Geoffrey Horne and the Mysterious Disappearance of a Dreamboat

twenty five years old. Then he seemed to disappear. Horn had a few roles in the sixties, but didn't resurface as a notable actor until the seventies in New York. Several why wives and children later, and having survived an addictionary crisis, ass Horn's career relaunched. Lee Strasburg, one of the three founders of method acting in the United States, asked him to teach some classes. Horn taught me at n y U in nineteen seventy nine. He had traveled

a long way from a corseted and isolated childhood. You were raised in Argentina, born in Argentina, moved to Cuba. When I was five, I came to the stage to school. I got kicked out. It was an oil exact. My dad worked for a Sandra company which is now ex He had a good job. Were you close to your parents when you were young. I'm a mama's boy. AM more like my mother, and my father was more of a go getter. When I was young, tyrants, we were invited to lunch at Earn, a sending ways house and Havana.

We went out to lunch there, my father, my mother and I and we had lunch. Oh this is good, you'll love is He taught me how to drink out of about the Spanish gored them thing good, good thing for a future alcoholic right. And my father was always talking about be a man. You gotta be a man. And I remember looking at my father and looking at him and I said, wait a minute, there's only one

man in his room? Hemingway, was it? Yeah? Actually I got I was out in his home and catch him with my mother and his widow, and she showed me where he shot himself, right the spot. Terrible. What a man he was, though, what a straordinary. You would love to Cuba to go to school boarding school a boarding school. Did you go to Millbrook School for boys and you were there by yourself? Your parents overseas they were in Cuba.

I felt like a complete alien up here. I remember the first time I met someone that I could talk to and I liked, and I put my arm around him like that. Ah, we don't do that in America. In Cuba, you did that with your friends. You walked with your friends with your arm around each other. That was in the wrong school. Did your mom come visit you when you were there? No, she came once, and everbody in the school got an award but me and then I got kicked out just before graduating. Your parents

stayed there? How much longer they stayed there? No, My father moved to Venezuela with a different job. My mother remarried. They both remarried within three weeks. It sounds grand, but it was sort of difficult to stepfather were staying at the Gotham Hotel, which is on Fifth Avenue and street. Uh, it's something else. I forget the peninsula and my father and my mother. My stepmother was staying at the St. Regis across Fifth Avenue, and we went back and forth.

My ci and I for the whole long weekend, and I want to write a short story about it. You know, it's it's just sounds too rich. It was my wife keeps saying rich, You're so you were so rich because she grew up poor in Alabama. And then I went to Stanford University, which was because I had a connection. You know who my first audition was with in New York because of a contact was Kazan. My first audition, you see, my career was that wasn't different than yours.

It was Causetne who told me to study with Lee. I was an ignorant Twitter. It was for tea and sympathy for the road show, for the road company to get the job. No No. I read for fifteen seconds and he said, that's fine. You have a nice something. He said something pleasant to me, and he said, you need a good acting teacher. You know. It was I felt like a boy always, and so when I was

playing a boy, I was okay. But if I was suddenly I had to be a man with the wife and kids, and I don't know how to do that. Even though I might be married the kids. It was very alien, which is maybe why some of those marriages didn't work out so well. But in that heyday of your film career, in these massive directors you worked with, you felt awkward and clumsy and pathetic. And the first part when I was on live TV in the first days, those are great days. At fifty six, before I got

any good jobs. I did Billy But on television. I played Billy but the Boy live on TV. George roy Hill directed. It was terrific, with Luther Adler and Joseph Wiseman and a wonderful cast of pe. Well, that was fun. I did feel free. Then what do you think made Kausanne Kasinne? What was different about him? I auditioned for Cazanne that first time. Then I auditioned for him again for Splendor in the Grass with Jane Fonda Warren Beatty's part, and we'd read the scene and we were okay. So

