John Turturro’s Mind at Work

diverse films. And I worked with so many incredible directors, and there's so many indelible images from the Cone Brothers and Woody Allen and Scorsese and of course Spike Lee. There's so many roles worked in the theater. And and for anybody who is like me, who is always desperate, and that is the word, desperate to find my next binge viewing source on TV. The night of the program on HBO, remember writing to him and to Steve Zali and the producer and director and creator, and to Richard Price.

I was like, you know, how are you going to wrap this up in the final episode. It was just like the most incredibly nugety thing that was happening in that show, and I love that show The Night Of, and I hope they do more of it. But but again, I love doing this program because I get to pick people that I want to talk to. I'm very grateful to our guests this evening for agreeing to do this. I don't think he has a lot of this stuff. I don't think he has been the spare time. But

please join me and welcoming our very special guest, John Taturo. Now, all of the things we're going to talk about, he and I unfortunately already covered backstage. We try to avoid that.

We try to avoid getting too cozy backstage. But I remember um we were talking about and I was just briefly touching on what it's like for you to produce and write and direct your own films, because you've had this incredible career as a film actor, and you've made so many great films that are other people's projects, and you're an actor for higher But when you do your own thing, described me, for example, the one you just finished.

I just finished the film called Going Places. It's a adaptation or reimagining of a French film called la vel SEUs, which is from the from the seventies, and it was also a book by buttomb Lier level suss it means the waltzers or the testicles. Uh. It was a film that made Gerard Depardu a star actually, uh, and it's a really trans aggressive sort of It's considered kind of

a classic in France. Pauline Kole was a big champion of the film, and it was a film that kind of blew my mind when I was a kid, and uh, I was rewatching it and I wrote to a Bilie and I asked him, as it, would you ever think that someone could make a you know, an American version of it? And uh he said, yeah, I've seen your

films and you're crazy enough, and here's the rights. So anyway, it took me a long time to do that, and uh, you know, to to to adapt it and get the money to do it, and uh, that's why my hair is this way. Uh. And I actually, during the course of it, uh was doing readings of it and I

was kind of unhappy with what I was doing. And then I thought of, well, you know, there's a character I've done in a play and I think I and also in a movie and it would kind of maybe work and I tried it and it did and so I'm going to uh reprise, Wow, I am. I have reprised the character of Jesus Quintana. So he's he's going to be in this film. He is in the film.

So I took this French movie and a character that I had created at the public theater and then in another movie, and I kind of pushed them all together and it kind of worked out, at least in my mind.

It's interesting how someone said that once about Berto Lucci and Last Tango, how he picked two actors h and he wanted he he identified an actor and an actress and he went into their filmography to figure out who through a character they had played, that character would have grown to become the character in my film right now. It's it's the truth. Sometimes you want to revisit somebody years later and uh, but you know, you have to be kind of a little crazy to attempt to do

one of these things. I started out the first movie I made Mac that was a play and it took me. I worked on it for like ten years, and uh, it was my first movie. And after I did that, many people asked me to direct other movies. But I kind of knew that I wasn't really a director for hire. And I did my film because I did that film because I understood that world. I grew up in it. My father was a builder, and there were no films

ever made about builders. You know, It's always about you know, gangsters or criminals or lawyers, but you never see a film about you know, bricklayers or builders or bridge builders. And uh, I wanted to make a film about that because it's a very uh challenging and dramatic business. You know, it can be a very dangerous business. Also, your father was in construction. My father was a building a builder. Yeah, and your mother was a housewifether she had. My mother

was a person. She was a musician and then she kind of gave it up. Her brothers were professional musicians, but she wanted to be like a designer. But she was a very talented person, probably the most talented person in our family. But uh, she didn't really get a chance to do all of that, but she certainly made sure that. You know, we had that. How many kids in your family, you and your brother, three boys. I'm

the middle child. And what did your family think about when you wanted to go to New Paul's and then Yale Drama School. And my father wanted me to have a backup plan, you know. You wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor, and I was pretty good in school. He didn't want me to be a carpentery. He wanted me to be an architect, you know, he he thought, but I wasn't really good enough and math to do that. But he wanted me to be professional man, you know, like a lot of immigrant. My father was

wasn't born here. He was born in Italy and he came here and then he wound up being you know, in the service. He was in World War Two, he was in invasion of D Day, and uh, you know, so he was a real kind of American guy. You know. He wanted me to to reap all those rewards. So when you are a child, I mean, because you and I are roughly the same age, when you were young, what was film and theater in your life? As a child? Was your house a lot of music and uh, I

guess film. I mean we would go to the movies all the time. But obviously probably like you, we watched million Dollar movie, you know what I mean. And the Honeymooners and all those classic things that really influenced us.

