by Alec Baldwin
In the summer of 1987, I made a trip to the Williamstown Theatre Festival to do an odd little adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes novel. Believe it or not, I played Holmes. My Watson was an actor named Brian McCue, whose honesty and subtlety I can never forget, even though we worked together for a mere two weeks on what was otherwise a trifle of a production. It seemed that every time I did a play, I worked with someone who taught me something.
After that, movie parts started to come in a flurry. I went to read for David Geffen and Tim Burton for Beetlejuice. Once we started shooting, I sat in my trailer wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. Jeffrey Jones, Glenn Shadix, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton chewed up the scenery, day in and day out. Comparatively, I just stood there doing almost nothing. I asked Tim if he was getting what he wanted from me. He murmured something about the living characters being scarier than the dead ones. I thought of my character as a milquetoast antique collector and told him I thought I’d channel Robert Cummings. Tim just stared at me and said, “No. Don’t do that.”
Soon after, I met with Jonathan Demme for Married to the Mob. The male characters in Demme’s films are divided between violent or corrupt degenerates (The Silence of the Lambs, Something Wild) and soft-spoken, thoughtful, or just plain odd men (Stop Making Sense, Melvin and Howard). He cast me in the role of Michelle Pfeiffer’s vulgar gangster husband, who fell squarely into the first category. I learned a couple of lessons on this film. One was the idea that directors might mistake your performance for your own persona, and in a way you may not like. And though your job is to deliver, to be that person as best you can, underneath is a quiet little plea that says, “Please don’t think this is who I am.” Also, I loved working with Michelle, who, like Julie Harris, tempted you to confuse acting with reality. Poor Michelle, having to deal with everyone falling in love with her. I would imagine that for some of the actresses I have worked with, like Diane Lane, Julia Roberts, Michelle, and, yes, Kim, it must be exhausting.
Next, I played a small role in Working Girl for Mike Nichols, which was a treat. I also got to work with the legendary cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who had shot the remarkable Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman and Malkovich and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Nichols, witty and imperious one moment, warm and paternal the next, educated me about the invaluable contributions of his set and costume designers, among others. In this case: Patrizia von Brandenstein and Ann Roth, respectively. Years later, Ann and I worked together on Streetcar on Broadway. On set, Nichols knows where he is going, leaving you to come to work every day and say, “Yes, sir.” There are few of these men left, almost none, actually. I have missed the chance to work with Coppola, De Palma, Jarmusch, and Lumet. But I was fortunate enough to shoot, however briefly, with Nichols, Frankenheimer, Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, and Woody Allen.
Oliver Stone, by contrast, introduced me to the director as hostage taker, a man who knew that either you needed to work, or you didn’t want to get sued for leaving the set, or both. I shot the film Talk Radio, Eric Bogosian’s hit stage play adapted for the screen, with Stone. We shot down in Dallas, and after only a couple of days, I wanted to go home. Working with him felt like being trapped with the Barton MacLane character from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Stone’s “technique” was to generate as much tension on the set as he believed the film required. With sarcastic asides and a passive-aggressive tone throughout, Stone drove the cast and crew to drink a lot each night to blow off steam, which was not an option for me. Stone is a brilliant screenwriter and has directed some very good films. And he is certainly not the most unpleasant person I’ve worked with. But Stone opened my eyes to the Machiavellian filmmaker who would throw his own mother down a flight of stairs if it would help him get his project financed, get the shot he wanted, or simply get his way.
I showed up in Memphis to shoot Great Balls of Fire!, which starred Dennis Quaid. The director, Jim McBride, should have just cut all of my scenes and sent me home. The film is fantastic and alive when Dennis is on-screen and completely forgettable when he is off. I met Jerry Lee Lewis on set one day. As I greeted him he roared, “What kind of a handshake is that? That’s a sissy handshake,” and shoved my hand away. He tormented the producers about payments to secure his services to work with Dennis at scheduled rehearsals. “Jerry’s sick,” one of his handlers told a producer. “What’s it gonna take to make him feel better?” the producer asked. Ten thousand in cash was the reply. What choice did the producer have but to pay? Lewis was incredibly gifted. And he was an asshole.