he said, well, let's try something. He put his arm around me, and even though he was not big man, he seemed a giant. And I always thought that he was like this Greek guy who smelled of olive oil. I don't know, he smells a strong smell from him. And he said something to me, you probably have to cut this but he said, you know in the scene and said this when you're talking. He said, it's it's like somebody's fucked your mother. And I don't know why it happened, but it was if he had pressed a

button inside me. And I gave really a good audis and I didn't get the part. Warren got it. Bill walked in with Warhut right after. If he did my audition, but it felt better. That audition felt as good as anything else I ever did in acting. And that's what it was like. Incidentally, years later, I figured something out that it's not that he knew me so well that he picked the right thing to say to me to get me going. He was talking personally about himself and

his mother. We loved it was lending that to you, and it happened to work. He complained about Marlin because Marlin would hear three words and walk away from him, and he said, God, it would drive me crazy. He just walk away. I was saying something, and I realized that's all he needed was those three words. He didn't need a long speech. Okay, So all right, So at Lee Strasbourg five, I said, Lee, I've been studying with you for a year kind of auditioned for the actor's studio.

He said, you can, but you're not ready. That's how he talked. After two years, I said, link an audition for the actor's studio. He said, what's senior doing? And I told him. He said good. So the part was tea and sympathy. I don't know if you remember that play. There's a boy in prep school who feels different. He's accused of being gay. He's not gay, he's just different. He's a little more sensitive than the other ones and so forth, and he gets kicked out of board in

school for whatever it was. Guess what. Jeffrey went to boarding school, felt different, He came from Cuba, got kicked out of boarding school. It was a good part for me, and I got in my first audition. Harvey content took six auditions. He's a much better actor than I do, much better action different. I know he's much better than I ever was. I think I can't even imagine you, if I may say so, Master Bainy against the side of the car as an evil detective in Bad Luten.

There's things that Harvey does. This he does that very well, empowered him. And there's other things you do well anyway. So I got in because I was right for it, and I understood it, and I got it and I was moved by it. That was the peak of my career, twenty three years old. Everything went downhill after that. I played your lawyer one day on the soap opera and I say, he's my goddamn student and I'm playing his lawyer and have three lines. But look at your Your

life in my life very different. You grew up on Long Island. I grew up in Cuba. You went on a soap opera. You worked at NBC. That's where you did the soap, wasn't it. I remember somebody told me. He said I was great. He knew everybody in this building. He knew how to push himself. What happened to me was just the opposite. I was able to live at my mother's apartment, my mother and stuff. They lived on Fifth Avenue, so that's where I lived in New York. So I started not really hardship, and I got a

lead on a television show. Rod Stigger was my father and I was his son. That was my first job, a lead, and then I was doing these leading roles on television. Before you made a movie. How long was it? I didn't make a movie six I was in TV for six years, and and so I went from there to a movie, to a Broadway play to the big movie. So I didn't have to do six years of terrible television. You said, this is not what I want to do. I don't want to be on not Slanding the rest

of my life. But anyway, that's a lot. Seven years or six years. Well, that was the beginning of some weird choices for me, because I was offered a television film, Fatal Vision, that Joe McGuinness book about Jeffrey McDonald jffintal murder case. I went into a bar on Eighth Avenue and knocked down two huge shots of whiskey before I want to do that interview, and I fucking nailed it. I nailed it, and I got that part, and then

I turned it down. And I try to say to people, you know what you gotta do when you have a career, As you reach a point where you make peace with those decisions that you made, you make peace with them. You know where I am now, right where I want to be. I got married to a wonderful woman. I got four great kids, I work when I need to work. Everything's going pretty well. That thing about drinking I sent.