And uh, I mean, I think what a lot of those Warner Brothers films, because they would always be on over and over again with Edward g and Robinson and James Cagney, and you know, oh I loved I loved so many of them, you know, and uh, you know, uh one time I would want to be Bert Lancaster, and then I would want to be James Cagney, and

then uh, I mean, I still love those actors. And I love those actors because they're really physical and you really see their whole performance, and uh, they're still you know, Barbara Stanwick. You know, I just you know, just crazy about them, and I still have remained. So I remember when I was a kid, my favorite death scene was in a city for Conquest. Kazan gets shot by the river and they dumped the body in the river and the guys dropped the gun and the guy picks up

the gun and they piste a whoop. The guy who wakes up picks up the gun, he shoots Kazan and Kazan's get shoty as my favorite definitely goes ah jeez. I never figured on that at all. That's good. That's a great one. And that's a real tier Jericho at the end because he goes he goes blind at the end with Anne Jaran and so you know you always my girl, you know, at the end he's selling newspapers, you know, and it's like, you know, James, you know

that's uh so those that was an inspiration. And then when I was introduced when I saw a theater when I was a teenager, my mother would take me to some place and I did get a chance to see al Pacino do the tiger wear necktie. Yeah, I didn't you know who he was, but my mother and I were like, wow, who's that guy? You know in that play? And uh we saw some musicals ben Verene, you know, and uh it was like just watching live performers. I was. I thought, Wow, maybe that's something I could do because

I never knew anyone. And what made you think from It's interesting because for me, I never dreamed of that. Like I thought I thought movie stars were like, you know, hatched and pods on some other planets and I flew them here in a spaceship and like nobody really went and did that from no, I mean we knew a prop man. He lived across the street from us, and that was like as close as I was to the movies. So theater was the first entree about maybe trying to

do that, you know, in college. You know. It wasn't until I saw Dustin Hoffman actually, which when I saw clips for the Academy Award, I was too young to see Midnight Cowboy. I was shocked, I was. I remember seeing it. I say like, wow, this guy looks like someone in our family, you know what, you know, what's he doing in the movie? How can he be in a movie? You know? And I was like kind of shocked to see him. And it was kind of shocking because he sort of opened the doors for these other

Pacino and de Niro and all those guys. And but that was really I never forget seeing those clips of you know, for the Academy Awards. And then when you went to New Paul, she went for drama and I had him, Yeah, and I had him. I did a minor in English and yes, and I was in there for four years. Yes, My first play I did was

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I played Chief Browndon because this Italian teacher said, you know, listen, you probably could play an Indian, so you should audition for you know, And I was like, all right, different times, different times, I can't do that. Now. If you see a lot of those guys you know who were in these like Anthony Quinn, he played Indians, you know originally you know, Uh,

Jeff Chandler, Jeff Chandler, Yeah, Burt Lancaster Apache. So yeah, and when you were there, what evolved like when you were at New Paulse what do you remember propelled you want to keep going? Well, I did a few plays of you from the Bridge Cuckoo's Nest. Uh. Later on I didn't so I I I felt like, Uh, I found something that I really I was very raw and I was I was not that you know skilled. I remember one teacher thought I was. But I wasn't afraid,

you know, to try things. And uh, I had a few teachers who took me under their wing, and uh they had a major influence on Beverly Brown. She passed away, but she what did she gave you? What did she do for you? She she basically educated me in many different ways and you know, taught me how to break down a script, how to you know, play an objective, you know how to listen to the other actor, you know how to work physically. And she spent so much time with me, you know, out of the classroom too

that I had. I had a bunch of teachers. They really cared about me, and they cared about other schools. And I, you know, I'm still friends with I never, you know, cut off my relationship with those people. It's interesting because like I think about people who and it is kind of a latent learning, Like they say things to you when it comes back to you even years later, what they said to you. You know, I remember I did a I had a woman, Mia Rostova. She's a

wonderful Stova was my teacher for a year. She taught her in an apartment that she borrowed from a friend of hers, her by the old Barneys. But she was my teacher. And she passed away a few years or she was ninety nine years old. And uh, we did a scene once. I'll never forget this incredible lesson she gave me of not playing everything at the expense of the other actor. Because you're a very warm and very generous actor. You know, you have a you have a

great passion, but you're not selfish. And that's such an incredible thing I see and people. I'm always drawn to actors like that because Rostova would be there and the actors would do the scene and the guys at the table, and the woman comes in in her trench coat and she has her pocketbook and her back bags of groceries or whatever, and the guy goes, what time is it? Says, she goes at six o'clock. He says, where are you been? Rostova literally goes, okay, let's stop. That's right, that's right,

and she goes. She was obviously had a very heavy accent. She says, why you talk to her like this? What? Because he prepared it. That's why he went to show, he said. He says, why don't you not say what time is it? Where you've been? He's the where you were going. We have plenty of time to get there, you know, because I worked on in daytime a lot to the soap and there were guys we used to joke about who They always were going to lay into you in the scene, even when they said they loved you.

