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00:01In order to carry a big room, you have to have a certain kind of instrument that can do that.
00:07And so I like to utilize the money I spent getting that education.
00:17This place is so great. I haven't been here since we were in class.
00:23Do you see anyone from class?
00:24No. No. Do you?
00:26Oh yeah, we have reunions.
00:28I think that you're the only one that still works.
00:31No, Cindy does a lot of voiceovers.
00:33But you were the one we all looked up to.
00:35Oh no, no, no.
00:36Oh yeah, you were the best of all of us. You were method.
00:39I wasn't method.
00:41You were method.
00:42I was method light. You could do anything. I could watch you do anything.
00:47Welcome to the actor's side. Today he is a Tony Award winning, two-time Emmy Award winning actor,
00:55and one you know from so many things.
00:58It's literally a cliche to say stage, screen, and television, but that is Billy Crudup.
01:03Welcome.
01:04Thank you. I appreciate it.
01:05You have conquered them all.
01:08Well, I'm happy to be a working actor. I'll tell you that.
01:10Wherever they put me in, I'm ready to go.
01:12Yeah. Do you have a preference? You seem to be a creature of the stage at one point.
01:17I confess, wherever the good part is. And I've had an abundance of phenomenal parts across the different media.
01:27But on stage in particular, I've had really good parts come my way, and it's just hard to turn them down.
01:33Yeah. And you're a trained actor, as they say, in the business.
01:38Well, I spent three years trying to learn about the craft of acting and how you manage your voice and how you manage text and speech and that sort of thing.
01:47So it is very useful on stage. And in order to carry a big room, you have to have a certain kind of instrument that can do that.
01:56And so I like to utilize the money I spent getting that education.
02:01Really, Bo, you certainly did it well. I mean, four Tony nominations. I mean, phenomenal in leads like The Elephant Man, you know, on Broadway and all kinds of different shows.
02:13You know, that comes with training, I guess. But did you always want to be an actor?
02:19Well, I, I, I didn't, nobody in my family was an actor. I had a step uncle who I recall, he, he's a writer.
02:29And I recall when I was younger, probably around seven or eight, we were all meant to gather around the television because he was going to make an appearance in a TV movie.
02:38And when his big scene came up, he was on the phone and he said, did you see it?
02:45And we didn't see him. And it turns out that it was just a line off camera.
02:51And my grandmother was furious that she had spent money helping him, I think, to be out in L.A.
02:57And that that was his one big thing. So I remember there being a bit of a kerfuffle around his acting career.
03:03That was the only proximity I had to somebody who was trying to make it as an actor.
03:08So no, I didn't want to be an actor, but I ended up acting all the time.
03:13I was always in school plays and when I moved around a lot.
03:18So my way of fitting in was being the class clown.
03:20So whenever a teacher would say, OK, it's flag day, who's going to dress up like Uncle Sam?
03:25I'd be like, I'll definitely do that.
03:27And additionally, I discovered that the way for whatever reason my mind works, it was not difficult for me to internalize text.
03:36So I read something and then spit it right back out.
03:39I think most actors probably aren't aware that they have that hard wiring in the way some people are good with math.
03:46Some actors are good with text.
03:48And you discover it, though, as that feature of your brain starts to atrophy over time.
03:54And you're on stage and all of a sudden none of the words are there.
03:57Ah, yes.
03:58And that's a rather uncomfortable experience.
04:00But I think once I discovered it was a place that I could feel useful in the world, I wanted to pursue what I suspected was the most deliberate approach that you could take to acting, which is getting a master's degree.
04:19Because so many of the people who were mentors to me were teachers.
04:25And I thought if I had my master's, I could I could teach acting.
04:28And if I couldn't have a career.
04:30Oh, OK.
04:31Yeah.
04:32You can't act, teach.
04:33I am qualified.
04:34Well, I thought actually if I will teach and if acting goes along with it, then I'll do that.
04:40Oh, cool.