Miami Blues reunited me with Jonathan Demme, but this time as a producer, as his friend George Armitage, a talented writer, was directing. Tak Fujimoto, the director of photography on the film, was another of the greats I had the good luck to shoot with, but the true prize here was the chance to film with probably the best actress I’ve ever worked with: Jennifer Jason Leigh. Jennifer is brave and honest and eschews vanity in her performances like no woman I’ve ever seen. On that set, she reminded me, oddly enough, of the actor Paul Muni in terms of her unguarded intensity and her brave choices.
* * *
Boarding a plane from New York to LA, sometime in early 1989, I paused before I sat to take note of the fact that, in the two dozen seats making up the first class and business cabins alone, at least eight or ten men were reading a novel written by Tom Clancy. The Hunt for Red October had been published in 1984, followed by Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin. People were turning the pages of Tom’s books by the millions, all over the world. Paramount Pictures was just getting around to making a movie of The Hunt for Red October, and I was on my way to meet the director, John McTiernan, to audition for the part of Jack Ryan, the protagonist of all those books. The meaning of that incredible opportunity really hit me on that airplane.
My agent, Michael Bloom, had made it clear that Kevin Costner was the first choice for the role, but that Paramount didn’t want to pay his fee. They may have gone to twelve other guys in the meantime, but in the end, it was I who wound up in a makeup chair with McTiernan, the producer Mace Neufeld, and some makeup people as they scrutinized the color of my hair. The hair conversation lasted longer than any I would have on that set about either the script or the character. Rehearsing scenes on the set before we had begun shooting, McTiernan would look at me and say, “It’s too much about props and staging with you. Can’t you just stand there?”
McTiernan is from the “shooter” class of moviemakers. He has little, if anything, to offer actors. But in terms of the kind of films he makes, John has the essential skills of the black belt camera geek. His movies are costly, so he is hired by studios to steer a massive tanker into a harbor successfully, spending many millions of dollars in the process. Like nearly all directors, he hires actors who come ready. He points the camera and you do the preapproved thing you’ve been hired to do.
The joys of making the film, beyond its potential for box office success, were many. The movie checked several boxes on my “I want to work with that guy” list. Jan de Bont was the cinematographer, before he went off to direct his own films such as Speed and Twister. While shooting the submarine interior sequences, de Bont had to find a way to shoot in a contained space and still keep it interesting. I think those scenes look fabulous.
One day, the great Peter Firth showed up to play a small but pivotal role: the Russian officer on board the Red October who has his neck broken by the defecting Captain Ramius. Firth, now older and no longer the lovable enfant terrible who seduced audiences in his seminal stage roles in Equus and Amadeus, effortlessly slalomed through a long monologue in perfect Russian, proving why he is one of the best actors of the last many years. Tim Curry, Courtney B. Vance, Scott Glenn, and Sam Neill were also in the cast. The ever-gracious James Earl Jones was the dramatic equivalent of Joe Maher, patient, kind, and helpful. When I met Sean Connery, however, it all got a bit surreal for the boy from Massapequa.
Mace Neufeld threw a par
ty at his home a few days before we began shooting. Nonetheless, Connery, the legendary movie star visiting the world’s movie capital, wasn’t allowed a drink or a bite of food. His wife, Micheline, was his trainer. As a tray of champagne glasses hovered in his direction, Connery reached for one, only to have his hand lightly slapped by Micheline. “No, no, no, Sean,” she chided. “You cannot ’ave zee cham-pan-ya!” Hors d’oeuvres followed. Again, Connery attempted. Again, Micheline blocked him with a slap and “No, no, no, Sean. You cannot ’ave zee paste-ah-reez!” Looking like a high school wrestler struggling to make weight, Connery looked at me and frowned. “It’s not going to be much of a party,” he murmured.
