Speaker B: And we had the pleasure of working with Bach on tails from the crypt. [00:33:01] Speaker A: Did you? [00:33:03] Speaker E: And you seduced him the same way. I think. [00:33:07] Speaker B: It'S funny, you know, we got to work with some of the coolest people in showbiz doing that show. Of all the people that I got, that I got to work with, he was the most. To me, that was the person that I was most. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:33:21] Speaker B: We're going to get to work. Buck Henry's going to do the show because he wrote the graduate in catch 22 and get smart. And he was on SNL. He did some of the funniest sketches on SNL. And he. Lovely man. I feel truly honored. We wrote a song for the episode. It's about a beauty contest where the contestants don't realize that the winner is going to get killed and she's selling coffins. He's going to be the body inside a coffin. And Buck is the MC for this perverse contest. And so we wrote a song for him, and I wrote the lyrics to the song. And getting to write words that Buck Henry spoke. Yeah, I could have died a happy person after that. So. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Buck was lovely. Our circle comes around yet again. [00:34:13] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, what an extraordinary mind and talent. And, you know, and just, no, there were no, like, oh, you're this kind of person or that. I mean, he was. He was. Whatever was good, he was interested in. It seemed to me. [00:34:32] Speaker B: I didn't, you know, the old lady won. [00:34:36] Speaker C: Yeah, the old. Well, of course she won. She was so charming and cute and old and, you know. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Do you think it was fixed? [00:34:45] Speaker C: No, not at all. Not at all. I think she was. She was, because that's who she was. She was just genuinely charming. And the idea of just this old lady, you know, super old lady from New Orleans, I mean, you know, she had been alive in the 19th century, so, you know, but the thing that was funny for me was meeting the governor of South Dakota, because I had spent two summers on a horse ranch in the boonies in South Dakota. Dakota in. When I was in high school. And so when I met the governor, you know, I just was like, wow. You know, I spent the happiest months of my life in your state. And then we became just great friends. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Really? Oh, yeah. [00:35:34] Speaker C: He was sort of my buddy and he was a really nice guy. [00:35:39] Speaker B: An interesting friend to have. [00:35:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:43] Speaker B: So you don't get. You don't get the final. She does. Disappointed you head back to Vassar? [00:35:51] Speaker C: No. I have to say, I guess I was disappointed, but I really never thought it would. I mean, you know, we tried and everything, but I just never. I don't think it was ever real that it would have happened. So, yeah, so I come back to Vassar and. And so one of the things that I remember early on at Vassar was seeing a play in the lounge area of noise. Did you direct that? [00:36:24] Speaker B: I did. [00:36:25] Speaker C: And what was it? Was it an Albie play or. [00:36:30] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. [00:36:33] Speaker A: Actually, it was written by feminist playwright Megan Terry, and it was called in the gloaming oh, my. Dolan. It was about two old women in a nursing home who smuggle in an old man to help them relieve the boredom. [00:36:46] Speaker C: Alan, I don't know if I ever told you, but I thought it was so cool because I remember seeing it and I, you know, I'd never. [00:36:54] Speaker D: I had. [00:36:55] Speaker C: My high school was so weird, and I had jumped to three different high schools. And I did spend a year at Andover and burned out and, you know, anyway, so. But I didn't really see a lot, and I thought that I was like, okay, now I'm into something totally different with theater because it was site specific. It wasn't in a theater space. I remember it was really clean. The acting was a little kind of almost reserved. And the text was interesting and weird. It was new to me. It was modern. And I felt, I was like, oh, okay, I'm in a new place now. [00:37:37] Speaker B: One of the cool things about the drama department was that we were a community unto ourselves. And it didn't really matter what year you were because we all worked on a production. It didn't matter. You might not be a leading, but you might be part of the tech crew, you might be part of the wardrobe crew, you know, so we all. And when you're all putting on a show together, yeah, there's this common purpose that you all have. It's a wonderful, you know, part of, the important part of college anyway, is the socialization process. And in the drama department is hyper socialized. It's just how we are in that particular community. We're. That, to me, is, was always the appeal. I mean, I grew up a drama ramen. So you did. In my middle school and high school, I was a drama rom. I was in all the plays. And so, yeah, it was, to me, this was just, I was continuing down a path. I actually spent a sophomore year. I wanted to be a film major because I think I suspected I was going to end up here. But for a year, I was a film major and I had less to do with the drama department. But then I knew I was going to be. I knew when I was going to take my junior year abroad in Paris, which I did, and I knew when I come back, I wanted to direct one of the projects. I wanted to direct a department. So I, in order to get myself on the INS, because I was totally on the outs with the department, how was I going to get a directing assignment? I approached Everett Springshore, our director of, our professor of dramatic literature, an amazing, amazing professor. And I pitched him the idea of doing a brand new translation of Strindberg's dance of death. And he got so tickled by it that he did it. And because he did it, I got the directing slot. [00:39:33] Speaker C: Very smart. [00:39:34] Speaker B: And so when I came back, I had my directing slot. And we talked the other day briefly as we were catching up, and we'll talk about some of what we talk about if you want to. But we talked about the casting, and as I went back and I ruminated about how I got my cast, I had first choice. They gave me first choice of the whole department, and I knew that Eric Magnik was going to be my lead. There were a couple of women in the department who could measure up to Eric. Big guy, but also his presence really was big, thunderous kind of presence. There were a couple of women in the department who could have, but none of them could hold a candle to you. And so, as I was thinking about it, I got my three leads right off the top. And so you. [00:40:31] Speaker A: I. [00:40:31] Speaker B: When we were talking the other day, I said, well, I wasn't quite. I didn't quite remember the process, but, yeah, I did. You were my first choice. In fact, you were my only choice. And we talked the other day. Do you mind if I go here? You're. [00:40:46] Speaker C: Let's talk about it. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Okay. All right. So in the podcast that we did with my former roommate Brett, we were talking about this very thing, the casting of this play. And Brett and I spoke rather cavalierly about the casting process, and I put on a more contemporary, more recent producer hat as we had the conversation. And I said, I said, I won't describe it. I said that you were perfect casting. And I used the word, because I used the word that you were matronly. I used that word. And I did say, well, you had done SNL, and I guess I was a bit of a starfucker, and so I had to have you. [00:41:35] Speaker C: All right. [00:41:36] Speaker B: Neither of those things were true, and I apologize for saying them in. I was being. I was. I thought I was being clever. I was not at Vassar. How, how did you get cast regularly? Were you cast as anything in particular? [00:41:52] Speaker C: Always as the old lady, always as a grande dame. And I could do it really, really well. And I'm also biggest, you know, 6ft tall and heavyset. And so, yeah, it was awful. And the same thing. One of the reasons I'm glad for the opportunity to talk about it is the same thing happened then when I was at juilliard, was, I was again cast mainly as the mother, the grandmother, or some, you know, I can't tell you how many fat suits I wore. And there was a woman. And so it was really difficult. It was really actually soul crushing to be. And then I worked with the acting company for two years, and my main casting there, I had one part that was my age, but the other were the old ladies. And I think, institutions who want to build a rep company do that a lot. And it was really bad back in the day. It still exists today, but it's got to be erased because it's so damaging. It was so damaging for me because I did. It was so long. It's limiting. It's damaging. And so for me, listening to you and Brett talk, and I'm also listening as an actor, which is, you know, ultra sensitive, and, oh, shit, I've got one of those things on. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Oh, that's okay. That was cool. What was that? What was that? That was cool. [00:43:34] Speaker C: When I do a gesture, Zoom does that, too. [00:43:42] Speaker E: When you were talking about the actor's workshop, is that John Houseman? [00:43:45] Speaker C: Was John Houseman, yes. [00:43:47] Speaker E: And was he running it then? [00:43:49] Speaker C: Yes. Well, he wasn't running it, but he was still around. Yeah, I met him a couple times. Did you ever meet him or work with him? [00:43:56] Speaker E: No, I just was one of those people always looking for a job and asking those guys, hire me. Hire me. I'll do anything. Just hire me. [00:44:05] Speaker C: So I'll take a little side route. So I was lucky enough to see the remake of the Cradle will rock, which, of course, housemandhe. [00:44:15] Speaker D: Didn't he do that with? [00:44:16] Speaker C: Was it with Orson Welles that they did that? [00:44:20] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:44:21] Speaker C: But anyway, famous for. Because it was pro union, it was. The theater threw them out, and they literally rolled the piano down the street and did it bare bones in a space. So I got to see some of the greatest Juilliard brads do that, and four housemen. And so Patti Lupone and Kevin Klein and Mary Lou Risotto. And at the end of it, Patti Lupone sang when you wish upon a star to John Houseman. And it was one of those great theater moments. But John Houseman also. There's a lot of stories about. [00:45:02] Speaker D: How. [00:45:03] Speaker C: Mean he could be to some of the students at juilliard. Yeah, he was pretty mean at times. And. But I will circle back to Mary Lou Risotto. I don't know if either of you have ever heard of her, but she was a brilliant. Maybe. She probably still is a brilliant actor. And at Juilliard, she did a lot of stuff. And like me, she kind of has a big build. And John Simon, I think it was. [00:45:35] Speaker E: That really predict for New York magazine, New York. [00:45:39] Speaker B: And he could be cruel, too. [00:45:40] Speaker C: Or the New Yorker. [00:45:41] Speaker E: No, he was at New York, New. [00:45:43] Speaker B: York, New York magazine. [00:45:45] Speaker C: And, oh, yeah, he could be cruel. So anyway, so, Mary Lou, you know, and Juilliard did a lot of restoration comedy, and let me tell you, nobody could do restoration comedy like Mary Lou Risotto. Absolute genius. I mean, incredible. But at that time, for some reason, he reviewed juilliard. I think it's because it was early in juilliard's function. And so Hausman was still around a lot. But Simon said, I never thought I'd see the day when there was an actor who was too ugly to be on stage. And now I have Mary Lou Risotto. So here's this young woman. And so, for me, circling back to casting and bass, I just felt so by the time I graduated Vassar, I just felt so. Even though I had some great parts, you know, like, it was really fun to do the dance of death. But there was a really vicious review that came out in the college newspaper that attacked my body in very distinct ways, and it was crushing. Crushing. And so this whole thing about how women who are large are cast is, it's getting better as there's better directors and producers, but it can be really damaging. And so, Alan, the thing, when I was listening to you all you and Brett talk, you know, I'm listening, of course. Like, what are they saying? And, you know, neither of you mentioned my talent. Even though it was off, it was misguided how I was doing things, or my spirit or my. You know, what. What was repeated was matronly. And that. And so that's why I had the conversation with you about that. [00:47:46] Speaker B: And we are here to deliver the absolute corrective. And as I said, you were cast because you were one of the best people in the department. You had the chops to do a really difficult. It's a difficult part. [00:47:59] Speaker E: And also, if it's any consolation, he constantly refers to me in the same manner. [00:48:06] Speaker B: I do indeed. [00:48:09] Speaker C: But wait, Alan. [00:48:12] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, I have my copy somewhere. I have my original copy somewhere. [00:48:20] Speaker A: I do. [00:48:20] Speaker B: Isn't that funny? [00:48:21] Speaker C: And I had forgotten, and I'm so glad that you reminded me, that Springshorn did a translation for us. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:30] Speaker C: I mean, that's really special because he was quite an amazing guy. And looking at Bill Jacob, I had forgotten he was in it. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Bill Jacobs, he was my. [00:48:42] Speaker A: He was. [00:48:42] Speaker B: He was. I got the three actors that I wanted. It was Manyuk, you and Bill Jacobs? [00:48:50] Speaker C: And the same character was Philip Clark, who. And then special thanks to John Tenney, you know, and Chris Carney. [00:49:03] Speaker B: Well, John, we were living with John in a townhouse. He was our. He was our freshman. He was a freshman at that time, and he was our roommate. And I. I can't remember specifically why I thanked John. I'm not sure. But it's funny, I ended up hiring John for an episode of tales from the Crypt. [00:49:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:21] Speaker C: He's a great actor. [00:49:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Lovely, lovely person. [00:49:24] Speaker C: And you all did because I was so jealous that cabaret. And it was directed by Scott Patello, right? [00:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Lisa Zane. Except, you know, they took all my songs away because I really. I was so, you know, I was miscast. I should not have really. If you talk about casting, I. I had no idea what I was as an actor after Vassar. I did. I went to. I did one audition as an actor. I had no idea what I was as an actor. Was I leading a leading man? No, not in anyone's. No, not in any way, shape, or form was I. And because I had no idea what I was or how to sell myself or what to audition for versus what not to audition for, it was, you know, part of what, you know, we taught the art of acting, but we searched. No one thought about teaching the business side. [00:50:22] Speaker C: They still don't. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Of acting, which is nuts. [00:50:26] Speaker C: So in my fourth year at Juilliard, again, you know, my casting for my senior year, which is when the agents come, was terrible, you know, playing old ladies everywhere. And I went to one of the directors of the school, and I said, you know, I don't have an agent yet. I knew nothing about the business. I didn't even have headshots. But my classmates are getting signed right and left. And I went to him and I said, I don't have an agent yet. Should I be doing something? And he said, no. He said, don't do anything. He said, they'll come running. And I. And I thought, oh, okay. So it's a thing where it's like, love, you know, you want to act a little cool. Well, that's, like, the worst advice. This was a professional school, so I didn't do anything. [00:51:17] Speaker D: Never got. [00:51:18] Speaker C: I mean, I worked with agents, but I never got signed. And, I mean, maybe I wouldn't have anyway. You know, I'm not saying that his thing, but, I mean. But, you know, coming out of Vassar, look, I didn't know the first thing about how to really act coming out of juilliard, I hardly knew how to act. I worked for two years touring the country doing plays. It was only when I got to Otahagen that I started to, oh, this is how you work on it. [00:51:53] Speaker B: What did Uda reveal? [00:51:57] Speaker C: She was the greatest teacher I've ever had, and I've had a lot of great teachers. Like, I had Alexander technique with Judy Leibowitz at Juilliard, who's, like, the spiritual being of gorgeousness. First of all, she trucked no foolishness, so second of all, she really knew how to tell actors how to work on things, so she breaks it down, and her books are just rich in just how to. Just break it down. Okay, this is how. If you need to make something seem like