I auditioned for Period of Adjustment in London at the Royal Court Theater and I went into a bar have too. I made the best. Oh it was good. I got the part, and then British Equity didn't let me work because I tried to do it another time after that. It didn't work. It just worked once. I mean, I drank a lot, but I didn't that In my book,

I wrote all about my own situation. And now I think to myself with Trump, if I was drinking now, oh my god, oh my god, you and I would be in that bar on sixe when I watching the ball game. We wouldn't go anywhere. Let's face it, Drinking is fun, you know, That's why we do it. I mean, I drank a lot. Do you think that affected your career? Defect affected my life so much that that affected my career. My life is so. I have a son who is

a drug addict, and he says, it's fun. You forget you don't, don't forget that it's fun for a period until it's not fun. And when it was not fun anymore than I stopped. Thank God, I was able to stop. Some people can't. Um I want to ask you, you know. For me, one of the most memorable moments in my life was when I did the movie The Aviator, because it was my first time working with Marty and I always dreamed about working with the greatest directors and I

didn't have that chance. I remember that was a problem that I could I had to fight to get over, which was I almost couldn't concentrate on my work as I was so intimidated to be on a set with Marty. But you're there, and you're gonna be that next guy. Everybody thinks you're so handsome when you know, up to do Bridge on the River, requiring you with Lean. God, you're with a god making a film. Were you ready? I was so frightened. I was so terrified Lean was

he was. He was not an actor's director like Kazan or like some of them are wonderful with actors, but he was so sensitive to people. He was always moving things around. And I asked David about it, and he said, oh, oh, I don't want to make the actors self conscious. So I'll take a glass and I'll move it three inches to the left and they'll think, oh, I guess I'm okay, the glass is fine. I'm okay. And it was a little technique that he worked out to make people feel comfortable.

But when I had lines, I remember I was sick to my stomach the first day and I had to throw up. It was so panic stricken because it was all action at first, getting the bridge and training, the stuff and all that stuff. I was fine doing throwing people in a box with doing that, I could do that. But River Choir was in the early sixties, seven fifty seven. But I'm assuming even then and someone like Lean had his own financial edicts that in order to make the

movie he wanted to make, he needed a star. Yea. So Holden was the was the ace in the hole? Carry Grant they talked about they wanted, but they wanted to star in one of these roles. Or they had Guinness who was a movie star, but not the same acount. Jack Hawkins was actually a bigger star in England at the time, bigger than Guinness. But Holden is the ace in the hole in the movie start him. Was he the same with Holden as he was? Did he treat everybody like a company, or did he treat his star

just saying he was the same. Just did you become pals with any of those guys? Alec Guinness was very nice and Jack Hawkins was a big snob, which was really peculiar. Who would have thought that, like a like a like a tough guy, like an English tough guy, not like a gangster tough guy, but like a man. He was kind of a snobbld Have you met this? He was a boy. He was thirty eight. He was only thirty eight, he looked much older, thirty eight year

old boy. He was a boy he had He would get bored and so he'd throw firecrackers in the dining room. I mean, just like a one of my favorites, worship well. He was lovely. He was always very friendly and very helpful and nerve in his body on camera so relaxed. What was he like? Yeah, it was rough, but he when I went to Japan afterwards and he took me to a Geisha house. He treated me to a dinner at a Gisha house, a very classy, very lovely, lovely place. No sex, but proper and in fact, even in the

middle of the dinner he got up and danced. He was eighty. I think at the time he did some Japanese dance. I remember all these things if I see the movie, I remember all the sensory things. I remember what the smell in the air was. I remember the trees, I remember the water, I remember where there was how hot it was. I don't think much about the movie itself, but the companionship, the friends you make. Oh and I had a girlfriend on the movie too. She one of

the tie girls. That was great. She was lovely. What a great thing in your life. You got to make that movie with one of the greatest story to be The Jungle with Lean your career. When people take the time to examine your career, you're in that beautiful fold in live TV and films where you know you're the next James Dean. Okay, so you know my career was a disaster, right. I peaked at twenty three and I

went down. You know after that. It's like Matthew Modine when he does his Full Metal Jacket diary and he writes a lot about working with Cooper con Full Metal Jacket, which I love because you can tell he just soaked it up and loved every minute of it. Knew I may never have it the school again as long as I live, you know, So it's funny when you think of that. My first thought when you were talking about