They were like, I love you, Mary, Yeah, I love you. You know. They was really like all attention you did you did you feel that you had that innately, that kind of general spirit you have. I think, you know, I was a pretty good listener, but I think I refined it when I studied the Sandy Meisner technique at Carnegy Hall with Robert X Motika. He really that's what it's all about, you know, listening and responding and letting

your partner affect you and doing out of that. And uh, I thought that was very very good training and it's essential. But when this is then you decided to go to Yale, why did you want to dive in and go right to work? I did. I tried to go to work. I was very shy about going out there and hustling. I was a school teacher for a while. I taught at UH, I was a substitute. I taught at Rice High School in Harlem to teach American history. And I also taught at a Catholic school called Our Lady Queen

of Martyr UH fifth and sixth graders. And I and I got invited back to both of these things, but I was doing showcases, and I and my teacher, Beverly Broum, had gone to Yale, and I thought, you know what, I don't know really how to hustle that much, you know, I was I was kind of shy. So I applied to n y U and to Yale, and I got into both programs and I got a scholarship to Yale, and uh, I thought, well, you know, I'll give it a shot. And uh, you know, my father was overjoyed

because he loved the masonry work I kept. When he was like he didn't care. He was like, oh my god, look at the buildings, you know, and he was like, oh my god. So uh uh And then you know I did. I worked a lot there and uh and I you know, I did a little new plays, got classical plays. Uh. You know, so when you get out of Yale and what do you do? Then Lloyd Richards

gave me a job. I mean I auditioned and I did two plays, one by Keith ra Dean who was a friend of mine, and one by John Patrick Shanlon. And uh that's how I met John and I did uh the Light, the Light version of Danny in a Deep Blue cy Uh. And then eventually John, you know, brought me back to do a workshop at Circle Rep. And then I did it later on at the Actors Theater of Louisville, and then we brought it to New York.

And really that was my entree, you know, people seeing me on stage, and and I got other work, you know from that play, you know. And John really a big effect on me, you know, he you know, he wanted me to be in like everything he wrote at that time, and I did every reading and but he was really supportive of me. And uh, you know, he's the one who really fought for me to be in Five Corners and uh, you know, I really owe a lot to John. Uh And uh the Five Corners was

the movie with Jodie Foster and Tim Robbins. That was the beginning, really, and then I started getting in some movies and I did. I work with Billy Freakin and uh, I've lived to talk about it. Uh, And I worked with Michael Tremino and lived to talk about talk about that. You did you did to live in l A? Yeah,

freaking yeah. And that was a pretty wild movie. Was with Bill Peterson and uh, Willem Dafoe and Johnny pack Out and none of us, I don't think I had been maybe Willem had been in the movie and he was pretty out there guy, and uh, you had to be careful physically. You don't know what he was gonna do to you. And uh we worked in a in a prison, uh which with prisoners, with guys on towers with machine guns, and uh we we all had altercations

with him on the film. And I didn't know, you know, this is what moviemaking is like that maybe the director will jump on top of you, you know. Uh, but he did and uh and I think I learned a lot from working with him and working with Amino because you didn't know what was going to happen. I mean, it's kind of the cocaine eighties, you know. But there were directors that, you know, tell the other actor, you know, hit him in the face, stop him in the face.

Even if we were doing a scene like this, you know how right, I'm a doctor. Hit him in the face, hit him in the face, put him in a face. So it was like the deer Hunter scene, the Russian Roulette scene applied to every other scene. And you know, uh, but I I you know, I learned to ride a horse on the film. I worked with min know, and I think I learned. Yeah, And it was really I was like the only Italian person in the entire movie,

you know what I mean. I was Italian American at half Sicilian, and everyone else was from all over the world. And but I think those move those movies really helped me for later on to be able to stand up for myself and say, you know, no, I don't agree, I'm not going to do that. But it is that a part of it meaning because for me, you know, I remember the beginning of my career, and you might

find this hard to believe. I was actually very guileless and I was very tender and uh, and I get to work and I didn't want to piss anybody off. And so you're you're you're you're the guest in their house, and you want to be professional, and you confuse professionalism what's kind of laying down and just done, just laying

down and not having an opinion. And the minute you start to have an opinion about anything, people are like, you know, oh Jesus Christ, you know you know that you're difficult, and uh, it's very interesting that you say that that you remember. On a couple of occasions, I sit there and I say, you know, I know this doesn't really make sense to me. And I wound up where like the Rector, I wouldn't even speak for like

three months. It's a very difficult process. No, it's hard to speak, not speaking for three months because I think the fear of being fired. If you're an actor, it's so hard to get hired. The fear of being fired is held over your head and you have to get to the point where you don't care if you'll be fired, you know, to say I don't I'm not going to

do that. And uh. I did that on Five Corners the first day and the guy tried to block a scene and Bill and I said I don't want to do it, and he said what I said, and I wanted to be sitting against the wall because the guy had gotten out of prison, and I kind of laid it down and that was the beginning. And then I had a very good collaboration during that movie. And that's the first movie I felt like I was doing what I could do on stage, but in a movie. And

then what happens after you do uh? And I started getting you know different. Uh. Spike Lee, you know, called me up. The Cohen Brothers knew me because I went to school with Frances mcdorman's, so they saw all the plays I was I was in, so they would see me all the time. I come kind of friends with them. So then I eventually told me they were writing apart

from me. But it took them all such a long time to write because this crossing because they had writer's block, and in the middle of it, they wrote Barton Fink. That's how they wrote Barton Fink. And Uh. So then I did, Uh. I did. Spike asked me to come in and and I read Do the Right Thing and uh because he saw five Corners and you know, I was excited when I read it. I said, well, this is about what's going on. And I grew up in a you know, I grew up in a black neighborhood.

