Robin Williams and Matt Damon Interview for Good Will Hunting (1998)

[Music] from our studios in new york city this is charlie rose welcome to the broadcast tonight an hour about a movie everybody's talking about it's called goodwill hunting it stars two people you may not know but you will know a lot about in the months and years to come they are matt damon and ben affleck it also stars robin williams we begin with matt damon after small roles in school ties and courage under fire he got his break when francis ford coppola cast him as a lead in john grisham's the rainmaker his personal victory came when miramax decided to make goodwill hunting the film that he co-wrote with childhood friend and fellow actor ben affleck here is a clip from the film you paint that yeah you pink no like art huh you like music it's a real piece of oh well tell me what you really think i'm just the the linear and impressionistic mix makes a very muddled composition well it's odd one eh it wasn't very good that's not really what concerns me though what concerns you is the coloring you know what the real of it is it's paint by number is they call it my number because the colors are fast in anything aren't they really what about that i think you're about one step away from cutting your ear off really i think i should move to the south of france change my name to vincent you ever heard the saying any part in the storm yeah yeah maybe that means you in one way maybe you're in the middle of a storm a big stone yeah the sky's falling on your head the waves are crashing over your little boat the oils are about to snap you just pissing your pants you're crying for the harvest so maybe you do what you got to do to get out you know maybe you became a psychologist bingo that's it let me do my job now you still having me come on [Music] maybe you married the wrong woman maybe you should watch your mouth i want you right there chief all right matt damon got another big break when robin williams signed on in the role of therapist sean mcguire robin williams is our most brilliant improvisational comedian he's also an actor who's gained attention for a number of roles including good morning vietnam awakenings and dead poets society joining me now robin williams and matt damon what's the storyline um it's a coming-of-age story about a young man in south boston who is a genius who is a prodigy and who is taught how to cope with a number of things in his life by a number of different people um his best friend played by ben affleck this woman that he falls in love with played by minnie driver um this professor who is working with him played by stalin skarsgard and mostly by this uh therapist that he spends a lot of time with that robin plays sean how hot are these guys now robin i'm not so bad ben is hot and you which one should we show first your call charlie about this one that's a cute one that's annie lieberwicz one right yeah that's my dentist's favorite that's it yeah and he goes get in the tub it'll be fun it's crucial for your phone it's great so that we like that one don't we yeah there we go all right well here's another one too my god there they are the two boys who did that to your hand was there some stylistic i'm just going to put a little music just some height don't be afraid you're looking good don't be afraid of it and then there's one more one more oh there we go yes look at that who swallowed a xylophone belly's up to stardom i like it yeah i like it wow so big ben it says one button away look what do you think this is going to lead to america oh yeah hello master i have flex i bought copy gt you look fabulous i'm your friend i'll be talking to you soon you're prettier than anything i've ever seen let's talk to you probably i'm inside right now i'll be getting back to you in five to ten where is ben today is he unfortunately had to go back to california he's shooting uh a big big action movie with bruce willis called armageddon yeah and you've also finished the movie you're doing uh with steven spielberg yes finished that this summer and it's going to come out i believe next june and it is um i haven't seen it and having honestly nothing to do with me um i think it's going to be tremendous having nothing to do with me um it's it's stephen no no i mean it's stephen and it's then it's tom hanks and um a handful of wonderful sergeant ryan uh private ryan probably i'm sorry you just got promoted promoted step forward let me take a look at a clip from this and just talk about this relationship between uh will and sean in the film roll tape here it is [Music] so if i asked you about art you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written michelangelo know a lot about him life's work political aspirations him and the pope sexual orientation the whole works right i bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the sistine chapel you've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling seen that if i ask you about women probably give me a syllabus at your personal favorites you may have even been laid a few times but you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy you're an orphan right do you think i know the first thing about how hard your life has been how you feel who you are because i read oliver twist i can't learn anything from you i can't read in some book unless you want to talk about you who you are and i'm fascinated i'm in but you don't want to do that to your sport you're terrified of what you might say as we were watching this you said almost verbatim from what you wrote yeah verbatim yeah that scene definitely yeah well interesting interestingly enough that verben the hard part isn't that isn't having an actor stick to the lines the hard part is keeping the lines from what you originally write to what it is in its final incarnation and that speech in particular was something that ben and i talked out and talked out and i ended up writing it on vacation just handwriting it out in this journal and i still have the journal and there's it's literally you could watch robin do it and you could sit with this scribbled out journal and kind of read along what is it about i mean do you look for this kind of role because it gives some balance to the kinds of things that you're going to do yeah because it could i love being a supporting part that for me a supporting role is is extraordinary for me because it's two things it takes the pressure off but it's also being part of an ensemble but a role like this because