Meryl Streep I Interview I TimesTalks

Wow they'll be silent when I leave well I'm so glad this evening has come I wanted it to happen for a long time in my on my beat as classical music critic I get I have gotten to talk to interview some distinguished vocal artists and now I have the opportunity to talk to another vocal artist great vocal artist besides that the way being one of the best actors ever but the reasons the framework I want I just want to start right away and establish that singing to me all kinds of saying in all traditions singing is an emanation of words of text of emotional expression you know now opera which I love opera singers do these amazing things with their voice but they can get so caught up with that that sometimes they forget that singing what about what are you singing about what are the words actors who sing never do that that's why you know they always start as I'm an actor singing and I love that about the tradition is that is that the way you think of your your work one you said when you saying do you I mean I'm assuming are you do you putting that into your words or are you an actress who sings is that what it does I'm definitely an actress for first and and when I've sung like I don't know if I could really I could ever do what people do who are real singers who stand who could come out here and sing I I really enjoy singing through the persona of a person that's how I've always approached it you told me back in the bowels I know that you had interviewed Barbra Streisand and that she had said that she was an act an actor who sang right and and because yeah and I I knew that when I was 16 I listened to her records obsessively because she seemed to be someone who was telling a story in each song and each each one was almost its whole little narrative film or something there was something so dramatic about how she did what she did you actually had more training than she has she has a smelly famously self-taught he just doesn't she said yeah Tony Bennett once gave me a tape of vocal exercises I listened to it once and threw her down you know oh my god Wow but I I read in your and the bio that you at 12 you started actually your first performance on the stage four people was a singer you know in a Christmas pageant yes and then you and your parents got you lessons yes I was in the seventh grade and I sang cantika to Noel in French and oh holy night in an English first of all in New Jersey that was big that I sang in friends alone just that alone you know yeah but there was someone in the audience who told my parents that I should really get some singing lessons and my parents were not show business people my father was worked for Merck and was a someone who set up their employee systems and my mother was a stay-at-home house oh she would never want me to say that but she was a very big personality confined to the home and and an artist who did commercial art in a little studio off the back porch but they weren't you know thinking about this for their children they were thinking engineers there were a lot of Engineers in the family or something but yeah but there's somebody told them to go give me lessons and he gave them the name of someone who is a teacher incredibly famous Estelle Liebling who happened to have some very famous students including Beverly Sills yes she had the lesson before me on Saturday and I would stand outside the door and think pretty good but when I start when I first met met you and mentioned this idea you started thinking about it you said well you know it's true I learned a great deal about acting from my voice teacher at Yale you know like a lot about acting isn't what what did you mean by that well this was a great course this was almost I had two three really favorite teachers and they were they were the teachers who will one talk verse and Shakespearean sort of how do how to speak first so she taught us Marlowe and John Donne lots of poets of and another her name was Marjorie Phillips and Betsey Parrish was my singing teacher and common to Louisville odd was my dance teacher she was an amazing coming to Louisville odd actually just emailed me today and said she'd gone to the opening and she said do you know I won the Sinclair Bayfield prize from Actors Equity Sinclair Bayfield is plays my husband in this film played by Hugh Grant and he was an actor who never made it to the leading roles and he endowed a prize for people who shown in smaller parts and she wouldn't anyway she was my dance teacher Betsey Parrish was a singing teacher at Yale who who said everyone can sing and in the class we would have all these boys who would say I'm not gonna I'm not gonna I'm not going to do that I'm not gonna get up I don't have to do that and she said yes you will you will learn to sing and you will sing in front of us and you'll make everybody cry and by the end of the of the class she got that or out of them because there's something about music that's just it's just a sluice gate you know from the soul and it's just undiluted if you can access it right if you can get there music does a thing that no preparation that an actor can imagine can do it's just so it's so direct that's the perfect setup for the first clip I want to play from into the woods and which starts with a rather well-known person named Stephen Sondheim explaining talking about your vocal artistry and how and I don't want to be too like pretty much a music critic or professorial here but just I just want to just this song state stay with me where the Wicked Witch who's been this very controlling mother of Rapunzel's trying to get her keeps her locked up in a tower and you know she wants to go out and have company Rapunzel but the witch says don't you know what's out there in the world someone has to shield you from the world stay with me princes wait princes wait there in the world it's true princess yes but wolves and humans - no stay out every mother's feet understands this now can we have this clip it's just terrific Meryl Streep is is so remarkable she is able to find colors in lyric that have rarely come across she would do a number of takes on the Psalms in the recording studio and every take was different in some way don't you know what's out there in my world someone has to shield you from stay with princes wait there in the world it's true princes yes but wolves and humans do now that is great singing because it's such great acting and what Steve said is so true that you know the inflections on the words like when she's when you sing Prince's wait there in the world you have this little moment of sort of you know like Rapunzel let me tell you I've seen a lot of princes they're not what they're cracked up to be you know like mom nobody wants to hear about your past but vocally to it when you act with the voice that way I mean like the not to get too technical here but that first you know don't you know the high b-flat you use it's almost as like the the singing which can't quite make that note you know she's trying to call it up but of course you have that because later it's a mix long sustained note you have it but it's a way or say it's like you're drawing it out the thought out and it takes a vocal expression was that intuitive or just it's just the most beautiful marriage of a lyric to a melody and that's you you can walk into his song almost without knowing what you're doing if you just sing what he's saying I don't know how he how he does that I don't think there's anyone else who can do it the lyrics have a combination of specificity and yet they seem to be about everything yes and he'll throw in a little thing like that word out there in the world princes yes but wolves and humans - yeah humans you gotta watch out for those but let's we should turn to the Florence Foster Jenkins would you'd like to tell us who she was and something about her and well you'll have to stop me okay cuz I I do go on but she was a person who was born three years after the Civil War ended 1868 in wilkes-barre Pennsylvania daughter of very wealthy banker and had a little sister who died so she was the only child and she was very musical and they gave her as as nicely brought up children then were taught to play the piano and she had some talent and she did play at the White House when she was 8 years old so she was a musical child but she was a rebellious spirit and she got married at 18 to someone her father thought was unsuitable something very much older doctor but also it was part of partly a rebellion because he didn't want to support her musical studies yes he didn't want her to be a mean one she wanted to go to Paris and study piano and he wouldn't do it so she ran away married married I'll show you who said I'll pay her for your piano lessons and gave her syphilis on the wedding night wedding night 8 18 years old 9 18 yeah and but you know so many she had so many challenges in her in her life she divorced him at some point that's sort of hard to find in the research but she and her mother then when her father died she inherited an enormous fortune and came to New York and did what she wanted and she thought well I'll I'll sing I can't play because the nerves were damaged in her hand from syphilis she endured a cure for this which was the prescribed thing at that time which was a combination of something called salvarsan mercury and arsenic which you would immerse yourself in and that may have impaired her cognitive yes her hearing right so she might not have known how she sounded but she loved music I mean there is no doubt that she loved music she and her mother made their way through the Society of New York in the early in the teens and the 20s and the 30s and by the time our film takes place which is in 1944 deep in wartime the last year of her life I didn't yes yes I mean she was this was she was 76 I play her as 66 because hew wanted to be younger and he was her her lover was 11 years younger than she and he wouldn't go above the film is good at recreating this whole salon and club world yeah existed it did she and she founded a couple of including this the Verdi Club was a very active love for music and so most of her career people think how could she have you know done this terrible singing and well it was in these salons and secluded places and and the film also shows how the press or society writers or something music critics would be paid off from the tabloids yes they come right nice things yes so so it's not and it was a protected life it was a protected life it was club lady's life right I'm old enough to know to remember my mother would you know she said I'm never going to be a club lady and but there was that layer of that's where women you know before their professions were open to them and there was other things to do educated women of means that's where they found their ranking in society by giving money there spends money away or their fathers money away and she did that she she was very generous to him I think she was in varying accounts she either was a involved in 40 or 60 clubs in New York City and founded quite a number and most of them had to do with the arts and with supporting the arts right and music especially she was a patroness to there's a great scene where Toscanini comes pays a surprise visit yes and says oh you must come to hear my concert with Lily pons the soprano yes and by the way we need some money otherwise it's not