I came to watch Connery shoot on his first day, even though I wasn’t on the schedule. He almost didn’t make the film, because an illness had forced him to withdraw from the project. The producers had hired Klaus Maria Brandauer to play Sean’s role. But before Brandauer showed up, word came down that Sean was recovered and ready to work. McTiernan told me that Paramount figured out a way to make Brandauer “go away.” When Connery walked on the set to begin shooting, appearing trim and fit, he stunned me. From his steel-gray hairpiece to the cuffs of his shirts, from the trim of his beard to the fit of his wardrobe, Connery was a movie god. “A great day, comrades. We sail into history!” he said. No matter that the revered Soviet tactician had a Scottish accent. My first lead role in a big movie was with Double-O Seven. It didn’t get any better than this.
Tom Clancy showed up on set one day, and McTiernan, Neufeld, and a rather tense producer named Larry De Waay escorted him around. Tom knew that no one on that set would be there if it were not for his books. He told me that while he was running an insurance company in Maryland, his approach to writing his first novel was to research as much as possible in the public domain. He’d then add material based on interviews with military types who agreed to speak to him, at times even offering classified information, as long as it wasn’t attributed to them. “I filled in the rest with my imagination,” he told me. He was clearly on to something with this formula: the book sold three million copies. Unfortunately, the producers seemed to barely tolerate Tom. This isn’t surprising, however, as Hollywood executives always insist on putting in their creative two cents. And Clancy didn’t hesitate, between cigarettes, to mutter little comments under his breath. He was on the record with me with his opinion of the script. I’m certain that he realized how much was at stake for him at Paramount. If things went well, he would be in Stephen King territory. If not, he would simply be a very rich novelist instead of a ridiculously rich one with both feet firmly planted in cinematic history.
We started shooting on my thirty-first birthday. I had rented a house close to the lot in Beachwood Canyon, and my brother Billy was living with me while he shot the movie Internal Affairs, also at Paramount. We drove out to Malibu every weekend with a group of friends, and fell in love with the northern head of the peninsula near County Line. We would lie out at Zuma Beach and do as little as possible. The beach in Venice was too crowded with vendors, revelers, and palm readers, but Malibu reminded me of the beaches back home. One Sunday afternoon, driving the long route back to Beachwood, a friend and I stopped to watch Batman, whose ubiquitous billboards actually suggested an interesting movie. At a late-afternoon screening, my friend and I were perhaps the only two adults not accompanying a child. Having worked with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice, I was even more curious. On-screen, I saw Kim Basinger, whom I had seen in films like The Natural and Fool for Love. The kids in the theater perked up over the Batsuit and the Batmobile. When Kim came on-screen, they frowned and wanted to get back to the action. I, on the other hand, turned to my friend and said, “She’s a very beautiful woman.”
Back on the set, I dined one afternoon in the commissary with two Paramount executives, Don Granger and Gary Lucchesi, while we discussed their idea of casting me in John Milius’s film Flight of the Intruder. I didn’t know what I wanted to do next, but an effects-heavy military-hardware picture wasn’t it. Lucchesi turned to Granger and said, “I know what he wants. He wants the good stuff.” I stared at them for a moment and said dryly, “Yes, I suppose.” Once we wrapped Hunt, as we referred to it, I went home to New York. Soon after, an offer to audition for The Godfather, Part III came. As I read the screenplay while sitting in Central Park, I would literally hum the theme from the original Godfather as I turned the pages. The role eventually went to Andy Garcia, but on that one afternoon in New York, what a fantasy I had!
I wanted to stay home in New York for a while. I felt confident that movie work was mine to be had. I wasn’t looking for a play to read, but my agent sent me one called Prelude to a Kiss. On a quiet autumn day, I read it straight through. With its mythical premise, odd characters, and beautiful writing, the script put a spell on me. If you know the show, you know there’s no pun intended.
Prelude taught me something profound about the true nature of love. Like Craig Lucas’s other work, it shows us unusual people thrust into extraordinary circumstances. The story of Rita and her soul-swapping journey with an elderly man was a big hit when we played at Circle Rep. The theater was small, so the show sold out easily every night, particularly after Frank Rich’s rave review ran in the Times. Norman René directed, as he had Craig’s other plays, and the cast of Prelude was phenomenal; Larry Bryggman, John Dossett, the incomparable Debra Monk, and Barnard Hughes all shone. Barney, though, came to us seriously injured, fresh from falling off the stage during a performance. He fell again, this time down the stairs at the 96th Street subway stop, just two weeks into our rehearsals. In the dressing room we all shared, our names were taped along a wall to mark our space. I wrote “Keith Richards” in Barney’s spot.