it's i'd like to try and take a turn like you know to do a movie like flubber which is a children's movie no bones about it and to do something like this which is totally the other way to also play a character that is slightly it's tough who's slightly he has his own problems no it's a wonderfully complex character and i love to do that yeah it balances it out that's why i always keep trying to do as many different types of things as possible not one particular type of role how is it different better even than awakening and dead poet society for you um just by the nature of the interaction with matt's character i mean it has elements of awakenings in the sense of essentially a physician trying to you know connect with with the patient it has elements of dead poets in essence so there is a teaching relationship going on but then there's something else that goes on because it's symbiotic i mean there was a little bit of that in awakenings but there's an interaction between our characters where as much as i'm working on him he's reaching me because of in my character in that speech he lost his wife she died from cancer and he's been pulling back from life and he's kind of he's very guarded and he's in his own way very cocooned and that's why i love the relationship and it builds that way and there's a some people said it's a father-son relationship it's it has all these different aspects which makes it worth doing i mean that's when i read it i went this is extraordinary and when you get something like that would be insane to pass it up you know to say for a financial reason or you should do big movies no big movies have their place they're wonderful they're entertainment this is something else and we've been finding people who come up to us and just say thank you this is that really touched me and that's if you're doing something that's the most wonderful reward of all i mean it really is extraordinary when people just come up to you and say this this movie had really moved me or some woman today said she felt like she was going through therapy and i want to go and maybe that's twofold but you know that that that's when you get a gift like this and it is you've got to go with it why don't you see more films like this i mean what is it about the system is it because there's not that much talent producing him or is it because there's something about the way the system works that stomps them down well look at what he went through why did it take five years why did it take he wrote 92 right started because essentially they're probably i don't know whether it's that old thing or is it too intelligent or is it true it's too that though i don't know i mean that's a strange argument but sometimes you'll get it it's just like you know people saying the script is too jewish well i'm sorry he's moses i'm sorry you can't do it any other way but you know that idea of you know why does it what is it their fear why they go and why they so you know make sequels why do they do that you know because it it lessens their bet you know it's they're taking a chance they're taking a chance and i took a chance harvey took a chance with matt with ben with the script and it paid off and which is you know but there's so many wonder i mean are there other scripts yes i've read other extraordinary ones do they make them you know yes they do i mean this is there's some great films out this year wonderful ones but does it is a hard road yeah it's not easy i don't know why i mean the system is part of asking why is it hard i don't know i mean you can't this isn't an expensive movie and it's a but somehow there's a you know there's they're not rushing out they are doing more now than last year they're actually they're looking for stories like this not a lot of people not a lot of movie stars are taking pay cuts to play supporting roles either and that's a very important distinction um for robin to do this i mean oh i had to well you can't be taking a huge check and do this movie and be more than the you know the movie itself it'd be insane to do this movie if it helps to get the movie made great i mean but i know that they to be truthful i think they would have made this movie without me i mean maybe there's maybe there's that list you know it moves i move on it goes to somewhere else but they would have made this movie it's too good not to be made i mean that's the good news the good news is that they are making you know there are great scripts like this i mean they're making they're making tough movies strange hard movies like boogie nights they're made as good as it gets which is you know some people say that it's it's got it's a tough edge comedy and they went through a lot of permutations to make that but people are loving it yeah like i mean like you said why be afraid of using and wag the dog you know there's no b3 bomber no no and they're afraid of what is what's so scary about santa well i'll tell you later that's exactly what when i saw a screening of that i told barry levinson the other night saint he said they were nervous because people said it's too smart it's too much satire what a frightening thing to say it's all those kinds of things that baby is too pretty that's too pretty baby this is you have to dog in his hair do something what's wrong with that child oh man it's just i don't understand it but it does exist and there is that thing of saying why were you afraid the and these movies are doing well they're doing well and great yeah and these intelligent films and they're you know there's not as much home run potential either for them yeah um and that's what people are looking for you know they're looking for two hundred million dollars everything else is looking for when you see them they're desperate for that they really want to talk about characters and dialogue and intelligence and dialogue like that dialogue like that an intelligent dialogue and interview and emotionally active and they want to see that i mean it's life and they're willing to imbue anything with that just just to say that they've had it i think too to a certain extent this story is also about south boston oh yes yeah absolutely it couldn't be anywhere not boca not broken he's so smart well you don't disappear he's good with numbers he can do things i've fractals i never knew probably yeah chaos beyond let's take him down to bulgari he's so oh he's fabulous he can do things in his mind yeah i mean here's my question is he like this in the same vein at every stop or is it all new no no it's all original it's all original for you [Laughter] go on charlie thanks for giving something for good as it gets buddy way to go pound how did you decide from the beginning where you're going to be the star were you going to be well from the beginning yeah i always um the the one thing to come out of this one act play that i started were these three characters of sean and um will and chucky and um and so i called ben and i said well i'm writing this thing and um we should really do it um you know i don't really he said what is it i said i don't really know but i got these characters um it's it's it's going to be you know it's this one guy from southie he's going to be this genius and goes oh yeah really well who do i play and i said well you're going to be like mercutio except you don't die and that was like my description of his character and and the original script there are a lot of scenes that didn't make the final film which are these stories that ben tells one of them's in there this police cruiser story that he tells at the bar and um and he was very much kind of going to be this character who tells these stories and um and so and so if that kind of was determined i don't know five years ago it's weird to see it it's weird for us to see it now and see it kind of up there because now it's like we never really differentiated between the two characters because in writing it we played all of the characters you know boston's a character too i mean boston i mean the town itself the aspect of you know how different you know like the whole the interplay in boston between southie and the harvard and mit and i mean even we got to rehearse there which was great yeah and working in southie it was you know and having to you know it's a specific accent but it's more than it's it's a whole it's a it's a mindset that we got to and thank god we we shot in southie yeah yeah and gus uses the great thing about gus is he uses a lot of you know just local people and it really forces you to just get real i mean as real as a heart attack just boom you're there with them hi robin how are you and all of a sudden you're fine i'm very fine how are you and then all of a sudden you're there and then you find the right level and then you start to you're in what's your character going through here's will who's a genius and it's recognized by first the professor and then you go he sends you to see sean played by romney what's the dilemma for him what's the pull that he's going through what makes him interesting well he's he's got a lot of problems that he's never really dealt with um i think i think what he's grappling with is is is that feeling of finally finding a home for himself or something that's a substitute for a home and and not wanting to leave it um and knowing that to a certain extent that's south news absolutely um which is what south boston and the greater boston area are to a number of people are you don't find a lot of people leave leaving there who are from there it's a very uh i mean i a lot of people that i grew up with you know they live in a three decker house and they'll live on the bottom their parents will live on the second floor and the grandparents live on the third floor and that's the way it is you know and and the generations keep moving either up or down a floor depending on which way they're going so it's a security for him absolutely it's a security for him and he knows he has a certain amount of responsibility he's dodging it he's gotten away with dodging it um but at the same time he can't ignore this this thing that he has inside him this desire to do it which is becomes an issue between the two of them he wants to do it he wants to do it full flight to this he wants to get full flight to this thing that is inside of him but he cannot do it without sacrificing something that that he can't cope with sacrificing which is this neighborhood and these friends of his and so it's it's an effort to come to terms with that and that's that's his struggle and at the same time in doing so he's going to have to come to terms with a lot of things that that he is that he has not dealt with in his life um about his childhood and he's never had anybody who was who could get through this series of defenses that he can set up because he's so quick um and so bright and and has a way of of of turning any attention um or any focus onto somebody else and and kind of brutalizing them with his intellect and sean represents his first character who will can't really get to on on any level the very first scene with them is an attempt on will to get after him at any level he can um he asks him a series of questions that are just he's probing and probing he's just trying to hit one out of the park and he just can't do it because this guy's got him covered on every single level from intellectually to physically to everything and it start starting to get to will a little bit until finally he lands on this painting and and he finds you know a nerve um take me to two places one is what's going on with your character because when this guy walks in the room and then what happens in the relationship what is it that sean finally gives will that makes a difference [Music] before the first time he walks in it's like i've like i said i've my wife died a couple of years before i've been teaching at a this place called bunker hill community college i teach you know all different types of psychology classes you know but i i've kind of withdrawn i did go to mit with stellen's character but you know i chose he was a vietnam vet yeah and basically he's you know he chose a life of you know working in the neighborhood working basically in boston and working back with the people he grew up with i mean in a weird way he's kind of like in matt's country he wanted to work with the people he knew and you know the community he grew up in he's but he's guarded he's you know he's he's been through a lot what he offers matt's character is a perspective it's like of saying you know and like in the first time when he presses the buttons when he starts to attack the memory of my wife it pushes a button that i can't even control myself and i basically go for it and i violate the therapeutic relationship in that moment it's no longer a therapeutic relationship and that's why you know the next session that that speech by the swan pond is essentially saying okay i know who you are you know who i am and you really you know you you messed with my life in a huge way but i want you to know i know who you are and i know you need some help and if you want to work on that i'd love to help you but it's up to you and that's what i said and then it just begins this process of the two of them just talking you know first couple of times they don't even talk it's a standoff you know where he won't even say anything and then it works to a point where finally we start i mean i have to kind of tell him you know we ask him a few questions and he tells things and he starts working then i start sharing a little bit of myself for some reason with him the reason probably is that in him you see yourself he sees in himself he sees you know i see it's the same i see the same mind going and i see where it could go it's like that argument that we have with stalin's character in the bar we say he gives the einstein thing of you know what would einstein have done if you know he didn't need anything he became this great mind i said yes and also the there's another great mind who lived in montana and who's presently trying to hang himself with his underwear named theodore kasinsky so it's that idea of he needs work there are things he can have everything i know he's a genius that's a given that's not what i'm there to work on i'm there to work on the other part of him the other part is to reach that other that's his soul and do i at the end i'm just saying to him what do you want to do you could do anything you know and just be bounciful but in the end it's like me it's it is father's son but it's it has all sorts of other elements i was just going to say that he's saying that what you've chosen to exploit in my character is not a flaw this relationship i had with this woman is not of character flaw this was an amazing relationship i had and because i had it i've really lived um and and and that's what he tells well and essentially will's only come back is well then why aren't you doing that now why have you stopped and we always felt the characters were parallels you know they were both kind of stagnant when they meet each other and because of this interaction they end up moving on in in a healthy way jump starting each other in that way and they've and at the end it's like you said the most primal thing is dealing with his childhood and we have a similar childhood in that sense and we kind of say did it happen do you ever have experience with this he has he has a long family history i mean of you know abuse and he's you know foster home or what they used to call them is these well you know the garbage bag kids because they they switch foster homes so many times just to keep stuff in the garden yeah and they're on to the next home well there's a 10 15 foster homes in so many years and it's getting through it's breaking through to that one place you know and and it's the more you go the more defensive it is and then and even then it's just the beginning and i would argue that he wants to that he wants to do it that he wants to have that he just can't find somebody who's worthy of doing it with who can you contest him on that right on that field right he needs it like anybody needs it it just so happens that he's a genius and he doesn't feel like anybody quite understands him until he meets this guy how much i mean where did you get all this stuff i guess is what i wanted to ask don't you come on now no come on who's matt that's her yeah i mean on g2 again here's the point the um lots of people have made films about sort of the hidden genius and somebody finds the hidden genius and gives them an opportunity but there's all this that makes it more interesting the relationship which i guess you know rob ryan among others said that's the place where you ought to really yeah we had wonderful but you're the writer where'd this come from i mean this sense it's just you go ahead i was just gonna say it's a lot it's it's a ben and uh ben and i growing up with just a lot of people that we that we knew i mean these characters are all just amalgams of people that we know i mean robin's character is is our parents it's it's our some wonderful teachers that we had um it's you know things that robin says in that speech are all things that have been said to us and we're just pretty much regurgitating it it's not necessarily that we listened and owned it it's just kind of how we recorded it and spit it back out your parents are divorced your dad's a financial advisor in boston and your mom is a child development specialist at a university or college somewhere she could see parts of what she said to you in this script oh sure yes yes okay my old man so i mean so could ben's old man i'm sure and his mama they you know we've we are extraordinarily fortunate guys who have amazing families supportive wonderful families who gave us every single um afforded us every kind of love and and i mean possible bit of advice that you could ever ask for um i mean yeah i'm pretty much the luckiest guy around because of that not having nothing to do with money or anything like that i mean it's it's because of the the way it's it's my mom's idea of child rearing you know my dad's kind of just the way they were with us all the time totally supportive of what we did on your admission application harvard your first line was for as long as i can remember i wanted to be an actor i wanted to be an actor yeah yeah yeah i knew it i knew why he's smiling and they go that's wonderful we don't have an acting school [Laughter] mr damon you're afraid [Music] john houseman he was amazing he taught you at juilliard did he he was the headmaster he didn't really teach the houseman was there oh yeah he was a in the army of the theater i'm going off to sell volvos i will enunciate for no reason and i'll sell these cards you're afraid that's a wonderful thing to say that's a great thing to say but as long as i can remember i've always wanted to be always going to be wise i i don't i we had a great acting teacher in high school named jerry specka who was an extraordinary man an extraordinary teacher and and i think the way you know my mom's written a bunch of books about um kind of the deregulation of television during the reagan years and i won't bore you with all this stuff but these well we work for me yeah for these kids have become these commercials i was president you know yeah people say go honestly you're going to serious peace no no no no man no we'll come back go ahead she wrote a piece on the regulation of television right and just these these cartoons for kids becoming these commercials and and how these kids are kind of being told how to play with their toys and she and her feeling was to have this kind of very open-ended creative play because she feels that these new cartoons are kind of hampering children's creativity so we had this very kind of you know we'd get like a couple of blocks and she'd say go make up a game you know it wasn't like the action figure thing so we we had a very you know i was always dressing up as a superhero always flying around the house and you know breaking my leg and stuff like that and my brother was always kind of building things and he turned out to be a sculptor and i turned out to be an actor so i think that our pads were really determined from a very very early age about two that's amazing to me to know what you want did you when did you know that you wanted at least to entertain if not to be whatever you are that was that time when i saw my mother did i know um i think it was after high school really yeah first year of college i knew that you know there was kind of slight tendencies that way you did have tendencies yeah what are you doing just performing what is that about nothing what are you doing better late in the night no it was i think it occurred in college where i took this improvisational theater class and something was so freeing about that that i flunked out all of my political science courses but did well in improvisational yeah amazing yeah we did it oh very well very well to the man born lord yeah this is that thing that i do well now inter-spoken thus i have brought my mind together and my mind will slow thusly upon the questions now has written me and know my friend that in the end you must suppose that charlie rose yes he does yeah so that was you know that was the beginning where it really started to kick out and it's been like pretty much from then on doing this is there one great thing you want to do i mean is it this coming do you get more satisfaction from this kind of thing or do you in the end get the most satisfaction when you're out there with an audience it's it's equal in different ways i mean it's like comparing hang gliding and you know spelunking i mean this one is a kind of a the idea of how intimate this piece is and when it really and when it works and it reaches people on that intimate level it's just as meaningful to me as performing live it's different and you know but it gives me the same satisfaction but performing live is is this extraordinary it's it's cheaper than prozac and it's this great release and this amazing kind of fulfillment of the one the one caveat is it's performing live and when you're really creating i mean you like when you asked him does he is this old stuff or new yeah that's an old line my friend i've heard that one but when you really find a new piece then there's something wonderful the creation the idea when you create us that's that's extraordinary that i really do you sit down and write this stuff at all no i just i basically it's a free association yes free social that sounds like a law firm young and raise your right hand or your left whatever you want to do that's like what do you do whatever you associate whatever your mother whatever your mother tells you if it's not one thing it's your mother stay with me and here we go it's like i said say about him walk away your mother will know you better all right roll tape this is another scene from this film that everybody is praising good will hunting here it is so uh when are you done with those meetings i like the week after i'm 21. yeah they're going to hook you up with a job or what yeah sit in a room and do long division for the next 50 years trying to make some nice bank though we have elaborated way out of here i want a way out of here for i mean i'm gonna live there the rest of my life be an insult to watch if you're still here in 20 years hanging around here i can waste your time keep [Music] you've got something none of us oh come on why is it always this i mean i've can owe it to myself to do this that what if i don't know you don't know what to yourself you owe it to me because tomorrow i'm gonna wake up and i'll be 50 and i'll still be doing youtube and you're sitting on a winning lottery ticket you're too much cash i'd do anything to have what you got so would any of these guys you don't know i don't know that let me tell you what i do every day i come by your house and i pick you up we go out we have a few drinks and a few laughs and it's great you know what the best part of my day is for about 10 seconds from when i pull up to the curb when i get to your door cause i think maybe i'll get up there and i'll knock on the door and you won't be there no goodbye and i'll see you later no nothing just left i don't know much but i know that when you look at that scene you said going into that it was one of your favorites i love that scene just because it's so it's it's an intimate scene between two men basically telling you know that he basically says you know how much he cares about him and what he wants for him and when he's saying if you don't do this it's no it's not just it's for you it's for me you know you know that pride that pride and if you make it man it you make it for him you know and when at the end it pays off that scene where he walks up to the house it's the most wonderfully subtle beautiful beautiful moment i mean i just was it's the type of thing where just when he just walks up and he realizes you're not there it was it was amazing and that's you know that's what you that's why gus was perfect for this you know it really you get down to that kind of that level where it's just it's so subtle and so so real that it just strikes home to people that's why you know it just hits you that way i mean it's so simple very little improvisation even for someone like you oh yeah and there was no need i mean i i don't so worked it worked it's there and the only thing you have to do is just to inhabit it and get deeper with it and just let it mean it's you know just say it and then what gus would say is just talk more with it you know it's like you know if you find yourself still acting like you'll still be a little bit and then it's just no no just talk you know that's mean that's why it's been wonderful today for me i'm like i'm just talking and people be calling and going is he on something is she cheaper than frozen give me the project the prozac amateur open they're not golfing they're just standing on the green this relationship between you and ben um is a kind of he bust you and you bust him back there's a little bit of that a lot of that it's the nature of two guys growing up together yeah yeah but there's also this thing that we're talking about we just saw in the scene is that there is that who the two of you are in terms of to each other oh yeah i mean we i mean we don't have enough together there's a part in cambridge and all that sure yeah we're growing up together uh best friends all our lives we we don't have very i wouldn't say we have moments that are that kind of dramatic where we're like listen man you know um but you know i i'd you know lay down in traffic for the guy i mean you know he's my best pal you know i mean you know i'd pretty much do anything for him so so yeah i mean it's it's a it's a you know it's a great friendship you know i can't imagine a better way to um make a movie uh and do something i'd love to do that much than than than with ben and to have this go the way it did and and have this happen you know courage under fire when you came to that chance you knew because it happened to some friends of you as it happened to matthew it had begun to happen to ben a little bit when you had that shot right chasing amy had been or not been no it hadn't been yet but you knew this was your shot so you went off and lost for a two-day shoot 40 pounds right yeah yeah this is for the art well it was even gandhi's going you must eat do something it was it was a two-day shoot but i mean to it was a two-day it was 10 pages of dialogue with denzel washington um so it wasn't just a two-day shoot i mean it was it was but i mean it but somehow you invested with this is my shot this is this was my shoulder to get to emerge from a small role and get somebody's attention i thought that maybe i could get somebody's attention and and when i didn't immediately i was very uh i was crestfallen but it got france's attention didn't it a year later yeah thank god because i because you know what happened was a lot of the reviews that came out about that film didn't mention me and like didn't even mention mine didn't even mention that was in the movie denzel and meg ryan is all i heard yeah right and and didn't even mention my name and to me that was just like i was so insulted that um that i had almost killed myself because i was then on medication for a couple years because of that and because of cause did you i didn't know that oh yeah yeah yeah i really i mean this was stupid it's stupid as we look at it dumb things i've done yeah but i mean i thought it worked for the role i mean uh you know i thought that it you know that it made the role tell the story you're going to take him over to meet stephen and steven was thinking maybe he might be right having seen a videotape of something uh for private ryan probably ryan but he said to you he's a little bit thin isn't he robin but where do you see him now he's fabulous see this young man he is so hot that's right we went over we went visiting him he was uh shooting in boston doing amazon in on the boston commons in one in the state courthouse in the state house what do you say i'm going to take you over to see my pal steven no here's what he says we're driving we're we're in a van and it's one of our first yeah we're in it's one of our first days we just went out let's go see stevie no and he goes and and he says um you guys want to go meet steve now spielberg was in town for one day you know we but we knew immediately who he was talking about and there was no question who he was talking the only reason we knew he was in town was because that one guy robin hi robin hi robin and the one guy said hello mr spellberger thank you because i heard the beard yeah baby oh hi hi hi hi you know who's the town he's over there he's over there steven's over there [Laughter] and then we went over with it so what happened well i you know they parted like the red sea when robin walked in and oh i see power and stephen joe and there was steve and uh and the two of them was here yeah well they did hook together so they had a bunch of catching up to do and they're friends so they were talking and said this is ben and matt and steven you know noticed that you were 40 pounds heavier yeah i said wait a minute were you were you encouraged under fire and i said yeah and he said oh there's a wonderful performance here you you were thin and i said yeah well i lost 40 pounds he said oh okay very nice to meet you he's very polite and very you know enjoy the set and we watched anthony hopkins do this scene where he's walking down those stairs in the movie and um and that and that was it and a week later i got a phone call and it was like i got it i got matt this is steve no no i mean i mad steve you better be he doesn't have to ask if i want to be in his movie he can just send a call sheet why is that oh because i mean because he's an extraordinary director he's he's he's a genius who was he's a pr a child prodigy who is now an adult so he's just better he's just a prodigy who has a lot of experience now he did things on that movie that i that i will never do if i spend the rest of my life directing because he's um he's gifted and he's he works really hard too but he's gifted um yeah he's amazing what does your mother think of all this my mom the child development specialist well she's she's appropriately worried i think um as i would be if this were happening to anybody in my family um because it's it's unhealthy i think you know the amount of attention and stuff like that if it's not handled properly you have a disclaimer now fame is unhealthy so sir it's a serious issue i guess i mean i would know but it how do you counsel i don't i don't have to counsel him he's so he's somebody yeah very savvy and obviously like you know he told you he's the background he comes from he's got great friends great family he's so grounded now i mean he was talking about the idea you know if this did hit me about how do you know 27. no really how old is that give me some idea but you know how you you know you're handling it amazing i mean it hit me about the same time yeah but what was it what time how were you in more than i think maybe 20 some maybe 28 i mean hit me now who knows now obviously he's handling it amazing just because he's got this you know a great support network plus it's him he's able to kind of deal with it yeah with his mind and his intelligence and knows that it's interesting but he the great thing is and i'm going to blow smoke now so prepared that he's you know that he has this attitude of work of you know keep working on the process that great quote you talked about you just want to be like duvall doing great characters and create a great quote i read that some of you saw the apostle have you seen the opponent no i want to see it too everybody tells me it is if you should be required viewing for any any young people any actor because it's like if you just want to do it me too in that sense i want to just keep doing you want to just keep exploring and pushing them up and not saying oh look at me but to say you know i want to keep trying different things and he's already doing that not just losing 40 pounds just doing all these extraordinarily different characters you know going from this to the other movies you're doing i mean if you have that sensibility they can't stop you you know i mean they'll they'll try [Laughter] that's when i went oh please no more toys in my head when i saw a disfigured mark out no more oh no in a dumpster like this oh please mr wizard it's scary but you know he and ben both they have it's hit and they're on the cover of magazines they're doing all this stuff yeah we show the cover you got nothing here's another one and the boogie night's pop-up book but it's like he's got it i mean he's got the way to handle it plus the idea of just it's a work in progress that's the deal i mean it's like life is a work in progress like what fellini said when he won the academy what i thank you very much but i'm still learning and it was like it's that idea i think that was kurosawa actually but are you still learning i mean you still go out there and learn oh big time to work with people like you know when you you have a chance to be in a movie like this to work with gus to work with different directors different actors yeah it's always that process the work ethic his work ethic is awe-inspiring it's i i mean it's really awesome i i've seen um a lot i've been really lucky you know i've worked with duval and i've worked with denzel and robin and a bunch of these guys and um the ones that i've worked with have been these huge these amazing actors who who love to do it and who who get off on doing it and there's a huge difference between people who get off on the fame or the celebrity or who get off on the process and to be kind of apprentice an apprentice to a person like that is is what what can make me someday but i still apprentice with people like i got to work recently with max von sydow and i apprenticed watching him watching how subtle and how you know how extraordinary he is you just sit back and you learn and you have to you have no choice you know you have to just sit back and watch and go ah that's how you do it yeah i mean you watch someone's almost who's almost subcutaneous in how he acts it's just you just and then you see it learning oh i must learn more there's a long way to go yeah oh it is but it's not it's not daunting it's just like oh well okay it's a continuing thing and you see i got to work with armand mueller still who's oh he is so there's all no just as a person he's this amazing man but to work with him it's just he's this stuff like he does things and he just it's he's he tries things he experiments he does little things and yet it all just works and that's the joy of what was the film he was in that was so good with him and with the young musician from shine exactly oh that's you know stunning performance stunning because he's basically playing this you know a character that could is just this sort of despicable yet he played it with such love because it's driven by love that he loves his son so much that he wants him to be the best and in the process he drives him away and he won't let him have himself it's kind of the opposite of what we're trying to do with matt's character in this he forces him he won't let him go and be at school so the boy eventually breaks away and god knows all the other you know all the you know that may you know coming from that what's in this movie and we pretty much have told it and and the review is pointed in the direction and there's an inevitability about where it's going where is he going to be where is he going to end up where we find him sort of as you leave him in this movie the character well i i think our argument is that he's on the road you know and he's he's on the road to becoming to to literally whatever he's saying it's it's the idea that he that he that he's moving toward that the choice that he makes in the end is essentially the only choice that can can work at that moment for him and it's the it's the right choice for for um for for him to to to truly become somebody who who will contribute um i i think that you know he this character will go on to do great things but to do that uh he makes the only choice that that will lead him down that road i think um i think taking one of those jobs that um you know he gets offered would have been a mistake and that you know i think what he learns from sean is that is that um is is a view on life and what in what life is it's kind of our view i guess what what what what life is and it's about without getting too touchy-feely you know it's a bit about um it's about making these decisions yeah it's about what making these decisions it's about following your heart i mean i don't want it to sound that right because i think it gets both i think you'll have that plus i think in the end you'll probably that's sean's point to lambo i think is that you know listen if you like being the professor right if you if you if you don't put if you ride him into this then then he's going to back away if you let if you step back and let him make his decision it's like you know my mother always tells the story that she wanted me to throw away my pacifier when i was three years old and she stood back and let me stand and let me throw this pacifier into the garbage truck and it was like had she made me do it i would have been screaming my entire life but because she let me stand back and make the decision that's that's what sean's advocating he's saying he's saying this boy will do things but but um but he's got to come to that on his own or or else you know the wall will go up and he'll run away again [Music] sports is not your thing is it oh no thank you for picking the one thing i'm damaged in that way thank you charlie i know nothing the only ones i know about basically bicycling i mean you know in miguel