Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Dustin Hoffman himself once said to me, he said, Alec,
Speaker 1: we're all in line when it comes to getting our
Speaker 1: hands on a good script. He said, we're all in line, Alec,
Speaker 1: he said, some of us are just in a shorter line. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to this episode of Math
Speaker 1: and Magic Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Today, we
Speaker 1: have a guest who embodies the magic creativity. He's covered
Speaker 1: the spectrum of acting, theater, TV movies in both the
Speaker 1: commercial and critically acclaimed, and he's had huge successes in
Speaker 1: comedy and drama. He's an active participant in the world,
Speaker 1: and he was very early with his own podcast. He
Speaker 1: did podcasts before podcasting was cool. He's Alec Baldwin. Ali
Speaker 1: grew up on the south shore of Long Island, under
Speaker 1: the shadow of Manhattan. He had early aspirations to be
Speaker 1: a law here, but as he switched to acting, he
Speaker 1: paid the dues with all kinds of jobs, from waiting
Speaker 1: tables to being a lifeguard, and he was even a
Speaker 1: bus boy at the legendary Studio fifty four. He's hosted
Speaker 1: Saturday Night live more than anyone else and swept every
Speaker 1: word possible with his role on thirty Rock. There is
Speaker 1: so much to explore today. Welcome Ali, Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you. It's great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And here we are on the magic of audio. Before
Speaker 1: we dig in today, I want to get you in
Speaker 1: sixty seconds. You ready to go? Yes, sir? Do you
Speaker 1: prefer early morning or late night? Late night, New York
Speaker 1: City or Long Island, Long Island, New Yorker, California, New York?
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter, Instagram, film or TV film? George Washington
Speaker 1: University or New York University, n y You Jack Ryan
Speaker 1: or Jack Donneghie, Jack Donneghee, uh Tennessee Williams or Eugene
Speaker 1: O'Neill and the c Williams. Class sickle or classic rock, classical,
Speaker 1: sweet or salty, salty cats or dogs Dogs Coffee is
Speaker 1: for closers or ABC Always be closing, Always be closing, ABC,
Speaker 1: Always be closing. It's about to get harder. Smartest person
Speaker 1: you know, Bob Pittman, the head of My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: childhood hero Joe Namath, favorite play you've acted in, speet
Speaker 1: car named Desire, Political hero John F. Kennedy. First job
Speaker 1: I cut grass I was I was a lawn jockey
Speaker 1: with a landscape company. Favorite director, Oh that's a good question, Uh, Scorsese,
Speaker 1: favorite composer, Maller, Gustav Mahler, favorite sport, football, favorite movie theater,
Speaker 1: snack the popcorn with the raisin NEETs in the popcorn.
Speaker 1: Guilty pleasure, sleeping in. I got remarried and I have
Speaker 1: five of the kids, so sleeping in. That's a healthy
Speaker 1: pleasure around what's something you can't live without? It my wife?
Speaker 1: And what would you be doing if you weren't an actor.
Speaker 1: I'd probably be a lawyer. I think that's where I
Speaker 1: was headed before I went to acting school. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get going. Let's jump in creative range. I want to
Speaker 1: start with that. You know what sort of set you
Speaker 1: apart from people is is that incredible range you have?
Speaker 1: How did you get that range and the opportunity to
Speaker 1: use it? Well, I think a lot of people have
Speaker 1: this in common, which is it's not like it's a
Speaker 1: plan you set out to execute. You know you you
Speaker 1: you have a plan, and it doesn't always go according
Speaker 1: to the plan. So you wind up being faced with
Speaker 1: the choices you have and for me, those choices were
Speaker 1: often very disparate choices. And then when thirty Rock came around,
Speaker 1: that was the chance to jump in with some people
Speaker 1: who I was very intimidated by them. You know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to save funny lines, it's another thing to
Speaker 1: write it. And Tina and Robert, Carla and those people
Speaker 1: they were you know, I got into that show and
Speaker 1: just trying to fit in and watch them and try
Speaker 1: to you know, serve the material as best I could.
Speaker 1: But I found that everywhere I go, the rule is
Speaker 1: always if the choices a B or C, and I
Speaker 1: walk around going a B or CE, what's it gonna
Speaker 1: be a B or C? And the answer, more often
Speaker 1: than not is D. It's something completely not on the map.
Speaker 1: And I've wound up going off and doing you know,
Speaker 1: plays and TV shows and movies and things that I
Speaker 1: never imagined I would do. I've talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and there's sort of this idea that that
Speaker 1: great ideas and opportunities sort of hit you on the
Speaker 1: head like a meteor. The best ideas are the best
Speaker 1: opportunities were totally unforeseen, unexpected, And it sounds like that's
Speaker 1: that's worked for you as well, well, you know, Lauren
Speaker 1: Michaels came to me to do thirty Rock and this
Speaker 1: is the best example. And I thought, oh god, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do a sitcom. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be I don't want to be a regular on a sitcom.
Speaker 1: But when Lawrence said, did you want to sign a contract?
Speaker 1: And I did the pilot and by the time we
Speaker 1: were done touring the pilot, I said to myself, this
Speaker 1: is fun. I mean it was. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun to do the show. Like when you do
Speaker 1: a drama, when you do a film, you're they're focused
Speaker 1: and it's very intense and you're thinking, how can we
Speaker 1: get the most out of this day? How can we
Speaker 1: get the most out of shooting these scenes today because
Speaker 1: we're not going to come back, you know, presumably where
Speaker 1: we rarely come back. And shooting a comedy was I mean,
Speaker 1: I cried laughing every day. They were the funniest people
Speaker 1: I've ever met in my life. When you started out,
Speaker 1: did you think you were going to one place? And
Speaker 1: if so, what was that place? Was a comedy drama?