it's hot, this is how you'll work on it. Her work ethic is so strong, so amazing. And then it was just. There was something I was like, I knew once I got into her class, I knew, like, okay, this is the place I gotta be. And I finally knew how to work. So I worked every single week for two years. And you know who else worked with her is Craig Bacon. [00:53:06] Speaker B: Oh, sure. Oh, sure, sure. [00:53:08] Speaker C: Yeah, he worked. [00:53:10] Speaker B: When you say how to work, what do you mean? [00:53:13] Speaker C: Well, so it used to be that I would just sort of throw energy around, you know, that I would. Or I would try to emote. I. You know, and sometimes I had instincts, so, you know, I knew how to do. I didn't know the first thing about talking about objective or how to. How to create an emotional energy and then what to do with it other than just emote. And she was. She had very, like, her exercises about how to enter a room, bringing in your moment before. And so, you know, I've tried teaching it at Brown, and I had a student who hated doing those exercises because they're really boring, because one of the things she would do is she would make you just be. And I think you and Brett talked about. And Brett said something about just being in front of a camera. [00:54:17] Speaker A: Yes, you are. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Yes. Acting for. Acting for the camera is different from acting for the stage, because if you act for the camera, the camera's gonna see you acting. You have to cut it out. [00:54:28] Speaker C: And so she, you know, she said, well, the thing you do is you bring your life from the moment before, so you've got to go really deep. What are the details? Where am I coming from? What's my mind engaged with? And you would do these exercises, and then you come in and do just daily boring things, but they were never born boring. [00:54:49] Speaker B: When the act was engaged, but you're also tracing. You're training a muscle. [00:54:56] Speaker C: Yes. And so her series. So I taught this to one of my students, and he just hated it. He just was like, this is so boring. And then he got cast in his first film, and he had to make an entrance, and he contacted me, and he goes, I got it. [00:55:13] Speaker A: Yes. [00:55:14] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. [00:55:16] Speaker A: If you get a second chance at life, take it, take it, take it. So since we're now rolling and we're talking, this is. This is the. Hey. The bad news is technology screwed us up. The good news is technology screwed us up. And the even better news is that you were available, Connie, to help fix some of what the technology did to us. [00:55:43] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:55:43] Speaker A: Thank you, thank you. [00:55:44] Speaker D: Oh, my pleasure. [00:55:46] Speaker A: As I was editing the episode together, one of the things that I. I added is bits and pieces of your appearance on SNL. [00:55:57] Speaker B: You think you are much of a wonderful. [00:56:00] Speaker A: You look so incredibly youthful. [00:56:02] Speaker D: Well, I was 18. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Watching you at 18, so fresh faced, and you. It was great fun. The thing I'd quite forgotten was it was actually a pretty good. No, it was a really good episode. It was a terrific episode. You know, just because I. I didn't mean to watch the whole episode, but it was so good. I, you know, in looking for. [00:56:31] Speaker B: Cause they. [00:56:31] Speaker A: They had the segment where you all, you know, try your ruses with Buck Henry as the last segment. So I was forced to watch the whole SNL episode to get there so I could. I could see it and grab it. But, God, among the sketches. Stunt baby. Stunt baby. That's a great fucking sketch. [00:57:00] Speaker D: I mean, this is. The thing is that they were just more raw or a little more honest about their humor. And they gave me a book that included a lot of scripts and also the handwritten notes and stuff. I mean, I'm sure it's something you could probably buy somewhere. And in it was Davis. And what was his partner? [00:57:27] Speaker A: Oh, Franken and Davis. [00:57:28] Speaker D: Franken and Davis. [00:57:30] Speaker A: Tom Davis. There was also a frank. A really good franken. Yeah, there was. In this episode. There's a great Franken and Davis segment. [00:57:37] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, and they were also great in just, you know, there was an edge to it. I mean, that's a word we use a lot, but there was an edge. And in this book, you know, there was this recipe for cooking placenta that they wrote, and, you know, it's that placenta. [00:57:55] Speaker A: It was called placenta Helper. [00:57:57] Speaker D: That's right. [00:57:57] Speaker A: Yeah. It did not. The censors did not let it on. [00:58:01] Speaker D: That's right. But it's in the book and it's. But, you know, it's, that's, I mean, I'm sure that a lot of the writers over the past 20 some years want to write, some of them want to write that kind of stuff. But it was so at the heart of it. [00:58:17] Speaker A: It was so raw. You know, there were sketches, I still remember, super basematic. Oh, I mean, it just so in your face. Well, it was improv. You know, these are all. [00:58:32] Speaker D: But it was also, they were willing to be vicious. [00:58:35] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Yeah. [00:58:36] Speaker D: But in the moment and really political and in a darker way. And I think they were allowed to be maybe because. [00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, some of the, among the original writers was Michael O'Donohue from the National Lampoon, and he introduced a segment that was on your episode, the Mister Mike's Ricky Rat Club. [00:58:59] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:59:01] Speaker A: A really dark twisted, dark twisted version of the Mouseketeers. Really, really funny. Really funny. [00:59:10] Speaker D: Yeah. And I mean, you know, we don't want to, I don't want to just stay in the space of. Everything was better back then. But I think, you know, I don't know. But they were probably allowed to be edgier, but they just were. And, you know, I mean, the fact it's been running is some kind of tribute, but, you know, John Houseman, who was not always a nice Mandev, so you said, but he, I think it was him, or maybe I heard it from Michael Kahn, who was an acting teacher at Juilliard, that you need to change your artistic directors every ten years, ruthlessly. And, you know, I mean, far be it from me to say that, you know, SnL should change things because there's been so many of those brilliant, you know, the Bill Hader sketches that John Mulaney wrote. I mean, those things just kill. [01:00:06] Speaker A: You have remained a fan all this time. [01:00:09] Speaker C: Not really, not really. [01:00:10] Speaker D: But every so often, something like that will catch me, you know, and it's Bill Hader's performance and Mulaney's writing, you know, the Stefan's, those characters just, it kills me. Anytime I need to be cheered up, I just listen to it. And, and every so often there are these performers that just are brilliant. I know Kristen Wiig is, oh, gosh. [01:00:35] Speaker A: As anything, pretty much the, the talent that has come out of that place. Really tremendous incubator of yes and no. [01:00:48] Speaker D: Yes and no. Because there's a lot of stories that obviously I don't hear firsthand. So it's all gossip if it's coming from me, but there's a lot of stories about, I think Nora Dunn had wrote some things about that. It didn't treat everybody well. And specifically, I think, again, I shouldn't even be saying this, but women. And so, in other words, a machine like that's going to chew artists up. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And spit them out, which is really my point was simply, it was spewing talent out into the marketplace. Now, a lot of people wanted to get into that and be part of that. I know it was a pipe dream of mine. It was one of the things that was watching you be on that show incredibly envious. And in the years afterwards, you know, I don't know about you, but I felt rather proprietary toward the original cast. And when they all left after the fifth season, it's funny, I misremembered Bill. [01:02:03] Speaker D: Murray had replaced Chevy Chase. [01:02:05] Speaker B: Yes. [01:02:06] Speaker A: That was the second season, and you were on in the third season. I misremembered it as the last season. It was the third season. And so actually, there was a lot of interesting stuff yet to go. You know, I think in the fourth season, then guys like Harry Shearer joined the cast. There was more of who's one of. [01:02:23] Speaker D: The greatest comedic actors ever? [01:02:26] Speaker A: Harry Shearer. [01:02:28] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh. [01:02:30] Speaker D: You know, I mean, just incredible. But, but I think my point is also, you know, coming out of school so much, I spent so much time in schools and that, you know, there's a lot of talented people who weren't even hired who you look back on, you're like, how could you miss that one? Sure, sure. And, you know, and people talk about the audition process for that being pretty rough, and maybe it needs to be because of the physical difficulty of that job. [01:03:01] Speaker A: Well, the challenge is, the creative challenge is, like, if you cannot stand the intense heat, if you're going to melt. [01:03:10] Speaker D: Or who's that great actress who did Marcel the shell? Jenny. [01:03:18] Speaker A: Oh, that's terrific. That's a great, that's a great piece. Yeah. [01:03:21] Speaker D: Well, you know, so she made the mistake of swearing live and was thrown off. And she's one of the funniest, most terrific actors, and she's just great. But in other words, you know, it. I don't, you know, we know the, we, we always know the ones who, who are celebrated, and we need to kind of stay open to the ones who may have been damaged by it or it just didn't work out, you know, and try to kind of take a more rounded view. [01:03:58] Speaker A: You make a really cool point. Okay. Is there all right. At some point, Lorne Michaels is going to step down. [01:04:06] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Someone suggested the other day Tina Fey would be the perfect type of person. [01:04:12] Speaker D: I heard that, too. I mean, who knows? I mean, I'm hearing that it's just. [01:04:17] Speaker A: A thought in the ether. It would be wonderful, you know, and how many steps, it seems like up until recently, and I think recently, the nature of the material at SNL has begun to change in a lot of profound ways. A lot of the last couple of seasons, I really, I was away from it for a long, long time. I just, I just lost, I had no interest in. And then the Trump years, it suddenly, one needed that outlet in the midst of all the darkness and they caught something particular about it and they became, I don't know, for me, I rediscovered them. [01:05:02] Speaker C: Yes. [01:05:02] Speaker D: Well, and Trump has done a lot of good for a lot of comedians. Stephen Colbert, I mean, it was when he latched on and, you know, and like you said, especially during the pandemic, I so relied on Stephen Colbert and John Baptiste. I so, you know, I learned to love Seth Meyers. And his corrections is one of my favorite things to watch. I don't know if you've ever seen it. [01:05:34] Speaker B: I haven't. [01:05:35] Speaker D: He does this brilliant, I think it's brilliant of anybody who writes responses to his segment or sense in, like, well, you know, you mispronounced this word. Or actually, the plural of platypus is platypi, or any of these kind of niggly things he calls people who write in jackals. And he does one whole segment once a week where he responds to just the jackals. And it's great. [01:06:05] Speaker A: It's really, I must catch that. It sounds wonderful. [01:06:09] Speaker C: I mean, it's really, at first you're. [01:06:10] Speaker D: Like, who's he talking to? Because there's only, like his, the people who, who work on the show, there's no audience. So you hear like four people laugh, and at first you're like, what the hell is this? But I just, I so enjoy it because, anyway, but, you know, I think that thing about Trump and, and the pressures of the pandemic and all the other pressures, really, comedy becomes increasingly important and especially intelligent comedy. As you know, Jon Stewart taught us well. But Jon Stewart is really out of the SNL, you know, out of that environment. [01:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It created a comedy. [01:06:56] Speaker D: Well where Richard Pryor could do that scene with Chevy Chase. [01:07:01] Speaker A: What an amazing, and what an amazing sketch. [01:07:05] Speaker C: Wow. [01:07:06] Speaker A: Wow. [01:07:07] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:07:08] Speaker A: Yes. You could not, you couldn't write that today. You certainly, I don't know who would dare do it? [01:07:13] Speaker D: Well, things have changed and for the better in some ways. But I think it's that use of comedy in kind of an old sense of the word of, like, the clown who's making fun of the king in front of everybody. It's subversive, but it's got to be smarteenen. And it's also really fun when the performers are great, like, great at what. [01:07:46] Speaker A: They do, and you had the honor and the privilege of working with a bunch of great, great performers. [01:07:54] Speaker C: Oh, my God. [01:07:55] Speaker A: When you did SNL, you got to build a radner. Yeah. [01:08:01] Speaker D: And John Belushi, I mean, John Belushi was, both of them were kind of on another plane, and I, you know, there was, and Bill Murray, you know, I mean, he was so young when I was there, and he would just come on, but, you know, they're so phenomenally talented and fortunate, you know. Well, John Belushi is obviously the great loss because we don't know what he would have done. You know, what would be his Barry, like, you know, what could he have. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Created when he got to a certain age and his comedy mellowed and, but mellowed in its rough edges but gained some heft? Yeah, I think he would have. [01:08:53] Speaker D: I wouldn't say that his comedy mellowed. [01:08:56] Speaker A: No, I'm not saying it did. But if he had lived, if he had not died at the Chateau Marmont that night and continued, as with some, really, he was such a bold, in your face comic. Well, at a certain point, a bold, in your face comic is going to mellow, and it's when they mellow that suddenly other notes would come out. Oh, that's, that's what. [01:09:25] Speaker D: Right. And, and, and he had found the great acting role because, you know, he could act. [01:09:31] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my. Oh, my God, of course. Yes. If you can do comedy, you can act. [01:09:36] Speaker D: Well, not always. I don't always agree with that. Do you? Something you believe? [01:09:42] Speaker A: No, no, no. I would say everyone who can do comedy can act, but if, if you have the chops in you, if you have the timing, if you can really hear, in order to do comedy, because you really got to listen. Yeah, you, you gotta be in the moment. If you did a couple years with the groundlings. [01:10:04] Speaker D: Yes. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Let's talk improv. Because I loved, I took two classes with the groundlings. Loved the first one. I loved the second one. But by the second one, my teacher kept pointing out to me, you're writing. Stop writing. Be in the moment. And once I started writing, I couldn't. [01:10:29] Speaker D: Stop yeah, well, that's the hazard of that gift. [01:10:34] Speaker A: But it's what I am and. [01:10:36] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:10:38] Speaker A: But no, no, no, but that's not why I was writing. I was writing cause I didn't have the confidence to. To be in the moment. [01:10:46] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [01:10:47] Speaker A: And it really. I did nothing. I lost my nerve is really what happened. So rather than be in the moment and take your risk of flopping, of, hey, just be in the moment. Who gives a shit? It's not about that. Just be in the moment. I don't know, I started writing instead. [01:11:07] Speaker D: Well, have you ever really looked at clowning in the old tradition? [01:11:15] Speaker A: How do you meet? [01:11:17] Speaker D: Well, okay, so I took a class with a great clown teacher, Jane Nichols, and, oh, and Christopher Bayes, and. Oh, God, and this other fellow. Oh, shoot. Steven, he taught at act for many years, Stephen Bisher. So what I recall from clowning is like. It's like comedy improvised, amped up, which is, there is no in between. It works or it fails. And, boy, do you have to. You just have to let it go. But you really have to try something. And. But I hear what you're saying about comedy. [01:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:06] Speaker D: That thing about. Well, that's why for me, after all the fancy schools and two years with Utah Hagen, it was when I took. I went to the groundlings because. And this was back in the day when comedy improv wasn't