Alec Baldwin | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] [Music] can you hear me there's my mic on yeah could you hear me yeah you have two handicapped people here today because I I hurt my leg as well so I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm late my daughter who was in the car with me we had to take her to the hospital near because she had an allergic reaction to something so I apologize for being late I'm very very sorry yeah I think so I think so well thank you so much for joining us here today I thought we'd kick start right off for questions if that's okay yeah so it's not often that four siblings are all in the entertainment business how did you find this while you're growing up and how do you find it today what's my opinion of my brother's careers you might think that we know my brothers and I got into the business in a different time you know because we know next year I'm going to be 60 and my brothers are all in their 50s and so for people who got into this in the 80s it was a very different time you know the 70s and the a the late 70s in the 80s and the my brothers and I got into it when it was the end of an old way of you know three TV networks in America and five movie studios have controlled all the business and independent film was very much of a fringe enterprise and there was a group of mostly men and some women who controlled the fate of the entertainment business and if you if you could convince them that it was in their interest to hire you then you could work and continue to work was a very small kind of incestuous world you know I remember when I worked Christopher guest's the great Christopher Guest who did all those wonderful films waiting for Guffman and so forth Chris guests mother was the head of casting at CBS TV in the in the 80s when I was out there looking for work in the mid 80s and she was this lovely woman this unbelievably elegant woman and she was you know she liked me and I couldn't quite understand why but she liked me and she would always bring me in and you know there was a sense of we're going to keep trying to find something that you fit there was a much more aggressive passion in casting now I think that those things have been replaced by people who are very risk-averse and casting is a very very torturous process for people in the movie business they're always going well how do we get the most bang for the buck in terms of our movie and how much money we have and it was a lot more relaxed I think when I started and easier to break into and now the business if you're starting now I think it's slightly or not so slightly more difficult and my brother's I got a job and I truly believe I said this many times that my brothers thought well if bozo here can work in Hollywood you know what's to stop us from going there and they just followed suit and they worked for quite a while so you just mentioned the kind of changes in the evolving industry what would you what would be your advice to aspiring actors out in the audience today well I think that it would depend on their it would depend on their level of self-awareness maybe which is difficult to pull off when you're very young maybe but their level of self-awareness about what kind of work do they want to do knowing that anything that they want to do is find it's it's worthy if you want to be a big movie star it's a path that you take to head in that direction if you want to work and do great plays and theater and and drama and you know the classics and so forth and Shakespeare and will year there's a whole network of places to do that it isn't very remunerate 'iv you're not gonna make a lot of money and you may be performing in very small venues but I have a handful of friends of mine from the beginning from the beginning of my career who continue to live that way they come to New York they have a home in New York maybe or LA they do TV to kind of punch a clock and get their pension and Welfare and their medical benefits from the Union and then they go off to the Guthrie and they go off to La Joya and they go off to Louisville wrapped and anywhere across the United States and Repertory Theater and summer stock theatre and regional theater and perform you know that's their stomping ground if you will I've got a few friends my age and older who that's where they live and and if you say to people do you want to act and just try to do the best work with the best people there's one path you take and if you want to try to grab the big brass ring and become famous and successful in another level there's absolutely nothing wrong with that I don't judge that and it's just tougher you know it's so very competitive and I think sometimes people think they want one and they realize they want the other you know I think sometimes people will think that they want to become big stars and they want to have very busy careers and show business and they realize that sometimes that means you're not going to get to do very much acting you know I I spend more time on the road marketing the movie than I do making the movie you know we shoot a movie now and in the independent world for four or five weeks you may shoot twenty twenty-five twenty-five days now seems to be the magic number in micro-budget films I'm here shooting a film down during Mission Impossible and the budget on my last movie or was very small the budget of my last movie was the budget for ice on Mission Impossible for people's drinks you know during the day it was the budget for Altoids on Mission Impossible Mission Impossible spends a couple million dollars on mids for people to have during the day and you know that seems to be the way the world is now there's the two and a half million dollar movie and there's the two hundred and five million dollar movie and I try to get people to understand just be honest with yourself what you think you want you know do you really want do you want it's a tough thing when you're young because one seems very seductive and you want to tell yourself when you're young that you have an opportunity to do both you want to try but I know many many people who who try that and they don't succeed and they've robbed themselves of a great opportunity to perform and do and to act in the in another sense and and they regret that so it may be some balance of the two that's a very very difficult thing to pull off as well but a balance of those two okay say and kind of thinking with the theme of kind of roles and different kind of acting what's been your favorite role both in terms of character and then in terms of also the behind the scenes element of the film I think boss baby is my greatest movie boss baby is the greatest movie I've ever made like the city it's my Citizen Kane I think they're truly but uh the no I mean I think every movie I there's no such thing as a as a favorite but I think every film there's an opportunity to find very few films I've done have no opportunity to have some positive experience you know I mean I've and plays that I've done and you know I did I I would see Meryl Streep out of Long Island where I live because she's related to a family I know that has a home out there that my neighbors in East Hampton Long Island and I would see her from time to time and I always thought I would be doing a movie with her where we were like on horses on the heath and it would be some British drama or what have you but all be saying you know my lord and this and thus and I do the movie it's complicated with her which is not at all what I thought I would be doing but it was a great experience to be with her and to work with her you know the director said she said I'm gonna pair you with somebody and she's I want to pair you with her and and she's nine years older than I am and the director said the men do it all the time the men they pair the men with a woman who's not age-appropriate for them they said why shouldn't women have the opportunity to do that and I said none of that really matters because the movie in the movie my character isn't I mean there's some what about it an attraction I said but more importantly the mana supposed to still be in love with his ex-wife he finds out the harbor that he's still in love with his ex-wife and I said and then and I said and when that character is played by Meryl that's not a hard thing to do Meryl is very easy to fall in love with you know when you're around her she's a amazing person so things like