by Alec Baldwin
I was offered the other lead role and waited for them to tell me who they would cast in De Niro’s place. That month, I went with Kim, Ireland, and Kim’s siblings and father to Figure Eight Island, just off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina. We’d vacationed there for several years as it was a reasonable drive from Athens, Georgia, where Kim grew up and her family lived. I remember sitting on a bed in our rented beach house when my agent called to tell me that Anthony Hopkins had just been cast in the role of Morse. I literally welled up with tears of joy.
Just two years prior, the producer of the Oscars, Gil Cates, asked me to present a clip from a nominated film. I told Gil I would if that film could be The Remains of the Day, which was one of my favorites that year. I worshipped Emma Thompson and admired the director, James Ivory. The movie I shot with Hopkins would be one of the few of my films that I can watch. Its mournful treatment of the main character’s struggle to connect with people in any meaningful way requires an actor of Tony’s ability. Who plays existential angst better than Hopkins?
We began shooting that August on location all over Alberta, Canada. The cast and crew were in hotels and rental houses in Canmore, thirty-odd minutes from the gates of Banff National Park. It was decided to jettison the title Bookworm, which I preferred. The new title, The Edge, should have provided a clue as to how Tamahori, the producer Art Linson, and the studio execs at Fox wanted to shape the film into more of a conventional action-adventure-drama than the baroque thriller I thought I had signed on for. The script told the story of Morse, an awkward, introverted billionaire, who accompanies his supermodel wife, Mickey (Elle Macpherson), on a photo shoot in the Alaskan semiwilderness. Unbeknownst to Morse (or maybe not), his wife has been having an on-again, off-again affair with the attending photographer, Bob Green, played by yours truly. I loved the script because it was simple and stark, throwing two men into desperate circumstances, simultaneously mistrusting and needing each other. In several scenes, such as when a third companion, played by Harold Perrineau, is killed, the film mimics The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in its moments of unbridled humanity.
In one rehearsal, Tamahori said, “This scene on page fourteen. I think we should just cut the first four speeches. David does tend to go on a bit.” I felt that the way David tends to “go on” was the very reason I was there. At one point, I telephoned Mamet, who listened politely to my concerns about the changes in the tone of the film. Then he said, “Alec, these scripts are like orphan children to me. I write them, they pay me, and they belong to someone else.” In terms of Hollywood protocol, he was right. As he was not the director, he wouldn’t waste his time worrying about how the film was being made. During the actual shooting, Tamahori revealed that he had little, if any, affinity for dramatizing the tensions between Morse and Green. Instead, he relied on Bart the Bear, our Alaskan Kodiak castmate, to execute the kind of storytelling he could comprehend.
Ultimately, the stars of the film are two incomparable icons, the Canadian Rockies and Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins treated me to my favorite acting collaboration and the best view of a truly great actor I’d had since shooting Knots Landing with Julie Harris. With his classical training, subtly expressive face and limpid eyes, and an essential sturdiness and strength, he is my favorite living actor. No matter the role, there is always both the gentleman and the thug, the man and the beast present in so much of his work. I had studied Hopkins (and I do mean studied) going back to 1974, when he starred in the television adaptation of Leon Uris’s QB VII. I’d then watched him in films like Magic, The Elephant Man, The Remains of the Day, Nixon, and, of course, The Silence of the Lambs. After we worked together, Tony, ever the pugnacious iconoclast, still delighted me in The World’s Fastest Indian.
Hopkins has numerous gifts, and it is, of course, his voice that casts his spell. Like the French horn solo from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, he simply opens his mouth to speak and his work is halfway done. While many British actors imbue their work with something a bit more polished than Americans do, with Hopkins there is an added layer. Whether it’s something sensuous or dangerous, it’s palpable. While we were on location in Banff National Park, my sister Beth came to visit me. My sister Beth flew from Syracuse to Toronto to Calgary, then drove ninety minutes to the set, arriving rather tired. I found Hopkins lying on an air mattress, recommended for a neck and back injury that he joked he picked up while channeling Nixon. I approached him and said, “Tony, I’d like you to meet my sister Beth.” Hopkins put down the newspaper, stood, and slowly looked up at my sister, his blue eyes like sapphires that he had often utilized to similar effect, no doubt. “Elizabeth,” he purred, taking her hand, “what a pleasure to meet you.” When he kissed the back of it, I thought that Beth, a married mother of six, was about to faint.
