Tetragrammaton. I knew there was something about me that needed to be at least explored and understood better and used to some degree. And there was Charlie. He was an acting teacher. But also, he was a great actor. And he taught acting in a very interesting way. And he exposed me to the kinds of things that are really special. And you continued your relationship with him for a long time. Forever. Forever. Yeah. Yeah. We formed a little theater ourselves.
And we worked in the village at the Cafe Chino. And I worked for Cafe La Mama, Cafe Wah, whatever. There it was. This Dylan movie that's out right now, I just saw it. It's wonderful. thinking when I'm watching it, it just got me because I was there. It brought back my 19-year-old life on St. Mark's Place, The Bitter End and everything. I'm sure I'd pass Dylan.
in the street. I know that I met Joan Baez, who was a friend of a friend at my apartment in the South Bronx, and she was playing, and she hadn't met Dylan yet. So I was about 19. Marty Sheen was living with me, and people would come and live in the apartment. That's how we got by, you know. So we had a group. It so reminded me of my life. And Charlie was...
And I do the odd jobs that most actors do to get by. At that age, too, you could get a slice of pizza somewhere and you can last the whole day. It just soaks up all the value, your body. And so that was life. And I spent it reading. I would spend five. Hours in an automat. You know, they had the automats in those days. Very liberal places because you could just sit there. You didn't bother anyone. You'd sit there and you'd see certain characters. You know, you looked and saw.
And now I can't as much. They look at me, which is, you know, so I have to find another way. Anyway, I was very, I was tutored by Charlie. And at one point, he was with me in San Francisco when I met Francis and Zoetrope there. We were working on Godfather II. So he was very instrumental in some of the things I'd done. He'd stay away, though. He'd keep a distance from the actual department, but he would advise.
Johnny Casale should play the guy in Dante Afternoon. That was Charlie. Because they, you know, and then various things. Brando in Godfather 1 was Charlie. Then in Godfather II, we went to Lee Strasper, who Charlie loved. He had studied with him. Of course, I did. He was my friend with the actor's studio. But Francis went to a...
some sort of event where there was a dais and we're talking about to raise funds for the Actor's Studio. Because the Actor's Studio is free, you know. It doesn't charge anybody anything. You get in, you're there, it's yours. And so I was there with Francis. And somebody said something, a question, and Lee answered the question. But he did it in this inimitable way with wit and humor. He was a Groucho Marx of Stanislavski's. He was just...
funny, and he threw it at you that way. I don't know if you ever met him or knew him at all. Yeah, he was there. And when Francis saw that, to him it was perfect. That's what he wanted. Because there was Gadge Kazan was up for it at one time. And people were a little ajar that Lee Strasberg would dare to go in.
into a film. I mean, he's some sort of guru, which he wasn't. You know, we'd go up there Sundays. Every Sunday, he'd have a little soiree. He'd talk. And he usually talked about music, which he loved. So I was part of that world, and Francis took. Lee Strasberg and said he would be Hyman Roth, and it's good casting. When you would hang out at the Automat and you would see characters, would you ever pick up either a mannerism?
Or a physical movement or something that you would incorporate into a character? Or did you never look at it that way? I didn't look at it that way, but I'm sure I did. Because my eyes were on people. New York City. early 60s. I mean, it was like paradise. One walk down one street and you'd see five or six things you could use. You know, can you imagine? I mean, you're sitting there and...
You'd see these things happening. Human life. I liked it so much. It saved my life. And there was Charlie and Charlie and his family, Penny Allen. Who's in Looking for Richard? She's amazing. She's amazing. Amazing. And that was his wife. She's passed, too. But we were there. I remember something happened. When I was about 26, I was doing children's theaters in the weekends that make a few bucks. And he had a script, and Penny said Al would be right for this script.
And the director had directed me in this children's show. And he saw it too. And he sent me the script. And it was called the Indian Wants the Bronx, Israel Horowitz's film. play that i i just had a natural feeling for but i didn't think there were two roles i thought they wanted me for the other role the more but the other role
was a different kind of character than the one they really wanted me for. So I started reading that. See, that happens in acting too. That's why it's good for actors to get out there and do as many things as they can. Because we don't know sometimes what we're right for, what's in us. We discover it. And there it was, this character came to me. Because I come from a kind of world like that.
So I understood immediately this. This is close to something I know. You know, these things you bury in yourself. And I played that role. And I knew there was something there. And that's sort of where, because before that. My discovery, again, in the book, I hate to keep saying that, but when I discovered that in the Stendorf player that I can speak, that really did happen. And I think that was another thing that...
saved me and everything that I had gone through and was to go through. I knew there was this thing called acting in the plays and that I can do this and this is my life. and i don't need anything else and i really felt i don't need it i don't even need to eat i i know i had this so there it was an indian comes out so we knew we had something but we were still
We did it in some loft on Bleecker Street. And Charlie and Penny came, and he just came up to me afterwards. He said, let's go. Let's celebrate. He said. You've arrived, Al. You're here. I thought, yeah. And we went on Canal Street. We didn't have a pot to piss in. We were in the bar, and we just started drinking.
drinking everything and celebrating. Nothing had happened, of course. Nothing happened. Just this little play that we were doing in an empty loft. And yet it was a celebration. That's where we knew. Yeah. It was what they call a breakthrough. Yeah. And then, of course, lucky me, as I've been throughout all of this, because so much luck has to do with it, timing, right play, you know, it's just...
It's part of life. But there I was, and they made it an off-Broadway play. Isn't it amazing that the breakthrough is something that... maybe no one from the outside can see. The breakthrough isn't the Academy Award. The breakthrough isn't the sellout. The breakthrough is... A quiet moment in an empty loft where your friend says to you, there it was. Yes. And that's something. It's amazing.