so big, but I went and saw a show the friend was in, and it was comedy improv. And as I was watching it, my palms were sweating because I was so terrified. And so I was like, oh, okay, if I'm that scared, I gotta go try it. And it taught me how to listen better than anything and be in the moment, like you say. And then, of course, I mean, that also goes right to the work with the horses. [01:12:53] Speaker A: Yes. Which is a. What a wonderful segue. [01:12:58] Speaker D: It was there, and you took it. [01:13:01] Speaker A: Cool. We talked a bit about your teaching at Brown. What got. What made you think of horses plus teaching? [01:13:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:15] Speaker D: So, I mean, I had worked with horses when I was younger, and as you know, later in life, when I went to see a free demo by this horse guy, and he kept talking about intention. You have to have a clear intention and your energy behind it. And he just kept saying, intention, intention, intention. And so I was like, okay, that's absolutely what acting's like. And then, so then I started experimenting it. I started really studying the kind of horse stuff that this fellow did himself and people he had learned from and tried to get as much hands on interaction with horses, which, you know, I didn't own one, so I had to kind of. [01:14:06] Speaker A: But you did have some experience with horses. Horses weren't strange creatures. [01:14:13] Speaker D: When I was a kid, I had horses. And, as a matter of fact, that's why when I was on Saturday Night Live and one of the contestants was the governor of South Dakota, well, I had spent two summers on a ranch in South Dakota just riding horses, but working on training. And anyway, so then I started playing around, and I just realized that. That live interaction of a human on foot, a horse on foot interacting. And there's so much about energy and intention and awareness of your partner, and. [01:14:52] Speaker A: So, you know, horses are hyper aware of so many things. [01:15:00] Speaker D: Yes. So you said you had worked with horses. [01:15:04] Speaker A: Mm hmm, I did. I have a friend who was involved in horse therapy, and they invited me to try it one time, and I was blown away by. There was a horse that. One horse in particular, that the. The guy who was running it, that he worked with a lot. And these are horses that. That did not get ridden. These were. That was not past that point in their life. And the horse, when it was my turn, the horse stood on the other side of the corral, and my mission was to moving my arms. Just being was to draw the horse to me, was to make the horse want to explore me, want to know me a little bit better, to give me the chance maybe even to know it. It's a little terrifying because it's a big animal, and I'm just a wee little thing. [01:16:17] Speaker D: But it should be a little scary. [01:16:19] Speaker A: Well, yes, yes, yes. There's a huge amount of trust involved, and especially as the horse puts its face in yours and sniffs, you and I very much recall, as the horse exhaled and I inhaled, I. There was something. I felt a connection to that horse in that moment. And, yeah, me and the horse, we had our moment, and then the horse was done with me, and it was the next person's turn. But, yeah, the thing it required was, in a sense, letting go of everything inside me and just being. [01:17:00] Speaker D: Yeah. And, see, the horse experiences, you know, how they experience us is different than we experience ourselves or even other humans experience us. Now, a lot of people talk about horses being prey animals, and we're predators. So there. You know, some people say, well, there's an inherent. Not conflict, but tension. I don't know about that. But being a prey animal, it's the horse's job to be hyper aware of everything, and things are more important. So it's a great model for actors, high stakes everything is important. What's that sound okay? No, it's all right. I don't have to run. And so it's great to have actors in there with the horse. And also the other thing that I really like about it is learning how to really see your partner, really see what they're doing and not put your own stuff on top of them, but really notice details and make clean observations. So it's very much like Sanford Meisner's work about what do you see and then just repeat on it and notice every single change. Because if you're nothing, seeing. And seeing is just one sense, whereas there's actual multiple senses. But if you're not seeing your partner, how can you play off of them? [01:18:34] Speaker A: I would even say sensing. [01:18:36] Speaker D: And yes, I think sensing is a better word. Yeah. So anyway, so that's been something that's been really super fun. And it's really my current passion is just learning how to work with horses better, how to get along, how to kind of let them be themselves better. And, you know, there's a lot of cool stuff that's been done and a lot of amazing work that people are doing all around the world. And, and they're just beautiful and fun and, you know, and it is fun to ride them. [01:19:17] Speaker A: So there's that. [01:19:18] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:19:23] Speaker A: Going back to Vassar for a second, we talked about Bill Rothwell. [01:19:30] Speaker D: Oh, yes. [01:19:32] Speaker A: The other faculty members who made an impression on me. I remember Liz Veillard. [01:19:38] Speaker D: Yes, I remember her. I didn't have much to do with her. And she, you know, I was, I was like a little scared of her. I didn't. [01:19:48] Speaker A: That's funny, because I had more classes with her than I did with Rothwell. [01:19:51] Speaker D: Yeah, no, I. I had a lot with Rothwell. [01:19:55] Speaker A: My. Uh huh. I would, it makes sense that he would glom onto you and see you as a muse of a. [01:20:07] Speaker D: Well, I wouldn't say I was his muse, but there was a slot that I really fit in. That was a great interest to him. [01:20:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You fit into his world. [01:20:21] Speaker C: Yes. [01:20:24] Speaker A: You made sense to him. [01:20:25] Speaker D: Yes yes. And I understood him. [01:20:28] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. [01:20:29] Speaker D: There's a part of me that, I mean, my family wasn't stuffy, but I did have, I sort of skirted around some of that patrician, old school stuff. [01:20:44] Speaker A: It's funny for me, I grew up in an upper middle class jewish suburb outside of Baltimore. Really, my whole neighborhood was upper middle class jewish kids, doctors sons, lawyers sons, really. I grew up in a cocoon. And when I got to Vassar, man, that was part of why it was exciting to me, because it's like no world I'd ever seen before in my entire life. First of all, Wasp City, man. [01:21:18] Speaker D: Wasp. That's funny that. [01:21:22] Speaker C: That's. [01:21:23] Speaker D: I mean, it sure is, historically. And my family's part of that history. [01:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:21:28] Speaker D: But it's funny that you say that, because so many of my friends from Vassar are jewish. [01:21:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:21:36] Speaker D: And some of my best friends are jewish. [01:21:39] Speaker A: It happens to the best of people. For me, it was. It was eye opening, you know, I. [01:21:48] Speaker D: Yeah, for me, too, in different ways, it was. [01:21:52] Speaker A: I. And again, growing up in a. In a very conventional suburb, a very conventional place where really, hey, I was the butterfly. No one's idea of a butterfly, you know, because I was a drama rama in high school. So, you know, I was. I was. Yeah, I was. I did strange things. [01:22:14] Speaker D: But, you know, though, Alan, you were strange even at Vassar. [01:22:17] Speaker A: Oh, no, no, no. When I got to Vassar, I was not. I remember. I remember two people in really, in the first couple of weeks that I was there. Her name? Rebecca Loeb. [01:22:31] Speaker C: Lieb. [01:22:32] Speaker A: Lieb. [01:22:33] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Yeah. [01:22:34] Speaker A: Loeb, Rebecca Lieb and Mitchell Merlin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were best of friends. [01:22:42] Speaker C: Yes. [01:22:42] Speaker A: And I remember watching them. They were playing nazi spy. They were just running around. They were wearing trench coats and they were playing nazi spy. And I said, what are you guys doing? They said, play nazi spy. And then they went on playing, and I thought, I never met anyone in my life who would do what they were doing. And I loved what they were doing, and