Speaker 1: I think most people who started out as actors, you
Speaker 1: look at a career, I think the most gleaming example
Speaker 1: is Nicholson, where you do all these disparate roles, and
Speaker 1: you play these very different roles, and you do all
Speaker 1: these films where you have a great part. I mean,
Speaker 1: who other than maybe Spencer, Tracy or Bogart has had
Speaker 1: as many great films and his acting is what made
Speaker 1: them great. And Nicholson kind of stands alone, you know,
Speaker 1: in the modern world, Pacino, de Niro, Warren Beatty, Newman, Redford,
Speaker 1: all that crowd, Dustin Hoffman. But Nicholson has played so
Speaker 1: many disparate roles. Hoffman too, I mean very ranging, you know,
Speaker 1: Ratso Rizzo and Kramer versus Kramer and Lenny Bruce and everything.
Speaker 1: And that's I think what people want is to play
Speaker 1: a lot of different roles and different types of people
Speaker 1: and create different characters. And uh, that's difficult to access
Speaker 1: that material. You know. The search, the hunt for good
Speaker 1: scripts is something that plagues everybody. Dustin Hoffman himself once
Speaker 1: said to me. It was very funny, he said. He
Speaker 1: once said to me years ago, he said, Alec, we're
Speaker 1: all in line when it comes to getting our hands
Speaker 1: on a good script. He said, We're all in line. Alec,
Speaker 1: he said of us are just in a shorter line.
Speaker 1: So you you've done theater too, and which one theater,
Speaker 1: movies TV, what do you find the most rewarding, most challenging,
Speaker 1: and the most fulfilling for you? Well, with the film,
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity that if the film succeeds, and that
Speaker 1: I don't mean necessarily commercially or critically, it can be
Speaker 1: either one or both. You know, when I go do
Speaker 1: a blatantly commercial project like Mission Impossible, I've gone and
Speaker 1: done a couple of those, and you realize, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the apex, this is the pinnacle of big
Speaker 1: ticket studio movie making. And these guys just you know,
Speaker 1: they just tear it up, you know, and no one
Speaker 1: works harder than Tom. He's just the most hard working guy,
Speaker 1: and you're thrilled to be in their company and make
Speaker 1: that kind of movie. Then you turn around and you
Speaker 1: go make another movie, and the the entire budget for
Speaker 1: that movie is the budget for Ice on Tom's movie,
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's like you do the
Speaker 1: giant film with a big budget and then you go
Speaker 1: to a film like really really tiny, but you're still
Speaker 1: in there really trying to hone it and get and
Speaker 1: if the film works. You know, if you do a
Speaker 1: little film and it gets some traction and people think
Speaker 1: it's worthy the content, that's thrilling it. The theater is
Speaker 1: a place you go where there's risk, but just less risk.
Speaker 1: You know, if you go to a revival of Tennessee Williams,
Speaker 1: you sit there and say, well, we know the material works.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like a movie where if the
Speaker 1: movie flops, that's painful and there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: at stake. But in the theater it's much more like music.
Speaker 1: You know, all of us are like a band, were
Speaker 1: there together to serve this piece, and we're there to
Speaker 1: support this piece, the writing, and you want to meet
Speaker 1: the challenge. Like when I did street Car, we were like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is like we're never going to
Speaker 1: have an opportunity like this in our lives again. This
Speaker 1: is it. We're going to be doing this play and
Speaker 1: no one's going to do it again for seven or
Speaker 1: eight or ten years or more. And that's thrilling. It's
Speaker 1: such an honor whenever I do a play. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say I like plays better, but the play experience
Speaker 1: can be sometimes be a more pure experience in terms
Speaker 1: of acting by the way I saw you at that
Speaker 1: and it was a powerful performance and one of those
Speaker 1: things that has stayed with me all these years. So
Speaker 1: if you were enjoying it half as much as I was,
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty powerful. Let's go back in
Speaker 1: time some for some context on you. You were born
Speaker 1: in the late fifties, grew up in the sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies in sort of middle class Long Island. Tell me
Speaker 1: about those times in that place. Can you paint the
Speaker 1: picture for everybody. My childhood was very modest. You know.
Speaker 1: My dad was a teacher, He had six kids, He
Speaker 1: had no money. Everything in his life was about not
Speaker 1: having enough money, and he was just all him and
Speaker 1: my mother did was complaining about you know. So when
Speaker 1: I walked out the door and I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I remember kind of sitting there and say, whatever you do,
Speaker 1: don't end up like your dad. I have to make
Speaker 1: a living. And it almost didn't matter. There was a
Speaker 1: part of me I thought, I'll sell insurance. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be stressed out like my
Speaker 1: poor dad. Because my dad was a great guy and
Speaker 1: he was just stressed. He died young. He was only
Speaker 1: fifty five when he died. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to deny the fact that in many
Speaker 1: ways I was as happy or happier than than I
Speaker 1: am now, you know, because it was so simple. You know,
Speaker 1: we go out the door and throw snowballs at each
Speaker 1: other and make a snowman and go sledding, and we
Speaker 1: go play baseball in the summer, we play football in
Speaker 1: the fall, we go to the pool at the local park.