Another career lesson occurred while shooting The Edge. A year earlier, in 1995, I had become quite committed to the work of one of the entertainment industry’s leading arts advocacy organizations, The Creative Coalition, founded in 1989 by actor Ron Silver in cooperation with then HBO CEO Michael Fuchs and a roster of actors including Susan Sarandon, Stephen Collins, Blair Brown, and Christopher Reeve. Silver had wanted to harness the energies of politically engaged members of the industry who were willing to work on behalf of specific causes. His basic idea was to invite his more activist show business friends to study the issues on a level they had not been exposed to before. Programs were produced wherein experts and scholars lectured the TCC members—including not only famous actors but also writers, producers, musicians, and agents—as well as the public. TCC raised awareness on a range of core issues that included arts advocacy and the responsibility of the federal government in arts funding, gun control, First Amendment rights and issues related to freedom of expression, the reproductive rights of women, federal and state enforcement of environmental regulation, and campaign finance reform.
At the 1995 retreat, which was held in New York, I vividly recall standing next to Chris Reeve and knowing that he would run for political office, probably the Senate, and soon. He had cultivated a more moderate and politically adroit stance while serving as TCC’s president. He spoke more carefully and was less confrontational with our “opponents,” and he admonished me to follow suit. The very premise of TCC, that movie stars could effectively draw the attention of legislators and impact public policy if they had been sufficiently briefed, was embodied by Chris. It was entertaining to walk the halls of Congress with Chris to lobby for the issues TCC had adopted. The congressional staffs and elected officials themselves reacted to Chris in a charged way. Members of Congress would beam when meeting Chris and shout, “Come on in here, Superman!” Two weeks later, he broke his neck and was paralyzed. Soon after that, I was elected TCC’s president.
While shooting The Edge in Canada the following year, I informed the producers of a TCC commitment I needed to keep in New York. I went so far as to have them book my plane ticket to avoid any confusion about my trip. However, the late-evening flight from New York was delayed, and the connection, an odd Las Vegas junket to Calgary, took off without me on it. I wrote down the names and contact info of the flight crew in charge and called the first assistant director, a guy named Phil Patterson. Phil, who played a role similar to a sergeant in the army, seemed worried by my news, but took a deep breath and said, “We’ll try to shoot around it. Get here as quick as you can.” The next morning, I flew from New York to Calgary, stopping in Toronto. The trip took up most of the day. I arrived at work that Monday, in the late afternoon. We did a couple of uncomplicated shots, and I went back to my rented house in Canmore. The next day, I walked into my trailer to find a FedEx envelope from a Fox attorney named Bill Petrasich waiting for me. Fox was suing me for the lost production time.
After some inquiries, I was told that the head of the studio at the time, Tom Rothman, had envisioned someone else in my role, an actor who was either unavailable, unaffordable, or unwilling. Therefore, when the time came to make my deal for the film, Fox neg
otiators were taciturn, as they were negotiating with someone who was certainly not their first choice. Perhaps I had them over a barrel, to some extent, because the movie was in the pipeline and they believed they had to move forward. But when you are unwanted, your demands are always viewed as excessive.
When shooting films on location, I brought seven men with me: Carl Fullerton, makeup; Rick Provenzano, hair; Myron Baker, personal wardrobe; Fred Liberman, driver; Ted Haggerty, stand-in; Gary Tacon, stunt double; and Greg Pace, personal assistant. These guys had shot several films with me. They were my movie family. They also cost the studio some money, which may have pissed them off. However, the idea that a major studio would threaten to sue a lead actor on one of their films for missing work as the result of someone else’s error or negligence, even though I had offered them all the proof they needed that it had been far beyond my control, was more than ridiculous. It was abusive. I went to Art Linson, the producer, and asked him to intervene.