how great it must have been in the jungle. I saw David Lean in Venice one time, the Italian fourth of July. We are an a gondola with bread and cheese and a huge thing of wine, and actually I brought that and it was absolutely lovely. He and his wife. And did I have a wife? Then? I think maybe there were four of us and apply because at the conclusion of your biographical material that our producer forwarded to me,

sources differ on wives and children. He's either been married four or five times and has eight or nine children. We're gonna give you the opportunity now to clarify. How many times have you been married? Well, I've had for marriages and two long term relationships which I call marriages. So it makes six four legal men marriages. And how many children do you have? I have three daughters that are my daughters, and I have six adopted kids. Wait

a minute, that's nine. Yeah, you have nine. Two of them have died, only seven left a nine children all together? You like kids? Where your wives like no act I did always like kids. I like kids. Yeah, And do you know the Dark of the Dark of the Stairs Lesa the young boy. He's Jewish, he doesn't fit in. He's at a military school and he's going to go to a party and he goes there and he's dancing with the daughter of the hostess and she comes and

pulls her daughter away. My son, daughter is not going to dance with any dirty jew. And he goes back to his hotel that night and he jumps out the window and kills himself. And Bill Lynch in a little essay about the play, he said he had no sure connections. Bill Nch was the nicest man. And I thought that was so interesting and moving. And I thought about it a lot, because Bill Innch out in California, drove his car into the garage one day, left the gas on

because he had no sure connections. In spite of all his success, all his place, he was so alone out there. Yeah. I only met him a little bit in California, actually, where he shouldn't have gone to live, where he e been prior to New York. In New York, you should have been, And why did you never move out there. I did move to California. How long thirteen long years? I said that for a long time. Why did you come back here? I wanted to act? And he did.

Jeffrey horn packed up his Hollywood apartment and moved back to New York in nineteen seventy five. Another great artist who had a second act is Mickey Rourke. But first came a brutal into mission. Nothing fell on my plate. There was no work coming in because I was waiting

for you know, Jimino or Copland. It didn't happen. So if it didn't happen, what happened was this piece of ship fell on my plate, and they offered me a boatload of money, and like a whore, I took the four million or whatever it was and bought a big fucking Elvis Presley house that I couldn't afford. And I remember doing this film and hating myself every day. My full interview with Mickey Rourke is in our archives that Here's the Thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and

you were listening to Here's the Thing. We left Jeffrey Horn in he had moved back to New York after his career flamed out. In Hollywood. That ended up being his next lucky break. I had a revival of my career in my forties. I came back to New York. I did some plays off Broadway. I was in a musical Mary. We rolled along. When did the idea come that you were going to teach acting? I was asked by who at least do you recall what the year? That was a decade um. I always liked teaching. I

always taught something. I taught yoga for a while, gardening. I taught horseback riding because I had all these kids around and I would do that. And I was working a lot at the Actors Studio during scenes a lot and Lisa, I'm into a play there and he said, oh, he wrudgingly said, all right, try one class. I never worked Monday night, since I always taught at Monday night class. That was my beginning. And then n y U and that's when you were there seventy nine. I don't even

teaching for a year. God knows what miserable stuff I told you. I didn't know what the hell I was Do's what made me famous. I've lived on every word of her. I didn't know what to do, and I was crying during a sense memory exercise. You poked me in the stomach and you said, I want you to work on your insides as much as you're outside. It's funny. I remember that too. You told me that Milton could

sell us said the same thing to you. Well, Milton could sell us walked when when I was with you, I was skinny, and when seven nine, I was lean, And then when I got with him, I met him in nineteen eighty three, eighty four. But I'll never know you. The first thing you do when you're a poor kid and you make a lot of money is you start to eat whatever you want to eat. And uh, and you don't hesitate. You know what I mean. I'm like, well, I discovered sushi when I moved to l a and