Speaker 1: We and of course, as you can appreciate, it wasn't
Speaker 1: the days of the helicopter parents. You know, I get
Speaker 1: on a bicycle, I get on a Schwinn Stingray bicycle
Speaker 1: and ride into the bowels of my neighborhood and south Shore,
Speaker 1: massive people along. My parents wouldn't see me for four
Speaker 1: or five hours. They had no idea where I was,
Speaker 1: nor were they looking for They were my parents, They
Speaker 1: had no idea. They took my word for it. You know,
Speaker 1: I was gone all day. I mean not that I
Speaker 1: was running, uh still somewhere making moonshine. I wasn't counterfeiting money.
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything illegal. But when we would take off,
Speaker 1: there were no cell phones and FaceTime, and you know,
Speaker 1: you came home and you came home at the requested hour,
Speaker 1: or my father would be very grim. But in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, I mean, life, Listen, you are a
Speaker 1: media mogul. You know, you're a guy who has been
Speaker 1: on top of this business for so long now, which
Speaker 1: doesn't even seem real. You know, going back to MTV
Speaker 1: and I'm through a O L and your whole thing,
Speaker 1: and you've seen the changes in all of its technology.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd love to hear your opinion of that
Speaker 1: it's technology. Well, you know, we also had TV back
Speaker 1: then was sort of a forced common experience that we
Speaker 1: could go to school the next day and everybody was
Speaker 1: talking about the same show they had seen the same thing.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we only had one TV in
Speaker 1: the house. We had the family TV, so my different
Speaker 1: tacks brook have in Mississippi even smaller, and we would, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't watch TV together, and it became a sort
Speaker 1: of a force to bring things together. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think you know your exactly the fireplace. Yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure whether it's good or bad, but it's certainly different today.
Speaker 1: And we don't have any unifying experience. We don't have
Speaker 1: anything driving homogeneity, which you know, we saw the awful
Speaker 1: side of often, but we also there was a good
Speaker 1: side to it, which was it did sort of bring
Speaker 1: people together as one civilization, and I do think we
Speaker 1: missed some of that. I think an interesting thing is
Speaker 1: in terms of the news. You know, the news, it
Speaker 1: was something that you had an appointment with the TV set.
Speaker 1: My dad would come home from work and he would
Speaker 1: lie on a couch and he would read the New
Speaker 1: York Times. My father taught economics in American government in
Speaker 1: a public high school, and he was very politically engaged,
Speaker 1: and he would come home and it would be John
Speaker 1: Chancellor or Huntley Brinkley or croc Kite. Then rather you
Speaker 1: sat down in front of the TV. Nancy Dickerson and
Speaker 1: I remember all these names, Robert Trout. You watched all
Speaker 1: these old time veterans of the news, and the news
Speaker 1: came and you devoured it because it was no twenty
Speaker 1: four hour news cycle. Nobody had a phone in their
Speaker 1: hand where there were alerts on your phone. There was
Speaker 1: a morning newspaper and an evening newspaper, and there was
Speaker 1: radio and the TV at the specified times. And then
Speaker 1: the news went away and your relationship with the world
Speaker 1: went away. Yeah, which you're exactly right. So let's go
Speaker 1: on to that period. What values do you think you
Speaker 1: have today that came out of that experience and those times?
Speaker 1: You know, I got remarried. My wife and I are
Speaker 1: together now. Yesterday was the ten year anniversary of when
Speaker 1: I met my wife. I met my wife February two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, congratulating together for ten years, thank you. And
Speaker 1: we had five kids in seven years. I got a
Speaker 1: seven year old, of five year old, of four year old,
Speaker 1: a two year old, and a five bold. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of kids here, and uh, the joke is
Speaker 1: people will come over and they'll sit down and we'll see,
Speaker 1: be careful, there might be a baby under that cushion.
Speaker 1: And you never know. In this house. There's babies everywhere.
Speaker 1: And what it's done for me at my age, because
Speaker 1: I'm about to turn sixty three years old, is it's
Speaker 1: made me go back into my own childhood and realize
Speaker 1: that this is a gift I've been given and that
Speaker 1: my family and my kids are really all that matters
Speaker 1: to me. And the COVID. Even though the COVID has
Speaker 1: been so debilitating, it has inhibited the way we normally
Speaker 1: interact in terms of acting, but other than that, uh,
Speaker 1: the effects of the COVID. I look at this time
Speaker 1: and I think I'll never have this time again. I'll
Speaker 1: never have this time again where I'm home with my
Speaker 1: kids every day. They don't go to school. They rely
Speaker 1: on their mother and I to help them negotiate the
Speaker 1: kind of peculiarity of this time in our lives. And
Speaker 1: all they want is to be together. That's all they
Speaker 1: want is your attention and you to listen to whatever
Speaker 1: they say about school. And my daughter will turn to
Speaker 1: me and say, did you realize that Saturday is not
Speaker 1: the only planet that has rings on it? And I'll go, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. And she's lecturing me about the
Speaker 1: solar system and she's seven years old. And that's it.
Speaker 1: I mean, this time, this it's almost like a little
Speaker 1: house on the prairie. I mean, something very simple and
Speaker 1: pure with them is really the only thing I care
Speaker 1: about anymore in my life, truly. That's It's a beautiful story.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more math and Magic after
Speaker 1: this quick break. Welcome back to Math and Magic. That's
Speaker 1: you more from my conversation with Alec Baldwin. Let me
Speaker 1: jump a little bit. Let's go to your conversion. It's
Speaker 1: you had something sort of like Paul's conversion on the
Speaker 1: Road to Damascus. When you went from this George Washington
Speaker 1: University guy studying political science, expecting to be a lawyer.
