I also think there's a funny thing which is
there's this history of famous actors right so and it I do think it sort of begins with
Brando because Brando had such an enormous effect on the psychology of men in in America he
really he really like and if you look at what I would call like the great generation of American
actors the the Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman um Al Pacino,
Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep like just you know the whole... that's all like the post Brando
generation all of those people literally all of them wanted to become actors because of Marlon
Brando and and he he so rewrote the idea of what it was, what it could be. It was like what
Bob Dylan did in in the culture it was like it rewrote it just rewrote the game. [Or like what
Lenny did with comedy.] Yeah absolutely Lenny Bruce there and I... and there are these people
who come and they have they have like a kind of us a permanent... they're a permanent before
and after in in a certain kind of field, you know what I mean? But my point about
Brando was just that like he changed the he changed the idea of the type of person that
male actors wanted to be. They wanted... suddenly it was like they wanted to have like a patina or
a reputation as a visceral... they wanted to be visceral not polished; they wanted to be muscular;
they wanted to be masculine they wanted to be you know intense. Like those were not the kind of
words that people... when you think back on like Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant like that is not what
right that is not what movie stars were aspiring to; they were aspiring to polish a kind of a
polish, before Brando. There was an aftermath [Right yeah there's something to his performances
where you go 'Oh well this is more like real life than a fi[lm], like 'On the Waterfront (1954)',
like the "I could have been a contender" thing like when he's doing that you're like 'Well oh
this is how someone would actually behave if they felt like their life had been a disaster and
it could have been avoided.'] Well you just hit on something though that I... it drives me nuts
because when people sort of talk about Brando they're like you know... they're sort of the like
the Stanley Kowalski the the brutal masculinity etc. The thing about Brando is he is beautiful
- he's kind of this enormous Roman looking guy - but where he kills, where he really kills
is this kind of broken sensitivity that he had. And "I could have been a contender" is not a
tough guy speech: it's the opposite. It's a broken tough guy; it's a guy practically crying
saying like 'you were my you were my brother and you should have looked out for me. I needed
you looking out for me and my life is... my life's gone down the toilet because of that in that
moment you didn't look out for me.' It's it's you know... it's it's like tearful... And and even
the best moment of Stanley Kowalski in 'Streetcar' is is really it's like when he falls on his knees
in front of his wife and cries, you know what I mean? It's like that's what... he was way better
in a lot of ways to me it's the fact that he was actually kind of in touch with his emotional
life; it's not that he was like so macho at all it's that he looked that way, but he was but
he actually had this like poetic sensitivity. [Yes and it was... it resonated real, like it
felt real. And if you watch actors before him there was a certain undeniable theatric element
to what they were doing that was like 'Oh this guy's acting'. Whereas he was he seemed like a guy
who was really living the scene.] Yeah sometimes I think it sounds like you say the instrument of a
person but he has this crazy... he looks the way he looks but he's got this marble-mouthed...
he's not articulate he doesn't come off as like... there's a mushiness to the
way he speaks and uh kind of uh yeah it it doesn't have uh style you know the the
guys before that it was you felt their... you felt that they were working on their style yeah and
and he seemed to be sort of like scratching his ribs and and mumbling and and um you know in a
t-shirt and he just was he was kind of present in the moment. [I think it was all accentuated
by the way he ended his life like the end of his life he was enormous, gigantic fat guy; and he
just just given in to all of his vices and he was just this guy - he was a beautiful man - he just
didn't seem to give a [ __ ] about that at all.] Yeah I think he said something to me one time
about how um how much he was enjoying his life when he was like 23 and he's like you know
even when he was doing the play - 'Streetcar' that made him famous - he was telling me like he
would get with his pal Diego and go up to Harlem go to clubs and hit on girls and all these things
and and I said 'You weren't aware of what was going on?' you know and he goes well there was
'I was aware of a certain amount of noise rising and then one day I woke up and I
was sitting on a pile of candy.' That's what he and um and I thought
what a really wild way to say it and I do think I'm not even joking to me it's
like what you said it was like after that they were just... it was like there was no
boundaries... He was getting every everything was he he he wasn't going to be able to resist. He
wasn't disciplined: he wasn't a super disciplined person. He was a very poetic person and I
don't think he was disciplined and I think that a lot of what happened you know he had like
something like 17 children um and and he got you know he had appetites and he had these things
and I do think that he you know struggled to to deal with all the things that
came with being that famous.