that I mean the cast is an aspect of it the materials in aspect of it the cinematography is an aspect of it I worked with on it's complicated John toll was the cinematographer who's the only person I think he's one of two maybe two have won the Oscar back-to-back and he won the battle Oscar for Braveheart and legends of the fall back to back and toll was a great cinematographer and cinematographers often contribute to your performance in a way that's just priceless you know and I worked with some of the greatest cinema that's really probably the greatest thing I've had in my life was I got to work with the greatest cinematographers in the business Caleb Deschanel and ball house and tack Fujimoto and all the legends of the last 40 years and Bob Richardson and on and on you know and everything you do you know there's an opportunity there in some way to the research you do want to film is very often a tremendous opportunity you know there's always been a there's always been a way in which motion picture studios and networks have an access to things that you just could never probably got the highest level other than maybe the white house you know you have to do research for a film and actually know Europe when I did Hunt for Red October we went on a nuclear class submarine and dove off the coast of San Diego it went overnight we dope to 600 feet and went overnight on the SS Salt Lake City and we dumped down and spent the night there and it was like one of most amazing experiences of my life I watched a hundred hours of surgery to prepare for another movie and I wasn't in an observation booth I was gloved and gound and right in the field of the surgery watching septuple bypasses and gunshot victims and learning all about how people behave in an operating room in terms of their because when you do a movie you look for what's called the authorization of the character do people really behave that way people will write things down you know go what do they really do that and when I went into the operating room sure enough the guy gets in there I use this you know 40 year old guys doing the the bypass operation and he cranks up like van Halen you play like this hard rock is like pounding in the operating room and they do whatever they have to do to kind of get through the fact that this is really like carpentry to them you know and I'm sitting there I mean I I can't even believe when I'm saying they take the guy's heart out of his body and put it on top of his body and they're sewing it and doing all the stuff to well he's on hooked up to a machine and in the back when you're i'm bannin and a narrator but this is no surreal thing I've ever seen in my life you know but it's true you know it's true you go to authorize that reality and see what it's really like and that's a thrilling part of the business is the research that you do what you'll learn the books they give you to read the people that you talk to and and then I guess last but not least is the directors a year and the costars you know I've worked with actors who are amazing and I've worked with some directors who are pretty amazing too so if you could have played any role in a film that's been made throughout the history of Hollywood which one would it have been in a milk boom that's already been made where we make a film or come up with another film to remake a film to remake a film well that's a tough question Wow because you're guessing sometimes movies are of their time and so I think that's impossible to say really because movies really are of their time and classic films live on but they I think that it's almost impossible that's an amazing question because I can't think of who I would wanna if I love the film why would I don't know what I'm what I want to why would I want to replace the actor in the film you know II mean but I can think of actress I wish I had worked with you know I mean I dream of that people always say to me who do you want to work with and they of course mean who's contemporary is who do you want to make a movie well I've got a script who do you want to work with and I say well I want to work with Clark Gable that's what I want to work with I want to work with Joan Crawford you know and the people that are your peers I've got a short list of those that I really would love to you're Daniel day-lewis and quite a few of them actually and but I think God would be great to have worked with like Humphrey Bogart you know I can't imagine what that would be like to go on a movie set and it's Humphrey Bogart you know so but in terms of replacing someone in the film I don't think that I would I could imagine what I would do you know fair enough that's a hard question yeah cuz I guess what if it's your favorite film then you don't want to replace the character in it the other thing about it is you see movies one of the greatest movies and very often the greatest movies are a lot of work you know Lawrence of Arabia is a great movie and I think god I'd love to be when Peter O'Toole was cast in Lawrence of Arabia it launched his film career he was a young actor right if I remember correctly from his memoir he'd done all the theater and and around the country and done some TV and you know he he gets shot out of a cannon to play this coveted role but they worked them to death for like a year you know lean who's one of my favorite directors and I watch his films regularly like last night I was watching Bridge on the River Kwai for a little while just to remind myself of what makes lean lean because he's so singular he really put people through it you know he was really a great taskmaster and long long shooting and 2001 a Space Odyssey you know you interviewed those guys once for this television show I did and Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea talked about how you know they kind of didn't really understand in some degree what they were doing you know like Kubrick would just be let me just stand over there and stare up there and you know it was all like what the whole but the whole metaphysics of the movie was toward the end they they they weren't quite sure they got it you know but they know it took a long time it took a long time to shoot that movie so I know that I've done movies that have very long schedules relatively speaking and some movies they just shoot them very very quickly but you know in the end it all starts with writing it'll start with an idea and I encourage everybody who was involved in the business to really take the dramatic literature course courses especially in a you know estimable school like this and read everything read everything you can meet everything you can of philosophy and literature and drama and Shakespeare and Shaw and everything read read everything you can they'd have a reference in your mind for what for what works and what and what might not work because the the good script and there are good scripts out there the good script that's the muscular script the smart script is the goal that's the goal that's the white whale that everybody's looking for so it's kind of staying on the topic of literature you also write a column for the Huffington Post and you've written books also what was it that prompted you to express yourself through this form of media well I think I've always been I went to school to political science at George Washington University then I left to finish in NYU and drama and when I was at GW I worked in the the Congress and an internship everybody that goes down there does these internships in the White House or whatever department you want getting lucky enough to land a internship at they're kind of down there for that and I did that back in the seventies and the and the I remember that you know politics was really I studied the presidency and with American government economics and I really thought I was gonna go to law school and do all of that and the passion for that it didn't leave me in spite of the fact that you're probably better off leaving your political opinions aside if you want to succeed in the entertainment business the most successful people in the entertainment business are often people who keep those opinions to themselves the biggest movie stars in the world you tend not to know that much about their opinions politically at self-worth which is probably another piece of advice I'd give people - who you ever want - you want to make it in the business but at the same time I just I saw changes in my country in the last since Vietnam and when Reagan came in and I feel that the United States has become a place that sweeps things under the rug the American political leadership sweeps things under the rug and encourages the American people to sweep things under the rug and now the problem for America is in our living room is a gigantic lump under the rug that everybody can see we've swept so much stuff under there it's appalling and to confront who we are and what we've done and where we went off the rails and where America was a great world leader and where America has faltered since 1975 is something that's kind of haunted me and most other people who are progressives in the United States so I have expressed my opinion about a lot of those things and and certainly that comes with a cost I think hmm so now we've touched on politics you've previously been known for saying that you might be interested in running for political office yourself then I got married and I have three children and my wife's having another child in April I'm gonna be 60 you know my wife was giving me for my 60th birthday another baby we're having our fourth baby in five years and so the idea of moving to Washington and taking my family down there and running for office my wife I said you know no way so I mean listen I would love to be the President of the United States I think I would be a good president of the United States I think I care about people and I care about all people and want everybody to be happy and especially becoming a father again at my age where I think I have more of a perspective I have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who are middle-class people in America who are trying really hard to just provide for their family when America is a place which is still this big hissing engine economically but more and more people are just struggling to meet their obligations to pay their rents and mortgages and put their kids to school and and their medical care and things and I just I just think as a dad I've been very lucky I've made a good living and I can give my family what they need I think to myself how much pain I would be in I mean how much extraordinary pain a unique kind of pain if it's a man who views himself in that kind of gender that teep now tedious gender way that need to provide for my family and I couldn't I can't think of any worse kind of suffering than to want to give to your kids and your family and you couldn't and I thought I wanted to be present in the United States to help people do that to help construct a society that made that easier for people just to live you know and to and to get where they needed to go and that wasn't everybody's interest it was it was in my interest that you got where you wanted to go was my interest you were healthy it was my interest that you had health care was in my interest that all of us had will be needed as part of an economy because it in America the end in the UK the the the friction between democracy and capitalism is a constant it's a continent in America you know the the you can guess which one of those is winning now democracy versus capitalism in America they're it's like they're the Constitution and the and and the democratic values of the country are like antiques that they're throwing in a fireplace to keep us warm you know it's like we're taking furniture and artwork and burning it in our house in order to keep the heat on and and squandering this legacy we have of our values and sense of equality in order to make sure corporations still make money and but at the same time I feel like in America that Trump number one my wife doesn't really want that from my family that level of scrutiny and number two I think the Trump is probably going to be the death knell of the non-traditional candidate we will lurch back in 2022 people who are typically executives of state houses as opposed to legislators in Washington governor's and I think the top ticket people will be governors of states there could be some senators or congressmen but I highly doubt that it will be leaders of the political parties who have executive experience in government whether it's Andrew Cuomo or whether it's Phil Murphy who got elected in New Jersey or whoever or a woman I'm trying to think of a woman it'll come to me but the but of course what is her name who my mind is going who Trump is always taking on because she claims she was American Indian and Elizabeth Warren yeah I'm very jet-lagged but Elizabeth Warren who knows who those candidates will be Kristin Gillibrand I'm a New Yorker and people are very very fond of Gillibrand and fond of her positions on things and but I think that these candidates coming in like Trump with no legislative experience with no legislative record as far as we can tell Trump has no record of anything paying as taxes but the are they'd the Trump has not paved the way for that candidate kind of candidacy in my opinion is a very good chance that he's killed that kind of candidacy had everything will swerve back toward Washington insiders history thing so you're also a passionate animal rights activist what was it that inspired this passion well to be honest with you when I met my first wife she was a vegetarian and we went on our first date and we're ordering the food and they said I could I see your vegetarian menu and she said I'm a vegetarian I was beginning to have these very strong feelings from my wife so I did what most men I think would do I said oh my god so am i you're a vegetarian I said my god see the vegetarian menu was well-pleased and I kind of lied to get closer to my then wife and indeed became a vegetarian in 1992 I gave a beef and poultry and I was a pescetarian diet fish every now and then but I but through my relationship with my ex-wife I was introduced to Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk aware the then founders of PETA and their great success for for PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was the famous Silver Springs monkeys case where they liberated the laboratory animals of Silver Spring Maryland and then to protect will then left they founded the organization together pacheco then left and was replaced by Dan Matthews who's her right hand had been involved with them in terms of beef and pork and poultry production in the u.s. exposing the short cuts that are done there and I've also been most involved with animals and performance the banning of animals and circuses rodeos and zoos I work with another organization called the performing Animal Welfare Society that was then in Galt California and the rural area outside of Sacramento they since have bought a massive tract of land in San Andreas named after the famous fault line there in San Andreas in Northern California they have a couple thousand acres there they have as a refuge for retired animals and the woman who the way Pat Derby was her name she's the one who turned me on to the the the the the horrors and the tragedy of animals and performance and in circuses and you know hidden video and her husband was this like real good-looking him he's like a male model this guy ed Stewart very good-looking kind of cowboy looking guy and he would take hidden cameras and go to facilities in India whether were these outposts where they were trained circus animals in India and the guides that would bring him there because they were rather remote and he would fly there and there and they were doing this under contract for some atom for some of American vendors who would buy these animals and they go there and the guy would drop one on the neighboring town and say whatever you do don't let them find the camera because they'll kill you if they find the camera they'll kill you and it would go in and risk his life to go and videotape the the the beating and the torture of these India of these elephants in India and in other places in the world as well it's not specific to India and I just got very taken with that I got very overwhelmed by that you know the way that animals were treated to the circus and Ringling Brothers went out of business in the United States that was something that was unimaginable in the year 2000 and the New York Times which I've I mean I I'm a reader of the New York Times and a fan of the New York Times but they wound up doing a very romanticized portrait of the last day of the circus you can go online and see the the [ __ ] photography of the last day of Ringling Brothers and all the people there who sadly are losing their jobs it is sad like in coal do you want to say to all the people I can't wait to put you all out of a job not because I want to put you out of a job but we need to get off this fossil fuel but I want to do anything we can to help you get retrained into another job we don't want anybody to be jobless in this economy and but they did this thing for mainly brothers which was these very very beautiful actually photographs of the ringmaster saying goodbye to everybody for the first time with his top hat and everything and people saying goodbye to each other who'd been on the road for years and years for the circus but they were exposed as being abusive or some of their handlers were being abusive toward these animals and in the United States which I think the United States other than California the United States are pretty much behind everybody and everything that's morally right they ended it and bring Lee brothers went out of business and the you know the next thing to do in the United States as far as I'm concerned is to get people to understand that we need more vigorous enforcement of of biofuel from processing plants where they have pigs because like in North Carolina you've got a horrific amount of you know animal waste product from these facilities which have hundreds of thousands of pigs excreting all day long into local waters and causing all kinds of damage and things like that and there's scientists who say they can make it all into a fuel and use it as an energy source and so that's another thing we want to do because the the the the cost of eating meat the cost of the environment of raising meat and preparing meat and slaughtering meat and delivering meat to market in the United States has become very very it's like gasoline you know when you sit down and you eat a hamburger somewhere the hamburger cost you X but what's not factored into that that's price is all the things that the environmental organizations and states and federal government to do to clean up the mess made in order to get the meat to your plate and we're trying to have a much more honest discussion about that subject than the United States now as well you notice how you ask a question I could just keep going I mean so cut me off whenever you want to cut me off say one last question me with your crutch say one last question for me and before we go to some audience questions if that's okay so you mentioned that you're currently filming the next Mission Impossible movie but what you have planned next well I'm supposed to go to Atlanta to do a film for a few weeks which is a kind of a police drama that's set in the United States not too far on the future it's like 30 years in the future and the relationship between the community of color and the police in the drama is 10 times worse than it is now police are just cutting corners left and right in order to manage what they view as a kind of economic impoverished class and people who are living in poverty and they're pretty much the shooting people on the streets if there's anything you know they have a problem and I play a cop who's training there was a bit of a training day type of component but I'm trying to train him not to be like them and to try to maintain as integrity and and don't cut the corners that these people cut and we're gonna shoot that and then I'm going to I got a couple things I'm supposed to do but mostly what I like to do now is work as little as possible because of my kids I mean I when I I'm a high here now for eight or nine days and I couldn't bring my family which I usually do but now it's like such a huge minute now what I travel with my family that's the circus in my life now you know it's my wife and the women that helped us with our kids and so I would like to work a little bit less I can be home with my kids I hope my wife wins the lottery it makes a lot of money hope she gets rich so I can stop working completely fingers crossed for you so let's move on to some audience questions then if that's okay if you'd like to ask a question please raise your hand we'll hopefully get three years anything is possible shall we go to the member on the right they're just that yeah yeah hey and thanks for coming here to give this talk I have a more general question I can imagine being an actor and people recognize you everywhere being such a famous actor specifically do you ever had any pot have you ever had any moments in your life where you wish you weren't famous a certain scenario well I mean I think that I mean you kind of reach a threshold where people know you if you have success in film and that's a good thing and you have to live with that and when people approach you and say things to you or are kind to you that's that's a plus that's desirable and and the problem is if when things go wrong if people disapprove of you I mean you know Kevin Spacey you know Kevin Spacey was some no one enjoyed being famous more than Kevin Kevin really worked hard and you know Kevin is an enormously talented guy now I'm willing to bet Kevin wishes he weren't famous and then no one would recognize him again because wherever he goes now with people see him there gonna be some other reaction and that's the double-edged sword of it is in the age of social media when I first started in this business there was no social media and people's expressions of whether or what they thought about you those were handled by professional you know and again I'm not saying I endorsed this or I prefer this those were handled by professional media types there were gossip columnist who occupied in a remote corner of the business I can name names of people who were like old-style gossip columnist sand TV personalities who really were like a fringe I mean now that the mainstream now TMZ and things like that are there this big industry but when I first started they really occupied a very very little corner of the media world and now with the internet and social media and especially with this me too and times up and all these other kinds of hashtags you have you have a you have a it's like a it's like a brushfire you know you all love you you literally wake up one day and you're gone you're you've been torched completely it's like a fire and your careers like a building that just burns down to the ground and of course many of the people I'm assuming most of them the large percentage of them deserve what's happened to them and but it's amazing now how you've given a voice to the public there's a direct voice where there was polling before now the internet is the poll that you manage and own and it's it's it's extraordinary time it's really incredible you know it's like I've never I couldn't I never imagined we would be where we are now where all these men and again I want to stress the the ones who you know they're guilty of the things that they said they got what's coming to them but it's kind of mesmerizing to watch how quickly it happens it's like you know John someone so poof he's gone people with huge careers gone gone gone and it's Fame now is something you have to handle like it's a like it's a like it's an explosive you know I mean the only make sure it doesn't get on you and blow you up you know your fame can kill you if you're not careful thank you she engaged to the member if just do a head hi thank you for coming today a lighter question have you ever up to light right above your head and you look beatific right now you look like that you look like an angel from heaven thank you whereas being an angelic question of course I wouldn't be an angel ask wait no pressure I hope you come down here from heaven to ask me what you see this I have come to ask you did you ever or have you ever applied the principles of Six Sigma to you're acting kind if I did I didn't do it intentionally but I was you know listen I I I made a lot of movies and then when the movies you make it becomes kind of clear that they they're not making money you make a movie and if they makes money you get it you get three more shots at the arcade you know and you go and go and go in the studio film system and I'm here working with Tom and you know tom is the last movie star you know everybody else is kind of their their their reality is they're a little altered now in terms of what they're paid and how they live and then there's a lot of more pressure than there was or as Tom Cruise I'm working with now meet Tom is one of the last people who they give him two hundred million dollars to make a movie and when Tom comes back they're done they make six hundred million dollars or eight hundred million dollars you know these movies he make are still popular around the world and but the you do those movies and if you don't have that kind of career that he go to independent film with his less risk and then if you want to you do TV and I did the show 30 rock and I was weird for me to make films and think that that's what I wanted and that was more covetous to do that and in truth 30 rock was the best job I've ever had in my life and when that ended I was devastated because you know you go to work and they were very they were nuts Emile's people were completely nuts teen and all the writers were crazy and I go to work and they give you the script for the next week's show and we would do a a reading in a conference room and that cast was all on a dais and in front of us was all the craftspeople and all the crew of the show that department heads to understand what their task was in that script in terms of sets and costumes and so forth and then kind of down an aisle that was a camera I'm like what you have here almost but in a much smaller space they would shoot us on a camera and send us to LA because we were in New York to beam the reading to LA for to get their notes on the script and we did a reading of the script every Wednesday for the following weeks show and then handed the script and Robert Carlock who was the head writer with Tina but say okay now don't worry about this I know it's gonna sound crazy I said the same thing everybody I know it's gonna sound crazy but we're do the Patty Duke thing where you do everybody here remember who Patty Duke was we we're gonna do the doppelganger thing where you're gonna act against yourself you're gonna play both parts in the scene and you're gonna play a game exa console' popper star and I used to go are you out of your mind you know and sure enough we'd read it and it was and we go shooting it was like the funniest thing I've ever done in my life for me for me I thought it was funny and I missed that job terribly I miss that that job is the best job and everybody who worked there I mean all the crew we still run into each other and keep in touch with each other everybody says the same thing we'll never have a job that was a greater than that was the best job I ever had I miss them thank you should we go to be hand over there I wanted to ask you about your for a into political satire what impact if any do you think your portrayal of Donald Trump had on Donald Trump and also on the wider electorate in the u.s. I think that we occupy one corner of the media response and I'm going to say assault but a media be sponsz to trump you've got evening shows comedy shows talk shows Trevor Noah John Oliver the network hosts who do these programs Samantha bee and all of them have their response to Trump which is unavoidable it's unavoidable the President of the United States should have a sort of janessa quoi that maybe will give 90 days or a hundred days to fine-tune that you could be Bush jr. and a lot of people assume you stole the election and your political supporters and your political operatives stole the election but a few months go by and people are going to settle into the fact that you know we've got to live with this and he's going to begin to exhibit that ineffable quality that the President of the United States ought to have I mean there's policies and there's a way that you present yourself in this role which you know is the you know people used to arguably say was the most powerful person in the world and but it's a person who you certainly have an expectation of about how they're going to talk and what kind of language they're going to use and all right wingers get pulled to the center and all left wingers get pulled to the center so there's a space that the president tends to occupy especially after two terms with there's a a maturation that happens there that's unavoidable here we have a person who is the same as they were during the debates before the election hasn't changed one molecule the entire time and all of us were hoping there would be some change when this person wins who you are I don't think anybody provoked more horror and more disappointment and more disgust when they won the next day when you walked around New York City and I was in New York today to the election he was like 911 it was a real there was a pall over the city that was so profound everybody was so depressed for they knew Trump they knew Trump that was this marginal figure Trump was not a reality show host who for a dozen or more years had convinced the rest of you know what we call flyover America that that he was this crack ace executive that he is on this TV show Trump was an odd kind of very you know in New York making a lot of money still mean something so people nodded to him in his in that world of wealthy New Yorkers they tipped their hat to him very politely but he was never somebody who was an honored member of our community or Trump was nobody in New York he was nobody he lived in a feed lived in a tower no pun intended we all alone and and and and was very much of a drive-by presence on the social scene of New York he would come to an event the wife is in a gown she's a lovely woman by the way he's in his tux red carpet photos gone he was never a table mate with you in an event never never and his whole life was private he was on a public figure at all and so when he won people in New York were horrified they were horrified and yet they thought you know we have to face this and and live this down and a few months go by and if he had exhibited because I always think of the world of alternatives if someone had just dialed this a little bit to the right not significantly but it's a little bit of lift a little bit of change Trump could have avoided so much of the Trump could have avoided the the great share of what he's burdened with now by just modifying his behavior ever so slightly in his language but he refused to do that he refuses he believes his baby believes that he's there to be this kind of bomb-throwing presence to shake up everything and you know things that people would never imagine the president saying or doing he's like why not let's say some shake things up a little bit let's say racist things let's say crazy things and to see what and and it's really really you know the response is was just necessary now for me to do the Trump thing that's something when Lorne Michaels called me and said I want you to play Trump I said there's no way I'm gonna play Trump there is no way I'm gonna do that I'm gonna go make a movie in the fall the director of the movie was a friend of mine and I said this story before the producers of the film failed to escrow money for me and when you work for the studio's of the network's they mate or meant you in a negotiation about how much money is in your paycheck but when you make the deal the checks don't bounce the money they're they have lines of credit of billions of dollars to the different problems getting paid not true in the independent world in which now we have agreements where you escrow some fraction of my money before we start rolling the camera and that's just pro forma and when they didn't do this we gave them another few days and we gave them another week and they didn't do it and I called my friend and I said I don't know what to tell you but I'm not doing the movie and I called Lauren and I said then Laurens my dear friend I love Lauren and I said I'm Trump here I come and I went into a room and we just did the old acting trick where you watch the program with the sound off they we said watch the acting with the sound of him see what they don't think about the voice and worry about the voice what does he do and with Trump it was just this every time my son was left eyebrow up right eyebrow down stick your mouth oh you're trying to suck a golf ball through a garden hose you know just and that just every time I turn he was like and I'm going wow this is so new to look up people I'm going I go and that would do it to people I go like this they go I said is that what you see they're like yeah that's it eyebrow up eyebrow mouth out and we just we just would watch this for like three or four days and and that's what we went with when they rolled the camera you know I'm the first day I did it there's a guy Kris Kelly and there's two Kris Kelly's at SNL by the way but there's one of them as the stage manager who takes you by the hand he holds your hand and you walk around the dark stage to go to the business of the live audiences and see you that you walk around the perimeter so the seeded studio what he doesn't see you to go to your mark to enter for the cold opening and as Kris is escorting me to go I'm thinking to myself I don't know what I'm gonna do I don't have it I kinda have this goofy you know this isn't me everybody you know and I'm going I don't know what I'm gonna do you know and we wouldn't did it and Kris the other Kris Kelly was the writer Kristin Sarah Schneider and people were just ready where we're helping to channel their frustration and their panic you know but I do believe it's it's a being obviously people are had a year of that and now there's a Tom fatigue in America no I mean more and more people who thought pence like get rid of Trump and that pence would be no net gain they're beginning to say Norma will take pence Pence is one of them he'll deal he's a Washington guy he'll deal and he'll come more to a place of negotiation and you know I think that Trump is uh what's sad is it just didn't have to be that way it's just seems so unnecessary okay thank you okay okay um the peple jumper over there hi thank you so much for coming to speak to us I actually have a question on some recent comments you made so amidst this like me to skin the hold me to movement in Hollywood right now there have been several allegations against Willie Allen for sexual misconduct and you very recently came out strongly in defense of Woody Allen saying that from your perspective and from the times that you've worked with him it's been nothing but a pleasure and something lines with that I'm just curious as to what moved you to make that speech and to come out in support of Woody Allen and effectively against all these other women who are making these allegations and if you could just elaborate on that a bit well to correct your comment is this there aren't a lot of other women making those allegations there supporting the one person who is making the allegation but there is one woman out there making these alligator I'm aware of that I'm just going to correct your comment we said many women are making allegations many women are supporting the one woman who's making the only one is making those allegations and in my mind because this is a this is a conversation which could go on and on and I'm and I and I kind of anticipated we would have this question but I thought to myself that in order to say that Dylan Farrow is lying or order to say that Dylan Farrow was telling the truth you have to say that her brother was lying her brother who had the same per view into the fenty was there he's a member of their family he Moses Farrow says that none of that happened that it's a lie so I don't feel comfortable saying which one is a liar number two and again this is a pick this is an opinion this is not there's no facts here and another opinion is that there was a judge involved in the case who had the operative the most for everybody's troubles because there was a judge this guy Marco who was in charge who did a really dastardly and ugly thing he did a horrible thing and that is he said I think there might be charges to bring up against Allen and therefore spattered him with that that paint is it but I'm not gonna put the child through this cuz she's only seven years old in the interests of the child who won't go through with the case even though I think she she may have a point here and I think to myself so Allen's chance to clear his name you robbed him of that you robbed that that judge is to blame for everything where we are now in terms of finding the truth he's not to blame for who assaulted the girl or who didn't assault the girl who who lie the truth of the matter is one thing but the chance to arrive at the truth were the best chance the best chance to arrive at the truth was derailed by a judge who did a horrible horrible horrible thing now Pharaohs step adoptive son Moses Pharaoh says my sister was completely lying pressured by her mother and I wrote a book about my less so about my divorce than a critique of the California family law system which exists inside the same matrix in which divorce is a war and divorce is an ugly war and in a state like California cuz the states in the United States are very different and in a state like California I said the judges in the courtroom are like pit bosses in Las Vegas casinos and they want you to stay at the table and keep playing they never want you to leave they want the litigants to keep going and spending money they're there to help promote the divorce industry and they never want people to settle and they never want things to end and I'm not gonna belabor that but I'm saying I know from firsthand for interviewing people from my book but on both sides men and women this is so much lying that goes on there's so much distortion of the facts and employing the children shamefully so to achieve your goals to kill your opponent in this litigation that we can't assume that if that's true in this case that that's something that never takes place and thinks place all the time they were litigants on both sides who lie to quote-unquote dirty up the other litigant before you go into with any kind of settlement now listen I mean I'm the first person to say and I wrote this in my book and I wrote this in my book years ago I wrote this in my book years ago and I didn't write it to establish my cred as I was sensitive to women's rights issues but what I said was that all men who were part of what had been called the fathers rights movement that then morphed into the parents rights movement because many women were being victimized by this as well more and more men were willing to spend the money to challenge their ex-wives for custody for significant custody of the child traditionally 4050 years ago men were like you're gonna live with your mother I'm gonna go make a living I'm gonna come visit you and then more and more men were like well my wife is working and she goes to her so what does it matter whose nanny the kid stays with is your nanny better because it's your nanny and more and more men start to fight women to get cut and do terrible things the terrible things that women had done to men men served injured women in courts blah blah blah blah blah but in that book I wrote I said all men who want shared custody of their children loathe and to tests on the highest level men who neglect their children their health and safety men who beat women abused women neglect women men who do these things the average man in this room I'm willing to tell you he does not have some malicious DNA toward women you know dear friends of mine I was talking to him on the phone when all this was going down and I said my god I'm too vain the sexual assault thing is so odd to me because I thought when I used to go on a date with a woman if I thought she wasn't wildly in love with me within 15 minutes we're out of here you know we're gonna have dessert you know I thought I mean I wasn't gonna the idea of a woman tears streaming down her face and you're gonna make her do something that she doesn't want to do who the hell does that that's I think that that's rare I mean I think that our society as a judge said in my book that if men were predatory in that way on a wholesale level our society would cease to function men who do those things are rare man they're more than we want and they're out there and they need to be punished but I can't say that I'm certain that she's telling the truth and the thing is Alan was robbed of the chance to clear his name there was a chance in 1992 they were going to go to child they were going to go to court they lived in New York and Connecticut and Alan was put through forensic child custody evaluations in both states and both states refused to prosecute at them but then that judge in Connecticut turned around and said I could have prosecuted and there was enough there and I thought to myself then then shame on you because in the in the arc of these gender-specific problems we have in our society like in America now in America if you're a woman and you can read about you know this in my book or other books that are better books actually that that someone you know a woman would call and report spousal abuse and the cops were coming the moment would change her mind once she quote unquote calm down she doesn't want the breadwinner winner and the traditional family to go to jail now in the United States when the phone call was made to report spousal abuse someone gets handcuffed and taken taken away automatically no one gets it the woman doesn't have to go well I bet I changed my mind that doesn't happen in the United States anymore you don't get to change your mind you dropped the dime on somebody for spousal abuse the husband gets arrested and goes to jail and then then they have a trial and and the point is that that when people do these things yes I mean I I understand I completely mad a woman so I don't understand it the way a woman does but I understand the fear and all the pressures that are pointed them not to report not to carry through but I do hope we find a way to make it easier for them to carry through because it's the only way this is gonna stop at the people that do this they must be punished they must be punished they must go to trial I'm doing a talk show right now for ABC in New York and one of the pilot packages that we did was with a woman named Kim worthy who's the head of the County Prosecutor's Office for the the county in Michigan that encompasses Detroit and she's the woman who works with Mariska Hargitay from the show SVU and Mariska Foundation joyful heart foundation she's the woman that found the rape kit backlog in a garage there of 1,100 rape kits that have been processed with women and they didn't even spend the money on because they they said we don't have the money for the the the utilized exercised rape kit for 1,100 women and they cracked open those ray Kitt's and they started to process those rape kits and they convicted 300 people they found 300 rapists and put them on trial and arrested them and put them away some of them in other states who according to this the statistics would have gone on and raped other people would have raped even because most men who commit that crime are serial rapists most she explained to me Kym worthy you should look her up on the internet Kym worthy and my point is is that most healthy men most normal men no we want to see those men that do the same we want to see them punished if I felt Woody Allen had really really done that and it's a tragedy that that woman is asserting that's what happened someone's lying that's painful to consider but at the same time those people who are convicted and who did do this thing we have to make sure that they get punishment to make sure that our society is provided with the resources rape kits does huge rape kit backlog in the United States in all 50 states and we have to make sure that that has taken more seriously I thought I would have thunderous applause after yeah I think you've got time for one more question yes should we go to the hand right at the back in the corner there on the other side over there I was initially gonna ask you what's your response to Alex Jones is offered a bare-knuckle box when you impersonated him on SNL but I do want to ask you about something you did speak about earlier you expected in in 2020 that the pendulum will swing back with regards to conventional governor capital candidates in American politics but I wanted to ask with the recent speech by Oprah Winfrey and endorsement from those in your industry like Meryl Streep what is your view on the left now turning to unexperienced candidates as I counter to Donald Trump well I think that people would like to have a person that they think is I mean I can only speak for myself I can only get my own interpretation that Oprah Winfrey is construed as someone that has to whatever degree the same resources as Trump but would employ them in the way that they hoped he would you'd arrive in Washington loaded with money a billionaire Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire Oprah Winfrey is the wealthiest woman in the entertainment business I believe and I know that and you you were thought that she would come to they would want her to come and we have kind of a redo let's bring the billionaire in here who's gonna get it right now as opposed to the billionaire who's going to use the government as a machine to line the pockets of his friends which of course Trump is very guilty of very guilty oh and nonetheless whether she has what it takes to be the president man or woman they have what it takes to be the president in the modern world in the world we live in now where the United States is ability to occupy the role that it occupies is in danger the United States is getting pretty close to ceding the position as the number one power on the number one economic power to the Chinese and Americans are in tremendous debt Americans are elect a bunch of Americans are like a bunch of drunken millionaires who have run out of money they just decided to put everything on their American Express card and that bill is gonna come due and the more in debt we are the more we're getting closer to a basket currency and the u.s. dollar will not be the dollar will not be the standard of which all of the currencies are measured you'll have a basket currency that includes the the deutsche mark and the yuan and you know you name it and the dollar will be one - British Pound - no doubt and you know a person who's going to come and construct a realistic assessment of where the country is now things are still great but we need to make some changes in some reforms about how we spend money sometimes United States has gotten it right less than I'd like in terms of military action and the rest of the time the United States is like a drunk in a bar who's picking a fight with everybody every night it's another fight every night and then the United States is getting you know a little long in the tooth for that where is the policy where the United States are going to fit into a an equation world globally where we are the good neighbor and we're the good partner with people the days of the United States is own form of colonial exploitation which this country basically invented this country in the Dutch the American form of colonialization and that kind of exploitation those days are over you know and these other countries want to be treated fairly and the more the more fairly we treat them the less advantageous it is for us economically and so who's going to present the American people with the truth represent them with the truth the United States is a place where you're going you buy a gallon of gasoline and a gallon of gasoline is is half in the United States with the national averages in the Western world over here in Europe and in the UK if it's $8 or $10 or even $12 here by that measure it's three and a half or four dollars in the US but it's not really that it's not four hundred dollars a gallon in the u.s. because of all the military activity we have to engage in to secure that oil we're all the clean up we're have to do of the fracking in the United States could we've decided to frack for oil and pump for oil in the US now the United States now was in the I think in Bloomberg the other is number two behind the Soviet Union over to the former Soviet you know behind the Russians in terms of oil production and it's coming a great cost earthquakes and this and that and in in the United States so the person who can help Americans see the big picture the big picture the Americans have the tighten their belts and the Americans have to go on a little bit of almost no know austerity budget they need to get things a little leaner Americans have to work harder I will say one thing too I mean I I am an American in my soul and I and I go there and Americans are I mean there's a lot of people who don't get it and there's a lot of people who would like to work and can't but Americans are very hardworking people they wake up at the crack of dawn they say the words say work until 7:00 or 8:00 o'clock at night with a lot of other places but Americans on the whole are very hard-working you give an American a job we can advance as a career you can make a decent amount of money they're gonna give you their soul they're gonna give you their soul and they hand over their taxes to an American government and the amount of taxes we pay is not the problem I pay a lot of taxes if I told you how much taxes I paid less that you'd probably pass out of this forward right how much I paid last year I mean I pay a lot of money I'm in the fifty percent bracket it's a lot of dough I don't mind it's what we spend it on that bothers me it's how it's wasted giving Exxon subsidies what the [ __ ] does Exxon even oil was need a subsidy you know but in America it's all this grease for industry industry business business sugar industry ethanol the corn industry all this other stuff and just to name a few which are relatively minor the defense industry and the I mean the person whether it's Oprah or whoever everyone's thinking that only an independent minded person someone who's not beholden to a political party you know Republicans come into office in the United State and this is a very glib and very reductive thing to say and a very very kind of glib thing to say but in merit but Republicans basically come into office and they're going to cut the taxes of the wealthiest class in exchange for their contributions if you're the Koch brothers we're not even in that realm the Mercer's of the cokes you're somebody who's on the list quote-unquote and what I'm done I'm gonna save your family and your trusts and your corporate at will your whole tax picture I'm gonna save you twenty million dollars next year you're gonna give me three or four of that aren't you that's the deal the unspoken deal the Republicans give money and tax breaks to their political supporters and those people that kickback the vaguely to them to keep the Republicans in power it's it's it's a machine that's been operating that way like a Swiss watch for the last since the post-war period and the Democrats do the opposite they give the money in social programs to their needy constituencies in exchange for their vote they're buying people's votes that way and it's assumed that Oprah Winfrey you're someone that would come in and open the doors and have this breath of fresh air and we would not have politics beholden to anyone that's never gonna happen that's never gonna happen you know you're gonna have to have somebody come in who can make some progress but not perfection you know you're never gonna have perfection as far as that goes but you'd like to have so so for example I don't want to beat this to death but like in the United States the biggest villains in the United States right now are not Trump Trump is this Bly the idiot who's sitting in a room watching TV all day and eating cheese sandwiches and will do any tweeting on his phone and the people that are kind of tiptoeing around the White House doing everything nefarious DeVos DeVos is the great villain America right now she's gonna destroy the whole educational system of the United States of America she's a monster she's a monster this woman she is a monster and and Pruitt Pruitt is a sociopath he's the head of the EPA and he's gonna just blow up all the regulations that we've killed ourselves for I will tell you that when I lived in Los Angeles and we're looking for jobs and in the 1980s you could drive if you know la at all you could drive over the Santa Monica Mountains into the through the Sapulpa to pass into the northern part of LA into the valley and it was a layer of air that looked like mustard gas for about three or four months out of the year the air pollution was so bad and California took it upon themselves and they are the pioneer globally they'd other than maybe Norway they took it upon themselves to adjust emissions controls there and then a couple decades went by and now it's completely changed they have their days there are times of the year that there's a lot of cars in the road there in the population there is doubled since then but there were people who wouldn't even live in the eastern parts of Los Angeles you know Silver Lake Los Feliz Pasadena San Marino all about downtown LA nobody lived in downtown LA nobody it was covered in gas it was covered in smog covered and now it's all gone and what if it what has it done to the economy people have moved in there they built apartment buildings people now young people people with money and who were young and kind of hip and looking for someplace to live used to live on the west side no nobody lives on the west side only people my age live on the west side and young people all live east in town where there may be a little bit of a more reasonable price that's because of the environmental path of the state of California got on a now Pruitt who's a complete nut bag this guy is nuts he's nuts he wants to undo all that on the federal level so you know the reason we want to get rid of Trump is because of the people that Trump has brought with him the people that Trump has brought with him and you know I I just pray to God that the midterms give us an even better even even sharper view that the country is turning toward something more reasonable because I mean I'm somebody who I become slightly conservative as I get older you know I mean I'm not in any radical way I don't want to have you know socialism and some irresponsible way in my country I realize it's competitive I don't want to punish people one thing I don't want to do is punish people for success in the United States there's a lot of people like that but like let's punish the people who are successful being rich is bad like no it's not you know but I mean I want to I don't want to punish people for success this is America success that's the wheel we spin everybody new with that when we got involved in a minute but but the point is is that the there's a certain there's a certain common sense there's a certain common sense about how to treat air and water and the way we process our food and how do we keep people safe and our children and global warming Jesus I went to Paris a week after the attack I was asked by the UN to host the equator prize where we gave out 33 awards to people for stewardship of the rainforests around the world even in Afghanistan there's a sliver of forest and we gave this organization awards for that Belize of course most of it in the South America in the Amazon and we gave 33 of these awards I was supposed to be one of five presenters and all four of the others backed out because of the attack at the club in Paris and I thought to myself oh [ __ ] this is the best time to go of all is right after the attack in terms of safety and I went to sure enough there were French troops with rifles on every corner and we were all very very safe and I wouldn't I hosted the whole thing myself and I was there the sense you had the sense I mean I went from conference to conference it was really kind of a it was a very it was a very intoxicating vibe there was really it was really fantastic to feel you were in this a global community I know these are all cliches but you're in this global community you thought these people all knew this is it this is our last hope we're all gonna get together and say let's do this incrementally let's try to make this better and the United States says forget it and they want to walk out the United States I mean how many people back home are just appalled by that that's why we've got to get rid of this guy he's got to go he's gonna get us all killed you know and he's gonna ruin the planet I said can we have one more light kind of show business question yes you said it was a wooden ouu man was it was a man lesson you please is it a light show business question oh thank you well I actually just wanted to say I'm really rock fan and I wanted to know if you have any plans for may be working with Tina Fey again sometime in the future well Tina Fey right now was doing she's working rigorously on taking her movie Mean Girls to Broadway as a Broadway musical and Mean Girls has come as a brother she'd been doing it in Washington they've been previewing and she's bringing Mean Girls to Broadway very soon like in April so that's what Tina's doing she's a bit busy with that so maybe I could be in Mean Girls the musical movie is what I'm thinking would you sing a song oh we will figure that out anyway thank you all very much thank you you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 72,058

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Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, debate, debating, The Oxford Union, Oxford University, Alec Baldwin, actor, acting, hollywood

Id: y-lXbTdDlxw

Length: 70min 25sec (4225 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 31 2018