The star of Prelude was Mary-Louise Parker, who was like no other woman I’d worked with before. Mary-Louise, already on her way to becoming one of the princesses of the New York theater, was the darling of not only Norman and Craig but also, apparently, all who came in contact with her. She was quirky and, like Joe Maher, also bent a line here and a pause there to reshape her performance again and again. She was unpredictable. With her big eyes and lanky frame, you weren’t sure if she was a ballet dancer or a murderer. However, my prevailing memory of the show is of walking out onstage every night and, without fail, actually falling in love with her over and over again. The play, both in its writing and direction, made those feelings inevitable. The music made an enormous contribution as well. I can never hear Toni Childs’s song “Walk and Talk Like Angels” without starting to cry.
The show was successful enough that Fox Studios, which was headed at the time by Joe Roth and Roger Birnbaum, bought the film rights. But before that, the show went to Broadway and the producers approached me about doing the role again. After ten years in the business, work seemed abundant and economic security wasn’t an issue. Yet I chose not to go to Broadway, seduced by the prospect of my first million-dollar payday to act in Neil Simon’s The Marrying Man. It was a devastating mistake, and without a shred of doubt, the single decision I made that changed my career and my life forever. I had followed my instincts from the beginning and they had served me well. Now, I walked away from a play that was considered for the Pulitzer Prize to go shoot a very forgettable film for the money. I allowed myself to be sold on the idea of ignoring my own beliefs to spin the wheel in the game of movie stardom.
Once you abandon your instincts and begin polling people about your choices, once you attempt to reshape yourself into someone you are not, it affects nearly every decision you make. You begin to see your entire life through a distorted prism. After I chose The Marrying Man, I completely lost my sense of who I was, and so many things went wrong. Within eighteen months, my self-loathing about this decision played a big part in my one grand attempt to set things right again.
8
Back to One
Moviemaking is a profoundly collaborative process. The goal, therefore, is to work on a movie set with a great group of people, top peop
le who are recognized as among the best in the business. Props, sets, accounting, publicity, locations, wardrobe, music, production design, stunts, writing, camera, continuity, direction, acting—they all blend together to make a form of magic. Watch The Godfather, a movie in which all of those things come together magnificently. Nearly every frame is a work of art.
The actors and actresses who are invited to join those productions are talented, but luck plays a big part, too. There are men and women throughout movie history whose performances are but one component of a vast undertaking. The force of their personality doesn’t drive the film. Their acting choices are simple and clear. They’re not Gary Oldman playing Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone’s JFK or Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln or Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Movie stars are, more often than not, simple men and women who project strength and integrity on film. You can call it heroism or character. The list of actors who are invited to front big studio films is short. And once you get on it, you will do almost anything to stay there.
In the spring of 1990, I headed to LA to shoot The Marrying Man. Neil Simon is, of course, a legend. His plays and films have sold more tickets than you can count. When you begin to study acting, Simon’s writing is a station of the cross, right up there with that of Shaw, Williams, Miller, Mamet, and Shepard. In 1990, Neil was only sixty-three, five years older than I am as I write this, but he seemed older. During The Marrying Man, Simon looked tired at the table reading of the script he attended, while collecting the expected laughs, tributes, and signs of approval. When the reading ended, the leading lady on the picture, Kim Basinger, asked Simon a couple of questions that hinted at how sexist and dated she felt some of Neil’s writing was. She was right. The Marrying Man, set in the 1950s, was based on a real-life story about Harry Karl, who was later Debbie Reynolds’s husband. Karl married a lounge singer he met in Vegas. There was a lot that was funny in the script, but some of it felt stale. The director, Jerry Rees, was a sweet young guy out of Disney animation who didn’t have the nerve to opine about the script.