I moved to a white neighborhood. I was bust out to all black school, so a lot of you know, the issues were issues that I grew up with. And uh, and Spike and I really became very, very close friends. The film came out of ninety it's a last year you had. When did they screen there in the city. What was that like for you to go back? And well, it was weird because you know, I was the I

played the racist sky. So when we would go to Daily's, which Spike invited everyone to at l i uh Long Island University in on Flatbush and Brooklyn, you'd see that, you know, the five takes of me saying all these racist things. And sometimes there were people and the crew you know, had never worked on a movie before, like the lady and craft services, and she was a black lady, and she wouldn't she wouldn't talk to me, you know what I mean. She actually told me, she said, you know,

I hate you. You know, she's amazing. I hate you so much. And I told Spikes advanced, you can tell us I'm doing a podcast, and you know, he was laughing and stuff like that. So I was kind of you know, uh, you know, worried about, you know, what would happen. But it was only really positive to response.

But when we saw the Anniversary, Michael Jackson had just died, and I have a line in the movie, we goes fuck you, fuck Frank Sanatra, I say, how fuck you and fuck Michael Jackson too, and he was right after he died, and once again the audience led out this big spots. I was like, oh, my god, I can never get away and go back to zero again, you know, but you know, it was, it was. It was an exciting movie, and lots of people had different opinions about the movie, even in the people in the movie and

you were shooting Yeah. Well, we had a long rehearsal process. Described that we had a real great group there because we all worked together for ten weeks. We were on the set every day together with rehearsal for Yeah. And Danny, of course was I just saw him the other day on the street by Lincoln Center. I got I mean, you know, so he was, you know, flying high and Ascie Davis and Ruby d and uh. It was really it was very upsetting to do the end of the movie.

It was very upsetting to do the end of it was really and there was a lot of tension on the set between Danny and Spike about doing the scene the way Spike wanted, did this way Spike wanted to prevail. Eventually it did, it did, but it got really heated and it actually came close to things getting a little out of control. Uh and uh, but we managed, you know, through it and everything. But I remember, I just didn't it was it was sickening, you know, to do some

of that part. I remember me with Junk, all of us posito, and we had our hands around each other's throats and you could just feel like, you know, because we were all really, you know, so close. And then we worked together a lot of movies after that and stuff, But that was a really special experience. Coming up, John Taturo talks about the crisis but almost convinced him to

go to medical school at age fifty. Like Taturo, who once loved film, canisters around the country looking for funding, writer director James Toback is committed to making films on his own terms. You need a heavy dose of megalomania and a heavy dose of humility. It's a combination of the two. Where does your humility come from? From access to your humility. The humility is that you say to your collaborators, you can either enable me to achieve what I know I can do with this movie, or you

can prevent me from achieving it. I am at your mercy. If you can give me what I know, you can give me humility or manipulation. No, it's humility because I know that if they're not all there for me, and if I've made a wrong selection. I'm gonna I'm doomed to hear more about James Toback story. Go to Here's the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. My guest today is actor John taturo To Touro captivated the nation as Pino and

Do the Right Thing, and hasn't stopped mesmerizing audiences. iNTS Most recently, we've seen him in HBO's mini series The Night Of. Like his other roles, this one is raw, wholehearted, vulnerable and brilliant. Tuturo says his work on screen is helped by his experience on stage, and in his early years he was back and forth between the two. I did A Chanley's play Italian American Reconciliation, and then I did Milliss Crossing, and I did Millis Crossing. Barton think

that was aft of Miller's Crossing. Was a Miller's Crossing was was first? And and did that and then they told me that they had written this movie for me, And I thought, they said bart and think and uh uh and then you know, and I I mean, and out of that movie, I got a lot of work and stuff, but I always went back to the theater and and uh, you know, and continued to do theater. Now, you met your wife at Yale and she was studying

acting obviously as well. And we've worked together many times, and you've directed her with that of you did Max. She was the star of the film, and she was a star of Illuminata, and I've done a theater with her. Master builders that. Like to direct your wife in the film. Well, if I was married to an actress once, I'm not quite sure how that would have gone. At first. It's not good because you know, like your brother, I've directed that.

I've had my mother, my brother, and if they all first and then go no, like you tell him, can you do this? No? You know, that's like that's the first and then eventually you have to learn, like to respect each other. And she's the actress, I'm the director, and we have to kind of draw lines and separate that, and it's not easy to do. I've talked to even people like Joe Cohen, you know, and he's like, I let my brother direct friend, you know what I mean. He says, you know, it's it's it can be, but

it can be great. Once you get you know, past that. So uh. And I think I've had really good collaborations with with Kathy, and I think she's done some wonderful work in and she doesn't want to act anymore. No, she's now studying social work. And what do you observe a about that where it just kind of goes out to just leave somebody's body she doesn't want to. I think it happens. I'm sure it's probably happened to you. You think at one time of your life, you know,

maybe that's something I want to do different. It's happened to me. Sometimes while I'm on the set shooting a film, I'll be like, yeah, yeah, I go home. I mean I I had a sort of crisis maybe eight nine, ten years ago and told my doctor, I said, you know, I'm done with this business. I've got to do something really important, like what you do. I said, I want to go to medical school. I was like fifty years old.

And he was like, John, you're crazy. It was like, you know, you know how long medical school takes, you know? And he said, think what you do is there's a value to what you do? And I was like, no, there's not, you know, uh, And he talked me out of it, and uh, but you know it's everyone hits that.

I guess it's sometimes it's interesting how And I'd love to hear this in your own words, you know, the acting experience, and a lot of it has to do with the people that I'm working with, like if they can hit the ball back, you know what I mean, Like if I really like somebody. I did this over the edge with Tony Hopkins, I'll never thinket They called me and they said, oh, de Niro was supposed to play the lead, and he dropped out to say we

got to Anthony Hopkins and I started to cry. I mean, I forgot on vacation with my ex wife and where her family were on Carolina at the beach house. And I sat there and started getting like these chess palpitations because I worshiped Tony so much. I just loved Tony. I thought, how gonna get to go make a movie?

It's me and him? Right. Harold Perrino, who was on the show Lost African American guy for a young, very good looking He had the funniest line because the three of us are lost in the woods, and he said, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins and Harold Perrino. I wonder which one the bear is going to eat the first? And so he dies in the film, Um, you know, page forty, page thirty, he gets chewed on and he was very

funny Harold. But but but but we do the movie and there's Tony and I in the woods for like four or five six weeks there in Canada, and it was just such a great I mean, I loved it. And he's a one. He's a wonderful person. Yeah. I actually did a movie that he directed me and that he wrote, which I've never seen actually Slipstream. It's called And I had so much fun working with him. I play someone who's like a figment of his imagination. And he said to me once, he said, uh, Jones, Jones,

I'd like you to do this scene. He said, um, excuse metaphorice and like a cock roage on fire. I said, you know, Mr Hopkins, you were speaking my language. So we laughed. So we had so much fun. He's such an open guy. He's such a wonderful, attractive guy. And I was like, like you, I've always loved his work from Equis and QB seven. You know, when I first saw him. Yeah. I mean it was my mother who told me to watch him on that. Uh, but he's a wonderful person. He said, we we do the film.

And I said to him, my god, you worked with Olivi And I said, and you did all these plays and they're from this great tradition. And I said, you from ms the theater and plays. He was like, no, I hate the theater, my love, and to test the theater, really you do? I said, you never want to go back into a place, and no, I only want my life. I wanted to move to California, didn't become an American film star, didn't drive my car with the top down, the sun in my face, the wind in my head.

And he wasn't kidding. Does now this was his dream, was to be a movie star. Yeah, but he doesn't give a about or a pinter or none of it. This great tradition. He will ask you, why do you like to do theater? He said, well, I like the rehearsal process, you know, uh, you know, yeah, But what's the pick a pick a film? I mean, obviously there's many, because you're you've got so many great films and in

so much great war. Well, you're doing it and you're in it, and you're like, man, this is just bliss to me making this film play well some of the movies that we talked about. When I worked with Robert Redford when I did Questions, Yeah, I was, I really, I mean I gained a lot of weight and everything to do it, and uh, but uh that was a

really that was a really fun experience. And I loved working with him and he was He's just like multifaceted, kind of eccentric guy, you know, and uh he just was so uh good in specific details, physical details to help free you. And uh we got along just incredibly well. And I think probably shows maybe in my performance. I really was very free, you know with him, and I

really wanted to please him. I really did, because he he was so good looking, he is uh and uh he's very you know, he's really seductive, you know in getting you to to be relaxed and everything. But he was a real consummate craftsman. You know, he's from the theater. And I loved working with him, and uh that was

a real joy. And also a movie I've made, uh with a great Italian director, Francisco Rosie, which I was a adaptation of a Primo Levee book, and I was involved with that for about five years, and I think that's one of the best things I've ever done. I don't really talk a lot in film, uh, but I also got a real education with him in in Italian filmmaking. And also I got to study everything about Primo Levia for like four or five years. And uh, I really

I think I really changed my life. So I don't like the word foodie, but you're somebody who you appreciate, You into cooking, you and your boyfriend of cooking. Is it true? You guys, sit down, you have to like these meals. And my wife's a really good cook, and I helped prepare and clean, yeah and eat U. But yeah, but I think you know my mother was Yeah, my mother could. She was a world class Yeah, that's right.

And uh, you know a lot of my friends would come over my house to eat, so, you know, because and they also liked to talk to my father, who was a very good storyteller. So you know. Uh, my father was like very childlike in his you know, like if he'd watched movies with him, he was like he was in the movie. You know, there's a movie that we used to watch together, Brute Force that burnt Lancasters. Have you seen that with you and Crone? My father

was like he was like in the movie. You know, So that's how it wasn't my house like you were in it. My dad was the same way, yeah, you know, my dad was my My dad would come home from work and we lay there and my mother was kind of with six children and no money to help her raise her children. My mother was completely you know, blotto at the end of the night of sleep in her bed at like ten o'clock and I'd say, who's gonna

let Dad in the house. I literally had a run of time probably last about two or three years where I got away with us. I said, I'm gonna stay up and make sure Dad's okay when he gets home. My mother will be like and I go in the living room and wait for my father to come home, and I greet my father. Everybody else is asleep, and my father would be like a very you know, taciturn,

what are you doing up whatever? And I'd say, uh, we sit down on the couch and he broke it up The New York Times and he's had those really pithy little capsule reviews in the times of movies on the Late Show, and he'd say, that's a good one. I said, what's that? It's a How Green Was My Valley? It's a great movie. I maybe we watched like fifteen minutes of all right, fifteen minutes, we're gonna watch fifteen minutes this movie. Get to bed, you're gonna go to

school tomorrow. And I sit there and within fifteen minutes it worked like a trump. He'd passed out of sleep, and I watched all of How Green Was My Valley one o'clock in the morning on the Late Show. And at times that we would watch the movies together, he would like put his hand out during the moment, you know, you know, he wishes to be a quarter of the same rights as a sponge. And my father would go, he wishes to think, you know, like uh, Spencer, Tracy

and some with you. My father would quote all the lines. You know, maybe it was the same for you, man. It was a real kind of sharing experience. Your wife's a great cook. She comes from an Italian householdier. No, my wife's Russian Jewish. She learned to know. She learned to cook. Does she learned to cook from your family. How does she learns? Has increased her repertoire over the years? Yes, she's now she's a very good cook. And you made movies where this is the central Well, I've made movies

I made. I made a documentary Co Passoni, which is all about Neapolitan music, because I was introduced to Neapolitan culture by Francisco Rosie. I've actually performed in the theater in in Italy twice. That's an interesting experience performing in the theater in Italy. It's very interesting. Well, I did this one play. It's a it's a play. It's like a neo realist play. It's a play about poor people and the guy and the guy who's married to this woman.

She has a lover, but he either imagines or he just makes him into a ghost because the guy leaves money, you know, for the whole thing. And at the end of the play, the guy goes away he doesn't want to be the lover of his wife anymore, and the money drives up and he sees the guy and he thinks he's a ghost, or maybe he's made himself think he's a ghost, and he explains to him, you know, it's it's hard to be in love when you don't

have money. You know, if you if you don't have if you can't buy someone apparent air rings or or a nice handkerchief, you know, the love can die, you know, if you're poor and you're starving. It's a beautiful speech and it was written in by Donald Felippo. So I came out to do it in Naples in English mostly

we did a little bit of Neapolitan. And when I came out to do the speech and I said the first line, and I saw rows of handkerchiefs come out of people's jackets rose and I was like, whoa, yeah, because it distracts here, right, it's the white in the audience. And then I said a couple more lines and then they were all, you know, working themselves up. They were doing this basically the speech for me, you know, it

was like I was surfing on their emotion. So I just had to say the line and then you're her, you know what I mean. And I was like, I can't believe this, I said, I haven't even done the speech and there so I was just kind of floating on this sea of white handkerchiefs. I never had experience

like that ever in my life. You know, I see people now and in my own work, in my own life where you are pitching and trying to make films and television shows and what have you, and it's so difficult to raise money now it's it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's this almost mind bendingly difficult prospect. And this idea that the business was run years ago by people who were filmmakers. They had money, Uh, studios were banks with billions of dollars and lines of credit up through the eighties.

And then at some point um that change and now that people we were, that whole spiel about the corportization of the media and so forth, how was it changed in your mind? And it's much harder business, much harder. In the first movie I made was Columbia Try Start Home. Video was Larry Estes, who gave money to a lot of small films, including sex Lives and Videotape One False Move. He must have done like forty five movies he financed, and I think we had a little over two million dollars.