I wished I was clever enough to do what they were doing. That's how exciting the world was. [01:23:11] Speaker D: Well, but they're very exciting people. I mean, and they were to me, too, and they still are. And, I mean, there was a lot of really interesting, bright, adventurous people there, and it was a very. It is a very small school, so you do get to know people and. But my experience of you is that you were a wild. You were a little bit of a wild fellow. Like, I told you about the show that you did in noise lounge. I was like, oh, okay, this is something new to me, you know, so. [01:23:48] Speaker A: I blame Groucho Marx. [01:23:50] Speaker D: Good. [01:23:52] Speaker A: Really? Everything anarchic. Yeah. I mean, when I. From the time that I was ten years old, I emulated ground show marks or something. So anything to tear down authority, any. Any way to do it, just differently than however anyone else wanted to do it. I don't know. That made sense to me. My. It's funny. My greatest grandfather, as my family was emulating from various parts of Europe to these shores, my great grandfather on my. My father's mother's side, a guy named Havis, while everyone was becoming a citizen, he refused to. He said, I'm a citizen of the world. [01:24:32] Speaker D: Wow. [01:24:33] Speaker A: And something of that guy absolutely is in my blood. I. Oh, I'm very proud to be an american, but I'm. I'm not a joiner. [01:24:47] Speaker C: So. [01:24:48] Speaker A: But Vassar. But that's why Vassar appealed to me, because it was filled with people. Really? Yes. Like me. And that included you. Hey, I did not know, or if I did know, about how you grew up, you know, in going to those very non traditional schools. I had completely forgotten it, but, yeah. So that's why people. When people like you, when we all had the privilege of getting to play in a place like Vassar, and people really creative spirits like you and creative spirits like me, coming from these vastly different places, well, holy shit. That's the whole point of the exercise. Look at what can happen. Anything. It's magnificent. [01:25:34] Speaker D: Yes. And that's where a good admissions office is really important, so that you can have a Rebecca leap and a Mitchell Merling and a Shari Norton and a Carol Goodman, Gary Feinberg and Connie Crawford, Alan Katz, and all the other people that we loved. We took inspiration from, whether it was up close or from afar. And some of our teachers. One of the teachers at Vassar who meant a lot to me was. Is it John Curtin or Bill Curtin? [01:26:06] Speaker A: It was John Curtin. [01:26:07] Speaker D: John Curtin. [01:26:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. K u r t e n. Yeah. [01:26:11] Speaker D: He was. I don't know. For some reason, I really connected with him, and he was just always kind of a solid support system, and I really appreciated him. And, you know, I mean, like I was. Like I've said before, you know, I found my connection with, you know, Julia McGrew, and studying old Norse with her and professor Demaria, or the great. Oh, shoot. What is his name? The ancient greek professor John Day. James Day. Do you remember James Day? [01:26:44] Speaker A: I remember he was celebrated. [01:26:47] Speaker D: He was very. He was a famous scholar, and he would do sessions where he would sight readdez, you know, Homer from the Greek. You know, translate it, just. And, I mean, he was. [01:27:01] Speaker C: He was brilliant, but very troubled. [01:27:05] Speaker D: And. [01:27:08] Speaker A: It happened. [01:27:09] Speaker D: He used to sit. I mean, you know, this is just so troubled. [01:27:13] Speaker A: Trouble is a nice way to put it. [01:27:17] Speaker D: He used to sit. You know, of course, he had that huge long beard, and he smoked cigarettes, and everybody smoked wherever they wanted, pretty much. And he smoked so many cigarettes. He was all yellowed and tarred in the fingers. And he would wear these three piece tweed suits. And I remember he'd sit in the. What was the name of that. That place that was near the mug where you would sit and eat. What was it called? [01:27:43] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. Okay. It was like in the college center. Yeah. [01:27:49] Speaker D: It was a little cafeteria, but it had little tables. [01:27:52] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. [01:27:53] Speaker D: Sit there. And he'd chain smoke, and he would sing these absolutely filthy sea shanties at the top of his lungs. I mean, just. And just, you know, just full out. I mean, it was so great. And I don't know. So I was lucky enough to study with him once, and. [01:28:17] Speaker A: But this is what. What made being there great, because it was filled with a bunch of really, okay, eccentric people who, in the outside world, you might not do so well, but here in this community, everyone fed everyone else. And you. God, I loved my time at Vassar. I loved the idea of a liberal arts education. High school. Now, you didn't go through conventional school, so you're. [01:28:48] Speaker C: Well, I actually. [01:28:49] Speaker D: I actually just. I did. I went to three different high schools. [01:28:54] Speaker A: Okay. [01:28:55] Speaker D: So I went to a huge public high school. [01:28:58] Speaker A: Okay, so you got a little bit of regulated school in. [01:29:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:29:01] Speaker D: But then I went to Andover Academy, so I went to the high pressure prep school, and then I went to the hippie school. So I see. [01:29:11] Speaker A: I see. I misunderstood the battle order. Well, all right, so none of those places really. Well, I can't say definitively have only had a public education. A public school education is not meant to teach you how to think. It's just not set up for it. At the end of the day, you need to be a good little citizen. They kick you out into the world. Maybe you'll vote occasionally. Okay. Don't hurt anybody. It's not until you go to college, where really, the whole point seemed to me was to teach you. Teach me how to think. Yeah, I agree analytically from all these different ways. And. [01:29:52] Speaker D: And it's really under assault right now. [01:29:55] Speaker A: Of course it is. From whom and for what reason? Because teaching people how to think is a very dangerous thing. It makes them. From a liberal progressive. [01:30:05] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And it is really under assault. And there's a lot of problems with. So I teach at a liberal arts school, and there's a lot of issues there. And. But the assault on truly liberal arts is really. We're in it. We're just right in it. And. [01:30:38] Speaker A: When they're banning books. Yeah, yeah. You're definitely there. [01:30:43] Speaker D: Or when, you know, when Elise Stefanik can get the president of Harvard, basically. You know, I mean, they say she resigned, but what choice did she probably have? I mean, it's really scary. [01:30:59] Speaker A: The accused, there were accusations of. Of plagiarism. Plagiarism, yes. Thank you. Which really. She just. It was false. She didn't plagiarize. This was just. The notes weren't quite accurate in terms of terms of the. [01:31:14] Speaker D: It was really. [01:31:15] Speaker A: It was fiddly, fiddly stuff, which. The guy who brought the accusation, his wife was guilty of the exact same infractions. [01:31:23] Speaker D: Yeah, I heard that. [01:31:25] Speaker A: Stop it, stop it, stop it. This is entirely. This is political. It's got nothing to do with anything else. [01:31:31] Speaker D: I mean, we're just, we're in it. And I, you know, and as you're saying, you know, having had the benefit of being a young person in that atmosphere, like, I expected to go to Vassar for a year and then I was gonna transfer, but I so loved it that I just stayed. And I mean, and I worked really hard, you know, both in the theater and in the, you know, the studying of the old English. But, you know, and these, and boy, these students there, I mean, you have, you have young, but, you know, they need it. They need to have a place where they meet people who are very different from themselves and then are forced to think critically, read critically, write critically, and be able to talk to different people with different ideas. [01:32:35] Speaker A: And to fail a little bit and. [01:32:37] Speaker D: To fail a lot. [01:32:42] Speaker A: Best thing for any of us, as. [01:32:47] Speaker D: Long as it's not too deep a fail, it's gotta be structured. [01:32:51] Speaker A: Failure. [01:32:52] Speaker D: Well, I wouldn't say structured. I would just say. What would I say? Just, it can't be cataclysmic because