going to happen and Florence gives her gives him a thousand dollars that really happened yes often but you know the movie that scene it really in a way the most one of the most revealing moments in the movie to me is when Florence goes to the lily ponds concert and she's so moved you know it just makes her cry she's not jealous she's thrilled although going back she says boy I imagine being able to do that to move 3,000 people the way she moved me she means it but it shows how genuinely she loved music well I think that's how what locks us into wanting to do what we do I mean I remember seeing Geraldine page on the stage and yeah with with Christopher Walken Oh God and the Tennessee Williams I can't remember the name of the play when I was a student and I just thought I mean it was just like being fed for the first time I've just been watching the baby birds outside my window the Robins and they're just like and that's how you know you feel you feel that feeling oh my god I'll worm you know it exists that you find your Mike Nichols used to say you find your tribe you found your people right yeah I don't want to take a time away but the you'll love this story and you well two of you don't know but I did at times talk with leontyne price a while ago and she when she was a little girl in segregated you know Mississippi her mother brought her on the bus to here Marian Anderson so of course the concert hall in the south was segregated yeah and I said how did you how did you straighten that out in your head what did what did you do she said I just blocked all that out I looked at her and I said I'm gonna be her yeah but Florence flustering is also saying very badly and it's although it's complicated you know she was sort of on the right track kind of but let's listen to a clip this is let me see this is there's there's work to be done when oh this is this is she hires a young kind of charming pianist to be her accompanist she decides she wants to take lessons again and her coach is no less than an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera you know who's also looking for money taking a Vig taking a big check and so Cosmo doesn't really have any work Cosme mechanic movie I'm sorry yes gets this gig and he shows up the next day and he's all prepared you know but he has not heard her sing yet so this is this is that scene there's work to be done from Florence there's work to be done now the thing is about that I said in another interview that I mean when I have accompanied singers and work when they all go around the room doing whooping up to these things and practicing and kind of shouting to Luton and a lot of vocal technique involves a kind of shouting a kind of letting go and the way you portray her and which is very much what the recordings that we have show she it's like in the ballpark it's it's that sort of the idea you wouldn't know it from that time there were moments where the director said it's too good right yeah it drives me crazy when they do these clips because they're very chopped if you know that REI you know what's been lifted and taken out things but it is on the DVD unexpurgated another one this is when the one is called singing at the Ritz this is she and cosmic moon actually work up a performance and this is Adele's this is another private calm a private concert a third which is right all her concerts were private were for just friends and sympathetic people all her life except for this one concert when she bought out Carnegie Hall and gave all the soldiers free tickets which is that with and and it's and she did at one month after that concert about she died yes she did yeah and she also made some recordings and they got out to the radio station yes she made private recordings for her lady friends club but she also sent one to the radio she couldn't resist and they played it on qxr whatever it was this is singing at the Ritz this is Adele's are a little aria from deflator mess twice the thing about the recordings that we have of her which you do capture I mean okay pitch that's hard for everybody but that's usually that's a little bit more distinctive it's hard for people like not too many people have no sense of time but but it's a little like what I was saying about opera singers that she gets caught up with it hahahaha but she she gets so fixated on getting those notes out no she forgets everything else you know yes or she'll land on a high nun high note think I sort of have it stops she does a little party up there she's so happy and then Oh safety net I have to say Simon Helberg who plays as you might know from The Big Bang Theory he's a wonderful actor and and also formidable pianist yeah and I would just race along speaking of disregarding the Tempe right to see if I could screw him up we had so much fun and I also tried to make him laugh which was my delight so there's one this is not us singing Club all sort of she when Florence has made the recording and she surprises cosmic moon with just stopping at his apartment unannounced and has it gives him the recording and the department's kind of messy and you'll see but it's really just show you the tender really motherly kind of sweet side you know to to Florence Foster Jenkins I think and I brought you our recording G thank you you haven't done your dishes mr. McMullin would you like me to do them for you you don't need to do that man Florence well they're not wash themselves will they I'll make you a deal I'll wash your dishes if you play something for me what shall I play anything you like that's such a pretty melody is it yours you inspire me I know I shall write some lyrics for you they did he wrote a number of pieces that she you know wrote the lyrics for and they yeah one of which they played at Carnegie Hall I have more acting things I want to show but people are enjoying from Florence so much maybe we should I was not sure when should we show them the tableau vivant the no no you don't want to see that safely okay we'll say okay well then let's get to this larger topic I mean when again when I first met you and I sort of threw this idea at you I was talking about the you know mingling of speech and song of acting and singing and you know and you said well it's all music to me you know like it and and I got very interested in thinking about the musicality of speech you know and I found some clips where there are some roles you play that where are the characteristic of the speaking voice like Julia Child is so musical to effectively sang those those radio programs under television yes but this is I picked one this is from a Prairie Home Companion which I love it's great great awful movie and you know the Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin played the last two surviving sisters of what had been a quartet quartet and there so there are a lot of scenes in the movie where they do stand up and sing very nicely you know but I picked one that that sort of shows the segue from speech to song you know to because they're backstage before the ending and they remember that they used to have this dog and they start cracking up about the dog and then they they slowly merge into this song and it's like an a little lesson to me of how speech becomes singing can we have that it's from the only clip from Prairie Home Companion dog in the act when an old dog named rusty rusty I don't know if we were with us Oh that was garrison really had lost his mind at that point but do you see what I mean at that whole scene is like music yeah you know the the language is so musical to begin to cackling and the laughing at all you said everything segues together yeah it's true it's very true I don't I don't know what that is I mean I read a book a long time ago by Bruce Chatwin called song lines did you ever read that book it's about it's about Australian Aboriginal people memory and how they mapped the continent and it sort of was the the idea was there was no written language and young children was sent on off on a walkabout when they were 13 and they would traverse these improbable distances without ever having been encountered them and the way they did it was they'd sit in around the fire at night and they'd learn these songs and the songs mapped when they rose and when they dipped and when they they would show the way and it's I've always thought of that because I thought why do I still have to go ABCDE people to get the alphabet but there's something and what we know about Alzheimer's and the last thing to go is music people can remember lyrics they can't remember their loved ones faces it's there's something so deep about where we are connected to the music of the spheres and our emergence as sentient human beings and you know what I mean I'm so deep deep deep in know that's very even the technique of singing I mean how do opera singer say you know a little baby crying and who can fill an entire house with the sound of crying because the baby I mean just you know then kids struck growing up everyone we all start talking from our throats but that's the net that's opera singing yes that's the try moments yes very prompt the um I wanted to play I have a couple clips um Julie and Julia which I another movie of yours I just love and you know and the first clip shows one reason I love that among other things besides being an amazing story and an amazing character it's a portrait of a very happy marriage Stanley Tucci plays your husband who's a diplomat yes and you know Julie is a lot to handle you know and he knows that he doesn't care he just loves her I know he just loves her and and this scene is it happens you really have hit it off in some movies I think you in Stanley Tucci yeah no you know you know like take him or leave him but no he's gone to England I never married an English woman Emily Blunt forgiven him well you're gonna we're gonna see two clips with him including this one were Julia's in Paris her husband is a diplomat and he has a job at there and she's trying to figure out what to do and she first thinks why you know a thing about making hats and anyway sort of sets up the character then I have one of her shows can we have from Julie and Julia Julia really likes to eat it's called what should I do you think about one I don't want to go back into government world mm-hmm shouldn't I find something to do wives don't do anything here That's not me it's not me what's on notice on the bulletin board at the Embassy hat-making less you like hats I do I do what is it that you really like to eat the reason I picked that before this other when we see her now doing one of her cooking programs is that she's already very musical that quality in her speaking you know all the sort of singsong quality to her voice when you play I mean when you play a like real like Karen Silkwood or something that's one thing but Julia Child or markleham or Margaret Thatcher you know these are almost walking caricatures you know and that Demma speed did you look at all the shows again the Julia Child my mother used to say to me she was she was very good at portraiture and she said maril it's all in the eyebrows everything characters in the eyebrows and how and what she meant was there are distinctive things about people there that are so that changed the face so in indelibly and I think that the voices is that way - voices are you know our director of Stephen Frears when he would listen to when he would watch the scenes being film aren't you yeah in Florence Foster Jenkins they sit at the monitor and they they just watch the directors normally but he wouldn't even look at the screen he would just listen for the for the authenticity he could hear it he could hear the take that was the good take right and inevitably he was absolutely right right but there is something in speech that even if you take the visual away you know you can you can find the person there Julia Child is very distinctive and we remember her for her voice but every one of the women that I've played to me has had that same kind of signature sounds oh yeah and even the ones I made up like the one in Prairie right because if you're if you're inventing a whole person you've got to find them and the DNA of the voice is a very big an important part also the eyebrows yeah well mo marker Thatcher I mean she became Margaret Thatcher because of adjusting her voice you know finding this new voice yes I mean that's that was such an interesting thing to study how she found her Authority Authority right and she wasn't loud you know but she was authoritative that was but that I I actually heard the interview with Stephen Frears last night on Charlie Rose oh no and he yeah that was very interesting that he listened a lot you know that he could tell by that I don't be too revealing here but for a long time I've seen a therapist who I like a lot who's who's blind ah and you would think wait you know that you can't see if I'm looking miserable or something and he but he feels that you you can put people can put a good front on mm-hmm you can't disguise your voice your voice is always revealing the voice is the first thing we know of our mother right that's you here even inside you you you hear that and and before newborns can really see much they hear and you know that's what they say when you die that's you you hear you know more than you can see was Julia just so larger than life that was that you know that I would think that it would be hard to you don't want to go too far it's difficult when you when you're playing someone that's so familiar young people and it's an outline that's so ingrained and people feel they own their own perception of her but yeah but that's a little challenge and also there's something always that the actor knows that nobody else knows about somebody that they're playing well well this is one of the the scene where she's doing one of her cooking shows and and it she practically sings the the lesson you know really it's so musical this is watching Julia I'm gonna try to flip this thing over now which is a rather daring thing to do she changed everything before her it was frozen food and can openers and marshmallows so knock marsh try when you flip anything you've just got to have the courage of your convictions especially if it's a loose sort of mass like though what didn't go very well but you see when I flipped it I didn't have to I needed to the way I should have but you can always put it together and you're alone in the kitchen who's to see the pearls doing this wearing clothes in the kitchen just got to practice piano I'm Julia Child Bon Appetit but with Julia I felt like with Julia her voice was an expression of her esprit you know her her schwa de vivre and that was something it was you couldn't have one without the other and she but she embraced her flamboyance she said yes I know I'm fun this is six three I don't know this big topic but the comedy tragedy thing I'm member in a long time in an interview you were talking about that saying it's not as different as people think you know the way you act them there's they're much closer that because in a comedy you're not you're not in on the joke you know like you take you're taking it seriously yes well my favorite playwrights check off and August Wilson understand that everything that's deeply serious also has something funny about it right I feel like I'm in an echo chamber yeah I feel that that's that's very true and Mike Nichols always said you know if it's if it's not funny even the saddest thing there's something in it right that's and that's like life you know this um there are some films sometimes a film is a great film and successful but beyond that it just comes at a moment that plugs into the the cultural moment you know what's going on I do some big all of a sudden everyone's talking about it and you've had a few of those one earlier one is Kramer vs Kramer where I'm sure you all know it but the it just came at a time in 79 where these issues were just breaking open about what is motherhood what is fatherhood you know what what does it mean to succeed in business in anything and also have a family and people not only wept over they fought over they argued about it when you were making it did you did you know did you have an inkling that it was going to have that kind of impact well I didn't know no when we were making it no I didn't know that but I was also living through that that time right and it was a time when women's roles in the world were really changing and really changing rapidly many many things were sort of starting to be opened up and we're just getting the blowback from that now you know I think we lived in a little golden age at the end of the 20th century where many freedoms many societal progressions happened and we thought it was going to be effortless but clearly it's not mm-hmm the I was reading a lot about of preparing and that her character Joanna Joanna what you latched onto was I which I think critics God was she's not psychotic or Christian crazy she's just she's vulnerable she's very vulnerable and she does something strong she to believe your boy is strong you know it's willful and you feel like she thinks well you know he does have a father he's going to be okay but I have to get out of here I'm gonna drown otherwise mm-hmm but that what made you feel for her is that somehow you caught the vulnerability in her yes it's a human being about to break and she doesn't want to jeopardize her child right and I think in a way it's a it was an act of faith to say he'll be okay with her husband yeah for a while but it wasn't ever anything she imagined was permanent but that yeah it did open up a lot of things because the novel was written from a certain point of view very damning of the woman right and it was it was sort of a backlash novel in my mind Avery Avery Corman's novel about the women's movement and who did these women think they are and all that stuff yeah so I think there was but it was a turbulent it's a turbulent thing the the difference the changing status of women is the most destabilizing event in human history maybe yeah and you see the reverberation of it all around the world just in terms of craft and technique I this is from the biography that was released of you there which was excerpted and Vanity Fair about making that movie and Dustin Hoffman not only with you but goading people picking on their vulnerabilities who had just lost her partner juncos up because all you know and and we're very vulnerable about that and he and I had I didn't know what to make of that article I mean of that story thinking well on the one hand anything that gets a performance I guess on the other hand you can't act like you can't behave well I never I didn't participate in that right in telling of that and I don't I don't feel it's a complete story story I don't think you really know all the right all the parts of it and I've been it's unfair yeah to Dustin to portray him this way without understanding the mitigating circumstances that where it took place right right and I mean I'm very cool with it right okay very cool yeah yeah yeah well the results were you know of that what the work process were amazing yeah and he's an amazing actor and a great human being another movie that somehow captured the cultural moment was the Devil Wears Prada again because Amanda it's just what are the boundaries what are the protocols in corporate you know it is she being blamed for things that a man a male yes how do we feel about female bosses really you know is she really that different then you know and that that I think it and then also it was a vocal musical thing that you discovered about her Authority scheanette she always talks quietly mmm-hmm she never screams you know and I learned that from Clint because everybody has to lean in to hear him huh but and and so he kind of controls the room my huh it was very powerful I mean bridges yes when he was a director he never raised his voice above you know like that right but even when she almost fainting like when something is not has not happened that she wants to happen she doesn't start screaming everybody says how come this huh hasn't happen I'm so confused and that works more that everybody goes oh my god where the trouble me yes manipulation they did all of it it's wonderful I wish I were that controlled in my own house but now you'll hear my you know I it's a decibel level uh-huh you know this relates to all of your work but also it relates especially back to Florence's something I meant to bring up that um one thing about her is that she was she had a support group she had in a blurs the her husband you yeah character and people who were there you know like the conductor from the met who at least for whatever reasons was was willing to support her but but it did occur to me that the arts performing arts are like that you know that you we in music and in acting you are so dependent on even Meryl Streep in the middle of the challenging movie must think it's terrible I don't know what I'm doing you know and you're just very reliant is it working yeah and you really don't know until you first put it in front of an audience it's a sort of a terrifying process even though you can make the crew laugh you know you see the shoulders going up and down like this they can't they can't make a sound but they're going but that's heartening but it's not a guarantee that anybody's gonna go do you is it do you have to have a director whom you've trust already before you go into it I mean I've been really lucky I've worked with some of the greatest directors and the greatest yeah I mean I've I think I fell into that but it's it is for an actor because it is such a collaborative form and my view is so subjective although I do get in other people's departments famously especially the costuming ha ha a lot of ideas about you heard that was your major wasn't it yes yes sir yeah yes I took my my thesis project were 40 costumes 40 some-odd costumes for Camino Real uh-huh Tennessee Williams play and yes I I have a lot of ideas about design let's add Vassar they did teachers finally say you know your costumes are good but I think you're an actress well I loved I loved acting and got into it fairly early and advisor but my first things were musicals in high school Marilyn the library and Daisy Mae and little Abner and Laurie and Oklahoma how could I forget yeah so but that seemed like fun to me it didn't seem like a serious way to conduct your life so I went and thought well I'll study all sorts of things that Vassar and it was such a great time to be there when there were just women and then for two years the men came in and it was a really interesting kind of transitional moment in in our culture um we have another clip this is just to end on before we start taking questions and we have it's not the this is being streamed on Facebook live I have some questions over there and we're going to let people ask some questions too but um to end with music this is the mama Mia from Mamma Mia oh thank god thank God you know Mamma Mia here I go again my my how can I resist Mamma Mia does it show again why Mamamia I thought you were the classical music was great only you've only done two movies that actually are musicals right at Mamma Mia and into the woods I believe that there's a lot you've done a lot singing yeah yeah actual musicals yeah remember I mean there was a time when they wouldn't make musical movies for a long time it was a big drought yeah and they're back yeah yeah they are that's good well are the stands set over there for the questions yeah but let me just ask a couple that I got from over line on line did you find it a challenge to sing out of tune and for Lawrence Lawrence oh artists sing badly you know it was surprisingly easy but it was hard to learn the areas for real and that's the way I approach yes I learned I learned them the full Aria and about a sing as well as I possibly could and then I screwed it up hey listen how did you develop the voice of the rabbi you played in Angels in America when I went to Vassar the very first day I walked into my dorm room as a freshman and I had a John Mayer of Norwich butterfly dress on and my hair to flip and I met my roommate who was 16 years old she was so brilliant she was there two years early all dressed in black from from Sheepshead Bay and all my Jewish voices have come from her she said you smoke I said yeah she said here and I took a puff of a Marlboro and I fell down I fainted but I changed that must have been something to make ya Angels was an amazing amazing it's something I'm almost more proud of it than anything yeah just to be proud just to be in that groundbreaking work yeah so if people would like to go up to the microphones and I've just been asked to say three times please please try to ask a question and not make a yeah yes Merrill my name is Ben Ryan and I'm a FEMINIST and thank you for roaring yeah can you please tell us about why you support Hillary and what you're doing for the next 89 days to make sure we have a woman president oh no I mean you know what I feel now it's up to everybody here to find 10 people who are not registered and make it your job to register them just find 10 people that's speaking of singing when you spoke at the Democratic National Convention you began with a Brunhilde war cry I didn't even know that that until after my girls played it back for me I did look up into the booth where they were sitting and they were both like this we have a Vassar graduate it looks like yes what's fun to finally meet you I graduated master's three months before you arrived oh so we never got to see each other there but what fun to finally see you it was ten years ago right no anyway I had a profession a political science professor who inspired me to act on the stage and I did so for 30 years but it was called being a criminal defense attorney who inspired you at Vassar a professor or class to be an actress if they did oh my my inspiration came from my music teacher in high school Claire Callahan who was I thought really ancient and I found out later she was 23 teaching she was a student of Andres Segovia she was an amazing guitarist and she needed money to pay for her graduate studies and so she came and taught at Bernhard's high school and she took all these kids and taught us the four seasons and introduced oh there's so many interesting pieces of music to us all and she directed the musical every year for three years but she was my inspiration did I major in drama yes I majored in drama but in costume design yes hi my name is Gregory Durant and I'm a music teacher actually and getting ready to start my 12th year in East Harlem one we incorporated opus 118 oh go to the heart of the heart and I my question for you is is there any roles that you've played where then it's it's inspired you to be an advocate for a different type of group well yeah I mean I still support opus 118 and I think you know music education what Joshua Bell is doing is fantastic yo-yo ma all all the people that bring music back into the schools because that's what made me excited to go to school and my brain didn't wake up until it was capacious enough to take in information that I thought I wasn't interested in but music brought me to school and you gotta have school be fun and when they cut the arts out you know it's just like God if there's nothing but stem there's no flower starting to reverse I think they figured it was a catastrophe I am seeing you for the first time now I see so many of your own mannerisms and your characters which is not watching your movies I was always like oh wow what a great decision and then I see that it's yourself and I'm wondering how important it is to you or if there's a process for you about bleeding you're yourself into your characters and how you go about that or how much you allow yourself to be yourself in the characters well I don't know I I don't think about it that way there's sort of a node division it's like falling in love when I read the thing or I have somebody tell me what what the story is I attach in a way that you know it's not like analytical so I feel like it's me and I know something about this person nobody else knows and I'm gonna make sure everybody else knows it even if it's somebody from a different culture or a different time or a different you know accent it just it feels like me on a certain level so I feel like I know something about that person I mean all the characters I'm probably not drawn to the characters that I wouldn't be any good at yes thanks so much for being here I'm really sorry about asking you this you know but when you think about the movie even though we haven't seen it when you know the story you know that it's about dreams and how like you don't care what everybody thinks you just fight for it so tonight I want to ask your favorite even trains can I give you a heart yeah if it's not if it's not I understand but if you believe over 900 people here you can absolutely well that must be you know to get to be must be to be reminded of how powerful your work affects people that must be amazing yeah I mean as long as it's not creepy seriously okay yes hi my name's Anne I'm a musician and a singer and a teacher of all ages my granddad was the head of the Phoenix Theatre hit T Edward Hamilton oh my gosh and so I've grown up watching you yeah I'm just so full of gratitude you know because and my daughter's here and she's going off to studying music you know it's just because you know every family has lost right we all have yes and you're still here and you're still barely here to help Hillary right because you know Hillary needs a little help getting a little bit down deeper well you know you know they totally right for being paranoid my god just wanted to thank you and your big leg thank you part of the legacy of the Phoenix thank you for teaching my name is Michael I'm an actor now of course you're this huge film star but you have this really intense relationship with the theatre yes and the stage so many of the roles you've done in film are adaptations for yeah pieces that were written for the stage now do you ever miss being on stage or can we expect you to be returning anytime I do love the stage and I always told my children that they were the reason I gave up what I loved most and they couldn't care less it's really true because the theater life is very tough are you a dad or anything Ricky and the flash oh and usually when I'm on set with a with a famous person I'm like yeah but with you I was like yeah no I'd love to do in another play but um I don't want to do another revival I've been I've done some things that other people have done you know great old chestnuts but I'd like to do something new new play Wow yeah speaking of singing Mother Courage had chased her in the park I was thanked that wasn't that long difficult play with a lot of singing and a lot of rain yeah it was fun yeah yes that was yeah I'm a name to Louie I'm a writer at Vanity Fair actually and I feel I could say this in this room now when I when you're talking about Barbra Streisand earlier listening to her in her stories and she was in the stories through her music when she was younger that was me when I was growing up with middle of Missouri watching your movies and kind of meeting all these people through your films everyone from Nora Ephron to Mike Nichols and great writers and it's reason why I'm writing and telling stories today women's stories particularly so thank you thank you very much and my question is about watching Florence's story she was a woman of a certain mean so she could make her make her dreams come true and and she had a goal what does something that you think girls today could pick up from Florence and what she did with her her life well I mean one of the things I think is so terrific about the the script it's a really good script Nick Martin wrote and and the way Stephen has chosen to point up certain things so the fact that this is in wartime people are you know it just comes in on the margins you won't know what I'm talking about if you haven't seen the movie but you do have the sense that the dark terrifying Game of Thrones is out there you know but ours is a happy world and I'm a child of the theater I believe the end musical theater you know I believe in illusion happiness sometimes happiness is an illusion that we need to prop up and support just as much as the dreadful truth and I feel like part of what the lesson Florence can give to people is you know the old half glass the the glass half-full half-empty she was someone who just had every reason to think she was we could step off at any at any moment her relationship with the man she loved presented its own challenges but she chose to be engaged with everything that is great about being alive and I I mean it's that's the lesson isn't it of just being live in the moment in which you live and take everything good out of it that you can and try to put it back in that's what she did she wasn't very good at it but she really wanted to bring you this music unless you don't want to give it away the final line that she sings that she says is so great we were talking about it in the green oh yes well let them really just one more I'm sorry and then we do have to stop movie to watch you and it's complicated and I'm about to enter the real world into New York City and I know that you did the same I'm just wondering if you've any advice for me because you're so inspirational and I thought I'd love to always remember this piece of advice for me oh gosh call your mother every week this out there and don't think about your weight be active be happy do your you know run around do things but don't and don't smoke stop I just want to say that I think when all the Oscar buzz starts and stuff even that in its you know Meryl Streep there must be little rattling and nerve-wracking and stuff but I think you better start preparing the fella you're in danger of number twenty coming

Channel: New York Times Events

Views: 340,025

Rating: 4.7764153 out of 5

Keywords: meryl streep, florence foster jenkins

Id: 4vlM8vr5Aco

Length: 72min 14sec (4334 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2016