00:00He's a six-time Emmy and Tony nominee who has celebrated 50 years on Broadway.
00:04Now director David Serrero is pulling back the curtain on legendary actress Tova Feldschuh
00:09with a beautifully crafted star-studded documentary. Take a look.
00:15Who are you?
00:16Tova.
00:17Tova, Tova Feldschuh.
00:20A real firecracker. I certainly am an actress.
00:22She's a better Jewish mother than I am a Jewish son, I think.
00:25Tova made such an impression in the Broadway community.
00:28She's an actor in every sense of the word.
00:31She's a force.
00:32Versatility.
00:33How can I say no to Tova?
00:34She's the greatest Jewish actress.
00:37Dives into whatever she's doing.
00:39Call your movie Tova.
00:42And Tova and David join me now.
00:45Welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.
00:48Tova, you've been here many times and I felt I even learned so much more about you.
00:52I am just in awe. I bow down.
00:54I bow down to you because you are so amazingly talented.
00:57So many people in this film wanted to talk about you.
01:00Katie Couric, Dustin Hoffman, Oscar Isaac.
01:02When you hear what they have to say about you, what is your reaction to that?
01:07You know what Golda Meir says?
01:08Some people love you and some people love you and show up.
01:13They showed up and that makes all the difference.
01:17It made all the difference.
01:18I was so grateful and surprised.
01:21People said, what was your most surprising answer?
01:23So that everybody said yes.
01:24And that's David.
01:26I mean, David, I guess, could sell used cars.
01:30David, I want to know how you got into it.
01:32How did this whole thing come about?
01:33I know you've done documentaries before.
01:35So how did you guys start this?
01:36Well, thank you for the opportunity.
01:38I'm a big fan of yours also.
01:40Thank you, David.
01:40But actually, I think it's God who came above my head and he said, I'm going to reward you.
01:46And God lives above on NBC, by the way, on the last floor.
01:49Yes, that's right.
01:50And he rewarded me by allowing me to do this amazing film about this genius.
01:56Yeah, she's so amazing.
01:58I mean, like I said before, I've always known you're incredible, but watching this, the fact
02:02that you, before every scene, will drop and do 20 push-ups, which I did in your honor
02:06today, you will run in place before every take because you said that it makes your cheeks
02:10flush and then you kind of get out of your own head.
02:13You climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
02:14You did trapeze for your Pippin audition.
02:16You did all your stunts in The Walking Dead.
02:19Where do you get this motivation and drive from?
02:22Just the great desire to live.
02:24And I had great parents.
02:25And my father was a GI in the United States Army Intelligence in World War II.
02:30And by the time I was born, which was well after the war, he was a lover of life and
02:35a liver of life.
02:36And he never left my side.
02:38And I remember he bought a horse and he said, Terry Sue, which is my birth name, Terry Sue,
02:43how often can a little girl tell a big animal what to do?
02:46We lived a very vivid life and he felt you were capable of anything as long as you were
02:53diligent and pursued your highest bar of excellence.
02:57Yeah.
02:57What was the craziest stunt you ever did that while you're doing it, you're thinking, well,
03:00why did I sign up for this?
03:01Well, I think one of the craziest besides auditioning 30 feet in the air without any net, any belt,
03:07any mat, no insurance for Barry Weissler at the Music Box Theater.
03:12Yes.
03:12You're right.
03:13He said, are you okay?
03:15Okay.
03:15Okay.
03:16And I said, yes, are you, are you, are you?
03:19That was a good one.
03:20But I was in Rwanda and Uganda tracking the silverbacks with my darling child, Garson Brandon
03:27Levy, and Amanda couldn't go, our daughter.
03:30And in all events, there was a flash rainstorm.
03:34And I began, I weigh 110 pounds.
03:36I began to fall down the mountain and that son of mine grabbed me and he did a stunt.
03:41He held his mother to his chest and prevented me.
03:46And when he applied to Harvard Business School, he wrote an essay on that.
03:50And I said, Brandon, if you get in, you go to the admissions and you thank them.
03:53And he went to thank them.
03:55And he said, thank you, sir.
03:56He said, wait a minute.
03:57Are you the boy that wrote about the gorillas and your mother?
03:59Oh, that was the biggest stunt.
04:01Oh, I love that.
04:03Well, and David, you guys went back to all the places that meant something to Tova.
04:07You went back to, you went to the Bronx, you went to Paris, you went to Sarah Lawrence,
04:10where you went to college, which is in my town.
04:13Yeah.
04:13So how important was that?
04:15And what did you learn about her in visiting those places?
04:18Well, it was important to go to Paris.
04:19First, we got a great discount with the airlines.
04:21So it meant for us to go.
04:23No, but it was, you know, Tova is the result of an equation.
04:26So we have to understand every part that makes that result of that equation.
04:31So, of course, Paris, you know, which is my native city, as you can hear, my accent's
04:36from New Jersey.
04:38And so it started, I'm so sorry.
04:40And then it was important to show because she studied mime also with Jacques Lecoq with
04:46very important people.
04:47So I think all of that played a role to who she is today.
04:51Yeah.
04:51I got a real quick question about nobody wants this.
04:54We got season three coming.
04:55What do you want for Bina?
04:56I want Bina's values and her understanding of cellular coincidence being important in
05:02a marriage to sally forth.
05:04And if her values don't sally forth, we don't have a series because I'm the big object to
05:09an obstacle, as you would say, to my beloved Jewish rabbinical hot rabbi son marrying this
05:17shiksa.
05:19Hopefully, hopefully conversion will be an imperative.
05:22I don't want to leave this without saying I love my daughter, Amanda, who majored in physics
05:26at MIT and graduated in three and a half years.
05:28She's a fabulous girl, too.
05:29Oh, I love that.
05:30I'm glad we got that in, too.
05:31All right.
05:31Well, Tova is out now.
05:33For more information, head to davidserrero.com.
05:36Thank you both so much for coming.
05:37So welcome.
05:38Thank you to use that.
05:38Thank you, Sarah.