that can just destroy a spirit. [01:33:02] Speaker A: Oh, always possible too. But, you know, if there was a way to design failure into teaching, not of the teaching, but so that really there was going to be failure, because that's the only place where the actual teaching happens. [01:33:18] Speaker D: But you have to fail as a teacher though, too. [01:33:20] Speaker C: Oh, as you know, I mean, of course, yeah, yeah. [01:33:26] Speaker A: Success only teaches you that your shit doesn't smell. And that's an absolute. That bullshit. Your shit never stops smelling. Now, now you're doomed to fail, friend. Anyway, with, with all of your students. You do such a wonderful. Bill. [01:33:46] Speaker D: Bill Rothwell. [01:33:47] Speaker A: Bill Rothwell. You do such a wonderful, Bill Rothwell. Do your students, do you? [01:33:54] Speaker D: Yes, yes. So speaking of clowning, that's a very common clown. And I actually think Stephen Bisher is the one who taught me. This is. It's very useful sometimes to have your students imitate you or even, or do a clown version of you. Now, it doesn't always land well with me. You know, it's sometimes I'm like, oh, I do that. But, you know, you take what you see, you water it down, and you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, I can see how that's working. That's not working. And it's a really useful, it's fun, too, because, you know, they get to make fun of you, but it's also really useful to see. Okay, really, how am I coming across? [01:34:45] Speaker A: Surely. [01:34:46] Speaker D: Okay. I can see. Yeah. That I got a tweak and, and that's working. And so, I mean, you know, it's. [01:34:54] Speaker A: Really, you actually get to see how you are being perceived. [01:34:58] Speaker C: Yes. [01:35:00] Speaker A: Wow. [01:35:00] Speaker D: Because as you know, from, I mean, as you know, from directing or leading. [01:35:07] Speaker C: And. [01:35:09] Speaker D: When you take control of a room or try to lead a room, well, it's like the horses, you know, there's some horses that, yeah, you might need to grab the halter and say, you got to come now. Or some circumstances where it's like, sorry, we don't have, we got to go now. But there's other times where you're like, hey, could you, do you think, oh, okay, not now. You know? And I, it's like, how do you get them to want to come? And really, the idea for me is, how do you, my goal is by the end of the semester, I don't do anything. I just show up in class and they do everything. So it's a bit like Bill Rothwell, except for different reasons of, like, you're all exhausted. Go home, you know? No, it's like I want to walk in the room and they're like, oh. And they're talking to each other and they're working on their own things, and they check in every so often, but they don't really need me anymore. If I can do that, then I feel pretty good. [01:36:17] Speaker A: Cool. Before I ask you my last question, I wanted to give you a chance to mention among your really most interesting credits, you were in the cast of Orpheus descending. Peter hall directed. Sir Peter Hall. [01:36:36] Speaker D: Sir Peter hall, please. [01:36:39] Speaker A: That was interesting people in that cast. Who else was in that cast? [01:36:42] Speaker D: Sloan Shelton, Tammy Grimes. [01:36:46] Speaker A: Right. [01:36:47] Speaker D: And a bunch of other great actors. Oh, Brad Sullivan. I don't know if you did. You know, did you ever see Brad Sullivan? [01:36:56] Speaker A: I did not. [01:36:57] Speaker D: You see him in a lot of stuff. I don't know what big parts he had, but just one of the greatest. Not just a great actor, whose acting is completely invisible. He's so good. You're just like, there's nothing. It's not that he's sort of still in that kind of shutdown, filmic way. It's just like. It's just there. You don't see any force. [01:37:24] Speaker A: One of the things that we learned that really stuck with me, and I don't know why. It's learning how to give stage. [01:37:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:37:33] Speaker A: It's an important piece of acting because you are helping to create the environment, not just for yourself, but for everybody else. [01:37:41] Speaker D: It's a form of listening and understanding, and that's also where the comedy improv is so great, is who has the best idea in the moment, and then you got to give it to them. [01:37:55] Speaker A: Yes. [01:37:56] Speaker D: And, you know, unless you're like, Mae west. Do you know the story about Mae west and the ghost? [01:38:01] Speaker A: Oh, no, no. Go for it. [01:38:03] Speaker D: Okay, so I love May west, and I'm always trying to tell my students to go watch Mae west, because, I mean, as you know, she was not the sort of european, conventional beauty, and yet she made herself that. And she was also such an entrepreneur, and, you know, writing and producing and all that, and funny, and I just rewatched she'd done him wrong. But anyway, so this is the story. Don't know if it's true, but I love hearing it, so I'll tell it again, which is she's in a play with some young ingenue, and the ingenue thinks she's it, you know, and Mae west says, honey, you know, I'm going to upstage you, and I won't even be on stage. And so the ingenue has her big monologue, you know, and she stands on stage, and Mae west takes a sip of water from a glass and then puts the glass just on the edge of a table, so it's in a precarious spot, so the whole audience is just like, is it gonna fall? And the ingenue's up there acting up a storm, and nobody cares. [01:39:23] Speaker A: She was wonderful. Wonderful. I'm a huge WC fields fan. Oh, so, yes, that whole group of early 20th century comedians. Yeah, they're integral to everything that I understand about comedy. [01:39:42] Speaker D: Just incredible. And you can watch them do little moments over and over and over again. I mean, the timing is so sublime, and especially WC fields, like at the dinner table with his kids and the salt or. Or what happens to the coffee. And it's just incredible what he can. [01:40:02] Speaker A: Do and his ability to use stillness. Silence. To fill silence with a kind of dread, which is where the comedy comes from, and it's a gift. Mister Muckle walks. He has a store, and there's a whole bunch of light bulbs, and a blind man named Mister Muckle walks into the store and destroys every single light bulb. It's just fantastic. A great piece of physical comedy. It's built, it's structured, it's designed, and that's what they did. [01:40:39] Speaker D: Oh, every part of that. That's the film where I was thinking about the family at the table. [01:40:44] Speaker A: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:40:49] Speaker D: And then. Have you ever seen him in. I think it's great expectations, where he plays Mister McCauber? [01:40:55] Speaker A: Oh, he was. He was made for major Dickens. [01:40:59] Speaker D: But, but, but so WC Fields, like. Like Mae West. I mean, Mae west is interesting to me also because of how she made her own work happen. [01:41:13] Speaker A: Totally self invented. [01:41:14] Speaker D: And as a woman, you know, defied stereotypes, because, you know, the casting, as I've talked about with you, you know, the casting for me has been so difficult, and I've had a hard time dealing with my life, and. And she just took it and she hung her shit. [01:41:35] Speaker A: She really did. And she. Wow, what a. It's funny. I. It's like her story almost demands to be told right here, right now, because she was such a powerful woman at a time when women weren't. How'd she do that? [01:41:51] Speaker D: Well, first of all, it was pre code. [01:41:54] Speaker A: But then after code, she was still. She still had a career. [01:41:58] Speaker D: When did code hit? [01:42:00] Speaker A: The 1930s. And she was still making movies in the early nineties. [01:42:03] Speaker D: She was making movies in the 33. Was she done them wrong? Maybe it wasn't pre code. I don't know. But so dirty. I mean. [01:42:16] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. [01:42:18] Speaker D: Funny. And anyway, I don't know how I got off on Mae west. [01:42:22] Speaker A: Well, with. With May west in mind. You've finished with the couple of awards. You. [01:42:31] Speaker D: Oh, no. Can I. [01:42:34] Speaker A: Okay, we'll cut all that out. Carry on from where you were. [01:42:39] Speaker D: Yeah, because I wanted to talk about Orpheus descending a little. [01:42:42] Speaker A: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Go, go. Yes, yes. [01:42:44] Speaker D: Because. So I met somebody in England once who said to me, well, you're too tall to be an actor, so you need to be as good as