and I haven't turned back since. But I'll never could sell us walked up to me. He never said one thing to me the whole time. And he walked up behind me, and he whispered in my ear. He said, lose eight pounds eight. We were specific. He was a genius about about that kind of estimation. But when you began teaching, how's it changed for you over the course of that I feel liberated. It used to be what and what is it now? I'm not very confident, never

have been. And I felt anxious all the time, and I'm worried that I wasn't doing it right and that I wasn't helping. And maybe five years, maybe longer, I suddenly felt liberated. I felt like I gotta be myself. I think really for the first time my life teaching, I never felt that as an actor, I could be myself, which is what you always had from the beginning. How have the students changed to come into these spaces that

you teach them? It is the same the students. There's more diversity now, they're getting much more hip, They're much more knowledgeable about stuff the world. It's a little sometimes a little too political. They're like wary about what you say. You're like, I can't you should be able to say that, you can say this, you can't say that. I know there's some things probably they were massively offensive fifty years ago or forty years ago and I started teaching, but

that we can't say now. But I think sometimes I gets a little excid, like they're looking for something. I mentioned suicide one time in class and a girl said, trigger and her friend said, oh, that's right trigger, and I thought that's stupid, and I got really upset and I said, my eldest son committed suicide. I can't talk about that. Well, it might hurt someone. Does the institution tell you that you have to honor that? When they say that, not yet, why don't you just get up

and leave? That's it perfect. There was a girl in class who obviously had some issue about a scene because it hadn't involved sexual assault, and she said, I think I'll sit this one out, and she left the class right fine, and she works very well, she's very good, she's very talented, says she said. I can't deal with that now. The thing I noticed, and I don't expect you to agree or whatever, but I did interested to

get your thoughts. Is that when I would teach school and I would guess at n y you, I'd walk into a class for a day and I'd give my thought about whatever. And then I did the full semester, which was very interesting, and we had eleven pairs for a scene study and we had people come. What I realized was that now in the modern world, there are young people who come to acting school who have the cumbs and the s A T s to go to law school or medical school, the Creme de la creme academically,

and they're coming here to study acting. But a lot of them aren't very talented. They're not very talented. They'd be better lawyers, right. And I said to this school, I said, they're all very smart. I said, I'm in a room full of really smart people who aren't very adventurous actors or artists. And I said, what I would

encourage you to do? And they and you could see them twitching, and say, you need to take two slots, one man, one woman, and lower it to a certain floor like nothing below a three, oh nothing below a specific s a T. But tear out two coupons and invite people in her you think are just purely talented, that you think gave an audition that just blew you away.

And it's not just for their it's for the benefit of the other kids to see what good is and who can take direction, because in the studio at Strasbourg where I went, when I studied with you, it's a lot more, you know, less result oriented, and so which is good. I'll never forget. Um. There was a guy I won't name his name. I'm so tempted to, but he does Oberon in the class, and when he's done, the teachers are stands there and stares at him, and she literally looks over her shoulder at the rest of

the class, like there it is. He's just fantastic. I saw him twenty five years later. He's a conductor on the subway and amazing. I'm not mocking that. I'm just saying he's not. What happens in the classroom and what happens in the outside world is a very very different thing for me. The kinds of people that are going into the business they want to be famous. I didn't really get that that much when I was. It's changed

a lot. And you know, and of course, back in fifty four when I was in my first class, I didn't know anything like Nicholas was in the class. Um Elanagan was in my class. Um. Everybody in the class worked professionally. There were fewer actors and more jobs, and a lot of them were really good and had really long, wonderful careers. I think that's changed, that's changed a lot. Why do you stay here? Why? Why? Oh my god, I don't want to go anywhere. I have sure connections.

Now I have this job, a great job. I'd love going to work every day. I only work three days a week, such as nice because I am eighty five. Those a long days, eight hour days, and then gray I feel great. I have four days off a week. I have a wife who's great. She reads to me at nighttime. Every night. We read Anna Karen and I. We read Warren Peace, We read wonderful books. She's what created this Shakespeare company out of her imagination. And so

I get the director of Shakespeare play every year. We're doing Hamlet this year. When in June, we have an apartment that I love. We had a cat that we love, both of us, a wonderful cat. But the cat died recently, and so suddenly you feel a little bit diminished. You have have four sure things and now I only have three. Have you ever been tempted to teach somewhere else? Strasburg works for you based on what what's the belief? Uh?