and durham because i love to to bike so they had to tell you who carlton fisk was yes they had to basically this is sad and who is he yeah carlton yeah they gave me a videotape from hard work you'll never see me how damaged are you my friends you didn't know about pudge oh you didn't know get out of here do you know who the yankees are well he's never seen well not to know dude no i mean well yeah but it was also a great world series it was worth it i'm not like i can't enjoy sports once i know not like every day ah come on i mean i've because i've been when in high school and all i i was basically a cross-country runner and i was always doing the the lonely sport distance running big time that was it yeah but i mean yes they helped me with that they had to tutor me this is sad the one thing i don't and who won yesterday uh the green bay sackers and the san franciscans the well you should know that at least yeah i know that yeah that actually dude yeah niners okay i know that yes i've actually heard that outside my door robin you know joe no thank you come on now you know i actually know that the 49ers i do know that yes 49ers all right roll tape i think we have one more clip robert and mike ditka doing live feed she was the one for you october 21st 1975. jesus christ you know the day oh yeah because it's game six of the world series biggest game in red sox history yeah sure you got tickets day of the game we're sitting in a bar waiting for the game to start and in walks this girl it was amazing game though it went to 12. bottom of the 12th in stepped steps up to the plate you know he's got that weird stance yeah and then he clocks it you know high five all on the left field line 35 000 people on their feet yelling at the ball but that's not because he's waving at the ball like a madness thank you you believe you have tickets in that fast game did you rush the field no i didn't feel i wasn't there what no i was in a bar having a drink with my future wife you missed pudge fist's home run oh yeah to have a drink with some lady you never met yeah but you should have seen her she was a stunner these friends of yours they let you get away with that i had to wait what did you say to him i just slid my ticket across the table and i said sorry guys i gotta see about a girl i gotta go see about a girl yeah that's what you said i had and they let you get away with that oh yeah they saw my eyes and i meant it you're kidding me no i'm not kidding you up that's why i'm not talking right now about some girl i saw it about 20 years ago and how i always regretted not going over and talking to her man i love it yeah it's a good one yeah it's all about you know the sharing the stuff that he gets me to talk about with him is that you know he's he's basically going back and remembering all the good stuff and in the process coming back from it you know kind of recovering from yeah women do a lot more than this than men do don't they yeah i think they would i think men like men do actually they do you know sometimes it's with friends sometimes you know it's sometimes they need a therapist but they they they do do it i mean they do talk about it they do share with that stuff especially morbid i mean that's why i love the relationship with matt and ben's character that idea of you know caring about another you know and saying i listen man i want the best for you i want you to do this and this isn't for me yeah for you but for me you know make it that's what all the relationships are you three guys and when you bail him out in that bar in harvard it's the equivalent of basically a fight scene in an action movie i've seen that i mean i've seen it once but all these these people the one time i did sneak in and hear a little bit with regular people that it was like whoa that got a bit you got an applause break you know like when i was saying how you like them apples pills like he kicked his mind man the character kicked his mind god go nichey yeah i think women do have you know more depth at it i mean they have a capability for it is there anybody in your life uh like ben is for matt is it billy i mean is that a later relationship and therefore not quite this is like a i mean a friend who's like a friend who really you would share a sense of yeah a couple of them i have uh it's weird most of them are comedians yeah yeah eric idol is a wonderful friend and a wonderful you know is a great yeah i mean and the most wonderful one of all is well this is a female friend but my wife marsha is is the best of all i mean because someone who who knows me it's literally like when i talk about that thing you know when you have someone so wonderful it's her to have someone who you can be and and share and you know she accepts me who i am and that allows me to be you know to do you know all these outrageous things that i do but yet still have this wonderful base but in terms of male friends yeah i mean eric they're all wonderful bobcat gulfport who's a comedian friend who's great who's wonderful and very you know and i have a wonderful friend from juilliard probably the closest thing to you and and ben is his friend stanley wilson who i went to college with i've known for years yeah it's been you know he's uh we've known each other and here's another one i'm sorry i forgot because is chris reeve he and stanley and i go back he go he and i go julian all the way yeah we go back to julia and he's yeah i mean he's that too um this has been a great pleasure for me thank you right too for a long time i want to have you on the program it's been wonderful now we can play cards before we go you're going to do this film with anthony mandela mangala or not oh yeah is that next or is that something um that's going to be i we're going to five later where are we now well 98 we'll be there it's shooting in august september october and november so it won't be out until 99 probably uh in the fall perhaps um but i'm doing kevin smith's next movie dogma a small part in that and a film called rounders that john doll the last seduction is directing yeah thank you for coming my pleasure thank you my pleasure i'm going to call billy crystal right now and say help me with baseball man charlie will troll him embarrass me no it's all right thank you thank you pleasure thank you thank you for joining us we'll see you next time [Music] you

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Id: IoQZaspjp74

Length: 54min 3sec (3243 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 24 2020