Vanessa Redgrave. And so when I got cast in Orpheus descending with Vanessa Redgrave, I just felt like, you know, I had come home. And let me tell you, watching her live, just phenomenal. [01:43:17] Speaker A: How so? [01:43:18] Speaker D: She's alive in every single moment. She's on stage. And that whole thing about the acting, being invisible, she's just. She's so present all the time. Like, one time I had this great little part where I ran in and I made an angry phone call, and the door that I ran through had a bell on it. Cause it was a shop, and I ran through once, and I hurt the bell. And Vanessa Redgrave came, like, tearing across the stage at me and just delivered her lines, like, with such ferocity. And I was truly, like, oh, sorry, but I gotta go make my phone call. And because I had damaged her belt. [01:44:06] Speaker A: She was so in the moment. [01:44:08] Speaker D: She was so in the moment and fearless. [01:44:12] Speaker A: She just went with it. [01:44:13] Speaker C: Just here? [01:44:14] Speaker A: Yes. And. [01:44:16] Speaker D: And yet it was also backed up by research because her character's family was from Italy. I think the character might. Lady might have been born in Italy. And at one point in the play, it's Tennessee Williams. She picks up a violin and just plays a little tune from her hometown in Italy. Well, of course, Vanessa Redgrave learned how to play that style of violin. Fiddle, we would call it, so that she could just do it so casually, like it was nothing. And, you know, so you have this great talent and. But backed up by research, and then she was so generous, and, you know, everybody was always invited to go do stuff with her. And, you know, I worked on this whole other project because that was the year that the wall in Berlin came down. And, you know, she's a very active socialist, and so for her, this political event was huge. So she organized this huge event where she gathered all these artists to come and raise money. And, I mean, the people who were there were just incredible. Like, I remember Andre DeShields singing what a wonderful world, and they did a scene from, I think, the three sisters with Corinne Redgrave, who is one of the great actors, Lynn Redgrave, Christopher Reeve and Sigourney Weaver. You know, I mean, it's just like. [01:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, pinch me. [01:46:00] Speaker D: And working on that show was. I mean, that's obviously the biggest job I ever had, but it was just so much fun. Oh, you know who I got to meet was Myrna Loy. [01:46:15] Speaker A: Oh, cool. [01:46:17] Speaker D: I mean, she was sitting backstage one day, and she just had her hair washing. Perfect. She's wearing a full length mink. You know, I mean, yes, don't kill the animals. But she was such a movie star. And, you know, and I was like, because the guy ran the door was Doug. Abel. No, not Doug Abel. Douglas Carter Bean, who wrote to Wong fu. Thanks for everything. [01:46:42] Speaker A: Gosh, sure, sure. [01:46:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:46:43] Speaker D: So he's a playwright who's running the door. Right. As many of them are. And anyway, he calls me on the intercom and goes, Connie, you got to come down and see Myrna Loy's here. So I came running down, and I made some excuse to go get water from the fountain near her, and I spilled everything because I was, like, fumbling. And she said, oh, she's just dying for some water, because she knew what I was doing. But it was just being around that level of actors and Tammy Grimes. I mean, you want to talk about stories? And I understudied Tammy and she. Once we were in midtown, okay. We were at the Neil Simon theater. So 52nd street. And one time, the cab let her off a few blocks from the theater, and she got lost walking to the theater and Midtown. It's a grid. So I was putting my makeup to go on for her. [01:47:43] Speaker A: Oh, boy. She was lost somewhere in Midtown. [01:47:47] Speaker D: I mean, she got there and she was great, but. But anyway, but thanks for letting me reminisce about that, because really being around Vanessa Redgrave was profound. [01:47:57] Speaker A: Oh, sure. You know, we. We've both been very lucky in that way. Just getting a chance to work with people, to work with. I mean, meeting these people is cool, but I don't know. Getting to work with these people, that's been the rarefied air. [01:48:16] Speaker D: Yeah. And sharing that energy, you know, and you being part of the room. Yeah. [01:48:23] Speaker A: It's really, really special. [01:48:25] Speaker D: Yeah. And we're lucky to be here today. [01:48:30] Speaker A: Amen. No argument, sister. Finish to finish. I wanted to point to a couple of awards you wanted. I wanted to give you a chance to talk about them. You are a proud winner of the Kevin Klein Prize for best comic stage fight and the David Mamet prize for best stage fight. Wow. [01:48:53] Speaker D: Yeah. So that was at Juilliard. [01:48:55] Speaker A: Cool. [01:48:56] Speaker D: And we were taking fight class with Bh Barry, who was just. [01:49:04] Speaker A: BH Barry is on Broadway. He's the guy. He's the fight guy, isn't he? [01:49:09] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. And what a great teacher and his whole team. I remember his. The people that came into class with it was just so great. It was so much fun. So he did this where we designed our own fights and presented it to all these fancy people and won prizes, you know? And so I. The Kevin. I don't even remember what the David Mamet fight was, but I was good at the fight stuff. [01:49:40] Speaker A: But what particular fighting did you enjoy most? We're talking about fencing. [01:49:47] Speaker D: No. [01:49:48] Speaker A: Hand to hand combat. [01:49:49] Speaker B: We talking. [01:49:49] Speaker A: What are we talking about? [01:49:50] Speaker D: Mostly the hand to hand stuff I liked, but I think I could have really gotten into fencing or any other kind of weapon work, but it's such great training for actors, and it's just fun. I mean, everybody loves it. But anyway, so for the Kevin Klein. So there's a great actor named Greg Jabara, who was in my class, and wonderful actor, great comedian. He's on. Is it blue bloods? Is that the show that's on tv? [01:50:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:50:26] Speaker D: And I think he's there, and he won a Tony, and I honestly don't know what for, but he's just terrific. But anyway, back in the day, he had a lot of black hair and a big kind of jaw, and he looked like Fred Flintstone. So we took in the boom boom room and we rewrote the fight scene as in the bam bam room. And I was Wilman, he was Fred, and it was such fun. [01:50:58] Speaker A: I wish someone had videotaped it. I'll bet it was. [01:51:02] Speaker D: You know, it's probably better remembered, but. [01:51:06] Speaker A: You know, I suppose that's true about so many things, and yet I'm so glad that we've had this chance to remember. Gosh, it's one of the things. I'm so glad that I'm doing this podcast because it's been my motivation to catch up with people I would never have caught up with otherwise, and that would have been such a loss. Thank you so much for sitting down again with me. In spite of our or technical difficulties, as we, as I'm, as we're fond of saying here, we only think we have the technology. The technology has us. [01:51:45] Speaker D: Thanks so much for reaching out, Alan. [01:51:47] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so glad I did. We're. I have so many more questions and stuff that I want to talk to you about. I said we were talking about something the other day that. Did I not suggest a podcast you for something that you were doing? [01:52:04] Speaker D: Yes. About the horses, because I'm about to jumping into experiment. [01:52:11] Speaker A: Okay. Stick a pin in that. I'm going to circle back to that because it's such a cool idea. I'm going to nudge you about that. [01:52:18] Speaker D: Okay, good. [01:52:19] Speaker A: All right. And, you know, if it ends up with getting to work together creatively on a project, Corey, hella fucking Luya. I'm so there. Uh, so great to talk to you again. Great to reconnect. And, hey, who knows where anything goes in this crazy, mixed up world of ours. Uh, and thank you, everyone, for listening, as always, and we'll see you next time. The how not to make a movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adam, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing. Jody Webster and Jason Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crypt podcast, followed up for what my old pal the Crypt keeper would have called terrific crypt content.