00:04When you're playing a guy who's killed people, as you just did, and it's based on a real
00:10life man, is it good for you personally to find the goodness in him, or is that a dangerous
00:18proposition?
00:19I mean, he was a guy who happened to have seen a lot of combat in the Second World War,
00:24so he was a little, he was inured to killing more than someone else, and he found himself
00:32in this world that was not what he was from, and it fit, and he was loyal to the people
00:39that gave him love and support and respected him, and so that's how, and then he was, then
00:47he had a big conflict, which later on, not to give it away, but that was the whole thing,
00:53but I think the whole story, the story's very simple, you can find that kind of situation
00:59in any culture, loyalty, betrayal, love, all those things are there.
01:07The price in this world is a little more harsh, but you know, and maybe not so in certain parts
01:16of the world, I mean, this is what happens.
01:18So we have it in this country, in America, in that milieu, that culture, it's what it is.
01:28So your loyalty in the movie to your work, it was very interesting to see how it affected
01:36your home life and your daughter in the movie.
01:38Yes, yes.
01:38Yeah, that was what was very interesting and different to the fact that, you know, a person
01:45would love you for what you do and how much you believed in doing the right thing for the
01:50guys you were employed by.
01:52Right.
01:52And that, but at home, it was affecting the family.
01:57It's heartbreaking.
01:58Heartbreaking.
02:04I went last year to the Harry Ransom Center.
02:08I don't know what that is, but it's the archive at the University of Texas, which has great papers.
02:13And there are Bob's papers and to actually see your handwriting on, you know, the Raging Bull script.
02:21And it was amazing because your scripts are covered with notes.
02:25What was the toughest character I actually had to prepare for?
02:29They're all different.
02:30Depends.
02:31Depends.
02:31Some are harder in some ways than others.
02:34And Raging Bull, because of the weight and all that, and the mission, just the physical
02:40stuff, awakenings, there's a lot of physical stuff too, and studying how my character behaved
02:46and what his affliction was.
02:49And then Raging Bull, I read the book, somebody handed me the book, one of the authors, and I
02:54read it while I was doing it once in 1900 with Bertolucci, and I called Marty from Italy,
03:00and I said, you know, the book's not great literature, but it's got a lot of heart.
03:06And I kind of want to do certain things.
03:07I remember I used to see Jake LaMotta.
03:11He'd work in a kind of a strip place right on 7th Avenue in the 40s.
03:16He'd be standing right out there near the sidewalk, and he was overweight and this and that.
03:20I said, Jesus, look what happened to him from then.
03:24And I thought just the graphic difference of being out of shape and then being a young
03:29fighter really, that was interesting to me.
03:32I thought I'd like to see if I could really just gain that weight actually and do it.
03:38So that was my interest in it.
03:41Marty had his reasons and both of us just come together on the project.
03:48If you could go back to your younger selves, what piece of advice would you give him?
03:55Well, I was saying something to my grandson the other day because, you know, that things, just be calm.
04:03When things are going well, be calm.
04:06Don't think you're on top of the world in a sense.
04:08You always got to be wary because I've seen it.
04:11I've seen people come.
04:13I've seen people go.
04:14I've seen them come.
04:15I've seen them go.
04:16You got to be chill.
04:17You got to, like, just take what's good in your life and move forward cautiously and carefully.
04:22And thank God that you have that.
04:26Just it's very, very important not to overextend yourself when you think, you know, you've got it.
04:34There's no such thing.
04:35Everybody's dispensable.
04:43I'm sure you know this anecdote.
04:46Dying is easy.
04:47Comedy is hard.
04:48True or false?
04:50Comedy is more difficult, yes.
04:52I can't do what Billy Crystal does, Eddie Murphy, you, Adam.
05:00But I can do other things.
05:01I mean, I like to think that I work in, say, in Marty's movies.
05:05Just situations that are funny in and of themselves, which is like life, you know.
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