And then that bar. I'll never forget that bar in those moments. We used to drink anyway, but this was a celebratory event. It's amazing. Yeah, it's a great feeling. Tell me about... The relationship between an actor and a director. Yeah. Well, I've got about a thousand stories on that one. And tell me the range from good to bad. Well... You know, there is this thing that you get with the director and various actors. It's a lot to do with what you come from. Some actors just can't stand.
that relationship. They have a reaction to it. But there are directors who understand that. I don't know where I stand in all of that. I've been on both sides. But once I directed, of course, in films, I realized, wow, what a job that is. Oh, my. And I just said, what have I been doing to these poor people throughout my life? And it's very important that you...
have a relationship with a director that is, you know, some mutual understanding of things, that's important. And once you alienate an actor... It's very tough. Yeah, it's over. Then I remember doing a film with a great director, Harold Becker, who was my friend, and doing it with a particular actor. at the time. And I remember being a bit pouty about it, you know, and he said to me, what's up? I said, I don't know. I don't know how I can love this.
fellow actor in a way that i don't know how i'm gonna do it and you know because i didn't like this person like he had he just looked at me and said hell Grow up. Grow up. I said, yes, got it. That was good direction. And when I was at the church doing Richard III, I was young. Charlie would come. He was always encouraging. And there I was in the middle of Richard. And there are these monologues. It was over. He liked it. And he came to me and he said, remember one thing.
When you talk to the audience about what you're going to do, remember, they've seen what you've been doing. They've heard every word of what you said. for the first hour of this play. And what you're gonna do, they're hearing right now. Whoa. That's, that's all. Not how to do anything, just that fact. And I said, that's direct. And Lumet did it all the time, too. I mean, Lumet just set things up.
and hardly talk to you about it your character but what you learn is when people or directors tell you about what something is about your character at your play. I did one thing. This is the kind of wise-ass I was from time to time. You know, especially when I was 25, you know, it was like... who are you to say anything to me and that kind of stuff i never said it but i felt it but this one director came up to me at the foot of the stage and he said you know my character's name
I don't want to expose anybody. That's why I'm very careful when I say certain things. But picture a director coming up to you and saying, you know, you're playing this part. And I wonder to say, yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, but you know who this guy is? I thought, yeah. He said, this guy, you know, and he's describing what the words in the... And the actual script is saying, you know, the definitions of he's a tough guy, he drinks, he's from the south, and he doesn't, you know, and I said, wow.
I says, really, you know, I did read the play. He looked at me. I said, you know what? You really know a lot about this character. I think you should play it. Yeah. Yeah. And he went, and that was it. I mean, this is really... He got the message. Yeah, he got the message, but this is how I operated from time to time. That would...
You know, it just alienates people. There's no need to do it, actually. You have to be able to say, okay, yeah, that's just, I mean, but I had another director, big director, come up to me while I'm in them. the fucking scene with this person and say, you see, this is what you're thinking. That you're thinking this and that. I thought, how dare you? How dare you tell me what I'm thinking? Asshole. I'm thinking about getting a Coke after this fucking scene is over.
So funny. You know, you go through those processes. You go through those actions. And that's what I say about time and doing. Things happen all the time. And in this intimate relationship with trying to express something in a play between the director and the actor. But most... good directors they they don't go there they may say something and it's i mean i welcome when they say something that's but i've learned how to separate the shaft you know it's it's there
And I'm lucky that I finally turned a corner a few years back. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy using one of Squarespace's best-in-class templates. With the built-in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins, and menus. So your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs. Discover unbreakable creativity with Fluid Engine.
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he wants another take and directors are very good with that yeah but as long you know i and there are directors who just want another take yeah um so you say okay Mostly, you say, yeah, another opportunity. Why not? But I always say, could you give me a free one? Could you give me a free one? Meaning, let me have one here. I think we got it, but I'd like a free one to play with. They always do. But when you're younger, you know, nobody listens to you as much, you know.
I just, yeah. But when you get a little sort of, a little clout, maybe. Maybe that's the reason you're good when you're young is because no one listens to you. So you really have to make your point. You have to make it. That's good. Yes. Yes. You have to mean it. I loved it. I've been saying, you know, I say, you know, I think of myself as an actor, serious.
What's serious anyway? I don't even know what serious means. But I do know that when I was 14, 15, I was taking the roof off. I was like, I was. All there, you know, something was going on. The young people, you see it in your kids and stuff, you know, and I was, I never did anything better than that. I'm just always trying to reach that, that level of.
know what i mean freedom and i'm not thinking about anything yeah pure i've been striving for that the last 20 years i mean it's like impossible but Every time I go out there, I say, this is the first time, never before. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I've gotten there a little bit, but I have to use an earwig now. And it helps because now I really don't know the lines. So it's fine. I can really listen. I can still hear so I can listen to somebody.
telling me a line, and then I know I'm confident that I'm listening because I know I'm going to get the next line because they got an earwig. Somebody's going to give it to me. It's like having, you know, I said, hey, nothing too bad about that. Marlon. Brando used it as a life. I said, I understand the reason. And your life is sort of saved when you don't have to spend four weeks on a monologue just to remember it.
I mean, you do remember by doing. That's how lines get absorbed and words get absorbed. But, you know, it's something, there's a freedom that comes with it, but you have to. Live with the character and do your own work and absorb it and let it seep in. And if you do that long enough with a purpose of... finding something and and i've done that that's sort of what i do now if you can do that it doesn't matter
that you don't know the words because you know who you are and you know the situation and you know what's going on. It's like, why didn't I always do this? Thank God. The hours spent just learning these things, you know. But I do now still. You still have to go through those motions because you have to learn about what's going on. I do like rehearsals.
I miss them. Do you take the characters home with you, or when you leave the set, do you leave them behind? I leave them behind. I am the character here for a while, so I may do odd things in my real life that show that I'm... I remember when I was doing Skyface, I don't know, I was fortunate at that time because I had fallen in love. And that was really good. So every time I'd finished shooting a machine gun for endless hours.
and swallowing some sort of substitute for cocaine, I was in a daze, and I'd meet the person, and she would talk to me about what her day was like. What a relief.