04:41But as soon as I met the other students at acting school, I realized that there were a lot of people who wanted to take it very seriously, were interested in the craft.
04:49And from that moment, I had ambitions to be a professional actor.
04:53Wow.
04:54I ask all of this not just because we're called the actor side here and this is all about acting, but also because you are now playing an actor.
05:02Yeah.
05:03In Jay Kelly.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Opposite George Clooney, which is a terrific film on so many levels about being an actor, you know, and the cost of it as well.
05:16And your character early on in the film, we see what what's happening here is he was going for the part.
05:23Jay Kelly gets the part.
05:25It's kind of by accident.
05:27Just being in the right place at the right time, as they say.
05:30Being part of it.
05:31And has the career that you didn't get.
05:35Right.
05:36And it's fascinating to watch.
05:38And I'm just wondering, you've had so much experience, you know, preparing for this role as an actor.
05:45Right.
05:46Did you bring it?
05:47You know?
05:48You read a part like that.
05:50And actually, the character that I play, Timothy, that is the most common experience for any actor.
05:56Which is the rejection and the loss of opportunity and the proximity to some sort of gilded life.
06:03And I think one of the lovely things about the film from Noah's point of view because he really…
06:09Noah Baumbach, the director.
06:10Noah Baumbach, the director.
06:11Noah Baumbach, the director.
06:12He really loves actors.
06:13Yeah.
06:14And he is really interested in the acting in his films.
06:18And he writes for actors to have opportunities to exploit the various dynamics in his films.
06:25This one, it was so close in proximity that it's just right there for you.
06:33There's not…
06:34The one thing that wasn't close was the kind of acting style that he wanted my character to attend to.
06:41This method acting as Noah imagined it.
06:46I don't know what method acting is.
06:48That's not the kind of training that I had.
06:51And so I was trying to explain to him that I don't really know how to make… to manufacture feelings.
06:58I can try to tell the story and collaborate with the other actors so we create something ingenious between us, hopefully, or terrible.
07:07It goes both ways.
07:08You never know which way it's going to happen.
07:11But if you're in a creative collaborative environment, you have the best opportunity to find something new between you.
07:17If you're attending to the script and the events of the scene and telling the story.
07:21Now, if emotion comes with that, your deliberate insights into the character, the dynamics between the other actors and the other characters, the direction that you get, fine.
07:34But the idea of sobbing for the purpose of sobbing is not the way that I think of it.
07:42And it's sort of what he wanted from the scene.
07:44So we had a lot of talks about how I don't do that.
07:48And I kept saying, you know what, your film is predicated on me being able to execute this thing that I don't know how to do.
07:54And he said, I know.
07:56To be believable as this actor.
07:59Exactly.
08:00That you're playing.
08:01And the guy who is able to pull off what is essentially a stunt.
08:07I would call that stunt acting.
08:10And I've tried to avoid that at all costs.
08:14Because you never know.
08:16Feelings are capricious.
08:17And the kind of work that you do with method acting is a totally different approach to storytelling.
08:27You know, the immersive quality of it.
08:29The personalization of some of the emotions so that you are a raw nerve ready to go.
08:37It's a different kind of preparation.
08:39And so I had to learn a few new tools as I discovered, no, it wasn't changing the script.
08:44So I would say all in all, I think actors who see the film will relate much more to my character than they will to George's character.
08:56Yeah.
08:57Everybody will be charmed by George and his performance because it's a beautiful performance.
09:02Yeah.
09:03And I think Americans in particular have a special affection for movie stars because they represent the sort of gilded life that it should be for everyone.
09:13Yeah.
09:14This is the land of opportunity.
09:15So we kind of put these people up as royalty.
09:19Yeah.
09:20When in fact, obviously that's not the case.
09:22George's character displays that he has pursued that career at great cost to himself personally.
09:28Yeah.
09:29And sort of missed his life, which I think is a great metaphor for Americans who keep pursuing something and they miss their life in the meantime.