I think that the hurts we have in childhood, and the hurts we never get over the wounds of the spirit that never heal. Tennessee Williams writes about it beautifully. So I can't say it as beautifully as he says it. No matter how famous, no matter how rich, no matter how successful, it never goes away. Martin Brando is as hurt the day he died as he was when he was a child with a brutal father. Um Strasburg stressed

childhood memory emotion. If you get in touch with the hurt of your childhood through memory, the emotion will be there. When I would teach acting, i'd hire a piano player, so I have a guy who was local that come and play the piano, and we'd have a range of this very basic song you'd sing, climb every mountain, the sun will come out tomorrow. And I made them get up. I made him sing, and I said, if you can't do this, you can't act. You gotta pull your pants

down here. You're you're you're not a singer. So what I always remember this that Maury Yeston, who wrote nine, was at a party. I was at a benefit for like the Roundabout or something, and there was Nathan Lane and this one and that one, and they're all talking about Broadway musical Tonight. Don't sing And Maury Yeston said to me, he said, you don't sing I said, I really don't sing, and I wish I did. I can't sing.

I really can't. I don't have the equipment. And he said, you know, Dustin Hoffman said the same thing to me. And I said, to Dustin, sing the star Spangled Banner in the style of Jimmy Duranty and dust and said, oh see, can you see? He said, now I want you to sing Happy Birthday in the style of Louis

Armstrong Happy. He said, you see, you're on key, and you can sing when you're imitating somebody else because you don't have your own style, because we have to find your style, and you're gonna wind up doing an impersonation of someone that doesn't exist to actually, which is the style we're going to create for you to sing. I thought that was fascinating what he said that about singing. You know, my my wife we did bus stop. I directed bus Stop. There's wonderful part for her. She was

very good. But she can't sing at all. She sings one note a hundred times. It's the same note. It doesn't go up, doesn't go down, doesn't go faster than go slower. I cannot do it now. Maybe someone could get it. No, She even went to a singing coach. Nothing. Nothing. Do you think everybody can act? I think I think some people have a Meryl Streep as a wonderful actress, right, and she can do almost everything, but not everything. Yes, Marlon Brando, David Lean offered him the part of the Buddha.

I'll make a movie with you the Buddha. He said, I'm not right for the part. He knew himself. Well, I don't think it was just laziness on his part that he said, I'm not right for it. I don't want to go to India. Jack Nicholson is a wonderful actor. He can't do everything. This girl in my class just yesterday she worked on two scenes and the first one she was so terrible it was just painful to watch. And then she did another one and she was just

couldn't have been better to the right part. You have to find something you connect to and then eventually, uh, you keep putting it out there. I really believe this, and this is very you know, kind of metaphysical maybe, but you keep putting it out there, It's going to come back to you. Do you feel the same way. So I remember with Gregory Peck my second wife was in a to Kill a Mockingberg. She played the girl that accused the black Eye of rape, Mayell Violet, And

that was my second wife. Your second wife played Mayella? Yes, yes, yes, yeah. Where did you meet with the studio? We were on the same TV show and then we both remembers of the studio and then whatever whatever marriage? Yeah that I think I was still married, but never mind. Anyway. Gregory Peck, who I just meant to say hello, I shook his hand, who was actually the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life. He and his wife. I walked into an elevator and they were standing there. I think I

stood there with my mouth opened like an idiot. I felt like I was this big and they were these giants. He said when he was eighty, I should have taken more risks. And then just yesterday I read this in class. One of my students sent it to me. It's a the Actors, something that Kazan wrote, and one of those things, don't be timid. That's the thing that I don't like it when people say if you're shy, you can't be an actor. Well, I don't think that's true. I think

