Alec Baldwin Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

when you do films there so you know sandcastles you know what's a good thing you do and that goes away and then the next time you kind of get reacquainted with it as when you're looping a year later or eight months later so it's not like the theatre where you see the same lines and everything gets into your blood movies are something where I'm more likely to remember what car I was driving to the studio then than I am the details of shooting the film it's such a like a mist it comes and goes so quickly as over beetles the thing I remember most is Michael I mean Michael came and Keaton knew the secret because I would act and then I'd have some doubts and I said well maybe I this maybe I that I was much more neurotic about what I would do when I was very young starting off in the films and Keane just came out he was like the comedy Annie Oakley he was a the mirror babe he just was so self-assured he was so just tore it up and we were doing a scene that's in the movie where he spits the loogie into his jacket which he completely improvised he's like hey hey save that one for later and he said the line saved that one for later and I thought I was gonna choke I was laughing so hard off-camera I'm really gonna have to get to know you guys you know we gotta get closer move in with you for a while get to be real what are your qualifications well I attended truly are Keaton amazed me and we did the movie with Tim who would sit at a desk when we were the old Culver studios and Tim would draw the characters he would draw things I mean he's an illustrator he's an artist and he would draw and he would never look up at me and I would say you know 10 everybody else that there's got a thing they're doing I know you want the dead people to be the most colorless people than the really frightening people are the living people you want the ghosts to be the most but now or whatever his language was and I said I think I need to come up with something where I'm like Robert Cummings I want to I want to if you know Robert Cummings the old actor I mean he's a very posh kind of elegantly spoken man I just had a hook in do you know my wife and I are we don't have any children and I collect antiques so I wanted to be sort of a guy who talked like this and I was gonna do this whole kind of campy thing and Tim is looking down at a piece of paper and maybe this is the only direction Tim gave me the entire movie he would look up and go no don't do that go back to the paper and draw you know you know when you do those movies with people who are those visual assim you just trust them you know you're doing the movie and they said we're gonna give you the old-age makeup and Gina and I had the very you know kind of skull like construct they put on us yeah they put the straws up your nose you can breathe they put the casts on you and they do all the life casts and everything I'd say it was the first time I think I'd experience that you know you never mind that when you're in the hands of somebody who's as gifted as Tim I've done not a lot but I've done a couple of films where we did that and I was like why don't we just cut the scene like we just don't need this and when we did Beetlejuice I had no idea what it was about I thought maybe all of our careers are gonna end with the release of this and we're all gonna be dead but when you're around Tim he was just such a kind of crazy professor you know his when we did that scene in the HR boy was there and he offers me a cigarette cigarette I forget the lines that cigarette you want a cigarette trying to cut down myself and we were like we couldn't handle it yeah we just was like cracking up all the time that's one of the earliest movies I made and and you you see everything that's involved in making movies brought to bear on a movie like that I was in a recording studio I was in a building that was very important I was directed a movie the only time I directed a movie that I took my name off of because the investors in the film committed bank fraud and one maybe two of them went to prison for bank fraud we wound up calling the FBI it was in the summer time of 2001 and I will come outside and I would smoke a cigarette I'd like to get some air we were in the dark room editing and we were next door to this fire station and that would kibbutz with these guys and talked to the very nice guys all of them were killed in 9/11 not fall and Anderson comes to this building where I'm editing and he says he says I'm probably not going to use this but they're kind of insisting that I have a narration track and I'm not going to use it I mean it's really just it just isn't really important and if you don't mind I'm just asking as a favor would you record this track and we were doing he goes just don't put anything on - just to say it just don't do it I'm like okay so we just flatten it out and flatten it out and made it more kind of basic Royal had lived in the Lindbergh Palace Hotel for 22 years [Music] can you pay her in cash he was a prominent litigator until the mid 80s when he was disbarred and briefly imprisoned and he was like thanks and really very kind of you and you know we're probably not gonna use it and then they used it and you know it's my favorite Wes Anderson movie because of Hackman because of all people Wes