A producer, I’ve been told, is a person who brings an “essential element” to the table to get a film made. That can be money, material, or movie stars. Linson, who had made films like Melvin and Howard, The Untouchables, and Casualties of War, was the type of producer who was “friends” with certain actors, which I assume gave him a leg up when submitting scripts for them to consider. Robert De Niro and Sean Penn fell into that category, and rather quickly, it became clear I did not. Linson did nothing to help me. I was now stuck in the middle of Alberta, my wife and young child at home in LA, with a director who had no business making the film and a producer who was content to watch the studio fuck with me as some kind of payback for my desire to bring the same crew I’d taken on the road with me for years. Years later, Linson, believing that his own career was the stuff of Hollywood legend, made his memoir What Just Happened into a 2008 film with De Niro playing him. De Niro called me and asked me to play a character based on myself in the film. It was a testament to the loyalty of Linson’s friends that De Niro would even ask me such a stupid question.
With little hope that a good film would emerge from this scenario, I was left with Tony, the breathtaking scenery, the wonderful music of Jerry Goldsmith, and the cinematography of Don McAlpine. We helicoptered to the top of Mount Assiniboine, which, at 11,850 feet, is the highest peak of the southern Canadian Rockies. When we alighted from a helicopter at the top of Assiniboine, I felt as if I had died and gone to heaven. Prior to that trip, I thought Big Sur was the most beautiful place I had ever been. I may even have voted for the beaches in East Hampton, right in my own backyard, or Kruger National Park in South Africa. But in Alberta, everywhere you look is unforgettable. The people are lovely, too. Away from the ceaseless noise, hucksterism, and smugness of America, Canada itself is a balm to the soul.
During the shoot, I learned more about Tony. He was raised in the same town in Wales as Richard Burton, who encouraged him at a young age to attend the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. As he spoke, I envisioned this shy boy who liked to paint going on to become an Oscar-winning film star and receiving a knighthood from the queen. Tony spoke casually about his training at RADA and his early stage career at the National Theatre under the direction of Laurence Olivier, and stunned me with his assertion that Hollywood had always been his goal. But if I pressed him further, eager to hear more and showing him my own apprentice’s heart, a smile would come across his face and wonderful stories about Olivier’s vanity, playfulness, and, above all, talent would spill out.
In The Edge, my character, Bob, is one of the more vacuous characters I’ve ever played, and it was interesting, sometimes fun, recalling people I had known, even worked with, who lent me some idea for the character. Bob is intimidated by Charles’s intellectual and psychological powers. It was not hard to play that while acting opposite Tony. At the end, Bob chooses to exonerate Charles’s wife, Mickey, out of respect for Charles. It was easy to love and respect Tony in the extreme as well.
Years later, when I performed in Peter Shaffer’s Equus on Long Island in 2010, I asked Shaffer if he thought it was worthwhile for me to see the original production, with Hopkins and Peter Firth, that is on tape at the Lincoln Center library. Shaffer said, “I don’t think so, only because the cast did not wish to be taped. So Roberta Maxwell did not perform that show. Firth put on a North Country accent, completely out of character. And Tony impersonated Larry Olivier the entire performance.” After a bit of a pause, he said, “Very naughty boys.” This actually came as no surprise to me. Hopkins is funny and a wonderful mimic. On the set of The Edge, Hopkins and I had played a game of dueling Richard Burtons. The goal was to not only impersonate Burton but to distill the self-destructive genius down to his essence. Eventually, Tony won the game for all time with his almost haiku-like incantation: “Elizabeth! Baubles and stones. White wine. Marbella.” Then he feigned passing out.
One of my favorite images from making films comes from shooting a scene with Tony, running through a glacier-fed stream, pursued by Bart the Bear. When we began the picture, the temperature was in the low seventies and we wore bug repellent. Weeks later, we wore thermal linings in our costumes as we spent the day in frigid water. Along the bank of the stream, the crew had situated a hot tub that we could jump into to stay warm between takes, as our costumes were already soaked through. I sat in that hot tub, smoking a great Cuban cigar and muttering, “Baubles and stones. White wine. Marbella.” Here I was that little boy again, repeating the famous actor’s lines. Only now, the famous actor was my costar and the lines were spoken to me over lunch. I’ll never have it that good again. Not ever.