Speaker 1: You had had I think interned in your congressman's office,
Speaker 1: you had in turned in a law firm, to suddenly
Speaker 1: you decide you're going to be an actor, and you
Speaker 1: go to n y U and you have these jobs
Speaker 1: that you would think beginning actors have. You're a waiter,
Speaker 1: you were a chaperone or a tour bus company. You
Speaker 1: were a lifeguard. You're a bus boy at Studio fifty four.
Speaker 1: I was, where did that conversion come from? Well, that's funny.
Speaker 1: I'm at g W, and I loved it there in
Speaker 1: g W, back in nine was beginning to mold itself
Speaker 1: into what it is now, and it was a different
Speaker 1: Washington and more sleepy Washington. We're always reminded of Kennedy's
Speaker 1: admonition that Washington was the city of northern hospitality and
Speaker 1: southern efficiency, and that was surely true when I was there.
Speaker 1: I worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and a
Speaker 1: guy there, he was an a turn and I said, now,
Speaker 1: you're on the staff of this congressman. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's not paying you a lot of money. He said, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. I said, what gives with that? He said, well,
Speaker 1: everyone's getting a law degree now just to have it
Speaker 1: as another arrow in their quivered. And me said, it's
Speaker 1: really tough for the competition is tough to get in.
Speaker 1: The competition is really tough to get a job when
Speaker 1: you get out. He said, I'm on the staff as
Speaker 1: a legislator. They with a law degree making sixty five
Speaker 1: dollars a year back then, which was decent money in
Speaker 1: the seventies. And I thought to myself, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go to law school, which was my plan. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a year off. I'm gonna try this
Speaker 1: other thing and see how I like it, because it
Speaker 1: seems stupid and silly and far fetched and very kind
Speaker 1: of dream like. And I went to n y U audition,
Speaker 1: got in. They gave me a scholarship, you know, a
Speaker 1: need based scholarship, but they paid for everything to go
Speaker 1: because it was it was expensive for my family. And
Speaker 1: I went there and as soon as I finished my
Speaker 1: first year, I got a job, and I got another
Speaker 1: job and I just I just kept working. I kept
Speaker 1: go go go, went out to l A, got jobs
Speaker 1: at nighttime TV, and it just kept going. Even though
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily that sure of my feelings about acting
Speaker 1: in the life of an actor. But over the course
Speaker 1: of the first couple of years I did it, I
Speaker 1: fell in love with acting. When you started in your career,
Speaker 1: did you know the kind of work you wanted to do?
Speaker 1: You and I wanted to fly airplanes as a kid,
Speaker 1: and when I got old enough to get my license
Speaker 1: at sixteen, I was fifteen, told my parents I want
Speaker 1: to take flying lessons get my license. They said, well,
Speaker 1: you better get a job. And the only job I
Speaker 1: could get in the small town of Mississippi was as
Speaker 1: a radio announcer. And I had really no interest in radio.
Speaker 1: It was just a job. But like you, I completely
Speaker 1: fell in love with it and uh and that took
Speaker 1: me on this wonderful career. And by the time I
Speaker 1: was twenty years old, I was at the NBC station
Speaker 1: in Chicago. They let me actually program the station in
Speaker 1: addition to being on the air. When then they sent
Speaker 1: me to New York to w NBC when I was
Speaker 1: twenty three, so it was this great career, but it was,
Speaker 1: as you say, completely driven by sort of the unexpected,
Speaker 1: and I completely fell in love with it, completely out
Speaker 1: of pattern. I didn't want to be a lawyer. I
Speaker 1: always wanted to be a doctor. Uh And somehow that
Speaker 1: just fell by the wayside and uh and this took over.
Speaker 1: The world has changed. So they asked you about and
Speaker 1: you know, sort of soaps is sort of an interesting
Speaker 1: place to get started. If you'd said where Alec Baldwin began,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say in the soaps. But what did you
Speaker 1: What did that teach you about acting? Um, that's a
Speaker 1: good question. It teaches you two things that I remember vividly,
Speaker 1: which is about professionalism. That you come to work and
Speaker 1: it was like a Swiss watch. You know. They were
Speaker 1: you were in there at seven o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and we rehearse and you go to make up, and
Speaker 1: they were like, we gotta shoot this episode, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty two pages of daytime drama today. We've got to
Speaker 1: get this done today. And they would bring actors in there,
Speaker 1: some of them young people who would stay up all
Speaker 1: night and party. They had money in their pocket and
Speaker 1: they were gone within like a couple of months, like you,
Speaker 1: you had to show up and be reliable. We all
Speaker 1: have a job here to do. Your part of a
Speaker 1: collaboration of people. All of them have a job, and
Speaker 1: you have your job to do, and if you don't
Speaker 1: do it, if you screw up, you're going to affect
Speaker 1: everybody else. And it made me realize you gotta show up,
Speaker 1: you gotta know your lines. And then the second stage
Speaker 1: of that was the tendency to want to down grade
Speaker 1: or to look askance at the material. Daytime writers had
Speaker 1: very stressful lives because coming up with something worthwhile every
Speaker 1: day was tough. And someone took me aside and they said,
Speaker 1: you can't let that affect you. You've got to go
Speaker 1: to the opposite way. You have to find a way
Speaker 1: to make it work, because you're gonna find when you
Speaker 1: leave this job that if you only show up for work,
Speaker 1: if you only go to work and make films and
Speaker 1: television shows and do theater, whatever you do, and you
Speaker 1: only do you know the greatest you know, Steve Zalien
Speaker 1: script and Spielberg as you're you know, all this fan
Speaker 1: to see of like the Kreme de la Kreme. You know,
Speaker 1: Tony Kushner is writing and Soderberg is directing or whatever.