Anderson who I don't you know I don't compare Wes Anderson to like John Frankenheimer or John Ford or Coppola you know some commanding kind of almost swashbuckling director Anderson is a very kind of quiet humble shy guy when I met him and he's the one that got happened to sit on these bad impulses he had in the latter part of his career where he immunized himself against all of the events and all of the kind of conditions of the county was playing by playing amusment Hackman got to the point where was almost laughing right before he delivered every lime you see the missiles are coming captain he'd be like okay the missiles are coming but he really didn't play the stakes and Anderson got him to play the stakes in Royalton enough to really care and invest and flatten out that and comb out that kind of silliness wait a second now okay listen I'm not dying but I need some time a month or so okay I want to I want us to do too maybe I am dying Wes got him to do that and I thought my god this is the greatest performance that hackman's given and had we made a lot of movies is this is the greatest performance he's given in like 10 or 15 years I had no interest early on doing a TV series cuz I thought I'm gonna be parked here I was divorce from my ex-wife my daughter was very young was about 2006 I said to Lauren I can't do it because I need to be able to commute back and forth to LA every other weekend I mean I would never compare myself to this great actor but it's like they talk about Brando and on the waterfront that he said I got to go to my therapist in Queens every Thursday whatever in or two days a week I was kind of like I said I'll do the pilot then they said do 12 episodes I said I'll do 6 and I was very intimidated because they were all funny and I'm not and even throughout the first season I was terrified of them I was terrified of Tina and Robert and VG and because because the the smartest thing I would ever say was no not funnier than the dumbest thing they ever said that my best idea was weaker than their worst idea and we did the show I remember sitting there with a cup of coffee in my hand that was are they going it's kind of interesting in this if God knows it's funny they're very funny writers years and years of market research which led to my greatest triumph the tribe action of GE traction oven cooks perfect food five times faster than a conventional oven because it uses three kinds of heat thermal technology for consistent temperature GE precise air convection technology for optimal air circulation and microwave technology for incredible speed with three kinds of heat you can cook a turkey in 22 minutes and we worked out some things the first season about the character of the character should be he should be good and bad at what it had his job he should be great at his job and they miss applied him in the entertainment world he's widget eyes entertainment which was always a catastrophe of my mind and so we wouldn't did it and after the first season we all started to get our footing like many shows if you watched the first season of Will & Grace none of them sound the way they sound after season three and four brother tell me that the season two it was really just a toboggan ride it was really the writing was so funny we won this award in that way season three or four it was bombs away we won every award when the show ended I had to do the scene in the boat harbor town by Battery Park and say goodbye to Tina and say they tell her in my in my god awful way that I loved her it's a word that comes to us by way of the old high german luba from the latin luebero meaning to be pleasing so i'm going to use this word to describe how I feel about you in the way that our anglo-saxon forefathers would have used it in reference to say a hot bowl of bear meat here enemies skull split I love you too jack I cried you know it was really very hard because in season 5 we all realize that season 5 was the weakest writing wise and the follow me season 6 was the end so in season 5 I was saying I'm gonna do six and I'm a deer I'm done like we've hit the wall we're done we come back and sees that six is as good as anything else we've done it's it's it's a dip and we come back and when we come back for season 6 I say I'll do 9 or 10 let's sign for three or four more years because I really love the people I love the job I thought it was kind of getting to know what I was doing comedy wise I was always having my doubts about that and then Tina had her second child her daughter Penelope and I was convinced it was gonna end like you know just Tina just couldn't do that kind of work anymore Christian Karluk were there morning noon and night writing and like I got a sense that no Tina must be exhausted she's a mom and everything so she decided to do a shorter season seven and it was over and you know Tina's smart about probably everything I was gonna say nearly everything but probably everything and it was probably a good time to go we all run into each other and we're all like and there's other shows like this where they all look at each other and saying we're never gonna have it this good again I'll never have it that good again [Music] that watch cost more than your car I made nine hundred seventy thousand dollars last year how much you make you see pal that's who I am and you're nothing nice guy I don't give a good father you go home and play with your kids my ancient at the time michael bloom who since passed away he was my dear friend he was my agent for 11 years he was very smart and he said the Pacino had been in and out of the role of Ricky Roma a few times but Sheena was always got kind of a buyer's remorse sometimes in terms of film I don't know how true that is but he went to the producers of the film and said if al balks again and doesn't do the film would you let Alec play Ricky Roma and their what yeah and what we were led to believe was he did walk away again and they did offer me the part of Ricky Roma and then you know all hell broke loose then all of a sudden everybody gets you know realigned and we're back in place and Al's gonna play Ricky home and I said to me would you play Blake and I can I get madman on the phone and I said to Mamet you know what I find interesting is that you won the Pulitzer Prize for the play why did you feel the need to rewrite the poets of a surprise wedding play and who should you know talks like this he said these men are gonna commit a crime and they're not criminals they don't have a criminal nature and I need to put the Vice on them and really kind of squeeze him a little hard to become criminals because you are the diaz deus ex machina to come in and put that pressure on them to do something he said I always thought that was a flaw in the story but when you fooled the poetry people but he he said I wasn't that was a flaw in the story that we needed so he writes this monologue and I come in and I rehearse that's summer I believe and it was hard to lay into those guys Here I am with all these I mean Eid Kevin Pacino wasn't in the scene Jonathan what price wasn't in the same but lemon who I had worshipped I worshipped him in there he is I'm being presumption was here but lemon did a thing with me where he like kind of encouraged me to stay where I was with him don't warm me up don't talk to me don't let's all stay in this ugly place ai da get out there you got the prospects coming in you think they came in to get out of the rain a guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to by sitting out there waiting to give you their money are you wouldn't take it and we were done he was very kind to me and said you know he paid me a really nice compliment when we left and it was tough you know was the rehearsal I didn't know the line so I improvised I think I said things in the rehearsal there were 10 times worse then boy I was like you know you know I said think I said to blender one day I go you know bah bah bah bah bah your balls remember when you had a pair of balls old men and what's it like this really reductive things and they knew them it was like you just stared at me you know and I just marvel at what a great job Foley did Jamie Foley and and one rubies and chia was the DP what are those great monastic DPS who hardly spoke to you they did a great job Hunt for Red October when I got on the plane that was back when you're in a first-class cab in a business class cabin in the coach cabin and if there were 12 seats in first class and 12 seats in business class up the 24 people in that plane half of them had a Tom Clancy novel in their hands are beating it on the plane Cardinal of the Kremlin and Red Storm rising on from Red October whatever hardcover paperback and I remember getting on the plane as I came into the front of the cabinet looked down and I went all of them are reading a book about a character that I'm going to play in the first movie about that and I just became so intimidating to me and then of course though I get there and number one shows up and he goes and has his his hairpiece fit on and his wardrobe but he comes in one day into the set and I thought I'm so I said no one's ever gonna even see me or look at me in this movie he comes in he said John do you go to the rushes boy what do you attend the rushes of the film and I said what's that is it the dailies the projection what are we to explain so I go and I knew what it was but I was like I was so much stricken by him and I said I know he was well how would you ever expect to learn he was so in the frequency you know he knew where the camera was he knew the pace he wanted to speak I mean I wonder sometimes it being a British act for you just keep you this born with that gift of the pace of the language like our fathers and our grandfathers before us you say we play odd deadly game once more we play our dangerous game a game of chess against our old adversaries the American Navy it giving that lecture to them and as the cameras moving around and yarn is moving around him and he's just turning this way here turning that way it's like he's skiing down a hill you know he was so talented you know he looked the way he looked his so unspeakably handsome it was so powerful and then he talks and you forget within 5 seconds and he supposed to be Russian and he said oh they're saying our old advanced race the American Navy and you go doesn't sound like Russian to me at all but you know cuz it's the sky's this God and of course everything when you're a movie star you have an eye on and he was wearing this beautiful leather jacket I've never seen anything so beautiful at that point in my life I was quite young then or quite really in my career and I said where's that jacket from you said the wardrobe department made it for me this blue saw leather jacket I said that's stunning and he goes I'll have them make one for you that's movie started to get the boy a jacket a blue sole leather jacket I've had a thousand memories of him but my greatest memory was went to a party that the producer had at his home a lot of people involved with the film were there and he was there with his wife Micheline who was a little tiny little Fox of a woman just a wonderful woman and the tray would come by with the champagne and he would go to reach for glass of champagne and his wife ergo no no no no Sean not the transition Tanya and him go oh and then fighters save the Traber combined with the canapes go to reach for a little mushroom quiche did you go talk to him this person or that person I sure look amigos stop going to be very much of a party Jasmine you know I'd worked with woody I did the movie Alice which was his take on Juliet of the spirits and I worked with him and with Mia years ago then he contacted me to do this small part the the husband of Cate Blanchet and we did the movie and woody I'm in my opinion what he has very church and state between drama and comedy and although this is a funny moment I think it's indicative of how would he likes to work what he's very hermetic he's very quiet he doesn't talk to you he came up to her in a scene we were doing and it's a scene that was cut from the film in which I'm kind of gas lighting her and I'm saying well you know you need to go see your doctor again um get back on that medication because she's suspicious of my behavior which she has every right to be and we're doing the scene and he says why don't you will you know Edie that Adeline will you say you know baps should go back to you know that doctor that you've seen and get your prescription doctor you know come up with some name of the doctor and he's there with his head like looking down like this the doctor and I go a doctor Federman and he went nothing funny nothing funny I was like you know I was like in comedy would go for the funny in here they saw you having lunch with her taking her hand what crap who told you that I know who was that vacuous troublemaker Lydia am i right well you had to be Lydia cuz I was having a business lunch with Amy at the four seasons hey are you nuts you think I was having an affair I'd be crazy enough to have it in public at the four seasons I don't know sometimes you drink at lunch no maybe you're high I mean it's obvious she's got a crush on you Cate Blanchett is one of the most gifted actresses alive today so she knew full well what should we get herself into in a dramatic role regardless of the script of the director he really wrung her out he'd say to have I need you to really be coming apart you wretch you wits and here and she'd go do it again she'd down an espresso she'd smoke a cigarette action she'd come in and she'd try to beat the living daylights out of me of this physical altercation and it got in more and more intense and after like nine or ten I remember like eleven takes or twelve takes he was like okay but you know the first five or six takes the poor woman he was like you're not there you you're at the end of your rope and she got boom and she go in there and you know show you what great actress male or female do which they just dig down so she was great Mission Impossible this sir this is a trap we're being directed hunt sir you're still to plutonium cores in the wind and you watch them so you get a phone call from somebody calls your agent they said they wanted to come to mission impossible and for some reason McQuarrie crews mission that whole gang you said there go yes sir you know your honor what time is my plane whatever is my flight sir you go there and it's just you're in the zone with them and because there's nobody who's more you know and in a warm way not in any menacing or kind of unattractive way cruise every day is like hi yeah you know he's like ready to go you go to work and it's like he is he comes to work the days he's not shooting he watches you guys shoot him and McCrory have some notes he was to the gym he goes to the editing room he goes to the set to look at the set they're going to be shooting on next month he's producing the film and doing and doing and doing and then you get on the set and he's made so many movies I mean how many movies is Tom Cruise made big movies and he sit there and go this isn't working for me and him in Mukwonago and they sit at a table and they do some dialogue polish he's not afraid to use the power that he has and the authority that he has on behalf of making it right I've worked with movie stars who come to work and when the scene isn't working it's because they're hungover and they go when their trailer and they take a nap for an hour and they come back and maybe they're like ready for another round who's never rests he's like a shark he shoots you know what's that line that Richard Richard Dreyfuss says they eat they swim and they make little sharks and that's Cruz he was just is so dedicated he's so intense and it's intoxicating I love working with him I love him making those movies as always [Music]

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Id: ss-OHf5WVzI

Length: 24min 17sec (1457 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2019