The final ten minutes of The Edge are the only piece of my own film work that I can ever watch and enjoy. The movie got decent reviews and made a nickel or two at the box office. I returned to Alberta for many years after the film wrapped to ski at Lake Louise, Kicking Horse, and Banff. I loved it so much, I thought I’d move there.
There was a period during the ’90s when, if I asked a question, made a request, or sought a piece of information, before my sentence was even finished, the response would be, “Of course, Mr. Baldwin, of course.” After The Edge, things would change, irrevocably, in my film career. In some ways that was a good thing, insofar as the less power you believe you have, the simpler life can get. And simple is good in acting. It just took me a bit more time to learn that.
12
So Long as You Know
After The Edge, I grew tired of the limitations of studio moviemaking. And just in time, as that system had grown tired of me as well. You have to sell tickets. There are actors who are drug-addled, fornicating madmen. They are bullies who not only lack talent but also create some degree of difficulty wherever they work. There are actresses whose vanity and lack of self-awareness are so dense, you could split the atoms of their egos and fuel a reactor. Their behavior makes little difference, so long as their movies make money. On the other hand, you can be professional, committed, appropriately curious, hardworking, and collegial. But if the movies tank, you’re out.
The Edge was not successful in dollar terms. I asked my then agent, John Burnham at William Morris, if producers and execs would shun me because of the difficulties I’d had on films like The Marrying Man, The Juror (another incompatible director situation), and The Edge, as well as walking away from the Clancy series. Burnham’s reply was a memorable one: “It’s not that when they think of you, they hate you. They just don’t think of you at all.” Someone’s got to kiss the girl, blow up the bridge, punch the villain, deliver the stirring speech, fire some type of weapon, and then kiss the girl again. I was thirty-eight years old, with mixed success at best, and the studio movie business was moving on with other people.
When you are an apple that falls from the studio movie star tree and you’re ready to be made into the applesauce of the independent film world, the transition is frustrating and humbling, the greatest frustration being not the smaller budgets but the more limited time allowed to make a movie. Indie filmmakin
g means less time. A lot less. But it also presents a greater opportunity to produce your own films. Up to that point, I had exhibited only a slight interest in developing my own film projects. I had a company. I had creative partners. For a while, my partner was Walter Hill’s wife, Hildy Gottlieb, herself a successful agent at ICM, and a great colleague. But convincing studios and production companies, large and small, to gamble their resources on your belief about what an audience will want to see is the most difficult job in the business.
When you are Hanks or Will Smith, you are the powerful engine in an expensive machine. Everyone around you wants to keep you tuned, ready, and on the track, because you usually win. There is no shortage of people poised to buy what you and your team create. Everyone else, however, is just another merchant in an unimaginably competitive market. In the beginning of my film career, my desire to make the most of whatever role I was given was my sole focus. The business side of the movies was unfamiliar to me, and I never had a serious thought about writing, directing, or producing, where many actors eventually focus their energies. I felt the job was to act, to improve at that and to grow. Anything else seemed like a distraction.
For those who find that acting simply isn’t enough, the technical components of filmmaking are limitless and alluring. And the camera is king. On sets, over the years, some of the most brilliant cinematographers in history would nod at me and wave me over to the camera to look through the lens at their composition. Like when you’re invited into the cockpit by the pilot, you rarely, if ever, say no. But none of this proximity to the “film school” side of the business sparked any interest in me. Talk of lenses and cutting points and which side of the room the camera must be on went in one ear and out the other. Often, the camera team informed me of some technical adjustment or realignment they wanted to make, and I’d joke that I was in the “Acting Division,” while they were the “Science Division.” On the set of It’s Complicated, the great John Toll might turn to me and say, “The shot works better from over here.” Or, “We need to change lenses because I think it looks better on a forty.” I’d wink at him and say, “So long as you know.” By this, I meant to indicate that the technical side had little or no effect on what I was about to do. My awareness of the camera and my relationship to it were my own obligation. Like nearly all good film actors I have worked with, over time I developed an innate, acute sense of how to adjust for the camera. The job was to act with others in a scene, but also, to the best of my ability, factor in the camera and, thus, the audience itself. The camera is the proscenium, and I always feel compelled to triangulate my performance with it and the other actors. Wherever the camera is, I’ll unconsciously adjust to it.