And she'd go on and on about things that happened to her. And I'd just go right into my own world with her. I was saved. Because, you know, when you're a younger actor, you sometimes... ponder over certain things you did because you're not in control of it there's the directors the editors the people what are they gonna i don't think i got that you know once you start obsessing about that stuff you're done
That has to find a way not to think about it. It doesn't matter. In the book, you say that since Godfather II, you learned you don't have to get as isolated in your life as you do in your character. But before Godfather II, you would be more in it. Yeah, I think I did it partially, too, in Godfather II. That was a journey. And, yeah, I learned that keep away from that. You don't need that.
Now, this last leer that I did, I would come home from a day's shoot, and I just would sit in a couch, on a couch. And I would not move. I would be an hour not moving or not thinking. And I needed to. It was almost a trance. But Godfather II was different. any film I've ever made in terms of how I, what was going on with me. It was very strange. I can't even...
Describe it. I tried to a little bit in the book, and it got overly confusing, so we took it out. Tell me as much about it as you can. Well... I remember at a time I was alone, and I was in this frame. I guess the character was... And I think being away from my home, my apartment, whatever I got used to, there was no break. Not really. Good people around. I had my... close one of my close friends john casale there you know and i think his girlfriend at the time was with him but he he would
talked to me. When we were in Vegas, he was there. He said, let's play roulette. I figured it out, Al, roulette. And I said, oh, I'll go down with you. We'll play roulette. But I had him. Always I had John because I knew him so well. And I guess there was part of it was in Santo Domingo where I was alone. Lee was there with his two little kids, so that was fun in the pool. But mainly I was nipping a little bit.
Not much. I didn't have any desire even to do what I loved to do was drink. And it was, it was. The days were long. The shooting was long. And the space that I was in... You know, like in Scarface, when I was there, it was a long time in that room with a machine gun and smoke.
And that would be, you know, you put yourself in a state in order to get through it. But I had my girlfriend at home who would bring me out of it. I would come too. And I guess there was a problem. I don't know how Francis and I... By that time, this whole thing had happened. This was an explosion in both our lives. That kind of thing is unexpected. You don't know when that's going to happen or if it ever does.
It's just like, and it happened. And here we are taking it the next step. We're actually taking it, you know, touching this. popular film that was filled with Francis's vision and his gifts. And it just... And there we are now trying to do something again that could be, so maybe there was that, it felt almost like a bit of a burden. It's an impossible task, trying to live up to something that you could have never expected.
happening the way it happened. I think one of the perks about it, one of the things to focus on and what I learned is a sequel should be about what's... The new world that's coming. And that's what Francis knew and was able to. That's why. But at the time, you're still. You're changed. You're treated differently in everything. You have six bodyguards or something. You are, you know, so the isolation moves in.
I think that had something to do with it. It was a different experience than I've ever had. Do you think returning to the character had anything to do with it or no? Yes, I did. Because when I saw Godfather 1 again recently, I hardly ever saw it in my life. But I saw it again, and it... You know, it works. Let's put it that way. It works. And at the end of it, I saw somebody who had gone to a place in themselves.
in their life that was like stone, encased. And I think that encasement was fine, but now I had to go and do it again. And I don't think I had at the time the experience or the understanding of what we do. So I thought I brought it with me, so much so that I wound up in a hospital there. And because I had something, what did I have? I don't remember quite what was wrong with me. I was getting fevers or...
Something. And I had Valium. I had a little too much Valium and also a little booze. You're not supposed to mix that stuff. And they came up to get me, and they took me back to New York. And they did the Bob De Niro stuff, the Vito stuff in New York. We had to go back out there again. But when I went back there again, I took friends with me. Marty Bregman came with his wife. Charlie came with Penny. So I had some...
I had something there to hold onto, friends. I think that was part of it. So it was better the second half of my stay. Just because of that, I don't know what will overcome me. It happens. It's interesting also is that... The Godfather was such an unbelievable phenomena. And then you come back to it, and you have this impossible task of following it up. And now, many of my filmmaker friends like...
Godfather II even better than one. Yeah, I know. No one thinks it's a step down at all. No. It's unbelievable. It's something really. And that was, well, I would say that it's a film that was much more personal to Francis. And because he was resisting it. And I was resisting it, too. I didn't want to go do it again. And they kept offering me money, and I kept turning it down. And Francis said to them, when he got on the project, when he came on the project...
He did something like, what's going on with Al? He said, well, no matter what we give him, he's turning it down. We got it up to a certain amount. He said, no, no, don't care about it. Don't give Al money. It doesn't matter. It's the script he wants. That's how much he knew me. He knew. Yeah. He knew you. Yeah. Because money and me, like the book.
You know, I mean, a fool and his money has soon parted. So that's always, of course it was. Francis has that himself, too. He has a feeling about it. He had the big business man. part of him, but I sympathize, let's put it that way. His whole idea of money and wealth and all is very interesting. It's not first. The human foot is a true marvel of engineering. With 26 bones, 33 joints and over 100 muscles and tendons, it's built for flexibility, balance and natural movement.
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Natural movement for your feet. Sustainable choices for our world. Learn more at vivobarefoot.com slash tetra and embrace your human nature. Tell me the story of your Scarface. How did that movie get made? Well, at that time, I was doing very well in terms of where I belonged in the... in the world of films and it was okay i i had something i was doing a film here by accident there's all these things and i'm passing
The Tiffany Theater, which was way back when, on Sunset. And I see up there on the marquee Scarface, and I'm... With a group, a few people walking. And I said, wow. I remember first my grandfather talking about it. George Raft flipping the half a dollar in Skyface became a real thing. And Paul Muni was the lead. A great actor, Paul Muni. And...