I remember meeting Robert de Niro. He was famous, but he was not in his element. He was at a party and he felt awkward, and he seemed really shy, painfully shy. So does that mean he can't be an actor? If anybody had said that, no, Bobby, forget it, to forget to do something else. You're too shy. I think that's why I like Strasburg is that there's no rule about how you're supposed to be well in my career, and I don't like that word, but I'll use it

anyway because it's handy in my career. There's two people who I studied acting with who said things to me that were pivotal. One was Elaine Aiken, who, when I went to meet her with her privately gets a little bit of coaching. I did about a five or six sessions with her about street Car street Car. I remember when we did the play, I had an instinct like, oh, I want to not just work with Gregory who is directing. I wanted to go to get a little private thing,

to get a little jump on it. And we're there in her apartment on Central Park West, and she said to me, when we've reached a juncture, in the scene and she said to me, she said, baby, this part. You know, he's an animal. He just wanted he wants something, he just takes it. He's going to go right through who's ever in his way. She goes, and really, you're either sexy or you're not. There's nothing we can work

on there. You've either got that or you don't. And then of course you who said I want you to work on your insides as much as you're outside. I saw you, of course in street car whatever it is that she how she coached you work because you were very sexy and I know it all to you, and you were very funny. You were very funny. Is there any part you want to do? I kept thinking of what part should Ale do that he hasn't done well? I think to myself, you know, obviously, I think about

my age. I have an unshakable interest in trying to master After the fall by Miller Coud, that take on his marriage to Monroe is what's in the relationship between a man and a woman and that attraction we have to the wrong woman, and a woman's gonna kill us if we if we hang on there, we're gonna go down with her. We're gonna sink on that ship with her.

I was intrigued by that. Maybe not so much anymore because I'm very happily married, but when I was coupling with the wrong person, almost addictively, I was obsessed with that piece and then the other pieces. Iguana. I just love. I just love when they roll that old man out there and he says the poem and he drops dead. I just want to play that ornery, alcoholic, fornicating madman. I want to play Shannon. Yeah, but the problems. It's a great but the problem is that then the Williams Cannon.

Everybody plays Shannon. You play Chance, you play Stanley, you play Brick, you play all the young parts, and then there's nothing until Shannon, and then after Shannon, there's only the last Top is your big daddy, right, So I mean every guy in my age plays Shannon's. I've kind of backed off of it, but I'd like to do it one day. One day. You want to direct me and Shannon. That's a hard play. I don't know. I you know, I only work with my students. Well you,

as a former student, I could direct you. Everybody that I worked with that I directed that I've taught, and so I don't have to. I don't have to cater to anybody. Sometimes actors, even though they've never done a job in their lives, you can have to cater to them a little bit, but it'd be hard from you. I do you know? You know who? Very I don't see.

He was the Shakespeare guru at the Public and now he's in Santiago artistic director, and he was coaching some very well known actors in his technique verse technique, and he's really very good. He's extrauditt and knowledgeable about verse. And they were arguing with him because they were more famous than he was, and I thought, fuck that. I don't need that. I don't want to do that. I

want to get an argument with anybody. Not that I think you would argue or be a pain, but I'm thinking of other people that i've known, because actors are always insecure when they go into a job, aren't they. And they, yes, they are always and they and they need someone to let them know they're gonna be okay. You know, you're smart, you're insightful, but you're kind, and I feel that's essential. I'm not going to name names, but remember teachers there at Strasbourg, Who you do the scene?

They go, why did you bother? My mother was nice, so I learned that she was kind. Thank you for doing this with me. Thanks very What a nice thing to do. Jeffrey Horn from lonely child to movie star to obscurity and a spectacular second act. As you heard his teaching isn't his only gift to New York theater. The theater company he started with his wife, Billy Anderson is called Shakespeare Downtown. Tickets are free. They rely on

donations at Shakespeare Downtown dot org. The Hamlet we discussed opens June and runs through I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing