Alec Baldwin introduces Al Pacino, recipient of the Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award

please welcome an Emmy Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award winner and one of the stars of the hit comedy series 30 rock mr. Alec Baldwin thank you I'm and congratulations to BB where are you baby she may be my congratulations to David um I remember a few years ago I sent a letter to Paul Newman to Joanne Woodward and I said would you be the honorees at an event for an organization I work with and I got a letter back from Newman that said thank you but my wife and I would like to respectfully decline we don't like to make a habit of doing that kind of thing he said for fear of catching the dreaded Honoria and something tells me that tonight's remaining honoree is of the same school he would rather act and let the acting speak for itself and not get into a lot of awards and presentations and so forth I'm sure he's writhing in agony right now but I remember back in 1994 I was working in Los Angeles and a guy that was my assistant the head of NYU was on a fundraising tour to LA came to my office asked me for money and the kid that was in my office at the time was this very clever kid said we got to go outside I gotta have you sign that thing I said what thing he said we got to sign that thing we go outside he says get the degree I go because they're asking you for money tell them you want the degree and I go oh my god this kids a genius cuz I didn't finish I had a year to go I walk back Oppenheim was the dina than my youth and i go i would like you to maybe help me to facilitate me getting my degree i don't want an honorary degree probably to get my degree and he was open alright mr. Baldwin we'll see what we can do about that and the next thing you know I'm in an office with a guy and we devised this thing where I'm going to pick an actor because I had gone to Strasburg through an why you were going to pick an actor and we're going to discuss the applicability of method acting to the technique of a of an actor who does both stage and film the applicability of method acting of Stanislavski and Strasbourg's techniques to a career in stage and film and there was only one person that you could do this with there was only one so I approached this person and I said would you let me I watched all his films and I read all these books that Stanislavski wrote and all these books the Strasburg wrote we had agreed that I wouldn't publish the paper so I can't share with you and I wrote this as a thesis for school I had 225 questions and and again this is a person who he would rather just do the acting he doesn't really want to talk about acting you know but if there were five things he said to me that were really I mean there are many anecdotes but there were five things he said to me I mean they changed my life this is back in 1994 there was so powerful his observations about what he does and why he does it and he and he doesn't like to discuss that look I remember this is an aside I said to him that when your filmography you do the movie cruising with Billy Friedkin very controversial film and I said and you're in a bar and people having all this kind of crazies gay sex with each other it's really dark film and people getting stabbed and get murdered I said a couple months later you do the movie author author I said what's that like for you to leap that chasm from like Billy Friedkin and violent homosexual sex and then in the main title song of author off of the song says the lyrics say and in the end it's all just cookies and milk and a smile I go how do you go from one to the other I said you're doing a sex scene with Richard Cox where he's going down on you in Riverside Park I said what was that like for you he literally singles all I remember was it was cold he said we were he said we were in Riverside Park and all I remember is it was so damn cold out there oh yeah I get that as well what was it like for you to do a sex scene with another guy it was so damn cold out look I got to tell you we were there Riverside Park it was so cold I just want to say for me this is a man who john randolph puts the shield on this guy's chest in Serpico and gives him his gold shield and the tears just go rolling down my face every time this is a guy who is truly one of the reasons I do this for a living and this is a guy who unlike other people in this business who are great actors who achieved great success but then retreat into some kind of Howard Hughes like freaky weird cocoon they live in this is a guy that was on Broadway this past season this is a guy who is still putting it out there on the highest level he's going to the park he's doing Shakespeare I'm in LA a couple years ago he's doing orphans with Jesse Eisenberg and Sean hata see in a room full of 1999 people in a theater to go see him do the Lyle Kessler play this is a guy who's doing movies this is a guy that's doing you know knocking him on their ass and HBO films this is a guy that had this filmography and continues to have this filmography which is one of the greatest careers in motion picture history and he still feels that he is an artist and he has to say what he wants to say through this thing that he does and no one does it better than he does no one does it better than he does so please join me in welcoming someone who I believe is truly one of the greatest actors in the history of this country in film and television and theater please welcome Al Pacino [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I tell you it just keeps getting crazier ah I am shocked when I'm really shocked at is they did all these people these people who talked up here and sort of really know what I'm going through you know it's just kind of was shocking and they were in their own way helping me to come up here and not know what I'm talking about so I will try to somehow explain to you I didn't I know this sounds crazy as as anything can be but I am overwhelmed by this overwhelmed let me tell you expect I would be overwhelmed no matter what but but to be overwhelmed when you don't expect to be overwhelmed because I didn't expect this to be like this I was going to the last time I got I got oh I know I wasn't dreaming this wasn't dreaming I got a Lifetime Achievement Award Lee Strasberg Lifetime Achievement Award for the Actors Fund about 20 years ago now I don't know I don't know if that's true but I got to tell you the thing was in a it was in a lobby of some movie house or theater I was standing there with a lot of people and somebody said here's the award I said thank you very much and I didn't hear anything about me other than I got the award that's what I'm expecting can you believe this I expected that tonight but I'm very thrilled and overwhelmed and shocked and surprised because I didn't expect it to be a lifetime achievement and all these great people talking about me I mean all of them you know and it's Jeff Robinson coming out here and talking like that and the net and Alec and Johnny boy Johnny I just saw him the other day because ice kids go to the same school they're not my grandkids either they my really now let me let me see something I'm not going to be long I mean I get this is so beautiful to actually see the living examples of what the Actors Fund does to see these kids up here express they're there and you BB I mean you told me I got to get a new hip instead of the part I got what an excuse that is Wow I never heard that one before now you got two of them you know I mean holy smokes I mean good stuff baby good stuff congratulations to you lovely and everything here tonight so lovely so amazing I'm so scared and then not you know I'm in front of people what the heck I'm a I'm a performer right what I'm gonna do you know cuz a lot of the times of the Actors Fund it's sewing ensconced it's so much there you know you don't you take it for granted in a way this is this wonderful thing that has been here for over a century and and you got to keep Fanning it and tonight we are doing that I guess that's what's so wonderful about tonight I want to say yeah you know the interesting thing about Lee Strasberg and his the effect the Actors Fund had on Lee because when I got in the Actors Studio I was very young and I didn't have anything I didn't have money for my rent I didn't have phone they used to have shoes there for people they had this fund that Lee Strasberg set up so that he was inspired by the Actors Fund so that if you went in there you could say I look I don't have my rent and the Actors Studio come out opened a little box you know rent waiter I wasn't living any high-rises you know I was living in tenements so it wasn't that much money but they pull out 50 bucks for the rent you don't believe me so anyway that's what would happen and of course we found that after a while that that went sort of dry that that fund went dry because actors from the Actors Studio would give back when they made it and they it was a James Dean Memorial Fund then it became the Norman on Ellis Memorial Fund and it's been revived but it was it was inspired by the Actors Fund and just to say to Jeff who was talking about Scarface and talking about the lines and he knows them that it was all of his stone who wrote that script by the way and it was really a beautiful beautifully written script and uh it's it's amazing how infectious those words are and how we think of words in the theatre thank you we think of words in the theater but also there are words in films you know it's it's it's something when you see a good movie you you you you're interested in the dialogue between the between the actors and you know because it is your visual medium it's such a motion picture it's moving images you know but Oliver proved that you can have that and have language sustained over 25 years so I was very happy to hear that I'm very happy to be here now that I'm up on the stage I was terrified sitting there in that little plane looking around and then and then I just loved the love in this room and I loved up here to me it's astounding and and you know I'm I'm really grateful and as I've said many times this this is is is ISM is more than I have a bargained for this whole world of theater and acting and that has happened to me it's the most you know pinch me and wake me up because it's that for me doing what I love to do and I I don't know except that Johnny Depp who I love so much he was a little off in his timing do not tell him he actually did it he did it on the nut Johnny Carson please he was on the David Letterman Show and he said Pacino has a joke he tells me that nobody gets did you get that joke but the timing of his a skeleton walks into a bar and says to the bartender I'd like a beer and a mop it's in the time thank you for this glorious glorious care thank you you

Channel: The Actors Fund

Views: 658,524

Rating: 4.7797203 out of 5

Keywords: award, al pacino, alec baldwin, 30 rock, actors fund, gala, nyu, tisch

Id: WfnZBg8sjEY

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2011