I said, and I knew Bertolt Brecht loved the gangster films of the 30s. And he inspired him to do Arturo Uri, which is a classic. And I did Arturo Uri. I did it. downtown in 2000 with a great cast and anyway i went in and i saw it with my friends was how it walks and directed it. It was amazing. And all I wanted to do was do it and imitate Paul Muni.
You know, I was so inspired by this performance and this film, and I thought it was so great. So I went out, called Marty Bregman. Marty Bregman, another big part of my life. I mean, he's the one who discovered me in Indy Wants the Bronx. And he said, these classic words he said to me were, don't worry, kid. If you're in trouble, I'll pay.
I'll pay you. I'll pay you money. If you get down on money, you got it. It's the first person in my life who ever said that to me. I thought, this is crazy. He's lying. He's got to be lying. Apparently he wasn't. Anyway, I went to him and I said, look, I saw something I think we should do. I said, I saw this thing called Scarface, and it's amazing. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, just see it. Take a look at it.
As soon as he saw it, I must say, he said, yeah. And then what happened was the whole process of doing this film with Universal, everything that goes with it. And Bob De Niro and Scorsese had ideas about it too. They sensed how great a film it was. But to find the way in. was the big thing. How do you get there? How do you do it? Do you do it in the 30s? And Sidney Lumet, of course, saw it and said, put it on the boat.
arriving from Cuba when Castro gave us all these interesting, strange people. And the Mariel Lyft, it's called, Mariel Lyft. He's an immigrant the same way he was in the original Scarface when he was an Italian. And I thought this is an idea. Oliver Stone, the great one. was called to write it. And then there was discrepancies between Bregman and Lumet for the first time on what kind of film they wanted to make.
And there was a falling out. And of course, Brian De Palma came. And it was that, you know, that thing that happens sometimes where, you know, I keep... pointing out the luck of things you get bad luck too but this was good luck uh oliver and he come out to my house and we would talk together about how I saw it and stuff, but his idea with Sidney's idea was, and then Brian came in, and Bregman.
Now, Bregman, Brian, Oliver, and me were like, we were not in the same, we're not on the same globe. It's just we're different. However, the difference sort of. kind of stimulated things and and we understood it and uh it just happened and as he sydney wanted to do it more socially
you know, a kind of ideology and go into that. That's Sidney, who she's great at. But Bregman said, no, that's been done. And so we came up with this sort of... operatic thing that that brian wanted to make an opera out of it and uh work just working i mean um it cost a fortune But it was for a reason. Bregman really wanted that high intensity and that crazy world. And it just took the film into another place.
And I saw it recently. The Arrow Theater does reruns of things. Because when it first came out, it was devastating. They wanted it. I said, I think I may have to leave the country or something. People hated it when it first came out. Oh, they hated it. Not people as much. The critics. But the critics and the movement out in Hollywood, too, was just, it was. Except for the few, as always, that saw something there. And then as time went on, there was, you know, the...
It just started to grow. And the hip-hop generation and the rappers just took to it and understood it. And they just started, the word got out. Because they understood it in a way that, and that related. And so people started watching it. and that's when that came out the vhrs came out you know cassettes of this and then it just went through it just maintained and just became this thing and it's still going
So I feel very close to it naturally because I started it. Is that the first film that you started? Yeah. So you had an instinct to make something different? than the things you were being offered. That's right. And it turned out to be Scarface. And at first, the critics didn't like it. The Hollywood people didn't like it. But the world liked it. And the world continues to like it and love it. Yeah.
That's something. Amazing, right? It is. Tell me about your experience with therapy. Therapy was necessary for me. And it started... Way back when I was in Boston and the Godfather had opened. And I was staying with David Wheeler. I was staying in his house. He gave me a room in his house, and we were doing Pablo Hummel, basic training. David Rabe's play. Beautiful play.
The basic training of Pavlo Hummel. Did you know it? Have you heard of it? No. I want a Tony for it. It's a masterpiece about Vietnam. Anyway. I was staying at David's, and I woke up, and David said, hey, Al, look, you just won the National Board of Review. You won the award, Best Actor, and Godfather won. I thought, wow. I said, followed right afterward. I said, do you have contact with a psychiatrist in Boston?
That's amazing. It's all timing. It's amazing. And he said, yeah, of course. This is the flip side of the story of the breakthrough. There it is. Yes. This is the exact opposite. Yes. So I started and, you know, it got me through many, many, many periods. And I just kept with it. And this guy in Boston told me about someone in New York who finally, you know, you do this. I got to the point was every day. And then things would happen.
I grew to love this man, this therapist. I actually loved him. It's a relationship that can happen. And it did. And then I went on to do it. And I still would do it. I'd do it today. But I haven't found it with someone yet. Because I've had about three. And I had Peter Neubauer in New York. also to love. Then out here I had another doctorate. I outlived them for some reason. I don't know what that means. But they're great.
And they were great to me, and they got me through it. They got me to here, anyway. I'm so grateful. Have you ever played a scene against an actor who's so good? that you forget you're in a play or a movie. Yes. Tell me about that. That happens. I mean, it just happened to me in Lear. I'm doing work with this great actress. Jessica Chastain, you know, who... And I've known her for years and years. She did Salome with me. And we're doing a scene. Big scene.
And I'm saying my piece in the way it is. And I'm directed to, at this point, take a garment off. Her sister, who's my daughter and she, my two daughters, and I reach out and just rip the garment off. It's like, and she... goes crazy and attacks me. I mean, literally. Yeah. She attacks me and we go out and we go through this whole thing. Shakespeare.
I love it. That's the kind of feeling we have in this film. And now, of course, we have to change everything afterward to suit that movement that she did. But it's so beautiful. Beautifully done. That just happened to me. And it completely took you by surprise? Completely. I mean, out of this world. I said, what? What's she doing to me? But it was so appropriate. It just worked for her character and for me and the scene. Oh, my God. So that's just happened. So I'm always ready for them. They go.
Sometimes I was, I remember performing arts high school. I'm in a scene with this young, I mean, 15 years old, and we're doing a scene from one of those. Cagney plays with Henry Fonda did this movie together. Anyway, I was playing Henry Fonda's part. All of a sudden, the other actor gets so excited and he lifts both his fists and he turns them on the desk and powers them down him.
bangs it and looks at me and he is a ferocious pit bull. He's a pit bull because we always had animals we would study and he studied a pit bull and he made it work. He put the pit ball into the character. That's the whole point of it, you know. And I was stunned. I remember thinking, my God. Give him a donut or something. Throw him a cracker. My God, it was scary. And it was brilliant, of course. It's great. Absolutely. Can you think of any examples where...
You did something in your performance that was so unexpected that the people you were playing against didn't know what to do. It's the opposite story. Now you've got me. That's absolutely true. I've done it. I've been on Broadway. Everywhere I go, I do it. I don't know. Especially in live theater. I do do these things occasionally, but what I do is sometimes when I do them, I notice that my fellow actors working with me together. Already? I mean...
They're paying attention. You know how it is. They know who they're dealing with. When you're doing eight performances a week in these plays, and you've been doing them and doing them. Now, you've got to get gilled up. And they are. When I come in the room, they know, what's he going to do tonight? Usually, I try to keep it spontaneous. I mean, you don't want to start doing that. Because I fell in love with a gesture once I did. I was in a play with James Earl Jones. And I...
And I did this thing. I was 26, right? And I did this thing in the middle of the play, and I got a laugh from doing it. It was really funny. What I did just came to me, right? The next night, guess what I did? I tried to do it again, and I couldn't repeat it. I screwed up. I forgot the source. from which it came it had a sauce and I forgot what what made me do it and then it was stale and didn't get anything you know so I try not to do anything that I'm you know I start dancing
on stage in Glencarry, Glen Ross, playing a salesman. And I all of a sudden just start dancing between things. And... I said, later after the players, what the hell? What happened to me? Ah, my father was a salesman and my father was a... great dancer, ballroom dancing, won prizes and things like that. So I said, that's got to be there somewhere. Unconscious. In your unconscious, they're connected. That's right.
That's why I say you've got to free that. Free that unconscious. That's what I hope I can do. But you didn't do it in rehearsal. It just came out in the performance. I didn't do it in rehearsal, no. The poor guys, they had to deal with it. But no, I remember too. I read a lot about the oldest actors when I, like Keene, Edmund Keene, the Booths. And I read their...
biographies either they wrote or someone wrote about them and Eleanor Deuce I've read a lot about, Sarah Bernhardt. I was very attracted to the old school of what actors did before films. And Dusa, Illinois Dusa, a great Italian actress, would do things. Like at one time in Ibsen's Ghosts, this play, and... haunted by the memories by all kinds of things but she would see it won't just come out and say ghost that was the lion ghost
Of course. Of course. And she'd say it and practice it so much so that in the theater it would echo in the audience's ears. That's how far she went. And the other one was sometimes she would just start walking towards something, and everybody would stop if the impulse moved her. What it came out of of course was a situation in the play where it served the play. It didn't.
It wasn't egocentric. It had its own purpose. That's something I think she would repeat at times and times not. The life up there is... I mean, it's high wire. Let me tell you that. It's a high. And I think I always talk about the wire that's on the floor. Yeah. And then the wire up there. And the theater is up there. In films, it's on the floor. Oh, I just did that. Let me do it again. You can't do that in the theater. Once that starts, you're on the wire. It's live.
It's life. It's it. And what happens to you, you get used to it because of the challenge that it sort of ignites something in you. And the danger of it is addictive. And you're sort of scared, but at the same time, you want it. You're forced to do your best. In the moment, there's no second chance. There's no second chance. So write it. And if anything goes wrong... You have to get out of it in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. The old telephone that rings at the wrong time.
And you pick it up and you say to your fellow actor, oh, this is for you. You tell a story in the book of a woman coming up and asking if you have a light for her cigarette while you're on stage. Yes. And here I am debuting in London. You know, the theater, the wonderful theater. It's great. London Theater is great. And all of a sudden, this wobbly woman...
You know, she's a classic dinner party girl, you know, and she's coming down the aisle toward the stage, and she's jockeying a little bit. She's... tippy-toes, kind of, and she has a cigarette in her, between her fingers, and she looks up at me and says, got a light? Got a light? I said, well, at the moment she came, we were talking about this. thing we were going to rob, you know, together, me and it. It's about these three thieves. And I said, we're working here, lady. We're just working.
Give us a chance here. We're trying to do something. In the context of what we were saying to each other, robbing something. We were just working. We were both working as actors, but working in the scene, too. a job. Louis was down. Louis came down the aisle, just grabbed the woman and says, please, I mean, no light today.
But a few things would happen in London, would happen anywhere. I mean, that's the beauty. You know, the one I had when I was playing Pavlo Hummel is the... I'm playing and all of a sudden... I just pick up these eyes in the audience. I pick it up, I see the eyes, and I think, who is this? They seem just so penetrating. And I thought, what is this? I sort of moved my entire performance in that direction. I couldn't help it. I mean, I was just...
So when Curtain Call came, it was over, I really had to find out who belongs to those eyes. That's got to be Miss Wright, you know, or something. I thought, what was that? And I turned, and I looked in its direction, and it was two seeing-eye dogs. Wow. That's amazing. Amazing. That's theater. LMNT. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun?
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Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra. And stay salty with Element Electrolyte. LMNT. How much of a performance is based on the words, and how much is based on something else? Well, you've got the behavior. The importance of the word is that that's why they had silent films, you know, and they worked, but they would have the titles on another.
on the screen afterward. I was watching a film that I really liked, but I had a problem because there were subtitles and a lot of action in the film. And I would, I was... caught between the action that I wanted to hear and the subtitles that were on this grade at Ely. So it got a bit overbearing. But it is, it's both, of course, it's behavior and it's things that happen to you. But I think also it's the situation you're in.
that you're playing whatever that situation is how much you're in in you know it's both it's the situation and the word but the word is first How much of what you do is dictated by the actor you're playing against? I have to say another story. I'm in a film, and I'm working, and I'm talking to this person, another actor, who is not looking at me, which is very strange.
And I keep doing it anyway, wondering what's going to happen. And then I talked to the director. I mentioned the actor's not looking at me. I mean, why? And I said, OK. So the director goes to her and says, you're not looking at Al. She says, well. It's not my turn. I didn't get it either. I just thought, well, what does that mean? It means this person has not done.
a lot of films or something. Or she is saying, I'm giving him an opportunity to do his work. But part of that, she doesn't know yet that part of the work is that we look at each other, yeah. I mean, it's an experience, really. I mean, I don't know where that was learned, but whatever it was, and... So I just saw sort of, then the next, he told her, well, look at him. He prefers that. And she did it fine. It was fine. But that was interesting.
I explored that a little bit. You find that a lot of people are not experienced yet. That's all there is to it. Like we were saying, just keep doing it. And that won't happen again. Maybe this is a good question, I think, related to that, which is because you've done so much theater, have you ever done a part? where the character you mainly play against, where the actor changes over the course of the run, and how does that change things?
Well, it does change things because, like anything else, if something's askew, something is not right, I was in a play where I would do a lot of things in the play. that would come, impulsive things. But I owned that, having done it for a long time, and it was a role that I did. And another actor started to do it. Either he was inspired by the fact that I do my thing, whatever it was, but it was in the... control it was in the play i had been doing for a long long time so uh
But I have had those incidents where all of a sudden someone's doing something different because I did it. I didn't investigate it much because I don't like to have any, you know, but it is disturbing. In the book, you talked about one night where you connected with the loving spirit of energy. Such a beautiful way of describing it, the loving spirit of energy. It's beautiful.
Wow, did I say that? You said that. It's in your book. Wow, that's cool. In the book, you also use the phrase to know someone else inside yourself. Wow. It's like when you're acting and it's going good, it's when you... Come to know someone else inside yourself. Isn't that really good? I'm sorry. I don't remember. I thought you made it up. It's great. No.
Thanks. Those are your words. I'm so glad I said that. The book's really good, by the way. Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot. It's wonderful to hear that. Yeah, I think that's true. I really do, I think. You do. And that's kind of a pleasure, too, if it happens. You know, if you read a great book, sometimes you don't want to finish it, so you keep, of course, it's...
It's in you. It's like your friend, your new friend. It's a wonderful feeling. I want to talk to you a little bit about the book. I listened to the audio book. It doesn't sound like you're reading the book. It sounds like you're just telling stories. I wanted to ask, how does that come to be? Because most audiobooks, when you listen, even if it's the writer who's reading it, it sounds like they're reading the book.
This sounds like you're telling the story. I was taught that from Sean Penn because Sean Penn, I don't know the name of the last Dylan book, but I was reading the Dylan book and, you know, I was audio. I thought I was listening to Dylan, but it was Sean Penn. It's an amazing performance. It's like just you're there with Dylan. So I don't know. I think it just comes natural. I mean, through these things, you know, so relating, like when I talk about a story here with you, you know, I see it.
You see the story. You know, I see the street that it was happening on because it happened. So you're describing what you see. Yeah. There's a part in the book where you refer to yourself, or someone refers to you, as an off-off Broadway movie star. Yes, yes. It's really funny. Yeah, yeah. My friend Harold, he said, he said, what are you doing these films for? I was doing these films.
He says, you want to be an off-off Broadway movie star? What is this? You're a movie star. And Bregman would say to me, why do you do these movies? He said the other thing, he says, go down in the village or something and do it. Don't put it on the screen and get millions of dollars for it. Please. People don't want to see this stuff here because everything I've ever done that has something to do with my read on things is always a failure completely, utter failure.
So I do it with my own, when I did do it, when I had money, I used to put it into films, making films. And the films were not viable, you know. There's one called Local Stigmatic. Yeah, the Local Stigmatic. I have a story. This is... Jonas Mikas, do you have any idea who he was? He was the village guy, and he was the anthology of films. I loved him, and I showed him the film.
He had said to me, my God, Al, you're going to get the Oscar for this. I thought he went crazy, you know. He went crazy. I said, gee, we all get a little older. And there it was. I liked him a lot. And I said, no, I don't think so. So I showed it to, of all people, Elaine May, who is just a genius. And I said, I don't know quite what to do with this. So I showed it to her. And she said, well, it's over. She said, Al, it's okay, yeah, but you don't want to put this out. I said,
He says, Al, you don't know how famous you are. Can you? I said, that's right. Somehow I don't. I don't. And this is so true. It's so wise on her part to tell me this. And then I never dared to put it back, keep it there. And someday it's legacy. My kids will. Yeah, I hope someday it comes out. And who knows? Because some of these people might also have hated Scarface, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I dread that. But I think...
No, it's got its own thing at the time. Who knows if it'll even kick in when you see it now. Is there a way to treat it like Shakespeare, where you make a documentary around it? And it's part of the story, but there's additional information that makes it... If you told me this 10 years ago, I might have. But you're scaring me to death now. I think, oh, I'm sorry. I need whatever it is that you carry around with you, a wind machine of some sort.
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You told a story in the book about Revolution Revised. Yeah. And I want to know why does that not happen more often? The idea that there's a film that for whatever reason didn't work and that... You took it upon yourself to recut it. Yes. Me and you, Hudson. And then you put it out. Yeah. He did. It's very interesting. He did a lot of the work. And I guess he put it out. But something happens.
As someone had once told, Marty Bregman once told me, because he heard it, that when you have a back end in a film, meaning you get residuals for the film if it does well. It's those residuals are like the studio has like a hose and there's a lot of holes in the hose. And by the time the water gets to you, it's relatively empty. You know what I mean? It's the money. It's the money. And then it's the, why do you do this?
the understanding of why the artists would put this together for the sake of what the film represents and what was trying to be done. Because after all, you do make these things and you do do them so that an audience can absorb them and have a certain feeling about them. And if that can be done, and I don't know if it still resonates, but Arrow gave us the screening room, the big theater. And we lost Hugh Hudson. He's gone. And so I went up to talk a little bit about it.
I agree with you why it isn't done more often, but it depends. You see, you take Megalopolis now and what Francis has done with it and how he... produced it and worked it over the many years. It is more for the understanding of... Where film can go, what we can do, and the reach should exceed the grasp of what's heaven for. That kind of thing, that spirit, you take that on. with his own money which is right in a way it's what you do if you want to say something because this film is not for now
This will one day do something or it won't. We don't know, but it's got a chance because it's part of an expression. What he's saying, it just... feels far away from the time it'll be understood or taken for what it is, an experience. It's an experience. That's what it is. And he was able to do that. And people go and not go. But that's it. And that's where he took what is done by a lot of the great, there's a lot of great filmmakers throughout history. There's so many great filmmakers.
A lot of great ones. You don't know them. I remember at the time Joe Chaykin had told me, because I was... going to work with him. And he was this great actor in The Connection. And he started a thing called the Open Theater in the Village in those days. But he said to me about... Oh, I was doing this. How do you go out there and make films? I can't do it. Because he was really special. He was a...
director and an organizer, but he couldn't understand why I did it. Well, I wasn't what he was. He lived, this was his identity in that world, and that's very important. And I understood it when he said it to me. I said, I know. He doesn't know how to be in this world of films or how. Maybe it's part of being a performer.
than an organizer or someone who puts big things together. And he was great in the connection, too. And his inspiration came from the Living Theater. And Harmony Corrine is a nephew of his. Can you believe it? He's great. Harmony Corrine in a little movie I made called Manglehorn did a take in a kind of partially... playland sort of place kind of where there's little machines and you know that sort of thing. He started going in a monologue and he wouldn't stop.
And I'm telling you, it was like listening to James Joyce. That's how far he went. And I said, this is the most unbelievable stuff I'm hearing. And it just poured out of him. And it was like, what is he saying? This is amazing. It's not in the film. Wow. And it's all improv? Yeah. He just was going. He was on that role. You know, like a rap.
A rapper. And he was just coming out. You talk about using music to prep for a scene. Tell me about how you use music to prepare. Well, I did that. I could try to do that again, but I... You see, as time goes on, like I said, after you've done this all your life, sometimes you don't need these accesses. Yeah. It's interesting. But when I was doing Godfather II, I just would...
They didn't have this kind of equipment back then. You had to listen to the, you know, photograph. And I put on a record, either it would be Mozart. Or Stravinsky in Rite of Spring. And I click on this stuff, these earmuffs, and listen to it, pounding in my head. And I'd go in there and be calm. I'd go in the scene, be calm. And all of that, I'd just been through. I don't know why I did it, but it was something I did.
But it fed you in some way. It fed me in some way, yeah. You also describe idiosyncratic moments where you would... go for a walk before a scene and do odd things. It wasn't clear what those things you would do were. Oh my God, I would do these things. What would you do? It got to a point, I wanted to write a book, and just, it's amazing, this Born on the Fourth of July, if you haven't read it.
was that opening, or Johnny Got His Gun, that opening chapter, the first couple of paragraphs. And that's in Born on the Fourth of July when he's been hit. And he's just... Thinking, I mean, it was just beautiful writing. But I would like to write something of an actor having to go on stage in like five minutes. And going through, how does he get out of the dressing room to get to the stage and make an entrance? It would be so...
It would be so funny. The things I do and have to do. And then backtracking. I mean, it got to such a point. I don't know. It was, of course, dealing with anxiety. Yeah. Alcohol was my way of dealing with anxiety and drugs. But now, no alcohol, no drugs. I get a little ritualistic. But I think I've even started to move away from that, not nearly as much.
See, just keep, you know, stay alive long enough. And those things can, not that they disappear, but they don't have the same kind of relevance anymore. It sounds like also the story you told earlier of doing a play long enough where eventually you got to the point where you're just standing in one spot. How about that? It's the same thing. It's, again, like you're shedding all of the...
Extra stuff. Yes. And all that's left is you. That's right. And if you're not, you know, you've got to be ready to do that and experience. gets you ready to do that. You can, I had enough of it, you can start to say, wait a minute, somehow there's a little wisdom, just a touch comes into your life. Helps you. I hope. I really hope. You do these shows that are like seminars or one-man performances? Those are very, I turned out, when I got broke, I mean, you know.
All my money was gone. And I remember this one guy, a wonderful little guy from New York. You know, yeah, Al, how are you, Al? Yeah, what's going on? And he, you know, like worked for the Rockefellers, and he was pretty fucking smart, I'll tell you that. And he liked me, and he said, you know, I like you, man. Don't worry about it. I said... He says, yeah, but I'm just all worried, man. I don't want to see you selling pencils in front of Carnegie Hall. And I said, laughed like you did.
And, you know, he'd look me straight in the eye. He says, that's not funny. I was broke, you know, and I had loads of stuff. Anyway. I remember that. And why did I tell you this story? There's got something connected. We're talking about the seminars when you started getting on stage doing the one-man shows. I saw you somewhere in Europe.
And I saw your name on the theater recently, the last couple of years. A couple of years ago, yeah. Paris, I think. But it didn't have the name of a play. It just had your name. Yeah. And... I didn't know what it was. I was interested. Yeah. So tell me about what those shows were like. Those shows came out of this. I was broke. I had to find a way to make money. I started putting that together and I started doing a few films that would pay me. They weren't high, you know, high on the...
whatever you call that, the list of films to do. But I had to do them because, anyway, I got this, we got this idea. I said, why don't I just go talk to people? you know, wherever. And, you know, like, that's what people do. That's what a lot of the artists and entertainment people did. They wound up, you know, from Gregory Peck to Cary Grant, you know. You earn that way, and you do it by telling stories. I did it, and I found enlightenment there with talking about my own life.