Speaker 1: That doesn't happen very often. You know, you you have
Speaker 1: a piece of material in front of you, and it's
Speaker 1: your job to try to mind it for as much
Speaker 1: value as you can. And one of the proving grounds
Speaker 1: for me was a soap because the material sometimes was dreadful.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was really horrible, and you had to
Speaker 1: find a way to try to make it work. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you succeeded and sometimes you didn't, but you had
Speaker 1: to make that effort. And I thought that that was very,
Speaker 1: very helpful for me in terms of my work ethic.
Speaker 1: You know, early in your career you were New York.
Speaker 1: You just sent in l A. And I know you
Speaker 1: go back and forth. Let's go back to sort of
Speaker 1: the eighties and in too today. How do those two
Speaker 1: cities differ in the creative process and what creativity means
Speaker 1: in l A and what it means in New York?
Speaker 1: And have you seen to change over time? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: sad to see that l A has been somewhat decimated,
Speaker 1: not because of the COVID but because of this tax
Speaker 1: breaks and different entities poaching if you will, with their
Speaker 1: tax structure. But I remember, even though I wasn't a
Speaker 1: fan of living in l A. I'd love to go
Speaker 1: out there and shoot for a month or two and
Speaker 1: then come home because I wanted to live in New York.
Speaker 1: And the reason I wanted to live in New York
Speaker 1: because New York is like a mountain range. And when
Speaker 1: you're at a dinner party or you're in an event
Speaker 1: in New York, it's people who are at the top
Speaker 1: of many different businesses. You're there with people in banking
Speaker 1: and real estate and art collecting and literature and journalism
Speaker 1: and music. I mean, you name the theater, political figures, academics,
Speaker 1: you name it. I mean show business has a place
Speaker 1: of equivalence in a range of mountains in New York.
Speaker 1: And when you go to Los Angeles, one mountain dwarfs
Speaker 1: all the other mountains. And when you go there, it's
Speaker 1: all about show business. It's like a city for the winners.
Speaker 1: And if you're a winner, if you go out there
Speaker 1: and you win an Emmy, and you and you, and
Speaker 1: you walk into the restaurant and you'd walk in there
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, right this way, Mr Bold, don't
Speaker 1: be here please, and can we what can we bring
Speaker 1: a bottle of champagne to your table to celebrate your
Speaker 1: your winnings, and blah blah blah, you thought to yourself.
Speaker 1: I used to turn to my friends and go, let's
Speaker 1: enjoy the fellows because it ends tomorrow morning. It's over.
Speaker 1: But it's funny how I don't want to live in
Speaker 1: l A. But I love shooting in l A. And
Speaker 1: I was always disappointed when we wouldn't work out there
Speaker 1: because the best people are in l A. I always
Speaker 1: tell the same story. I say, when you go to
Speaker 1: the set of a movie somewhere and they'll say, the
Speaker 1: prop guy wants to come into your trailer and show
Speaker 1: you some wrist watches for your character. He wants you
Speaker 1: to choose a wrist watch for your character. And the
Speaker 1: guy comes into your trailer. It's you know, you're in
Speaker 1: rehearsals for fittings for the movie and the guy shows
Speaker 1: you like fifty watches and you go, okay, what about
Speaker 1: that that little brightling there or whatever. And then you
Speaker 1: go to l A and they go, the prop guy
Speaker 1: would like you to look at some watches for the show,
Speaker 1: and he bring you in six cases with four hundred watches.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody in Hollywood, it's Hollywood, you know, and
Speaker 1: everybody there is at the top of the game. When
Speaker 1: you're on a set in a studio, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're shooting. I think the last studio film my shot
Speaker 1: was a long time ago. But I never forget when
Speaker 1: I did Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers, which
Speaker 1: was a silly movie, but we were on the lot
Speaker 1: at Universal for five months and they shot this thing forever,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget. The crew was the greatest crew,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, I'm never going to have
Speaker 1: it this good again, because we're on the lot the
Speaker 1: whole time. He almost shot the whole movie on the lot,
Speaker 1: And they're just something about being on a sound stage
Speaker 1: in l A and those crews out there. There's just
Speaker 1: nothing like it in the world. Nothing. And I'm sad
Speaker 1: that I don't really work out there as much as
Speaker 1: I used to. A lot of great old ghosts on
Speaker 1: the sound stages too. Oh yeah, oh god. You so,
Speaker 1: you know. In the early nineties, I think it was
Speaker 1: you made your first appearance as the guest host on
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live, and all these years later, I think
Speaker 1: you hold the record for hosting the most Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: You were talking about Lauren Michael's earlier on Dirty Rock.
Speaker 1: What is it about Lauren Michaels, what's the magic? Lauren
Speaker 1: is smart in a way. He knows when to say yes,
Speaker 1: when to say no, how to say yes, how to
Speaker 1: say no, how to keep people engaged with him. And
Speaker 1: you you find yourself in a place where you trust
Speaker 1: that this is a guy who you know he has
Speaker 1: your interest at heart. Now granted it's in his interests
Speaker 1: as well, but he's doing things that if he believes
Speaker 1: in you, will benefit you career wise. Lauren is someone
Speaker 1: who he's wise, He's very wise, and he keeps you
Speaker 1: focused on having the preferred attitude. Like I always tell
Speaker 1: the same story. The first year we went to the
Speaker 1: m we didn't win. Actually I think we want ensemble cast,
Speaker 1: and then we lost to Modern Family or whatever. But
Speaker 1: but we we go to the Emmy's the second year
Speaker 1: and we win everything and we're we're heading to the
Speaker 1: Valet parking and we went to the Governor's Ball for
Speaker 1: the TV Academy. This is for the Emmy, is not
Speaker 1: the Oscars. And we go to the Governor's Ball and
Speaker 1: as we go to the valley, I go God, I said,
Speaker 1: you know last year when we lost, we were like
Speaker 1: in and atty here really quickly, you know. We well,
Speaker 1: we went to the restaurant, had dinner and had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I said, this year, we won, so
Speaker 1: we had to go to the Governor's ball and take
Speaker 1: pictures with all these people. I mean like we were
Speaker 1: taking pictures for like an hour and a half and
Speaker 1: we had to go table to table and get introduced
Speaker 1: to this guy and this guy and this person take pictures.
Speaker 1: I said, this is really like exhausting and what a
Speaker 1: pain in the ass. And we're standing at the Valley
Speaker 1: parking and Lauren takes his Emmy and he holds it
Speaker 1: up to me and he goes. But winning is better, right,
Speaker 1: Lauren is the one who helps you maintained perspective in
Speaker 1: a business that it's very easy to lose perspective. So
Speaker 1: so Saturday Night Live, I love it. Saturday Night Live
Speaker 1: got started about the same time my career at NBC started.
Speaker 1: A guy named Herb Schlausser was the president of NBC
Speaker 1: then and was really the champion of of Lauren. He
Speaker 1: was my mentor there and uh, and I remember I
Speaker 1: was programming in Chicago and he came out and talked
Speaker 1: to me about Saturday Night Live, among other things. How
Speaker 1: on earth do they keep that creativity going for this
Speaker 1: many years? Well, I think that the biggest and this
Speaker 1: is my opinion. I mean I've never heard anybody say this,
Speaker 1: but the biggest I think challenge for them, The biggest
Speaker 1: frontier was the digital frontier to take what was a
Speaker 1: diminishing network broadcast audience and to get that content and
Speaker 1: to get some form of that content in clips and
Speaker 1: snippets and scenes and sketches, I mean any way you
Speaker 1: can on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, you name it, to get
Speaker 1: it out there and to get the NBC content and
Speaker 1: the SNL content. I mean, you know, there were numbers
Speaker 1: for the show that we're very, very you know, good
Speaker 1: numbers for them over the years, and now the show
Speaker 1: does numbers that are just ridiculous. They're live on both
Speaker 1: coasts now, so they do the eleven thirty feet at
Speaker 1: night live at eight thirty on the West coast and
Speaker 1: they're live across the country. They don't have it to
Speaker 1: You're not watching a taped feet in l A anymore.
Speaker 1: And then they're all over the internet in the ensuing
Speaker 1: you know, Plus seven schedule and their numbers are equal
Speaker 1: to network prime time numbers. They're competing with prime time
Speaker 1: shows in terms of their numbers, which is just if
Speaker 1: you told me that fifteen years ago, I would have
Speaker 1: met everything I had against that. And this is again
Speaker 1: Lauren adapting. Lauren is always adapted in terms of the comedians,
Speaker 1: where they come from, who they are, the talent, music.
Speaker 1: You know, the joke was with Lauren his daughter. So
Speaker 1: the the joke was who's the musical act? How do
Speaker 1: they determine who the musical act is on Saturday Night Live?
Speaker 1: And when his daughter was young, they said, who's ever
Speaker 1: in Sophie's iPod? Lauren would take the information wherever he
Speaker 1: could get it. Who knows what's new, fresh happening, who's
Speaker 1: a young actor? But in the end, when this is
Speaker 1: the thing I among the things I love about Lauren
Speaker 1: the most, Lauren decides Lauren garners all this information about
Speaker 1: potential hosts, music sketches, material, who we make fun of,
Speaker 1: who we don't make fun of, how much we make
Speaker 1: fun of them. That the actual molding of a show
Speaker 1: that goes from eleven thirty at night till one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning and gets progressively I don't want to
Speaker 1: say adult, but a little bit more sophisticated, shall we say?
Speaker 1: As the night goes on. I've done sketches for Lauren
Speaker 1: where he'd sit there and say, that's a twelve thirty sketch.
Speaker 1: We put that towards the end of the show because
Speaker 1: it's a little more riskay, or it's a little more
Speaker 1: kind of crispy in that way. And Lauren's mastery of
Speaker 1: all the things that are in that world, I mean
Speaker 1: every element of it. You'll say to Lauren. You watch
Speaker 1: Lauren give notes. I meant of the notes he gives
Speaker 1: during the notes between shows. We do the dress in
Speaker 1: the air, you do a full dress at eight o'clock,
Speaker 1: you do the air show at and in between an
Speaker 1: abundance of his notes or camera notes go tighter here,
Speaker 1: Why is that light? Put another light on him? Why
Speaker 1: is that daktrob that color blue? He's producing a TV
Speaker 1: show where his eye it's like he's making a movie.