09:36And that was so interesting about your dynamic with George's, with Jay Kelly here too, is that he pursued it at the cost of that friendship and all of that too.
09:48And rewrote the history of that friendship to accommodate his own ambition.
09:52Exactly.
09:53Which is something actors do too, you know.
09:57In this sort of carnival life where you go off to Tulsa for three months and you become emotionally, psychologically involved with a group of people trying to tell a story, make very vulnerable choices in front of them.
10:14Yeah.
10:15Everybody falls in love with one another and then you're gone.
10:20Yeah.
10:21And whatever experience you had there then becomes a part of your own story.
10:26And the way that you tell that story over time becomes your memory of that event.
10:29That happens to everybody.
10:30Yeah.
10:31And so you have disparate ideas of what happened during that very emotional fraught time and it happens again and again and again and again.
10:38So you run into these people.
10:39Right.
10:40Who may have had a really terrible time with you, but you don't recall it.
10:45Yeah.
10:46Because, you know, you had rewritten the history of it.
10:49And so the confrontation that ends up happening, whether it's a Cold War or something hostile, can be interesting to find.
10:55Or worst, there's kind of deference to, oh, I remember you.
11:00I think we worked together.
11:01And in your mind you're like, but you were the most important person to me in the world in all of Tulsa.
11:06You know, that's a pretty common exchange between actors.
11:11Yeah.
11:12It's pretty, it's really interesting.
11:14The movie, when I saw it, really makes you think of what actors go through beyond just the profession.
11:20You know, what they give up because you're always on location.
11:23You're always off doing somewhere.
11:25You're on Broadway every single night, whatever it is.
11:28Yeah.
11:29And it's a very difficult life to have a personal life and a family life.
11:35And this shows that.
11:36It is.
11:37You know, has that ever run through you in your career here?
11:40No question about it.
11:41Missing out?
11:42Missing out?
11:43I remember very early on I got, I think I was doing a play in New York and I missed my best
11:53friend's wedding.
11:54And that was really heartbreaking to me.
11:57People were just starting to get married in, you know, the, in our mid twenties.
12:03And these were seminal events.
12:04And I moved around a lot when I was younger.
12:06I went to about eight different schools before I finished high school between Long Island and Florida and Texas.
12:14And so I was really covetous of the friendships that I had and wanted to maintain them and realized that I was going to miss funerals.
12:24I was going to miss weddings.
12:25I was going to miss, you know, births and the seminal kinds of birthday parties and seminal kinds of events that, that help you to maintain your sense of self and your friendships, etc.
12:37And so there's a couple of things in particular, as soon as I started to have agency that I made sure to make room for.
12:45One of them is an annual trip that I take with a bunch of my buddies that I've known since like first grade to play golf and cards for a weekend.
12:54And so I, whenever I can, and there was a period of about, I don't know, 10 years in there where I didn't have any agency.
13:02And if I had a job, I had to take it. But occasionally, you know, the careers go like this.
13:08And occasionally at a peak, you can say, listen, I need October 2nd and 3rd off, whatever the cost, I need to do that.
13:16Yeah. And the people will accommodate you.
13:18But it's for that reason, because I want to preserve those friendships.
13:22And it's meaningful, you know, history over time, if you're in any kind of creative life, whether you're a musician or an actor, where you travel, you have the potential of missing some of the things that are foundational to so many people.
13:37Yeah, it's interesting. Well, you've done so much, you know, and so many things.
13:42So I'm going to ask you about some of these movies.
13:44All right.
13:45You started in 1996, I think your first film was Sleepers or something like that.
13:50That was the first one that came out. I was in an independent movie called Grind before that.
13:55Okay.
13:56That I played an ex-con who liked racing cars.
14:03Right.
14:04But that didn't come out until after Sleepers.
14:09Yeah.
14:10And Sleepers had this incredible cast.
14:12I mean, you're working.
14:13Sleepers was a bonkers job.
14:15Yeah.
14:16And I was not long out of school, I think, when I got that job.
14:22But Barry Levinson was a director that I grew up loving.
14:25His Baltimore trilogy was some of our family's most favorite films.
14:30Yeah.
14:31And I don't know how many times we watched Diner, but to get a chance to work with him alongside Brad Pitt and Jason Patrick and Minnie Driver and Ron Eldard.
14:42And then we had Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.
14:45I know.
14:46I mean.
14:47It was bonkers.
14:48Mercifully, Ron Eldard, who was sort of my best friend in the film, he came from the same school of thought that I did.
14:56We were both interested in acting and talking about it.
14:59So it kind of eased the experience for me.
15:02Otherwise, Kevin Bacon.
15:03Yeah.
15:04We got to.
15:05Yeah, that was it was a murderer's row of great actors there.
15:10But having somebody there who had a similar kind of experience made that there was a scene in the courtroom where Dustin Hoffman is representing us and we're watching Robert De Niro testify.
15:19And, you know, for a young actor, it's just it's bonkers.
15:24Amazing.
15:25And very difficult to kind of root yourself and ground yourself in any kind of reality.
15:31Ron helped me with that.
15:33But that was that was a rather extraordinary start.
15:38And, you know, the considering Brad Pitt was in that movie, too.
15:41Later on, you did a great movie called Almost Famous.
15:46Cameron Crowe.
15:47Yes.
15:48And, you know, played the lead guitarist of this band.
15:51Right.
15:52And I understand you replaced Brad Pitt.
15:56Well, I think he dropped out.
15:58Yeah.
15:59He was attached to it.
16:00I want to say Natalie Portman was attached to it, too.
16:02I'm not entirely sure.
16:03Yeah.
16:04But this happens in Hollywood often.
16:07In fact, Keanu Reeves was supposed to do Dr. Manhattan.
16:09Oh.
16:10And Watchman.
16:11Oh, wow.
16:12And he dropped out.
16:13And so you got that.
16:15A lot of parts that I've had.
16:17I'm standing by.
16:18Put me in coach.
16:19I'll be the substitute.
16:20Whatever it takes.
16:23And mercifully, Brad Pitt dropped out of that and the part was available.
16:29And so I spent three hours with Cameron Crowe on a couch because I had to I didn't play guitar.
16:35And Cameron was wondering what I'm going to do here.
16:38He's kind of right for the part, but he doesn't play guitar.
16:41And this guy is supposed to be an expert guitar player.
16:44What am I going to do?
16:45Well, he gave me the part and I started working really hard on trying to fake play guitar,
16:51which I knew wouldn't work for a certain subset of the audience.
16:56Yeah.
16:57But we wanted it to work for the broader group.
17:01And it takes a lot of work to learn an instrument when you're in your 30s.
17:07Your brain does not want to do it.
17:09Oh, no.
17:10So I was not having the like a joyful, fun time.
17:13It was just like rigorous work.
17:15It was great work.
17:16Yeah.
17:17Thrilled to be doing it.
17:18But it was.
17:19I definitely had my nose to the grindstone.
17:20Oh, it was.
17:21And Kate Hudson, you know, was.
17:23She was phenomenal.
17:24Yeah.
17:25And Frances McDormand, who I can't remember if it came before or after, but we worked on
17:31a rather long production of Oedipus together off Broadway in New York.
17:35And I'm just such an enormous fan of hers.
17:39Yeah.
17:40Phil Hoffman and Jeffrey Wright and Sam Rockwell.
17:42All these are people that, you know, I saw on stage and on screen in New York growing
17:47up.
17:48And I wanted to emulate those careers.
17:49Oh.
17:50And you certainly, you know, you certainly have.
17:52I mean, I think your, the next film that came out after Sleepers was a Woody Allen film.
17:57Everybody says, I love you, what you got to sing in.
18:00It's a musical that he did.
18:02It's true.
18:03Much to the regret of my classmates, I must tell you, because when I was in acting school,
18:07they're supposed to teach you to dance and to sing.
18:09Yeah.
18:10But not every, not everybody can be taught to sing well.
18:12And I was that guy.
18:14However, I am very loud.
18:16So, my classmates who are really good at singing would typically take a step away from
18:22me whenever we were doing a chorus kind of thing, because I would drag them down.
18:26So, the fact that I was in a musical singing really pissed them off.
18:33And they all got CDs of it for Christmas.
18:36Billy Crudup right there.
18:37I think he said, B Crudup singing that song.
18:39Wow.
18:40And that was a total thrill for me.
18:42Well, what I realized also, too, is there's a bit of movie magic there, Peter.
18:45Yeah.
18:46When you go in to record it, the poor musical director.
18:49I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he heard me sing it first.
18:51And he was like, oh, what am I going to do with this?
18:55And he said, have you ever heard Rex Harrison?
18:58And I was like, I don't think so.
18:59He's like, well, it's called speak singing where you don't really sing.
19:03That's right.
19:04And I was so disappointed.
19:06But when we actually recorded it, Woody Allen said, no, I'd like to hear you sing it.
19:11And I discovered that if there's like 10 notes in the song and I get one right each
19:17take, they can piece it together.
19:18Right.
19:19And then it sounds like I could actually sing the song.
19:21So, that's what they did.
19:22Wow.
19:23Yeah.
19:24The magic of making movies.
19:27Exactly.
19:28How the sausage is made.
19:29I'm very, very grateful for that.
19:31You had one very memorable role early on too, Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits too, the
19:38great runner.
19:39And that was a full on leading role there.
19:42I, my dad was very invested in sports and we had Sports Illustrated, you know, on the
19:49coffee table as I was growing up.
19:50And I remember this rather haunting picture of this young runner.
19:56And that was all I recalled about it until I read the script.
20:01And I started asking my dad about it as well.
20:03And the story of this guy and what he was doing for amateur athletes in addition to what
20:12he was doing on the track was pretty novel.
20:15He was a really interesting, charismatic, driven person who was excelling in a very unique way.
20:22The kinds of records that he was breaking nationally were, it was unusual the way that he had outpaced
20:31his competitors and the way that he did it, middle distance running, running out front was not exactly a smart way to do it.
20:38But he had a philosophy behind it.
20:41He wanted to define his character and his heart through this sport.
20:46He wanted to show people what it means to have guts in life by executing and performing as a middle distance runner.
20:56And that's a fascinating, fascinating approach.
20:58And he was also outspoken about it.
21:01In addition, he thought that amateur athletes needed to get a little bit of money when colleges were benefiting
21:08or when the Olympic Committee was benefiting from their performance in the college and the amateur athletes
21:14were living in, you know, poor conditions and having to work second jobs while training constantly.
21:21So that's a movement which now has come to fruition in colleges now.
21:26So he was a fascinating character.
21:28Oh, and you played him so well.
21:30I remember that.
21:31Of course, it was the great Robert Towne who directed it.
21:33It was Robert Towne.
21:34And Connie Hall shot it.
21:35Oh my God.
21:36I mean, you know.
21:37I look back at it, Peter, and I have to say I have a little bit, not a little bit, a lot of regret
21:41because I felt like I was in over my head.
21:45You know, Tom Cruise was producing it.
21:47He and Paula Wagner were producing it.
21:49And it was a $25 million Warner Brothers movie.
21:52And I was playing this cocky guy.
21:55And I suppose like that sort of came out in me everywhere.
22:01It's like I had to pretend like I knew what I was doing.
22:04But what happened was I missed the opportunity to really talk to people like Connie and Donald Sutherland
22:09and Robert Towne about movie making and their careers.
22:12And because I didn't want to feel or them to feel like I wasn't in control of playing the part.
22:19And so I think back on it now with a little bit of regret.
22:23But it was it was an incredible opportunity.
22:28Oh, my God.
22:29And actually, I guess you worked with Tom Cruise in obviously in Mission Impossible 3.
22:34I did.
22:35Which you were the, as it turns out.
22:37I'm sure you've seen Mission Impossible 3.
22:39Spoiler alert.
22:40Yeah.
22:41I'm not giving away much here to most people.
22:44For the movie that came out 20 years ago.
22:47But you were the bad guy, you know.
22:50And that must have been fun to get into it.
22:52It was amazing.
22:53On camera.
22:54It certainly was.
22:55I did tell this story once before, but it's worth repeating.
22:59J.J. Abrams, he wrote and directed that.
23:02Yeah.
23:03Or was at least a co-writer on that.
23:05And there's a big scene, not unlike Jay Kelly, where my character has to explain to Tom Cruise how he's been duped.
23:14How he thought of me as his subordinate.
23:17But in fact, I'm so well connected in ways that he couldn't possibly understand.
23:22And I do it while he's bound and gagged.
23:25And I've been beaten up.
23:27And when I got the monologue, it was a really great monologue.
23:32And I want to start working on it right away.
23:34You know, I need a bit of time with the text to make it good.
23:37You can memorize things typically.
23:39But in order to make it interesting, make it sound like it's coming out of you and you've thought through it, you need some time to do what's called text analysis.
23:48And I said to J.J., this is great.
23:53I'm on it right now.
23:54And he said, oh, no, no, no.
23:55Don't start memorizing it.
23:56We're working through a couple of the bits and pieces here.
23:59And I need to make sure that the story is being told in the way that we're shooting it now.
24:05They were constantly changing the script.
24:07Right.
24:08So about two weeks out, I said, J.J., for this much text, in order to do it well, I need time now.
24:15Can we lock it down?
24:16He said, not yet.
24:17We're almost there.
24:18A week before shooting.
24:19I'm like, J.J., I'm just going to start memorizing this.
24:21Win, lose, or draw.
24:22If you guys change it, you change it.
24:24But if you want it to be good.
24:26And he's like, no, no, no.
24:27I promise it's coming today.
24:29Three days before.
24:30Nothing.
24:31The day of.
24:32Oh, no.
24:33I get a new monologue with all of this.
24:36And we get on set, and I can't spew any of it out.
24:42I mean, nothing is there.
24:43I get it.
24:44And Tom, with all of his beat up makeup, he's like, no problem.
24:48You ever work with cue cards?
24:49And I was like, no, Tom, I have not worked with cue cards.
24:54And he was like, we're on it.
24:55Get this monologue on a cue card.
24:56Oh, my God.
24:57Cut to Tom, like when they were doing his, they were shooting on me, so he was off camera.
25:03Right.
25:04He's holding the cue card, but like holding it like this.
25:07So, he still has eye contact with me, acting his ass off through this while holding the
25:14cue card.
25:15I mean, a phenomenal colleague in that.
25:17So, if you rewatch it, you can see my eyes probably darting between the cue card and his
25:21eye.
25:22Oh, my God.
25:23I've got to rewatch it to see that.
25:24I had to read it.
25:25Unbelievable.
25:26I mean, I look at all these movies.
25:29High Low Country and Big Fish, Tim Burton, Stage Beauty, one I really like, by the way.
25:35And, of course, you mentioned Watchmen and Justice League, the infamous Justice League
25:40here.
25:41Your Zack Snyder period here.
25:43Yes.
25:44Which is cool to do.
25:46That was great to do.
25:47And Alien Covenant.
25:48Oh, yeah.
25:49To work with Ridley Scott was a dream.
25:52I mean, that man has been producing great work for so long.
25:58And, you know, if you make one good movie, you're a pretty good director.
26:02If you make two good movies, you might be like one of the best of your generation.
26:06If you make three good, good movies, you're in the pantheon.
26:10And Ridley has, you know, made I don't know how many over a decade.
26:14A lot.
26:15But he didn't start making features until he was 40.
26:18He'd done all those commercials.
26:20That's even more amazing.
26:21I agree.
26:22I agree.
26:23I had some ideas about the character because I realized it was a sort of losing part.
26:28My poker buddies call me Space Fredo.
26:31But the character makes a very bad decision on behalf of the crew.
26:37Spoiler alert.
26:38And it's not a well thought through decision.
26:42And I was just trying to find a way with Ridley to sort of broaden the scope of that.
26:49So the audience didn't completely put him off.
26:51I was not successful in that.
26:52But it did afford me some time with Ridley in his studio, which was probably like twice
26:59as high as this room here and four times as big.
27:04And the walls were floor to ceiling sketches that he did, like constantly sketching the
27:10different camera angles he wants, the design that he's looking for.
27:14I don't think I'd ever seen somebody as prolific in their craft as Ridley in his element.
27:22And it was what an incredible force and experience it was to work with him.
27:28Unbelievable.
27:29And stay away from face huggers.
27:31Yeah, I know.
27:32That was the other thing, too.
27:35He's like, so are you all right looking into the egg?
27:37And I'm like, well, I'm not all right, Ridley.
27:39I know how this turns out.
27:41He's like, I know.
27:42But in the story, you will have been the first person ever to get the face hugger and have
27:48the chestburster.
27:49I was like, well, that's awesome.
27:52I totally get that.
27:53But for all of the viewing public, I'm going to be the idiot who knew what was happening.
27:58And he's like, and are you OK with that?
28:00I was like, yeah, sure.
28:01All right, whatever.
28:02What am I going to do?
28:03But that was a pretty fun experience.
28:06I was cracking up most of the time.
28:08There's plenty of outtakes of me just getting up to it going, I can't do this.
28:12I can't.
28:13I know what's about to happen.
28:15But that was super fun.
28:18You mentioned Stage Beauty.
28:20And the production designer of that, a guy named Tim Hatley, an absolutely beautiful job
28:25with that.
28:26But I'm getting to work with him again as the screenwriter, Eric Roth, has adapted High Noon
28:32for the stage.
28:33Yes.
28:34Paula Wagner's producing.
28:35Paula Wagner.
28:36She's a friend of mine and she's talked about it endlessly.
28:39And the last time I had talked to her, she didn't have the cast.
28:43Yeah.
28:44And so we've got a wonderful actor, Denise Goff, who was in a show called People, Places
28:50and Things and also Angels in America.
28:53But it's just a stellar, stellar artist.
28:56And we're going to start rehearsals in about a month.
28:59Wow.
29:00So I'm getting to work with Tim again, which is a really great experience.
29:02That's so cool.
29:03And you're going back to Broadway.
29:04It's going to be in London, actually.
29:06We're going to be on the West End.
29:07Okay, that's right.
29:08The Harold Pinter Theater.
29:09And I think their hope is to go to Broadway.
29:10Mine too.
29:11Yeah.
29:12It's a phenomenal story.
29:14The writer of High Noon was blacklisted.
29:16Yeah.
29:17And it's essentially about people capitulating to the threat of violent force.
29:24And it's a great story to tell.
29:27Oh, it's an amazing story.
29:29Carl Foreman, who you're talking about.
29:31Carl Foreman.
29:32The great director who was blacklisted in Hollywood.
29:35And it's timely now.
29:37It most certainly is.
29:38If ever there was a time.
29:39I already sent it to me.
29:40I said, this needs to be on.
29:41I was like, I'm not sure I'm the right guy for it, but I'll give it a shot.
29:45If you want me to do that part, I'll try to figure out my own Will Kane.
29:48Yeah.
29:49I can't be Gary Cooper.
29:50But I'll figure out a different way to approach the story.
29:53And we did a workshop of it.
29:55And all concluded that whatever the risk was, it was worth the effort.
30:00So we're going to go give it a shot.
30:02I'm so excited.
30:03Yeah, I've been hearing about that and hoping that it's going to come about.
30:06And of course, before we go, the morning show.
30:09Yes.
30:10He continues to watch Corey just, you know, and it's unspooling as we speak here, season
30:17four.
30:18But he's back in action.
30:19There's no question.
30:21And it's such a fun character.
30:23You've obviously won two Emmys for it already.
30:26What does that mean to you to have a role like that?
30:29It was an enormous gift.
30:31You know, I was doing a show off-Broadway in New York.
30:35And one of my colleagues, my manager, Aline Kashishian, she said, I want some of my other
30:41clients to come and see this because I think you're doing very good work.
30:44And if you can network with any of them, one of them was Jen.
30:47And so Jen Aniston came and saw the show.
30:49And she said, well, I'm developing this TV show.
30:53If there are any parts in the pilot that would be interesting to you, tell me.
30:57And I'll lobby on your behalf.
30:59And I was like, well, whoever that weirdo is playing the angles.
31:03I've seen that guy a lot in New York.
31:06So give me an eye.
31:08And because the play that I was doing, it was just me telling a story.
31:13And so I had about a 48-page monologue.
31:16I knew that I could manage the text in there after doing that play.
31:20So I said, give me that one.
31:23And it took a while because not everybody else was convinced that I could play the part.
31:29I had to come out here to L.A. to pitch myself.
31:35And some of the people were like, oh, you're still acting.
31:38That's great.
31:39Oh, my God.
31:40I know.
31:41I mean, that's one of the things you have to deal with.
31:44Well, for Alien Covenant, I had to put myself on tape with dummy sides.
31:49I didn't even get to read the whole script.
31:51Oh, my God.
31:52And I didn't get to meet with Ridley.
31:54Being an actor, even if you've had a terrific career like I have,
31:59you still go through times where people are not interested in your work.
32:03They forget who you are.
32:04They don't know if you can manage something or they think you've gotten too old.
32:09So they wanted somebody younger for the part.
32:12And immersively, the writer and Jen and a number of other people gave me an opportunity.
32:18And so I at that point, I just didn't want to mess it up.
32:24So that first couple of weeks of work was a sweaty experience for me.
32:29And I had just an incredible group around.
32:33And what they've written for me subsequent to that has just been, you know, I read the
32:38scripts and I go, oh, my gosh, you guys are going to give me a chance to do that.
32:41It's so much fun.
32:43Oh, my God.
32:44And so it has been a real gift to get a chance to do that.
32:48It's so much fun watching you in this season wanting to be, you know, trying to be a film producer
32:53because you're on the outs and say, okay, I'll make films.
32:56It's hilarious.
32:57It is.
32:58And, you know, the writers have gotten it so right that there are any number of executives,
33:04even politicians, who have come up to me or somebody who represents me and said, that's based on me, isn't it?
33:11Yeah.
33:12They all think it's based on them because he's super smart.
33:15Yeah.
33:16He sees around the corner, works angles and stuff, has a sense of humor.
33:19And now all the producers think, oh, that's me, right?
33:23Yeah.
33:25Down to the last name on his list to get the star.
33:27All of that stuff is so funny.
33:29And Marion Cotillard is great in it.
33:31I know you worked with her in Blood Ties and actually she was in Public Enemies as well.
33:36And Big Fish.
33:37That was her first English speaking woman wife then.
33:39So you have a whole kind of history with her and it's great.
33:42I do.
33:43She's fantastic.
33:44It's great to watch you work with her.
33:46It's great.
33:47We had an absolute ball.
33:48And I look forward to working with her anytime I can.
33:52Yeah.
33:53I wish I spoke French because then I could do one of the French movies with her, but no.
33:58But by the way, she cries on cue beautifully.
34:01I saw that in the show, you know.
34:03I don't know how she does it.
34:04Yeah.
34:05That's it.
34:06Yeah.
34:07Well, you could definitely be a teacher if this all doesn't work out.
34:09You're great.
34:10Okay.
34:11You know.
34:12Billy Crudup, thanks for joining us on the Azure site.
34:13Thanks, Peter.
34:14I appreciate it.
34:15Bye.
34:16Bye.
34:17Bye.
34:18Bye.
34:19Bye.
34:20Bye.
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