But I had forty three days to shoot my first film and my second film, I had forty days, and and you know the film I did with then I had my forty five days, and then I had thirty days. With the movie made with Woody and his last film, I had twenty eight days. And you know it's you're not twenty five, and you know it's hard to light someone, you know, beautifully in that amount of time, So you have to cobble it together if you're lucky enough. But I feel like people don't always bet on the person.

And when I first started making movies, there were a few people I would talk to and they would they would bet on me. They would say, okay, I trust you. There was a man in a pan gave me money for my second movie, and if that happen, well my you know, he was a distributor and he would look at my presentation, so all the pictures and the artwork, but he was also looking at me and trying to judging me as a person, and he was you know, he bet on me, not just all the people, all

the names I have in it. So it's hard. You know, it's hard to make a movie because no one ever thinks about chemistry. You know, that's like the last thing people ever think about. And that it can be essential in a movie, whether you're playing your best friend or lovers or whatever. And uh, you know, it's almost everything is set up against you. So you have to be a little crazy and really love the material to say

I'm going to do something that's different. But of course if you do that, then it's even harder, you know, because everybody is afraid. I mean I made that movie with Woody for example. I've always thought, well, maybe we would be in this thing together. And the guy who cuts my hair cuts wood He's hair, and I happened to mention it and he talks like this, you know, And he told Woody this idea that I had. And what he was like, well, you have John Comy, so you know. Uh and uh, I was like, what did

you say to wood He? I told him this idea. So I went to his office. I had no script, nothing, but I had directed some movies and would he you know you know what? He well, because you work with him a lot. And I sat this close to him. He said, so you know we share a bob you know. I said yeah, I said yes, I said, I saw. I told him the story. I said, you know, you run a bookstore. You know, you know, you run out of money and then you know, you decide to pimp

me out and blah blah bah. He goes funny. You know. Then I said something else. He goes not funny. Then I know something else could be funny, you know. So then he said, you write it and then I'll give you my criticism, you know. Of I didn't know how merciless his criticism could be, you know, I said, oh, my God, was beyond merciless. And at the end of it, of course, he said, well, I could be wrong, you know.

So anytime I I any time I would send him another draft, I would lay down and read his email. There he was just But during the course of it, he asked me, you know, to he asked me to direct these three one act one of them that he had written, and I got to know him quite well. And from that I was able to rewrite it one by Elaine Mane and uh and Ethan Cohen and I survived.

But you know, uh, I went to I did all these auditions with Woody, which was fascinating, you know, I mean, God, you know, he's he's a tough guy to audition for, you know. Uh, But I got to know him really well, and eventually, you know, he did sign off on the script and she did a terrific job. And he was a wonderful actor to work with. He's such a good actor. And I was like, wow, this guy's good, you know,

and uh so, but there was a great experience. But I did fifteen drafts and he, you knoweth he was just like, you know, and when I showed him the rough cut, he said, do you want my criticism? I was like, I said, well, I said, of course I do, because well, you know, he said, you know, he was sitting in the chap I'm gonna be brutal, you know. And he really liked it. He was so surprised, and I was like, wow, you know, I was. But it was a great, you know experience, and I telled it

obviously to him. But my idea that we could be good together what's true. But the thing is the funny thing when I worked with him was the difference between that that chasm between comedy and draw. So we do Blue Jasmine and Kate Blanche had his drinking diet cokes and chain smoking, and she's got to come in and do this scene where she comes apart and we have

this physical altercation in this house. Kate comes in and she does the scene and what he's like, you know, you're supposed to be at you with end here in the scene and I'm just not buying it. I mean, you're supposed to be coming apot completely coming Apot can do it at the take. And she does the take and she just rings herself out. He's like, I'm just not buying it. I'm really have to be just shattered and you're broken into a mess. You're just a puddle

of your own loss significing. And she had smoking and drinking the coffee and she comes in, she blows it and I hate to be the bearer of bad. Yeah that he just rings her out, rings. We turn around, we do a scene, and he goes in this scene say to her that you want to go back to seeing that therapist of hers, uh, and just see some doctor's name. And I go and he's looking down at the floor and she's here and you're me, and he goes just she ed lips some doctor's name and I go,

Dr Fetterman. He went nothing funny. Yeah, like that's funny, no funny, like a whole other thing with everything you know he's he's tough man. He's a tough he's a tough dude. Now in the time we have left because we are going to run out of time unfortunately. So I want to talk to you about the HBO series. So I've so, I'm and this is a this is a true story. I'll tell it quickly. I mention me Gandelpheny's memorial service, Jimmy passes away. I love Jimmy. Jimmy

was everybody who knew Jimmy loved Jimmy. He's a real great guy, sweetheart and so talented, and um, sure he passes away. They're gonna shelve that project. And as I'm sitting there in the memorial services, Alien is behind me, sitting behind me that we're waiting for everybody to file in, and I'm, for about fifteen seconds, I'm on the verge of pitching myself to Zalien for Jimmy's part at Jimmy's

memorial service. Exactly. You know, I didn't do that, but but so the whole thing goes away and then it comes back and you are the star of well, I mean, how did that happen? Steve wanted me to be in his first movie searching for Bobby Fisher. So we've always liked, you know, I know he liked my work and I liked him a lot, and I guess my name came up and he really responded to it, and my agent talked to him and then we met and then he told me that it was James. And I didn't know

it at that time. And James was the lead in my movie Romance and Cigarettes, so I worked with James two years on it. I also know him from the time he did You a play because he's dear friends with my cousin Aida, and he's the one who helped Castor in the Sopranos, and uh, I was very close to James, and uh I really had a lot of trepidation about it. And then I saw the pilot, which was much much longer, and James was only in it

for one little scene. Of course, he's still interesting with a big beard and everything, and but he never talks to the guy. He just talks to the cop. And I said, Okay, there's not that much of James that I have to kind of not think about. It was a really challenging experience, but I got to work with go Camp, who he did his first job with me, Jeannie Berlin and Riz Ahmed, who's wonderful in the show as a wonderful guy, and I just happened to really hit it off with him as as like people. I

think it really helped us in the scenes. Uh. But it's you know, it's about the system. It's about racism, it's about the city, it's about you know, the criminal justice system. And when you read that article in New Yorker about Caliph Breweder, like the kid who was accused of stealing a backpack, you know, it's right on the money. And uh, he was someone we actually wanted to meet and then he took his own life. Uh. But I was really, you know, deeply interested and affected by doing

something that I thought was a real fair representation. Uh. And Steve was indefatigable in his pursuit of truth and you know minutia in detail, and uh it was it was a great you know, you know, you have to be given an opportunity to do something, so I knew, I said, this is a good opportunity, and uh, I you know, I gave it, gave him my own What's funny how that, Jimmy, this is it's it's impossible to compare people, and it's just it's it's a waste of time.

But you know, when he passed away, and Jimmy was somebody who had he had his signature, range and stamp and persona and so so much of it obvious. He dictated by one of the most successful TV shows ever. I mean, you knew him right from the beginning, you know, I mean you really remember, you get the show becomes a hit and Greg Moser calls me on the phone. I'm asleep. I flew in from l A and I'm sound asleep and Moser calls me, and I asked at

the phone. He literally goes, quick, who's the number one actor on TV? And I literally go what? He goes, who's the number one actor on television? Was the biggest star on television? I go Michael J. Fox and he has no You witty, and it's Jimmy Ken Delphini because he just got nominated for an Emmy at that time,

and the show was really taken up. And here was of me, who had this small role in the play and he went on to have this great, great where however, and I want to just I'm gonna almost wrap it up here with saying this and that is what I love about that show and we're worked so great about that show is that no one can replace someone. It's not even about that, but when they look for somebody who could create a character that could carry that show. You did such a fantastic job and that show. I

loved watching you in that show. I'm so piste off and ended. I can't wait, I know. So the question obviously, is there a chance you might come back and do another round? You know the potential. So the last thing I want to ask you you you have such a deep You're very soulful in the work you do. You're you're you're you're you're smart, and you're aware. You're so many things inside of your acting. There are so many good things for people to be, And I'm wondering what

do you attribute that to? If you can say, are you into meditation? Are you what do you like? How do you how do you feed your health? I like other people, you know, I mean like it's funny, you know, when you asked me to do this, I was thinking, there's only a couple of people who've ever written me a note as an actor and you're one of them, like one of the three. You know, you wrote me like a note after I did Quick Show. Yeah, and you know, I like other people and I think I

think that's a good thing. I think, and that keeps you fresh and alive. And if you're interested in other people and working with other people, and I think you either you know, you know, curious about that or not, because you know, sometimes one plus one can equal five, you know, you can, it can be a greater than the sum of its parts. And that's what you know interests me is to have encounters with people. And so I don't know if I get that from my mom, you know, my dad, you know. Uh, but I don't

take my opportunities lightly. I am very thankful when I get a really good opportunity. And I still am, I mean, because I know how hard it is. You know, it's a part of you. You feel like, yeah, I'm good, you know, when you're doing it. Then when it's over, you're like, did I really do that? You know, did

I do okay? Or you know whatever. You know, it's like and then it's kind of gone like you've never done yeah, you know, it's like you're you're still in the process of learning, and I think that's something that's good. You know, an actor we can improve. Actually, you know we're not like done when we're thirty out. I don't know. I'm just beginning to edit it right now. And then what do you do? What do you do with the film festivals? Well, you know, sometimes you can sell it

in advance. You know, there's people who want to see it, and we've shown a little teaser and uh, you know, you go from down. Believe me, I've been down that road. I have. I've lugged the film canisters around the country, you know what I mean. But that's okay. If there's something that you really love, that's all right. I've done it so uh but this case, I think we'll hopefully, you know, make a nice cell litilm. We're looking forward to see it. Thank you very much for thank you.

I think thank you want to thank you. Based on his previous work, it seems safe to say John to Touro is right. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing