- 4 months ago
Hugh Jackman, Viggo Mortensen and Richard E. Grant also joined in the Roundtable discussion.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to Close-Up with the Hollywood Reporter Actors.
00:00:06I'm Stephen Galloway, and I'd like to introduce a few gentlemen,
00:00:10Mahershala Ali,
00:00:12Timothee Chalamet,
00:00:13Richard E. Grant,
00:00:15Viggo Mortensen,
00:00:17and Chadwick Boseman.
00:00:19Thanks for joining us.
00:00:20Thank you for having me.
00:00:20I'd like to start with a simple question.
00:00:22Is this a good time or a bad time to be an actor?
00:00:24It's always a good time to be an actor.
00:00:30That's a good point.
00:00:31Yeah, always.
00:00:33Surely this is, in a way, the golden age in terms of the amount of work that is out there
00:00:38and quality work in different areas, film and TV.
00:00:42But I'm living in New York at the moment, and I was just wrapped on Saturday night.
00:00:46I had one of the teams just saying there are 59 productions currently in New York,
00:00:50and that is a record, and there must be a lot all over the place.
00:00:55So whether you're young or upcoming, it feels like there's a lot of quality stuff out there.
00:01:00When you decided to become an actor, were you scared that this is a risky profession?
00:01:05Maybe you shouldn't do it.
00:01:07My father thought that I was completely insane wanting to do this
00:01:10because when I was 12 years old in 1969 and Neil Armstrong just landed on the moon,
00:01:15everybody in my year wanted to be an astronaut.
00:01:17So saying that you wanted to be an actor was as ludicrous to people then
00:01:21as saying that you wanted to be an astronaut
00:01:23because there was no precedent where I grew up.
00:01:25And I think my father was genuinely worried that I'd spend my life in tights, makeup, and be destitute.
00:01:31All of it has come true.
00:01:33Well, you grew up in Swaziland.
00:01:35Yeah.
00:01:36What was the acting scene then?
00:01:38What made you go from that to wanting to be an actor based in England?
00:01:42I think that you have no, you know, looking back,
00:01:45I think you have no real choice about these things.
00:01:46I don't know what you guys feel, but when I look back on, you know, Kodak pictures that I had,
00:01:51I had a shoebox theatre with lollipop sticks with little figures cut out on them
00:01:55from when I was seven years old, then went to glove puppets and string puppets and amateur plays.
00:01:59And it was that thing where it was a, you know, it was a childhood passion,
00:02:02but whether that was going to translate into actually having a career,
00:02:06you know, people said to me, how can you be an actor because you look too weird?
00:02:09You've got a face like a tombstone.
00:02:10And so I said, well, Donald Sutherland has become an actor and he's very tall and has a long face.
00:02:15So, you know, fuck it.
00:02:17Chadwick, how about you?
00:02:19Did you think the odds were against you growing up in South Carolina?
00:02:22It wasn't even a possibility.
00:02:25Like, you know, there was nobody.
00:02:26My brother actually was into the arts.
00:02:30He was, he did musical theatre.
00:02:32He danced.
00:02:33Because he did that, I think I saw it as a possibility.
00:02:36But other than him, nobody around me saw that as a viable career.
00:02:43Even watching him, it's not the same thing that I'm doing.
00:02:46I think you're right.
00:02:47It's meant for you to do.
00:02:49I think you should only do it if you love it because it's not all the glitz and glamour people think it is.
00:02:55It's really a blue collar job.
00:02:57You work overtime, you sweat, you get hurt, you're an athlete, you're everything that is necessary.
00:03:05And you're pulling from things that most people don't usually deal with.
00:03:09You're dealing with intimate parts of your reality, political parts of your reality,
00:03:13social parts of your reality that most people don't have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
00:03:18Race, in a way, people don't have to deal with.
00:03:20Gender, in a way, people don't have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
00:03:23You do it because you love it.
00:03:24You don't do it because of the reasons people think, you know, I want to be famous.
00:03:30Nah, that's not what it is.
00:03:31It's interesting because that's never really articulated.
00:03:34The way we talk about acting, the way we talk about the business, we really don't talk about the workman-like qualities within it
00:03:43and how you really only actually act between action and cut, like 10% of the time.
00:03:51The rest of it is prepping for it to the wardrobe, the costume elements of it, the building the psychology and getting ready for the piece itself.
00:04:01And working on yourself and trying to be ready.
00:04:03Actually getting to act is so, it's such a minuscule part of the experience that you have to love it that much.
00:04:10That's not to say it isn't great because it's holistically, it's an amazing experience, but there's a real tax within it that you have to be conscious of going within it and say,
00:04:21all right, I love this so much that all these little aspects that add up to make this the fuller experience, I'm okay with, you know.
00:04:33The time sacrifice your family had, you know.
00:04:36You don't see them.
00:04:36You don't see them.
00:04:37Like, you really don't.
00:04:38You just start, like, passing ships for maybe 10 months in a year.
00:04:43And I think it's, in some ways, it's good for people to know that because celebrities and storytellers are really elevated.
00:04:51And so you ask, when I was growing up, I would never hear a kid say, what do you want to do when you grow up?
00:04:56And no one would say famous, per se.
00:04:58We could do a better job of really helping folks understand what it is and sort of, you know, demystify it a bit so that it's a little bit clearer.
00:05:07You know, the work that goes into building these characters and telling these stories and how hard it is to actually do that well.
00:05:14You know, or to have something that people actually want to go see and walk out the theater and say, like, wow, that was a great experience.
00:05:22Timothy, what's most surprised you about, you're relatively new to this, about the profession of acting?
00:05:28I'm not sure.
00:05:28That's a big question.
00:05:29I feel like a lot has surprised me.
00:05:32A lot's inspired me.
00:05:33I feel like I'm not a very cynical guy to begin with, but I've been made less cynical.
00:05:39Less?
00:05:39In a good way, yeah.
00:05:40I feel, even just hearing Mahershala speak right now, and we had rehearsed a play in the same space together four years ago in, like, not a high-budget environment at all.
00:05:51And it's inspiring, I feel now.
00:05:54I think of The Green Book.
00:05:56Hopefully, Beautiful Boy resonates in a similar way.
00:05:59But the things that people want are, they want, like, accurate reflections.
00:06:03They want a mirror, basically.
00:06:05Authenticity.
00:06:05Yeah, and I think coming into it, as Hugh said, like, the demand for content, whether that's Netflix or Hulu or Apple's making stuff.
00:06:13I saw a thing that said AT&T original in the street the other day.
00:06:16Apparently, they're making things.
00:06:17So there's so much out there, especially as a young actor.
00:06:21I think your first dream is, like, how can I be economically self-sufficient?
00:06:24Like, that first time you could pay your check and you didn't do any other job, you're like, what?
00:06:28That's success right there.
00:06:30Yeah, yeah.
00:06:30Like, people very often, like, you know, they'll be talking about how other people view the art.
00:06:39And they'll say stuff, you know, like, one day you're going to make it.
00:06:43One day, one day, you know, one day.
00:06:45And you're like, well, wait a minute.
00:06:46I paid my bills.
00:06:48Right.
00:06:49You know, I'm making a living.
00:06:51I love what I do.
00:06:51I love what I do.
00:06:53And I feel the same way about my work at that point in time as I do when my movie makes $100 million.
00:07:02Or a billion.
00:07:04Or a billion.
00:07:06A hundred million is a failure these days.
00:07:08Whatever it is.
00:07:09Yeah.
00:07:09Whatever it is.
00:07:10But it's the, I think there's a certain fulfillment of faith that doing this has because you don't have a steady job.
00:07:24You know, no matter how well you're doing, you're still trying to find what is the next thing.
00:07:31And when this job is over, you're like, well, what's the next one?
00:07:34And if I know what it might be six months from now, like, what's going to keep me going?
00:07:39And so that same faith that you had to have when people said, you're going to be an actor?
00:07:43Like, that you were talking about?
00:07:45Yeah.
00:07:45I think you use that.
00:07:48It builds on a day-to-day basis for every little part of what this is.
00:07:52And if you don't have that from the beginning, you don't necessarily have what it takes to do all the intricate.
00:08:00I love hearing you talk about the workman-like quality of the business, whether in film or theater, eight shows a week.
00:08:08It's, you know, I had a teacher, Lyle Jones, at my drama school.
00:08:12And on day one, he said, all of you here know how to act.
00:08:16And on your day, all of you can be brilliant.
00:08:19And the next three years is about the other 90% of the time.
00:08:21Wow.