Speaker 1: Lauren is just he's probably one of the smartest people
Speaker 1: I've ever met in my life period, and he's certainly
Speaker 1: one of the three or four smartest people I've ever
Speaker 1: met in the business because of his his adaptability he's
Speaker 1: so adaptable. Well, he stands alone in the industry. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anybody quite like Lauren. No, there wasn't.
Speaker 1: You talked about scripts, and it's so everybody's in that
Speaker 1: line to get a script. Some have the shorter lines.
Speaker 1: How do you pick what you're gonna do? What's your process?
Speaker 1: When I was young, I worked all the time. When
Speaker 1: I was young, it was like chain smoking. I just
Speaker 1: lit one off the other. And then as I got older,
Speaker 1: I got more discerning in that way. And now as
Speaker 1: I'm at the age of that now, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's the same muscle. You sit there and go,
Speaker 1: I want to go to work, But when you get older,
Speaker 1: you think, what is not duplicative of stuff I've already done.
Speaker 1: Because a lot of people want me to come in
Speaker 1: and play some glengary type of guy that straightens everybody out,
Speaker 1: and there's a kind of a ferocity to that character,
Speaker 1: and that gets to be kind of boring for me.
Speaker 1: But I think when I work now, it's about the people.
Speaker 1: So you'll say to me, here's a guy that wants
Speaker 1: to work with you with the project, and you think,
Speaker 1: in most cases you know who it is and you'll
Speaker 1: sit there and go, oh my god, I'm dying to
Speaker 1: work with him. Like I never work in the summer.
Speaker 1: Here's a good example. I never work in the summer.
Speaker 1: I take all of July and August off, except except
Speaker 1: if it's Marty Scorsese, and so Marty calls me and says,
Speaker 1: would you come and do The Departed? Were up in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and we're gonna shoot in August them like you
Speaker 1: got it. You know, there's people who when they when
Speaker 1: they there's people who when they call you, you just say,
Speaker 1: when's my fitting, let's go. You know, you're just dying
Speaker 1: to be around them. You're just dying to be around them,
Speaker 1: even if the part you're playing is not that significant,
Speaker 1: even if the film by no means pivots on anything
Speaker 1: you're doing. It's just such a joy to be around them.
Speaker 1: Bob de Niro asked me to do The Good Shepherd,
Speaker 1: and just to be on the set with Bob. It
Speaker 1: was just mind blowing. It was just mind blowing. You know.
Speaker 1: I've had a few experiences like that when we did
Speaker 1: Glen Garry and them. Around these actors that are these
Speaker 1: actors I worshiped. It's who you work with so let's
Speaker 1: let's jump the podcast. You're considered a podcast pioneer. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing with Alec Baldwin. What caught your attention with podcasting?
Speaker 1: How did you get there so early? What grabbed you?
Speaker 1: I had wanted to stay home. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: travel anymore. I wanted to work from New York, and
Speaker 1: I had pitched the TV show Talk Show. That was
Speaker 1: a disaster. I think we aired four or five shows,
Speaker 1: and of the five shows we aired, four of them
Speaker 1: were against Sunday night football, against the hottest games of
Speaker 1: the season. I mean, I think I think the entire
Speaker 1: audience from my show could fit in one elevator at
Speaker 1: sax S Fithaven, you know what I mean. It was
Speaker 1: like forget it. So when I started thinking of the
Speaker 1: idea of radio and podcast, I had different ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: like a Howard Stern type of bullpen with a cast
Speaker 1: of characters. And then the people I was working with
Speaker 1: finally said to me, listen, let's just try this at first,
Speaker 1: just you talking to people, and we did that for
Speaker 1: w N my C. It's not really an interview because
Speaker 1: it's a conversation. You know. Terry Gross keeps it all
Speaker 1: about her guest, and that's her show, and I love
Speaker 1: that show and I'm very admiring of her, but that's
Speaker 1: an interview show, and I thought to myself, that wasn't
Speaker 1: interesting to me. So if I bring on people, you
Speaker 1: know that our actors and performers, and talk to them
Speaker 1: about either something we have in common, you know, their
Speaker 1: peers of mine, or there's somebody like Debbie Reynolds did
Speaker 1: my show and my god, I mean just I mean,
Speaker 1: I could have talked to her for six hours about
Speaker 1: her career and uh, I mean, they're just so admiring
Speaker 1: of them and engaged by them. We've done pretty well
Speaker 1: and now we're on iHeart. As you know, we moved
Speaker 1: from public radio to My Heart and I'm very glad
Speaker 1: for that. The podcast to me, are always divided into
Speaker 1: two groups. Ones I like and once I love. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I like them all. I mean, there isn't one
Speaker 1: show we did that I regret it ever. But then
Speaker 1: we have people come on and it's just Billy Joel's handlers.
Speaker 1: If you will said, now, whatever you do, don't ask
Speaker 1: Billy to play. Don't ask him to play. Whatever you do,
Speaker 1: don't ask him to play. Now, I know Billy personally
Speaker 1: and I called him on the phone and I said,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for coming to do this with us.