Probably that's why the book finally came out, because it was very, I could just talk about things. And I was in my 70s at that time. So even work was... It was more supporting jobs and stuff. You know, they weren't making films with big offers anymore. That would, that used to balance my... my nut every month. So I saw myself enjoying it. I put together, I had some people helping me, put together a six-minute...
thing of your, you know, excerpts from things you've done. And I had a friendly audience. They came because they wanted to see me, you know, so it was... I was with friends and people who wanted to hear what I have to say about things. And then I would do... I do Shakespeare. The last thing I did is I was working out recently, but I had a carotid artery on both sides, two surgeries on either side.
uh the doctor slipped and i lost one of my vocal cords recently so i just kept going because i was working on this You know, Anthony, Mark Anthony's speech and Julius Caesar, Friends, Romans, classic. But I wanted to do it in a way that had music and had some additions to it. in my seminar that I would come up with Caesar's body, you know, and lay it on the ground. Then I'd go up to the podium and I'd start this great soliloquy. And out of context. We even got a sound person to do this.
the streets of Rome during that period and how we could infuse some of that. And I was just working on it. I had about another month to go. to deal with it, but I went and did it anyway. And what it did is it brought the vocal cord, the brain started to, apparently a doctor, a great doctor from Mass General came. happened to be in L.A. and talked to me, looked at my throat. He says, it's coming. I think you're going to come back a little bit because the brain knows this is what you need.
And I thought, yeah, and I kept doing it. So that was the seminar there. I have a tendency to want to do seminars than do commercials. I have a hard time with that. I had a Super Bowl commercial, which you were supposed to do. But I feel there's an interesting thing that I discovered. It keeps happening. You discover things. It's... Jack Kerouac had a, of course, very interesting life. He was a great writer. But he was embarrassed about being famous.
It's odd. I don't know what that's about. And I have a, it could be also that I have an innate shyness in me. which I compensated by doing those things. It helped. And I found it, in a way, therapeutic. And I would say anything up there, too. You know, that was another thing. I didn't censor myself. But I would read them. Have you ever seen Jason Robards Jr. do Iceman Cometh when he was young? Yeah. Oh, my God. The TV version, yeah. The TV version. Oh, my. Beautiful. Sidney Lumet directed that.
That is the greatest thing I've ever seen. All I've ever wanted to do my entire life was do that. And I keep trying and failing. But, you know, find a way to make it my own. I'm still working on it. That's the inspiration of my life. That's the greatest performance I ever saw. Would you say you learned anything about yourself through working on the book? Yeah, I would say. Only I don't know what it is, but I know I've learned something.
I don't know what it is. I mean, sometimes when I'm talking, I'm with you and talking to you here because not because of a film I made, but because of a book I wrote. And, you know, to say I actually wrote a book, it's like I never thought I would do it. Ever, yeah. I just thought. And it's a beautiful book. I'm so glad to hear that. And you can see it's a lot of work. Yeah. I just looked there, and it just started, and I start seeing that past that I had.
myself as a youngster, and I just kept talking. And it felt good. It felt good going back. Would you say that before you start a project, whether it be a play or a film, that you have your character fully developed in your head before you begin, or do you continue learning about the character through the making? Through the making.
I learn more and more because I have to interchange with people that are my fellow actors and what is going on in my life at the time, how this thing is progressing, who are the people. It takes a lot of people to make a film. And I think things change as I do it. Do you ever look back? and have new insight into a character you played after you've played it and realize there's more going on than you knew at the time? Yeah. I'm always surprised if I did something really well.
It surprises me. I really am surprised by that. And I've come to start looking at my work. I never did. But I look at it from time to time in a film. I recently saw Serpico. I hadn't seen Serpico. I don't remember seeing it. It's your work. It's like the painting Picasso does. There's a documentary on Picasso where he actually paints.
Right there on the counter. You see that he's painting the virgins. And then he finishes the painting and he puts it at his side. And he's there and his painting's there. And he's smiling. And he just created it, but they have nothing to do with each other. That painting is, you know, so you start to see it and understand that it's work. It's a painting. Yeah. You know? When you watch, if you saw Serpico recently. Yes, I did. Do you see the movie? Do you see you young? You, Al Young? Do you see?
Oh, I remember how we made this. What goes through your head when you watch it? Because there's a lot of different versions that can play in your head when you're watching. And they do. All of that happens. Especially the hair I had. beard and the hair and i thought who who is that well how did i have those kind of things i mean i didn't know i had those kind of things and and what i found interesting was as naive as it was It was real. I thought, this is personal.
You know, I knew Serpico. I studied it. I studied him as much as I got to know him, and that's all you need to do is you pick these things up and don't even know it's coming to you. But... I saw it so differently than I ever saw it before. from the first time I saw it, you know. And it resonated for me. I thought, wow, you know. And you sort of...
want to take credit for it, but you don't. I don't take credit for that. I just, who was that guy? That's another chapter in somebody's life. How was I that? That's not me. And yet I could enjoy it. I could see there's a value to the film. Funny, isn't it? That's funny. Scarface really blew me when I saw that. I thought, I hadn't seen that for it.
It's on a big screen just about a month ago. And it was like, what the fuck? Who's that? Holy smokes. Where did that come from? Yeah. Where did that come from? It's magic. It's all magic. Wow. Wow. So, you know, these are the kinds of things I'm finding out as I go along with life and continue it. Yeah. Very interesting. Tetragramatin is a podcast. Tetragramatin is a website. Tetragramatin is a whole world of knowledge. What may fall within the sphere of tetragrammaton?
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