Alan Alda talks 'M*A*S*H' and 'West Wing'

I've been nervous is the first time I saw you you got a remedy doctor take two aspirin and good have been what I liked about being an actor is what has turned out to be what I've devoted my life to which is learning how to connect to the other person if it bends it's funny if it breaks it's not funny if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians you are just begging to be lied to it's very hard to act with a lamppost and if you don't have a partner who's willing to share the experience with you to get connected to you it's really difficult to play with them and they might have spent days or weeks pumping themselves up getting full of what they feel is the emotion and the State of Mind of their character but if they're not willing to make connection with me as the character and I have to make believe I'm talking to a real person you want to go to war with me it isn't me Howard it's the United States government we just beat Germany in Japan what the hell are you to be committed to something and really sometimes just means that that most of your brain is working on this moment we can get by with thinking of our laundry list where am I going to dinner after the show I forgot that appointment I have tomorrow a better day and you're saying lines while you see why you're you know so that's not a good idea I think commitment happens and people say the person is committed to the part when they've really allowed themselves to get in contact with what's happening in them and what's happening in you and then you're swimming together you're dancing together and there's nothing more fun than that and it's fun to watch if you go to a wedding and people get up to dance and some guys going like this time to the music not dancing he's not dancing with anybody it's not interesting when you see two kids and they're both connected they're flying together like a bunch of geeks it's fun to watch when I was younger I used to be directing myself the whole time I was acting and I'd be saying good not good no no good stuff and now I don't do that now I just rely on the connection they make to the other person if I can't remember what I'm saying I noticed that but otherwise I don't judge it and let it be what it is and I let the director tell me if it's good enough because there are certain things that happen that you can't notice that are really worth keeping in that are just spontaneous little moments that make it seem more engaging I can't judge those I don't know whether they're happening or not but if I'm connected I think it's probably happening and that contributes to what I think is unique to acting which is there's a kind of ecstasy in it you start doing it and you get time goes by I guess it must be like other art making a painting or a sculpture time just goes by I think we have liver or fish I didn't hear you say that because it is impossible it's inhuman to serve the same food day after day but you need a convention prohibits the killing of our taste buds is it I simply cannot eat the same food every day fish liver day after day I've eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish when I think about mash I think about the people I don't think about things that happened on camera most of the time or things I've wrote or things that I directed a long time ago if I have what happened to be changing channels and I saw a scene from mash I'd watch it for a half a minute or so I think I remember this story now I can't remember the story now I can't tell the ones I wrote from the ones I didn't so it it's in the past for me and I loved it I'm proud of it what I took with me mostly was the memories of the people who I loved what I also took with me is how it changed me how it made me a better actor a better director a better writer you know we started shooting at 46 years ago that's where my ability is a doctor if you seriously question that I'm afraid I'll just have to challenge you to a duel so what's a pistols I'm thinking a specimen bottles of 20 paces we never know it would become what it was in terms of its popularity right up till the end we were shocked when we drove through the streets tonight the final episode was airing and there were no cars on the streets we had no idea that it would that half the country would be watching it at the same time but in the beginning we knew it was good but it wasn't catching on with the audience for the first year we were at the bottom of the ratings list so I used to tell people were in the top 78 jelled I believe I have Charlie put water in my stock hey you know it's water we all know with something bigger than all of us know we were doing something really unusual it was a comedy but it wasn't a stupid comedy it wasn't only a comedy it was also traumatic it was satirical was in every form you could imagine but it was always about real people who had lived through a horrendous experience and we respected that it was the only service comedy that I know of were you so wounded people so we didn't know if we would last I thought when I read the script yeah I can't do this because it's liable to run a year it's so good I had played murderers rapists robbers many times and then the question I would get after I still did west wing was was it hard to play a Republican like would say if I could play a murderer I can certainly play a Republican which wasn't taken too well by some Republicans but I meant to demented sincerely we're all just people all they had said to me before I did it was he want to run for president on the west wing and I said sure but do you know it's a commitment you don't know if it's gonna work out but I knew they were coming up with good stuff and in fact just personally I felt I learned a lot about national politics by being on the show because the people who wrote the show lawrence O'Donnell for instance had much more experience in politics in real politics and most shows have about any subject so was it was an education to do that I learned about political campaigns in Kansas and then the special considerations about it campaigning there for instance it's a very interesting experience for me that was especially true in the live debate we did which was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had as an actor are you saying that you're opposed to debt relief for impoverished countries - no we should forgive the debts but that's not going to help those countries very much okay what will tax cuts we were on live for an hour did two versions one for the East Coast and one for the west coast I forget what the middle of the country got maybe the first show there was not any time to learn it because they kept rewriting it up until the last minute so the whole show was on monitors and we had to half know it and half get it off the prompter so it gave it a sense of life and improv that was very exciting and I think looked really good it was interesting doing it for two you two audiences because the second audience was completely different from the first audience they came from the same community they were both in California second audience thought it was a Democratic rally and every time Jimmy Smith said something they cheered them at one point I said well I just quite I got something really good to say here I told her to be quiet clear and vivid is the name of the podcast and I do because it keeps coming up when we train people to communicate better we want them to be clear and vivid and vivid means engaging talking about things that you're interested in and clarity the same thing and I have this wonderful chance on the podcast to have conversations with people then I might not otherwise have conversations with Warren for the podcast and they're fascinating people isn't it interesting how much a story captures our imagination and gets us to listen it gets us to learn from what is being said so much more than a pile of data I only had 20 or 30 years left to live everybody's looking at one another Robert is he kidding does he think he has 30 years to live but I want to have fun during that time like I've had fun for the last 30 or 40 years and I don't know what that's going to be I don't have plans I don't have there's nothing I'm missing doing I'm not doing it I'm not doing it don't worry about it you know I never made plans my life has been like an improvisation and that's worked out okay

Channel: Variety

Views: 107,828

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, alan alda hawkeye, alan alda mash, hawkeye mash, vinick west wing, alan alda vinick, alan alda lifetime achievement, alan alda on actinig

Id: RSgGOMpM0uI

Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019