Speaker 1: We're very excited. I can't thank you, and if I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to to doing this with you. And
Speaker 1: he said, you're gonna have a piano m And I
Speaker 1: said what he said, You're gonna have a piano. I said,
Speaker 1: we were told that it was forbidden for us to
Speaker 1: ask you to play. He goes, oh, that's ridiculous, come on,
Speaker 1: come on, and we go into a studio in my
Speaker 1: scene at the sound stage where they record music, and
Speaker 1: there was a piano, and oh my god. I think
Speaker 1: he's the one show we did where we didn't edit
Speaker 1: the show. It was one hour and five minutes or
Speaker 1: whatever it is uncut. We just played it from start
Speaker 1: to finish. Because he's so seamless about his knowledge of
Speaker 1: music and what influenced him musically. It was just absolutely
Speaker 1: What are the most thrilling ones we ever did creatively?
Speaker 1: What is podcast offer you that you can't get in
Speaker 1: any other form? Well? I think that like music. I
Speaker 1: mean I always say that music has a significance in
Speaker 1: people's lives that theater and film and TV don't have.
Speaker 1: Because you can consume it anywhere. You can be in
Speaker 1: the shower, you can be in the gym, you can
Speaker 1: be in the are And podcasts offer that podcast is
Speaker 1: the I mean, this is why I love radio. Audio
Speaker 1: is something that you can indulge just about any time,
Speaker 1: the same as music almost is that idea of its
Speaker 1: um availability, you can you can consume it anywhere. And
Speaker 1: I love that. And I listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: Part'm addicted to this American life and for years, and
Speaker 1: I listened to a bunch of podcasts. So as we
Speaker 1: wind down, you've had a front row seat in the
Speaker 1: entertainment business for decades. So I want you to think
Speaker 1: just a second and give a shout out to two
Speaker 1: people we always in the show this way because it's
Speaker 1: called math and magic. Who's the let's talk about the mathematician.
Speaker 1: Who's the best business person you've met you can think
Speaker 1: of an entertainment or media And who's the most creative
Speaker 1: the magic? Well, I would say that I love this question.
Speaker 1: By the way, Well, one person who I don't know, well,
Speaker 1: i've met him many times and I don't know well,
Speaker 1: but someone who and I'm sure you can appreciate this
Speaker 1: in your career. The person who I've always heard consistently
Speaker 1: is the guy with the Midas touch. Everything he touches
Speaker 1: turns to profit or is successful is Geffen. Geffen is
Speaker 1: someone who I always hear these really really like he
Speaker 1: just has some mystical ability in terms of his investment
Speaker 1: strategies and his businesses, and he's been this preposterously successful
Speaker 1: guy for a very very long time. Then I guess,
Speaker 1: in terms of the magic and the creativity, the person
Speaker 1: who always amazes me the most in terms of the
Speaker 1: range of his work. Now, of course he has every
Speaker 1: advantage that other people don't have because he's so successful commercially,
Speaker 1: and he's so on top of his game. He knows
Speaker 1: what he's doing. As Spielberg, I would say Spielberg is
Speaker 1: the person who And that's a tough question to answer
Speaker 1: because I've got many people, you know, Fincher and Soderberg
Speaker 1: and Marty and Di Palma and Coppola and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an endless there's so many hundreds of
Speaker 1: directors and you know, and and foreign directors and so forth,
Speaker 1: European directors. It's tough to pick one. So I'm really
Speaker 1: only picking one among many because I admire many of
Speaker 1: them to the same level. But there's something about Spielberg
Speaker 1: to me that is just uncanny. I mean that just
Speaker 1: the range. I mean things from AI and Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: to Jaws and munich Et and Lincoln and Amistad, and
Speaker 1: I mean just the range of his I mean even
Speaker 1: the things that Spielberg has done that have not been
Speaker 1: as successful creatively and commercially as his more towering achievements
Speaker 1: like Jurassic and Jaws, and even the ones that didn't
Speaker 1: do as well overall, there's still better than most other
Speaker 1: people's movies. I mean, Spielberg to me just is on
Speaker 1: an island of his own. He's on a planet of
Speaker 1: his own in terms of talent. A congratulations on everything.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time today, and by the way,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining the Heart family with with your podcast.
Speaker 1: Always from Bob and I, my friends and I who
Speaker 1: were in this club. We all salute each other and
Speaker 1: we all left about this. I still have an a
Speaker 1: O L mail account Bob me too. Here are a
Speaker 1: few things I learned from my conversation with Alec. One
Speaker 1: understand what your job is and how to have value
Speaker 1: to it. But I only got his big break and soaps.
Speaker 1: He learned you have to know your lines, but you
Speaker 1: also have to work to sell them. To embrace the
Speaker 1: opportunities that surprise you, and Alex's experience. When you think
Speaker 1: you're choosing between A, B and C, the actual will
Speaker 1: probably be D. Three. Whether it's a costar or a
Speaker 1: co worker. Never underestimate how your collaborators can help you grow.
Speaker 1: These days, Alex chooses his projects based on who he'll
Speaker 1: be working with. The Next time you're searching for a
Speaker 1: new partner or collaborator, ask yourself, will this person challenge me?
Speaker 1: Will they help me grow? Four? And in these difficult times,
Speaker 1: take some comfort and the simple things. During COVID, Alec
Speaker 1: has found balanced by spending time outdoors, going on hikes
Speaker 1: and playing in the snow with his family. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: I'm Bob Pittman. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening to Math and Magic, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by Bob Pittman.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and wrangling our
Speaker 1: wonderful talent, which is no small feat. Nikki Eatore for
Speaker 1: pulling research bill plaques, and Michael Asar for their recording help,
Speaker 1: our editor Ryan Murdoch and of course Gayle Raoul, Eric Angel,
Speaker 1: Noel Mango, and everyone who helped bring this show to
Speaker 1: your ears. Until next time,