00:08:22I didn't quite take him what he was talking about.
00:08:24But it's like that.
00:08:26You can have a take.
00:08:27It's just awesome.
00:08:28Everyone's great.
00:08:29But you're going to be days where, A, something's happening in your private life, or it's just not gelling, or it's just six out of ten.
00:08:36It's okay.
00:08:36It's not great.
00:08:37It's the day in, the day out.
00:08:39It's not just about the Super Bowl.
00:08:41It's the regular season.
00:08:42It's the 163 baseball games.
00:08:44It's practice.
00:08:45Right.
00:08:45It's working out.
00:08:47It's like all of us.
00:08:48How much does self-doubt and perfectionism get in the way of your work?
00:08:52It's like, oh, okay.
00:08:54In all the years, because I'm the oldest person at this table, my experience has been is that a common denominator that I've noticed amongst actors is this thing of having low self-esteem on one hand and large ego on the other.
00:09:09I feel that my confidence is so index-linked to whether I'm working or not or what I'm working on.
00:09:15And always people say, you know, what are you doing next?
00:09:16And if you don't have something next, there's a kind of, I still think, oh, you know, is what you've done before doesn't count?
00:09:23On the one hand, you're saying, you know, I want this job ahead of you guys.
00:09:27But at the same time, you think, well, I don't feel as worthy as those guys for the job.
00:09:31Well, I think generalizing.
00:09:33It's a high-wire act.
00:09:35And, yes, there's all these things, you know, I suppose we're wanting to make sure people understand, yeah, we're actually doing something for what we're paid.
00:09:44Acting is the easiest and most enjoyable thing that I know as an occupation when it works.
00:09:53You don't have a good overview of it.
00:09:54You know, you can see the take-after and say, actually, no, it wasn't so good.
00:09:57I thought I was doing really well.
00:09:59You know, but, and when it doesn't work, it can be depressing.
00:10:05It can be one of the most humiliating because you're doing it in front of people.
00:10:09When I say it's a great time for acting, we draw from what's going on around us.
00:10:15Conflict, beauty, disaster, chaos.
00:10:19Chaos is always there.
00:10:20You know, we try to order, we dress, we brush our teeth, we stop at stop signs.
00:10:24But, really, the world is completely crazy all the time, I think.
00:10:27Is the world chaotic, or do you mean your own inner life is chaotic?
00:10:31I think people are.
00:10:33For me, anyway, acting is a very intimate thing.
00:10:37You can't make a perfect movie any more than you can truly be another person.
00:10:42But the idea is to take on that person's point of view so that you can come as close as you can to feeling what it's like to look at the world that way.
00:10:54And when you're doing that, you are exposing yourself.
00:10:59And when you're doing that with someone else, you know, like in Green Book, that if we didn't do that for each other, it wouldn't work.
00:11:06Two guys in a car, road trip, it could be pretty dull, you know, no matter how sparkling the dialogue is, you know.
00:11:12In working with Mahershala and Green Book, we did that before we started.
00:11:17We did it all the time because we needed to.
00:11:20I think we both understood instinctively.
00:11:22What do you mean you did it before you started?
00:11:23In how we spoke to each other.
00:11:26We told each other things about ourselves and our lives.
00:11:29We opened up and said, well, I'm worried about this.
00:11:32I don't know if I can do this.
00:11:36Or how do we do this?
00:11:38Sort of express your vulnerability.
00:11:39Yes, you allow yourself to be vulnerable, and if someone else does that in return, then you're starting to get somewhere.
00:11:45Was there a moment when you saw each other differently?
00:11:48Well, we met about nine months before we started shooting.
00:11:51And we had that moment, funny enough, not knowing each other, where we were just sort of both, you know, having this introverted moment at a big luncheon with a bunch of amazing actors around.
00:12:03And we were sort of found ourselves tucked in a corner and we spoke for a while.
00:12:06But I think that was the initial conversation that I think peppered the moment for us to meet later and to begin working.
00:12:15It kind of set the tone for us sitting at a table and doing table time with a script and had connected in a way that felt deeper than how the environment felt.
00:12:26There's a lot of wonderful people in there, but you only get to connect with folks, I don't care how much you appreciate love, respect.
00:12:33It's like two minutes.
00:12:36I met Hugh a few weeks ago, and he couldn't have been more kind and really connected with me for a moment.
00:12:42I walked away like, dang, I appreciate that.
00:12:44It was almost like Viggo and I, but we got to talk for 30 minutes.
00:12:48And so to have that and to connect and then step into a project where we're about to start shooting, we got to sit down and sort of share and communicate some of our concerns and fears and go through the script in a way that...
00:13:03Can you tell me one of your fears?
00:13:05With the project?
00:13:06Don Shirley's is so different for me, so physically.
00:13:12And so when you're dealing with someone who isn't famous, who does not have a presence in the culture in the way that Don Shirley was an accomplished man, accomplished pianist, but no one really knew who he was.
00:13:25No one knew what he looked like.
00:13:27And so I got to see some tape on him that he appeared in this documentary called Little Bohemia, and he's in there just in moments.
00:13:34His voice, the pitch, was quite a bit higher.
00:13:41It was like up here, you know?
00:13:43And I'm thinking about myself being 6'2".
00:13:46Mm-hmm.
00:13:47He's smaller, shorter, stockier.
00:13:48So it was this negotiation for me, and I was concerned about it.
00:13:52But it was a negotiation with, I couldn't go there, but I could like drop it enough where it wasn't a distraction.
00:13:59And the physicality you find, I found like a happy medium for someone my height compared to him being probably, I'm guessing about 5'8", or something like that.
00:14:11Like you just, you kind of like tuning in, get your tuning fork right so that it's not a distraction to the audience.
00:14:17So you just don't, so that they can actually enjoy the story and not be distracted by a choice that they don't have anything to root it in.
00:14:24Yeah, you were never able to meet him.
00:14:27No, he passed.
00:14:28Hugh, did you meet Gary Hart?
00:14:30Yeah, I did.
00:14:31Oh.
00:14:32So Gary is 82.
00:14:35He lives in Colorado and was generous enough, I really mean that, to invite me up there to stay with him.
00:14:42Everybody who's met him, knows him, worked with him, said he's hard to get a grip on.
00:14:46He's mercurial.
00:14:47He's enigmatic.
00:14:48He's hard to define.
00:14:49Incredibly smart.
00:14:50So I arrive at Denver Airport and he was there curbside to pick me up.
00:14:54Wow.
00:14:55The trunk of the car was open.
00:14:56He was just waiting there on his own.
00:14:58And I walked out and I shook hands with him.
00:15:02And I mean, his campaign people, three of them had rung me and said, now when you meet Gary, it was that kind of advice.
00:15:08It's at that level.
00:15:09This is what, so I was a little nervous, right, because I was like, why are they giving me such specific advice?
00:15:15He shook my hand and his other hand he placed on my cheek.
00:15:19Wow.
00:15:19And for about two or three seconds, he just looked me in the eye and kind of to say, this is going to be okay.
00:15:26I know this is awkward.
00:15:27This is going to be okay.
00:15:28And I went back to his house.
00:15:29His wife had had hip surgery, so they were sleeping on the fold-out sofa downstairs.
00:15:34So I slept in his, he showed me to his bedroom.
00:15:36So I'm sleeping in his bed.
00:15:37He cleared some space and I was putting my jacket up.
00:15:40You know, I'm in his closet.
00:15:42He was incredibly open and warm.
00:15:45But I was nervous, obviously, about playing someone who was going to see the movie.
00:15:48Did you ask him anything that was difficult to ask?
00:15:54We did go down to some territory.
00:15:56I mean, for those who don't know about the frontrunner, it's really the three weeks of his campaign, which at the end of these three weeks, he left politics forever.
00:16:04Right?
00:16:04So he went from being the guy who was going to be the next president, probably, to never, you know, being in politics again.
00:16:10And it's the worst three weeks of his life, which, ringing up 30 years later, a really, really difficult period.
00:16:17I'm glad we tell the story because I think it had, prior to this movie or the book, been reduced to a joke, a meme, and this man's service and everything down to this, oh, monkey business, and didn't he ask him to follow him around, all this stuff.
00:16:30But even with that, I knew it was going to be super painful.
00:16:33And I did ask him questions.
00:16:35But my main reason to visit him was I wanted to be able to look him in the eye and let him know that I respected him and his story, that I took it seriously.
00:16:45I never asked him, I'm guessing, the questions you're asking.
00:16:48You're reading my mind.
00:16:49No, because it's also, it felt like, and I mean this, we're friends now, it felt like being with my father and there are things, just don't ask.
00:16:58I also didn't need to ask.
00:17:00When you're with someone, you get a sense of who they are without saying, where were you on the night of, you know?
00:17:04Were you afraid about taking on that character?
00:17:06I was afraid because the story itself, I knew to many people, I'm not just saying to Gary, but to Donna Rice, to the campaign team, is a painful part of their lives.
00:17:20I do think it's an important story to tell, but there's no way getting around that this experience is going to be painful.
00:17:25So are we on the right side of that line of telling this story honestly, paying homage to everybody in the story, not just one character?
00:17:33And also personally, I'm sure you guys feel the same thing.
00:17:37I had a bunch of, can I pull this off, kind of fear.
00:17:41Right.
00:17:41It's a very different type of character for me.
00:17:44By nature, I'm very open, open hearted.
00:17:46If you ask me a question, you probably won't be able to shut me up, and Gary's a very private person.
00:17:52So there were many aspects of it, enigmatic quality, sort of a little more closed off that I was not 100% sure I could pull off.
00:18:01Thank God I had a great team.
00:18:02But yeah, so there was personal fears as well as just fears for the product itself.
00:18:06This right here is why people don't want to be in public life, because someone will dredge up something you said in a moment 15 years ago and act like it somehow encapsulates your life.
00:18:16Look, hey, look, I know.
00:18:17I'm going to answer one more of these.
00:18:18I'm not going to sit here anymore.
00:18:19We've covered all the stuff that matters.
00:18:20Did you ask Reagan about his marriage?
00:18:22All right, let's wrap this up.
00:18:23No, no, listen.
00:18:24Did you ask part of these questions?
00:18:25There have been rumors, particularly about him.
00:18:26For God's sake, AJ, just ask whatever it is you came here to ask, or whatever your editor told you to ask me.
00:18:33This is beneath you.
00:18:34Before this round here began, we were talking about self-doubt and perfectionism.
00:18:41Right.
00:18:41And you were talking about how you get over that, and I'd like you to tell everybody else.
00:18:47So I was on the phone with a mate of mine, Richard Marks.
00:18:50I said, you know, something about being a perfectionist.
00:18:52And he goes, hang on, stop.
00:18:53I said, what?
00:18:54He goes, yeah, I'm going to pull you up on that.
00:18:56I said, what do you mean?
00:18:56He goes, yeah, I used to say the same thing.
00:18:58I had my first number one record.
00:19:00I was 19, traveling the world.
00:19:02And for the next 10 years, I used to say, if ever somebody was going, I'd say, well, you know, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so please excuse me.
00:19:08Can we?
00:19:09And I'm sitting in a hotel room.
00:19:11This is Richard.
00:19:12And all of a sudden it dawned on me, like, what have I done that's perfect?
00:19:15Like, in 10 years, have I done anything that's perfect?
00:19:18It's impossible.
00:19:18And the answer is no.
00:19:19It's impossible.
00:19:20I mean, to want to is great.
00:19:22Of course.
00:19:22He said, well, clearly I'm not a perfectionist.
00:19:26I'm just insecure.
00:19:27And it's just cooler to say perfectionist, to say I'm a little insecure about what I'm doing.
00:19:32And as he said, that's not an excuse for shoddy work.
00:19:34You do everything.
00:19:35But as soon as you take away that, there's a perfectionist.
00:19:38The obligation, yeah.
00:19:39I mean, also, it's taking away the idea, which is what you feel when you're alone, thinking, now I've said yes, now I've got to figure out how to play this character.
00:19:49It's not all on you.
00:19:51I mean, you've got to, like, put that aside and realize there's other actors in the scenes generally.
00:19:57Not always.
00:19:58But there are people trying to help you.
00:20:00If you just open your eyes on a set, generally, people that are making a movie want it to work.
00:20:07They want to be able to say, yeah, I worked on that movie and it's pretty good.
00:20:10Or when you go to see a movie or go to see a play, you go in.
00:20:15You've paid your money.
00:20:16I want it to be good.
00:20:17Yeah, right.
00:20:18You know, and so it kind of takes the pressure off.
00:20:20And when you get to know someone a little bit and you care about how they're doing in the scene, then you're paying attention to them as a person, too.
00:20:29It's like you might, there's a morning, I remember one morning you came in and you hadn't slept.
00:20:34You know, you had a new baby and the baby was there visiting.
00:20:37And you just, and instead of just going, oh, man, he's in a weird mood today.
00:20:42How are we going to get through this?
00:20:43How am I going to get through this?
00:20:45It's like, how is he going to get through this?
00:20:47And it's just like, what's happening?
00:20:49What's going on?
00:20:49And you said to me one time, too, and I said, no, I'm just not feeling well physically.
00:20:53And just that takes, okay, well, let's work on it.
00:20:58Have you had the experience of having a performance changed in the editing where it's not the performance you thought you'd given?
00:21:06For the better.
00:21:08Thank God.
00:21:09I think always this is the poet by show.
00:21:15You know, you write your poem and you sort of let it go in the wind.
00:21:19It belongs to everybody else.
00:21:22Now, I say that.
00:21:24It doesn't mean that you don't tell the director, hey, I had a better take.
00:21:29I remember take two or three was a little bit better than that.
00:21:32Or I remember when you caught it from another angle, there was a moment.
00:21:35I think in some ways you have a journey that you have charted before you ever got the set.
00:21:43And you remember these experiences that they're talking about.
00:21:47And that's what makes it.
00:21:48It's like you had an intimate moment with Mahershala, with Huell.
00:21:54And you're like, no, I remember that day.
00:21:56Like, I remember what was going on that day.
00:21:58I remember the connection that we had.
00:22:02So if I see a first cut and I'm like, you didn't capture what happened.
00:22:09And I know you got the shot because you were close enough.
00:22:13I saved this emotional part for this moment.
00:22:16You've done all that.
00:22:17You've like, I didn't give it to you on the wide.
00:22:19I gave you a little bit on the medium.
00:22:21When you got close, I was like, oh, now I'm going to give it to you.
00:22:23You did all that stuff.
00:22:25So you know what the journey is.
00:22:27So if you don't see it, you have to say something, I think.
00:22:31Hopefully you've chosen the right team of people around you.
00:22:35You've chosen the right script, the right director, the right producers.
00:22:38And they have good opinions about this.
00:22:41And they're going to make it work better.
00:22:43So you have to trust that.
00:22:46And in most cases, I think, you know, if you're sitting at this table, you've had those moments.
00:22:51Have you ever not had that moment where you've been let down?
00:22:54Of course.
00:22:55Of course.
00:22:56And how did you respond to it?
00:22:57You just have to go to the next thing.
00:22:59Once it's over, you've said your piece, they listened or they didn't.
00:23:04You have to use that for the next thing.
00:23:07You use those failures because that's what they are.
00:23:12And every time you meet them, every time you meet them, I told you.
00:23:18That's true.
00:23:18That's true.
00:23:19You're like, you still owe me money.
00:23:23You go to the next thing and you say, well, I learned from that.
00:23:28And so now I'm going to do it this way.
00:23:41Wise actor told me at one point, he said, you have to protect your performance.
00:23:46Well, tell us who said it.
00:23:47That's a pretty good thing.
00:23:48No, he wouldn't want that.
00:23:50But you have to protect your performance, meaning that when you come to set, you trust the people around you.
00:23:59But there are certain things that only you know.
00:24:02And if you don't protect those things, then you're going to be the one kicking yourself later.
00:24:09If the stunt coordinator is about to shoot the scene before y'all shoot it, and they don't know what your action is going to be, and now they're making this scene based upon the stunt as opposed to the acting, and now you have to adapt your performance to the stunt, they're going to miss something.
00:24:25This is an art form, but it's also there's certain skills that you learn to protect yourself to make sure that you get the most, and if you can do it yourself, then do the stunt, you know?
00:24:38Can I ask about chemistry?
00:24:39Of course, yeah.
00:24:40Because you were talking about that you play essentially a two-hander in yours, and in your film of last year, you're essentially a two-hander, and I'm in the same situation with Melissa McCarthy and Can You Forgive Me?
00:24:50Where you have to have an intense relationship with somebody that is telegraphed or short-circuited with very, very, in my case, little rehearsal time that we met on a Friday and started shooting on a Monday.
00:25:04You mean you and Melissa McCarthy?
00:25:05Yeah.
00:25:05So that you have to make yourself vulnerable or open to somebody else in a way that is almost like, I imagine, like speed dating, where you've got to go, I've got to be in love with this person, and I've got to expose myself physically and emotionally to them completely.
00:25:20So you willingly go in there, and it seems almost like magic in a bottle when it does work and you do have a connection with somebody.
00:25:28And I'm always riveted by how actors, if they don't have that connection, then have to deal with each other.
00:25:36And obviously you two did.
00:25:37You see a love story, and you're like, ah, it's so beautiful how they are together, and you know they hated each other.
00:25:41They didn't speak.
00:25:43How do you get there?
00:25:43There's an actor.
00:25:45How do you get there?
00:25:46That happens, right?
00:25:46You go in with, you know, what you were saying, you go in with the best intentions.
00:25:51Like nobody wants to go in and make a dog of a movie.
00:25:53If you go in with the best intentions, I think it is almost like, again, speed dating, or you go in with the intention, I'm going to fall in love with this person, and you hope that it works out.
00:26:03You can't have beautiful moments or have something great happen unless you're willing to make big mistakes either.
00:26:11That's part of the vulnerability thing.
00:26:13It's like, take a chance, and especially if it's a relationship that's really tight, like that you guys have in your story, right?
00:26:21You have to be willing to kind of make an ass of yourself.
00:26:24Yeah.
00:26:25Right.
00:26:25Completely.
00:26:26Who's taught you the most about acting?
00:26:28Oh, that's another big question.
00:26:30I'm not sure.
00:26:31I think, well, I went to a drama high school in New York, so there's a number of teachers there I could point to.
00:26:36Which one?
00:26:36Harry Shiffman would be the, you know, he's a teacher there who, you know, the importance of failure we're talking about, I feel like I was bad so many times in front of him.
00:26:44You get used to it.
00:26:45Then you have those moments of truth or chaos that are great, but, you know, from the outside, as a fan, as a young person, as a young actor coming up, like, you know, The Dark Knight came out when I was 13.
00:26:54I talk, people, you know, I say that all the time, but it's true.
00:26:56I mean, Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, Leo, Denzel.
00:27:00I did a movie with Lily Rabe, his name, the actress.
00:27:04The playwright's daughter.
00:27:05Exactly.
00:27:05She's David Rabe's daughter.
00:27:06I feel like I learned so much.
00:27:08That's the coolest thing.
00:27:08What did you learn?
00:27:09It's a remarkable dedication of being present in the moment, and I don't want to sound cliched or anything, but you see, like, actors go in the control room, and you're like, well, that's not as interesting to me as an audience member.
00:27:21Yeah.
00:27:21If you see an actor outside the control room, like, I think of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight or Joaquin Phoenix in The Master when he's opposite Phil Hoffman, or I can think of a number of other things where you're like, well, that guy doesn't know what he's doing right now.
00:27:32He's just living it, and that's exciting, because then it's that mirror thing again, where you're learning about humanity or that character or that version of an environment that they're portraying in the movie, but then, conversely, like, I'll see things on stage sometimes where it's not about realism or naturalism.
00:27:48Like, when you see Denzel Washington on stage and you're like, he's otherworldly, and you're not, you're taking it all in.
00:27:55It's not necessarily one thing, so.
00:27:58Does all filmmaking have to be naturalistic?
00:28:00You've got to know what movie you're in.
00:28:02Yeah.
00:28:02I think you've got to know what story you're telling, because there's an aesthetic.
00:28:06Look, we've got, what, two categories?
00:28:07Drama, comedy.
00:28:10Under that, there's all these branches of an aesthetic and tone, and you have to leave space for the director's voice, the writer's voice, the actor's.
00:28:18How did that work on Moonlight?
00:28:19I'm really curious about that, because that's a. . .
00:28:21For me, that's the closest you would get to doing documentary film.
00:28:26You want to feel like it's real, you know?
00:28:29Other projects, you don't want that degree of realism like that.
00:28:34You want to always be conscious of what film you're in.
00:28:38You always want to know what play you're in, what story you're telling.
00:28:40And I think through listening, I think your compass guides you to what world that is.
00:28:48Hugh, you've done very different films and genres.
00:28:51How do you achieve that?
00:28:53I mean, when you're doing a musical, how do you find the right tone?
00:28:56So the higher the form for me, things, you know, potentially like a superhero movie could be, although now I think they're more natural, it could feel two-dimensional or arch or whatever.
00:29:08Or a musical could also, I mean, I couldn't get an audition as an actor when I started, because I'd become famous, even though it was a complete right turn that I got into musicals.
00:29:17I'd never sung before, but then I was quite successful in two musicals.
00:29:20And I couldn't get a film audition, because you're not an actor, you're a performer, and I wanted to scream like you have no idea how hard it is to make song appear and feel as thought.
00:29:32And that's what it is.
00:29:33And when you're working on a Sondheim or a Rodgers and Hammerstein, we were not allowed on Oklahoma, for example.
00:29:39We were not allowed to sing for the first three weeks.
00:29:41So everything had to be a spoken dialogue, and it had to make it feel real, which is not easy when your first song repeats every line twice.
00:29:50There's a bright golden haze on the meadow.
00:29:52Yeah, there is a bright golden haze on the meadow.
00:29:55I love that.
00:29:55So in some ways for me, the higher the form or more conceptual, the more I'm going to probably lean on being true to allow an audience to not feel weirded out by the form that all of a sudden we're singing.
00:30:08You watch John Travolta in Grease, Stranded at the Drive-In.
00:30:12Now, if you're an actor, you read, okay, your girlfriend, you have an argument, she leaves, and you're walking through the drive-in.
00:30:19Stranded at the drive-in, looking like a fool.
00:30:21I'm like, how am I going to pull this off?
00:30:23It's effortless between the scene and the song.
00:30:26You believe every second, because he commits completely to the reality of the scene.
00:30:32It feels naturalistic, even though it's not.
00:30:34Some good musical theater acting advice I got was it's acting on pitch.
00:30:39So just act, but on pitch.
00:30:40And I've got to say, being in New York when I was young, you were such an inspiration in that regard, especially when you did your one-man show on Broadway,
00:30:46because you were doing things as well that, like, to the superhero fan in me, you were doing both.
00:30:53It didn't feel like, I think there was maybe a prejudice, even when I went to high school, that musical theater isn't cool or something.
00:30:58And you were doing it.
00:30:59So it was like, there it is.
00:31:01That's awesome.
00:31:02In real life, we have different dimensions of reality, different heightened levels of experience.
00:31:11We live in ritual at times, and that can be heightened.
00:31:15I feel like once you've done one thing, so in other words, once you've lived in a space or you've acted in a space that is, say, on stage, that's heightened,
00:31:25and then you get in front of the camera, there's a certain release that you don't have to go to that space.
00:31:34And vice versa, when you've been in that sort of intimate, natural, like, I'm just breathing space in front of the camera,
00:31:44and you get on stage, you feel the exhilaration.
00:31:47Being able to go from one to the other, like literally everybody has done, it's a relaxing feeling that you have going from one to the other.
00:31:58And you can mix this, it's a fusion at times, because you can be small on stage and you can be big on film, as long as you know when to do it.
00:32:09What was the toughest thing about doing Black Panther for you?
00:32:13Was it a particular scene?
00:32:14Was it finding that pitch?
00:32:16For me, it was the fact that as a person of African descent, this searching for what my real culture is,
00:32:26and showing that on screen, and, you know, just being able to give that to an audience,
00:32:32to say that I know so much about my past, I know so much about my history.
00:32:36You know, as an African American, I've searched for that my entire life.
00:32:40But to be a person that didn't have to search for it, it was given to me.
00:32:45What do you mean you searched for that your whole life?
00:32:47Meaning, I think you...
00:32:49Only being able to go so far back.
00:32:51Yeah, being able to go so far back.
00:32:53And people say, you know, El Salvador, or you name a country.
00:32:57You know exactly where.
00:32:58You're saying, Texas?
00:33:00Yeah.
00:33:00You know that's as far back as we can go, you know?
00:33:03You know, having to...
00:33:05Having that as something that you're like, oh, not only do we...
00:33:11Not only do I know, but I value it.
00:33:13There's a certain patriotism to something that has never been lost.
00:33:17It's ancient.
00:33:18And being able to hold on to that, it was something that throughout the movie, I was like, wow.
00:33:26The weight of that is something that I have to convey to the world.
00:33:30We are not like these other countries, Nakia.
00:33:34If the world found out what we truly are, what we possess, we could lose our way of life.
00:33:40Wakanda is strong enough to help others and protect ourselves at the same time.
00:33:46If you are not so stubborn, you would make a great queen.
00:33:49I would make a great queen because I am so stubborn.
00:33:52If that's what I wanted.
00:33:54Because you could do that movie and it's a parody of that idea and that is insulting.
00:34:03And so I think for me, it was constantly wanting to convey that this is real because it is.
00:34:11You know, it was constantly wanting to convey that to the audience and say, no, we're not making fun of this.
00:34:16This is not coming to America.
00:34:17I think we felt that watching the movie.
00:34:20You feel, yes, it's a fantasy on one level, but it felt very real.
00:34:25I mean, you're watching it.
00:34:26I'm completely in this historical, mythological story.
00:34:31We didn't want to be.
00:34:32You could feel it.
00:34:33And it's not just a filmmaker who did a great job and it's beautifully shot and all that stuff.
00:34:39But it's the commitment that you and your castmates have to that search.
00:34:44You can feel that.
00:34:45It's what's between the words, you know.
00:34:47You know, for me, it was just one of those things where I was like, we want to make a superhero movie, but that's not the most important thing here.
00:34:56And people will love the superhero movie if this other thing, if they get this other thing from it.
00:35:02Did making that movie change your thinking in any way about life, about the world, about America?
00:35:07I think the result of it did is the result of it, the fact that, because we have to do this.
00:35:14We have to put everything we have into it.
00:35:16You know, I would say that even the way the studio responded, the fact that they put so much into it, I never thought I would see that.
00:35:24I never thought I would see a studio say, yeah, we're going to put the money behind this movie with all, basically, you know, mostly a black cast.
00:35:34Sometimes we have, as African Americans, we have the black version, and it's never as good.
00:35:42It never put as much into it.
00:35:45And so it made me more idealistic about the world and about how things can go and that that could happen in other places, other production companies, other studios, other projects.
00:35:58That's aspirational for not just myself, but for other people, and not just in film, but in other arenas.
00:36:06You know, I was curious, you're doing film about the segregationist South, and I wondered if anything you learned along the way surprised you.
00:36:14The thing that I think came up most for me just in going through the script and just looking at the characters in the story was Don Shirley resonated for me, especially within the black canon of characters.
00:36:32I didn't feel like he existed.
00:36:33None of the things surprised me in terms of, I wasn't aware of the Green Book first going into it, but once I did my homework on that and that aspect of it, the sundown towns, the thing, like, there's pieces and moments of that we've all seen.
00:36:48But Don Shirley, if you take a gentleman, you know, going back to the 1960s, who was educated and had this degree of affluence and has this regal presence and his capacity for language.
00:37:02I didn't feel like I had ever seen him before, so I wanted to step into his shoes and offer that character, you know, to the conversation.
00:37:15Dear Dolores, D-E-A-R, this is an animal.
00:37:21As I'm writing this letter, I'm eating potato chips, and I'm starting to get thirsty.
00:37:28You know this is pathetic, right?
00:37:31Tell me what you're trying to say.
00:37:33I don't know.
00:37:35Yeah.
00:37:36I miss her.
00:37:37Didn't say that.
00:37:39But do it in a manner that no one else has ever done it before.
00:37:41Yes, you're dealing with the 1960s and the larger oppressive circumstances of our country, but within that car, within that Cadillac, driving through the South, he's in charge.
00:37:56Mm-hmm.
00:37:56He is, and he doesn't need to go on this journey.
00:38:01He chooses to go on this journey to sort of make his offering and make an impact on the perception and perspective of black people, which was very limited, not only in the South, but in the North as well.
00:38:14And, but for him to go down where the laws are different was a different thing.
00:38:19So there's a degree of empowerment in this character that I had never seen before.
00:38:24Has making these films made you more optimistic or pessimistic about racism?
00:38:29I don't think that a film can necessarily solve the problems.
00:38:35What you find is that every person makes a seed grow.
00:38:39You know, you, some person, one person comes in and what is it?
00:38:43Mm-hmm.
00:38:44The sunlight hits it.
00:38:45Mm-hmm.
00:38:46You know, some, another person tills the soil.
00:38:48So you, you know that you're making an impact on the world.
00:38:53You know that you're changing somebody's mind or making someone think a little bit differently.
00:38:56We learn from good stories.
00:38:57And that ultimately makes you feel better about the world.
00:39:01But at the same time, you know, evil is always rampant.
00:39:05You know, it's always, something's always happening.
00:39:08You know, we were talking about that earlier with what's happening on both sides of the pond.
00:39:12What do you mean, what does that mean for you, evil is always rampant?
00:39:16What does it mean that it's always rampant?
00:39:17Yeah.
00:39:18Well, we've got Brexit going on in England at the moment.
00:39:20Yeah.
00:39:20Yeah, trying to tear Europe apart.
00:39:21Is that evil or is it just misguided?
00:39:25What would you say about Mr. Trump?
00:39:26Do you think that's misguided or evil?
00:39:27I'm glad I'm the moderator of this rant.
00:39:32Ignorant.
00:39:33Yeah.
00:39:33Is there any real life character?
00:39:37Is there any character like him you would love to play or that you would refuse to play?
00:39:42Well, a real life character you would refuse to play.
00:39:45It's interesting.
00:39:46Several of you are playing characters based on real life characters.
00:39:50You know, when you look at the world, we say,
00:39:54I would love to play this man or woman or I would not play this man or woman.
00:39:59There's no character I wouldn't play.
00:40:03That doesn't mean they're going to let me do it.
00:40:05Yeah.
00:40:05You know, I mean, you know, people have this misconception, especially if someone's had a career that's gone on for a while or you're doing really well and you're in a huge hit movie.
00:40:15Well, now you can do whatever you want.
00:40:17I mean, as actors, we have the privilege and sometimes it's a mistake of saying no, but saying yes is only possible if there's an offer.
00:40:28Well, let me throw this one at you.
00:40:29In the current climate, would you play Othello?
00:40:31There's no character I wouldn't play, literally.
00:40:34Would it be okay for you as a white actor to play a black character?
00:40:38Oh, would I play Othello?
00:40:40I think that would be insensitive.
00:40:42Okay.
00:40:43Richard?
00:40:44Insane.
00:40:45No.
00:40:46Okay.
00:40:46What about a transgender character?
00:40:48Would it be fair for you to play a transgender character?
00:40:50He's coming with the easy question.
00:40:52You know, there's an interview the other day.
00:40:56We were talking about this thing and it was actually about Pete Farrelly being white, being the director, being the writer.
00:41:03Yeah.
00:41:03And the other writers being white.
00:41:05And someone was sort of, in a very gentle, very polite way, sort of putting the question, do you think it's okay that a white man directed this story, Greenberg?
00:41:16And I said, well, do you think it would be okay if Mahershala fell madly in love with a short story about Scottish immigrants who become cowboys in the West and about their descendants?
00:41:28If he loved that story, is there anything wrong with him directing that or directing a story about a samurai movie in Japan?
00:41:37No.
00:41:37It's not one thing or the other.
00:41:40Your question about Othello, obviously that would be insensitive.
00:41:43And, I mean, why do you, you know, it's a difficult thing because I, even as a kid, I don't like being told no.
00:41:54It stimulates me.
00:41:57I didn't like it when I was a little kid and I realized that animals die and therefore we do.
00:42:01And I asked my mom, I just wanted to double check, so am I going to die?
00:42:04And she's like, yeah.
00:42:05I didn't get scared.
00:42:06I got really annoyed.
00:42:07I was like, well, I better get cracking.
00:42:08You know, and so that's my motive.
00:42:11And when someone says, no, you cannot, sometimes I speak before I think and I'll say, well, I can too.
00:42:20Yes, I could try to, but why should I?
00:42:23What does that say beyond what it's going to obliterate?
00:42:26No matter how well I played Othello, the overriding concern and interest and criticism would be, why is he playing Othello?
00:42:34So why waste my energy?
00:42:36Aren't there other characters I could play?
00:42:38It's not a cop-out for me not to play Othello just because they told me I couldn't.
00:42:42That's a quite, that's maturing.
00:42:44That's growing up.
00:42:45As a little kid, I'd be, I'm playing Othello all day long.
00:42:47And kids do that.
00:42:49They don't care.
00:42:50They can do anything.
00:42:52And there's, you have to preserve that as an actor.
00:42:54You have to keep the, I can do anything on a given day.
00:42:58But sometimes you have to be an adult too.
00:43:00It's a matter of taste, you know, what he just described, you know, is he going to put on blackface and play Othello?
00:43:11You know, we're artists in, not just in the matter of living out the life, but we're painting a picture.
00:43:23You even described it when you spoke of the voice.
00:43:26And I'm 6'2", 6'3".
00:43:29Do I want my voice to be this high?
00:43:32You know, is, will that voice resonate in this time period with an audience or will that be a distraction?
00:43:38So in this portrait that I'm painting, if I put on blackface, very similar to that, as a matter of taste, does that take away from what I'm doing?
00:43:51And as much as you're living out, you can say, well, I can play anything.
00:43:56You know, the ego is there and then the insecurity, well, can I do it?
00:44:00But taste also dictates, you know, that you know what frame you're in and how the audience is going to see it.
00:44:12And if you do, if you understand that, that's part of what being a good actor is, is understanding what is this movie I'm in and what is the time period it's being seen in.
00:44:22And you're picking your projects based upon those things, too.
00:44:26And so, therefore, that doesn't work right now.
00:44:28Timothy, is there anything in the current climate that made you choose to play a guy wrestling with drug addiction?
00:44:34Absolutely.
00:44:34Addiction is the biggest killer in the United States right now.
00:44:37It's over 50,000 people a year die from this.
00:44:39That's more than automobile crashes.
00:44:40That's more than gun violence.
00:44:41That's more than both of those combined.
00:44:43A lot of young people go through this, not necessarily with methamphetamine.
00:44:45That's what Nick Sheff went through.
00:44:46I know I'm not only speaking from my experience, I can imagine you guys, too, know people that have been seriously affected by addiction.
00:44:53And there's still, like, a moral failing around it.
00:44:57And weirdly, I feel like with people my age, there can be, maybe it's not unique just to my generation, but there can be, like, a glorification of it, too, and kind of like a martyrdom.
00:45:05Like, yeah, I'm destroying myself.
00:45:06It's my right.
00:45:07And that's really sad.
00:45:09I feel, even when we're talking here right now, I'm looking at, like, I'm looking at all these, I've looked up to everyone, basically, at this table.
00:45:15And where the we are getting a voice, and I feel a real responsibility, not in a fake way or in a facetious way, not to be, like, inspiring, but to point some way forward.
00:45:29And Beautiful Boy, the irony of that movie is it's not, like, the most uplifting movie in the world.
00:45:34But at least there's a redemptive value in, okay, here's a story that maybe doesn't get honored all the time.
00:45:40And spoilers, but that Nick survives, you know, that he made it through, that there were four relapses in the movie.
00:45:46He had 13 in real life.
00:45:48Wow.
00:45:48And now he's eight years sober.
00:45:50And I guess even what I just said is, like, misinformation a little bit, too, because it's a day at a time.
00:45:54Like, you never beat it.
00:45:55That's one of the really interesting things in talking to people about the movie.
00:45:58Sometimes people are like, well, why was he addicted?
00:46:00And, like, is he going to be okay?
00:46:02And I kind of go, oh, you didn't really get it, because that's not, the why is purposefully not addressed,
00:46:09because that's not as important as the fact that one is addicted.
00:46:12And secondly, you never really beat it.
00:46:15It's interesting.
00:46:15I guess you spent time with him and his father.
00:46:18Yes.
00:46:18The father wrote this very celebrated book.
00:46:20What surprised you about the two then?
00:46:23I was always wondering if the son's version is actually the same version as the father's.
00:46:26As the father's, no.
00:46:27Well, Nick's book, Tweak, is a dream for an actor.
00:46:31I shouldn't maybe say it like that, because it's such a treacherous, terrible experience for that family.
00:46:35But Tweak is written in the present tense.
00:46:37It is moment to moment.
00:46:38He's not thinking ahead.
00:46:39He's not thinking what just happened.
00:46:41It's, I'm going to go do this.
00:46:42I'm going to go do this.
00:46:42I don't have drugs now.
00:46:43I need to get drugs here.
00:46:44And David's is this beautiful, like, 360-degree view of how an addiction can affect a parent, a family member, a loved one, a friend.
00:46:51In a way that Nick describes it when he read it, he didn't know how devastating what he was doing was to his family.
00:46:57Please.
00:47:05I've been doing some research.
00:47:07You've been doing some research?
00:47:08You've got to be kidding me, Dad.
00:47:09You think that you have this under control.
00:47:12Mm-hmm.
00:47:13And I understand how scared you are.
00:47:15I understand why I do things.
00:47:17It doesn't make me any different, all right?
00:47:18I'm attracted to craziness, and you're just embarrassed because I was like, you know, I was like this amazing thing, like your special creation or something, and you don't like who I am now.
00:47:27Yeah?
00:47:27Who are you, Nick?
00:47:28This is me, Dad.
00:47:29Here, this is who I am.
00:47:31I think now what surprises me, because we do Q&As with them, is just like their strength of character, you know, and the possibilities of love.
00:47:39And something Greta Gerwig said to me, because we're working on Little Women right now, the most important things in life are cliches.
00:47:44And it is so easy to be cynical or disillusioned, and it can be harder, but as Chadwick said, it's not like you're going to make a whole difference between a little thing.
00:47:53Each time it's a little bit of this, like you can impact a little bit, and to, again, not like fake-inspiring, but try and help or something.
00:48:01Essentially, you said, you know, these things have made you less cynical.
00:48:05Do the rest of you feel more cynical or more idealistic over the course of working in the industry?
00:48:10Oh, less.
00:48:11Less, less, less.
00:48:12Yeah, I don't think, I'm a bit like you, I don't think I was very cynical to start with, but no, it's an unbelievable job we get.
00:48:20I went into acting because, honestly, I was more interested in trying to work out what's the meaning of life, what the hell am I doing here?
00:48:26I was 21.
00:48:27I wanted to understand things, and actually, if you're lucky enough to have your choice of projects, every film is asking some question that we, everyone involved in the film doesn't know the answer to.
00:48:38You may not even get the answer while you're filming it.
00:48:41Sometimes you get the answer at a Q&A when you're with the people.
00:48:44Who knows, sometimes it happens 10 years later, and then the film resonates in a way it didn't when it opened.
00:48:49The world, storytelling is about simply trying to understand the world we live in and putting it in some mythological story form so that we can open our hearts rather than just hear, rather than just reading the newspaper.
00:49:01We can open our hearts to understand.
00:49:03What you've just been through, I know people in my life who struggle with addiction, and I don't struggle with it, but I have no idea why or how and what can I do.
00:49:13And it's a gift to be in a film like that.
00:49:16For you, at your age, with your understanding and your heart, to open it up, to portray that, is a gift for every single person on the planet.
00:49:24Because it's not just 50,000 people, it's the whole world.
00:49:27Do you feel you've come to any big answers from that initial question about when you were 21?
00:49:31You know, what is the meaning of life?
00:49:32Have you actually come to any conclusions?
00:49:34Zero conclusions, but certainly curiosity.
00:49:37That it's not about me, that actually paying attention and listening and being open to other people and finding what connects us, not what differentiates us, is that to me, is I suppose the closest I've come to understanding.
00:49:56One of the things I loved about Can You Have Forgive Me? is it's a love story, but with a gay woman and a gay man.
00:50:14How did you think about that kind of love, and did that change your thinking about anything?
00:50:19Just to pick up what you were saying before, of what you've learned about anything, there was something that John Lennon said just before he was murdered, where he said that life is what happens in between making your plans.
00:50:29And I think that that is so applies to, you know, you're talking about chaos, and that you try and find a way through all of this stuff.
00:50:37And by having compassion and understanding of why people do what they do, even the people that, you know, we've easily mocked and say, well, the Brexit people, the Trump people, all that.
00:50:48Once you understand how somebody does something, then compassion and forgiveness follow suit, and I think that those are the things that then love is part of that.
00:50:59You know, in a world where you think, well, the majority of people, oh, there's all this evil, there's all this stuff going on, the majority of us get along with each other for good or bad, and I think that's, you know, that's always inspiring.
00:51:09And certainly that film has made us look at the people that you think are marginalised and shouldn't have any focus put on them, and it does.
00:51:18And in the middle of that, you find that there's this bizarre platonic love story.
00:51:22How do you get to create that character?
00:51:25How do you work on it?
00:51:26Do you research?
00:51:27Do you meet other people like him?
00:51:29I don't know about you guys, but Melissa McCarthy obviously had the book, so she could follow that, and it's literally the voice of the author.
00:51:35So you get all the humour and warmth and acerbic, caustic nature.
00:51:40And your character barely exists in the book?
00:51:42Barely exists.
00:51:43I knew that he had a little cigarette holder, so I latched onto that.
00:51:46I had a great friend who's in Chariots of Fire and Best Winning Film in the last century, and he died of AIDS, and he wore...
00:51:53Ian Charlson.
00:51:54Ian Charlson.
00:51:55He wore that head bandana because he lost all his hair.
00:51:58So I asked if I could do that.
00:51:59But even with all that knowledge that you have or the road map of the script, I still find that the day you actually start interacting with somebody, something happens that I have no idea where that comes from in me.
00:52:12And I see it in other people, and I think, oh my God, I can see how brilliant you are.
00:52:16Your reaction to something is, that's the stuff that I have no idea what that is.
00:52:20And every job I start, I think, what the fuck?
00:52:22How do I start this again?
00:52:24Because I have no idea.
00:52:25Last time I saw you, thank you, we were both pleasantly pissed at some horrible book card.
00:52:31Am I right?
00:52:33It's slowly flooding back to me.
00:52:36You're friends with, um, Julia.
00:52:39Steinberg.
00:52:39Yeah.
00:52:40She's not an agent anymore.
00:52:42She died.
00:52:43She did?
00:52:44Jesus, that's young.
00:52:46Maybe she didn't die.
00:52:47Maybe she just moved back to the suburbs.
00:52:50I always confuse those two.
00:52:51No, that's right.
00:52:52She got married and had twins.
00:52:55Better do you have died.
00:52:56Indeed.
00:52:57That impulse to want to be, I mean, from when you're a kid.
00:53:00Yeah.
00:53:01To, that impulse, I want to be you.
00:53:03Yeah.
00:53:03Or I want to be you, or you, or you, or you, or you, or you, or Captain Hook, or whatever.
00:53:08Depending on what grabs your interest in that moment, that I really want to be you, that impulse.
00:53:13What you said, you're trying to understand the character you're playing.
00:53:17Because you don't, and ideally, you're not judging the character.
00:53:21Yeah.
00:53:22If you sit in judgment, then I think you are, you're already third-eyeing onto it.
00:53:25Yeah.
00:53:25And so you can't really understand how someone does what they do.
00:53:29And that's how you help audiences understand, no matter how reprehensible the character or
00:53:34his actions, you're helping people understand characters, but not judge them.
00:53:40If you're doing your job properly, I think, you know.
00:53:43I think it's so interesting.
00:53:44You start with, the first things you mentioned were the physical external things, the cigarette
00:53:50holder, the bandana.
00:53:53And if you read about Olivier, it's the same thing.
00:53:56I wonder if that's the difference between a British tradition and an American tradition.
00:54:00When you created your character in Green Book, who's pretty different from you on the
00:54:05side, where do you start?
00:54:06I think this thing about the, is very antiquated, this idea that the British-American, I think
00:54:13it's antiquated, and I think it's not very useful.
00:54:15And I also don't think that people go, oh, you're a method actor.
00:54:19Why?
00:54:19Because I work hard and prepare my part.
00:54:21I mean, a method is whatever works.
00:54:23And every person has a different method.
00:54:26You're a lazy ass, and I'm not.
00:54:28No, but I think a method is whatever works for any given person.
00:54:31I think when you ask, like, what, you know, are you less cynical now, it's the people that
00:54:40you run across while doing this.
00:54:44It's the fact that you see that people are going through the same thing you're going through.
00:54:49They're searching for similar things.
00:54:51But when you actually meet the people, you're like, that's a cool dude.
00:54:56You know, he's cool.
00:55:00Like, he's, you know, I really vibe with him.
00:55:04And when you have those personal moments that are not connected to the acting, and then once
00:55:10you go into the work, and now you're sharing something, it's like, you know that it's happening
00:55:16across the way between you.
00:55:18Nobody else understands it.
00:55:21The camera is capturing it.
00:55:23You've blocked the camera out, or you're using the camera.
00:55:25Whatever you're doing, you know you've shared something, and that's what makes you less
00:55:31cynical.
00:55:32It's a fraternity amongst you, actors and actresses.
00:55:36You know that this thing is making you, is shaping you.
00:55:41And so I feel like...
00:55:43And you never know where the help's coming from.
00:55:44You never know where it's going to come.
00:55:45It can come from your dresser, the person who's dressing you, your wardrobe designer.
00:55:51Anybody, you know, a person who's doing your hair, they may do something, and you look
00:55:55it, and you're like, oh, that's it.
00:55:58That's him.
00:55:58Or the conversations you have with your makeup artists, that you start your day every day,
00:56:03six in the morning.
00:56:03They're the most important person you see.
00:56:05They set the tone for your day.
00:56:07What music do they play?
00:56:08You know, all of that stuff.
00:56:11You know, like the film I'm shooting right now in New York.
00:56:14Which film is it?
00:56:15It's called Seventeen Bridges.
00:56:16For the first two fittings he brought in these coats.
00:56:21And, you know, the director's very often talking about the silhouette of the character.
00:56:24I feel like the silhouette is this.
00:56:25I feel like, you know, I want him to look like that, you know, in the light or whatever.
00:56:29And you're like, okay, okay, I'm listening to you.
00:56:32And he was like, pick the coats you like.
00:56:34The wardrobe designer listened to the director.
00:56:36He watched me try on stuff.
00:56:38Third fitting game.
00:56:40We're making the final decisions.
00:56:42And I look at a coat that he brought every day.
00:56:46I said, let me try this on.
00:56:47I put it on, looked in the mirror.
00:56:49I was like, damn.
00:56:52That's it.
00:56:53I was like, that's it.
00:56:55And he knew the whole time.
00:56:56He knew the whole time.
00:56:58And everything about that coat is like, oh, that's the character.
00:57:05And that gives you something.
00:57:07So we work externally as well.
00:57:09And then it gives you something on the inside that changes the way you walk.
00:57:12It changes the way you talk.
00:57:13It changes everything about who that character is.
00:57:16You never know what it's going to be.
00:57:18Every role is different too, right?
00:57:19I mean, you don't know what it's going to be.
00:57:22I mean, we all have certain habits that we develop.
00:57:25Certain things that have proven to work.
00:57:27I mean, I kind of leave it open to who's in it and what the character is.
00:57:33The only thing that I always do is I ask myself the simple question,
00:57:37what happened before page one?
00:57:40And you could spend the rest of your life answering that question.
00:57:43Did you find, I don't know if he's still alive, did you find out those things?
00:57:46He passed away the same year, 2013, within months of each other.
00:57:51Mahershala's character, Doc Shirley and Tony Littman.
00:57:53Did you meet his family?
00:57:55Oh, yeah.
00:57:55That was invaluable to me.
00:57:57I mean, I had, I have to say, I had a lot more resources, like obvious resources at my disposal.
00:58:03Mahershala did.
00:58:05You know, he had to do, the way you put it, I love, I had to do the math based on this documentary, based on the music.
00:58:12But you, it was, whatever you did, it worked.
00:58:16I mean, it's beautiful.
00:58:17The guy who brought the story to Pete Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga, that's his son.
00:58:20Well, I was freaking out when I said yes.
00:58:23I always do a little bit, and if I didn't, I'd be like, I must be getting jaded.
00:58:27But in this case, it was a little extra, just because I'm not Italian-American.
00:58:30There's some pretty good Italian-American actors out there, and I was like, what am I doing?
00:58:34What am I doing?
00:58:35Pete, you're nuts.
00:58:35You're doing a drama.
00:58:36That's already a big chance.
00:58:37But once I said yes, I said, okay, I got to talk to Nick Vallelonga immediately.
00:58:41He opened the doors very generously to everything he knew, all the materials he had about his
00:58:46father, recordings, which we both listened to.
00:58:48Oh, wow.
00:58:49Because he spoke about this trip, about them, and Nick had also spoken.
00:58:53These tapes are like 20 years old, though, right?
00:58:55Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:58:56And Don Shirley, he taped them a little bit, too, because his father told him all this.
00:59:01He's a great storyteller, and he told him all this stuff that happened.
00:59:04He says, but if you're serious about doing this, Nick, you have to go talk to Doc Shirley,
00:59:09and you have to get him to corroborate, and if he wants to add, change, he objects to
00:59:13anything being told, so forth.
00:59:15And I, you know, Doc Shirley was particular about certain things, and he told Nick, first
00:59:20of all, everything that Tony's saying here, yes, it happened, and then I'll tell you some
00:59:24other things, but I don't want you to tell this story until I'm dead.
00:59:28He's a private man.
00:59:29There's probably good reasons he didn't want to, you know, for his family, for his whatever.
00:59:33I think his closer artists, friends in New York knew about his sexuality and other
00:59:38things that maybe his family did.
00:59:40I don't know.
00:59:41We don't really know, but he didn't want to.
00:59:43Well, and just knowing the time.
00:59:44Yes.
00:59:45Like, and you, we, it's easy for us to forget in 2018, you go back to the 50s and 60s,
00:59:51that people had had a lot to protect.
00:59:53You're coming out of the lavender scare or whatever.
00:59:55Like, there are real reasons why people needed to own their privacy, and you could throw all
01:00:01that away, and if someone still wants to keep something private, that's their business,
01:00:04and that's what he wanted.
01:00:05Hey, I'm just saying it's salty, and salt's cheating.
01:00:10Any cook can make things salty.
01:00:11To make it taste good without the salt, we'll just see how the flavors.
01:00:14That's the trick.
01:00:15I mean, you take the basic ingredients.
01:00:16We should really get going soon if we expect to get to Pittsburgh by dinner.
01:00:21Hey, when I was in the Army, I know a guy from Pittsburgh, except he called it Titsburg,
01:00:27and he said all the women there had huge tits.
01:00:29That's absurd.
01:00:33Why would women in Pittsburgh have larger breasts than, say, women in New York?
01:00:38I guess we'll find out, huh?
01:00:39How has the lack of privacy changed your lives?
01:00:42Because Timothy and Mahershala and Chadwick, you're new to this relatively, and overnight,
01:00:49you've become pretty famous.
01:00:50Chad drank some water on that door.
01:00:52It's insane.
01:00:58It's insane.
01:01:00Is that good or bad?
01:01:03Ultimately, there are certain things that you cherish about your normal life that are different
01:01:09and you're not comfortable with, obviously.
01:01:12But at the end of the day, I've always been very close to my family.
01:01:16I've always really cherished my friends, and it just makes you do it more.
01:01:22What surprised you most about Fame?
01:01:24What has surprised me the most is I was rehearsing this play, Prodigal Son,
01:01:28which is in the same space that Mahershala was rehearsing a play at Second Stage.
01:01:31This was four or five years ago.
01:01:32I did the play.
01:01:33It's about a young person bursting out of their constraints.
01:01:39And whether because the tickets were too pricey at the theater or something,
01:01:41basically no young people saw it, which was fine.
01:01:44I was happy to be working, but I had this fear.
01:01:47I was like, oh, am I getting into something that's like opera or ballet or something
01:01:50that's becoming an art form that is not as viable or something?
01:01:55And what's been very inspiring about my experience or something
01:01:59is I haven't really worked on a commercial movie yet besides Interstellar.
01:02:03And they're like, Call Me By Our Name was like an art house movie.
01:02:07A lot of young people saw it, and that makes me really hopeful
01:02:11because it makes me feel like I'm starting a career in something that's viable
01:02:15and that as an art form is viable.
01:02:18And then lastly, I grew up in a building called Manhattan Plaza in New York.
01:02:21That's an actor's building.
01:02:22People are grateful to be able to get their income together for the year.
01:02:29Like I said before, economic self-sufficiency as an actor is kind of crazy.
01:02:33What are we doing?
01:02:33So anything beyond that, like maybe I'll regret saying this,
01:02:37but at least for now, I'm like, this is fucking awesome.
01:02:42We'll come back in a few years.
01:02:44We sat down for a profile in Santa Barbara where you told your life story.
01:02:51And I wondered how you felt.
01:02:53Oh, my God, suddenly my life story is out there and widely read online.
01:02:57Was it difficult for you?
01:02:58Has it been?
01:02:58I felt uncomfortable, but not disrespected at all, at all.
01:03:04I felt absolutely respected.
01:03:06But I've been working professionally for 18 years, so 16-year overnight success.
01:03:12And I've always had some sort of supporting principal position within a project
01:03:18but had gone unnoticed.
01:03:21And so it wasn't something I was accustomed to
01:03:24and sharing things that are private about your life.
01:03:28But I get that's a bit of the tax that I go back to on this work.
01:03:34And on the flip side, I get to explore the human condition
01:03:39and just get to grow so much from each and every one of these characters.
01:03:45I go to sleep inspired because I'm thinking about the things that I want to be a part of
01:03:49and the people that I want to work with.
01:03:51And then we all are this tribe of folks who look for those projects that, yes,
01:03:57they entertain because they have to, but they have something to say
01:04:01and you're drawn to them for a reason.
01:04:03For me, what's most important, my relationship to this work is honestly not about money.
01:04:08It is 100% about connecting to these stories and these projects and these characters and these lives.
01:04:17If the tax of it is that there's aspects of your life that are no longer yours,
01:04:23then I accept and I embrace that.
01:04:26You just have to find those spaces that are still yours at the end of the day.
01:04:32Like, there's certain things that, you know, you set boundaries.
01:04:38You say, well, I'm not going to give that part away.
01:04:42And people will get upset at times.
01:04:44People will say, hey, I supported you.
01:04:47Right, you've been in the rain for three hours waiting for you.
01:04:50But then I go, wait, you supported me when I was broke?
01:04:57You paid my rent, did you?
01:04:59I go, no, I gave, I already gave the art to you.
01:05:05I gave the art to you.
01:05:07You enjoyed the art.
01:05:11That's what I gave you.
01:05:12This autograph, you know, I'm willing to give it to you.
01:05:17But what I gave you before is what's real.
01:05:20And so, for me, I go, that's great.
01:05:26I love you.
01:05:28This is the part that I have to keep so that I can continue to do the work.
01:05:33And I think you have to know what that is for you.
01:05:35Is there any one character in a movie, real-life person, that you would like to go on a road trip with?
01:05:43I'll go with Melissa McCarthy.
01:05:45Would you really?
01:05:48Can't sit in the back of that car if that's all right.
01:05:51Socrates.
01:05:51Can we bring people who might have died two or three thousand years ago?
01:05:55I think there's a good argument he could be the wisest person that's ever lived.
01:06:00And I'd love a few answers.
01:06:02It'd be great.
01:06:02So what about you?
01:06:03Honestly, I would get teary-eyed just thinking about Barack Obama.
01:06:07I would love to be comfortable enough to spend time with him and get to know him and speak with him.
01:06:14But, like, that would be an amazing thing.
01:06:17Okay, I swear to God I'm not piggybacking that that was the answer in my head.
01:06:20But truly also to pick his brain about how he feels about everything right now.
01:06:26You can only imagine.
01:06:28How about you, Vigo?
01:06:29Zora Neale Hurston, she's a writer.
01:06:32And she's someone that was kind of erased, you know, as a writer.
01:06:37And, you know, the vanguard of African-American letters men at the time, they kind of, I don't know, they felt threatened, I think.
01:06:45And they did as much as anybody else to...
01:06:48Suppress her, really.
01:06:49Yeah.
01:06:50You know, the reason I was talking about her recently was because in connection with Doc Shirley,
01:06:54what I think this movie can do, like Alice Walker did for her, a lot of people will discover his music.
01:06:58He's an amazing talent.
01:07:01And then the jazz aficionados who sort of relegated him a little, might reappraise him.
01:07:07You know, I think that this movie does that.
01:07:09I've had my road trip with Dr. Don Shirley.
01:07:13And I'm still enjoying it.
01:07:16Looking at me right now, I'm still on it.
01:07:18I'm still on it.
01:07:19Yes, we still are.
01:07:19Gentlemen, what about you?
01:07:20And so I'd like to do one with her.
01:07:23I have a lot of people.
01:07:25But I think who resonates the most is, you know, I want to do the heavyweight champion of the world tour with Muhammad Ali.
01:07:33Oh, yeah.
01:07:35We should get a van.
01:07:37We should get a little something.
01:07:40I don't know if this is usable, but from the moment I finished the answer to that first question, I slightly regretted something that I omitted,
01:07:49which is it's not just a great time for actors because of the amount of good quality work,
01:07:54but I really think for women, for actors of color, it's a whole new world.
01:08:01From someone who's been in the business 20, 25 years, I can tell you from where I started and the conversations were being happening,
01:08:07it's like it's all opened up, and I think it's amazing, and the storytelling's only going to get richer, more surprising, more vibrant,
01:08:15and if our goal is to understand the world and the humans in it, can we please see stories about everybody?
01:08:21You know, and I think that's why it's exciting as well.
01:08:26Thank you all for taking part in Clotho.
01:08:28Thank you, man.
01:08:29I knew you were so great.
01:08:30Wow.
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