August 9, 2022 • 54 mins
Every other week throughout the summer, members of the Here’s The Thing staff are selecting their favorite interviews from the archives. This week, we revisit Alec’s conversations with two of the funniest comedians in the business – and coincidentally, two of the most popular episodes from our archives. Chris Rock is known for his work on SNL, his stand up specials, the sitcom Everybody Loves Chris and films like Madagascar and Grownups. In recent years, the comedian dove deeper into acting, including an acclaimed turn in the FX dark comedy Fargo. In a conversation from 2011, Alec goes backstage after a performance of the play The Mother F**ker With The Hat, Rock’s Broadway debut. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld broke the mold with his sharp observational humor and a groundbreaking sitcom about “nothing,” over nine seasons of Seinfeld. He also produced and hosted 11 seasons of his unconventional talk show, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee and continues to tour standup. In this conversation from 2013, the comedian discusses getting his start in standup, why he thinks Seinfeld was a success and the unique connection he feels to his audience.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Frank Imperial, the engineer at Here's the Thing.
We're in the middle of our summer staff Pick series,
where we choose our favorite episodes from the archives. This week,
I wanted to share with you two interviews that are
among the most popular and funniest we've ever done, comedians
Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. Chris Rock has always been
(00:21):
a boundary pushing comedian. The Emmy and Grammy winner is
well known for his work on Saturday Night Live, his
numerous comedy specials, films like Grown Ups and Madagascar, and
the sitcom based on his life, Everybody Loves Chris. In
recent years, the funny man has been pushing his own boundaries,
digging deeper into his acting. He starred in the fourth
(00:44):
season of Fargo on f X, but before that, Alec
met up with the comedian when he was on Broadway
in his very first play Here's Alex two thousand eleven
conversation with comedian and actor Chris Rock backstage at the
Showenfeld Theater. His dressing room in Broadway shown Field Theater
was five floors up, no elevator. Chris's show The Mother
(01:09):
with the Hat was about a group of dysfunctional friends
and lovers, where every relationship had gone bad, really bad. Drugs, booze, cheating,
No one was loyal to anyone. Chris played a recovering
alcoholic who had first glance seems to be a good guy,
but after a few minutes it was clear he was
the most self serving of the bunch. Oh Man, you
(01:31):
do a great man, you want to press If this
is something beautiful, come and stay with me and Vicky
Man get on a nutritional beverage program. Man. Before this
past spring, Chris might have been the last person you'd
expect to see starring in a Broadway show. I mean,
Chris can sell out Madison Square Garden, ps. They have
an elevator. Yet there he was between performances in his
(01:54):
attic dressing room at the Shoonefeld Theater. I wanted my
acting to grow. Do you have to see a huge
following black and white in your concerts? And yet when
you go out in this audience, how black is the audience? Well,
I mean put this way. In the old days, they
used to have signs up whites only, whites only. Now
I have a new thing. It's called prices. You know,
(02:17):
some nights it's darker than other nights. I buy tickets
every night when this play is over. Spent almost a
whole weekly paycheck on tickets as gifts for friends otherwise
couldn't come see the show. Otherwise could not afford to
see this show. I tour and I'm normally you know,
(02:37):
at the garden or whatever, like sixty thousand seats to
give away what I'm normally on tour, and people have
gotten used to this. My man takes care of us,
and you know, I don't. I can't take that away
from friends and family. You haven't done a lot of theater. Correct,
This is the first play I've ever done. This is
the first play you've ever done. I didn't do a
(02:59):
play in high school. I didn't go to high school.
So so not only your Broadway debut, but your first
play period. You're with a pretty cool group of people,
a lot of experience, you know what, and they have
held me up. No one ever got frustrated at what
I didn't know. You know, this is a bunch of
(03:22):
little things that people take for grant. I have no idea.
You're never supposed to walk straight at somebody, supposed to loop.
Just all these weird little things My favorite is that
you don't give information to the person. So if you're
standing here telling them something, you tell it out. You said,
they're going to open, open, open to the audience as
much as possible. All that open, open, open, open open stuff. Yes,
(03:43):
even today, I'm working on it. The Chris Rock that
I know from your live shows, I don't see much
of him in this show because that Chris Rock is
like marauding the stage and as complete control over the audience.
This is a different Chris I see in the play.
I'm really try to act here, you know. Have you
enjoyed it? I'm enjoying it a lot. A lot. Is
(04:08):
the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life.
I always tell people it's like having the Empire State
Building shoved up your one brick at a time and
to play. Can't believe there's ever gonna be a day
when you know these lines. What's been the surprise about
doing this for you? Honestly, I'm surprised I'm doing it.
(04:29):
I mean, I'm surprised that I'm not bored with it already.
Are you afraid of that? I'm really that that what's
the that's the biggest fear to actually be stuck doing anything.
Does this change for you night by night by day?
You know what's weird? I'm figuring out how to make
it change now. So I'm actually figuring out how to
(04:49):
add lib every night without saying words, how to work eat,
seeing a little different in each line, and try to
find laughs and places that I didn't find one the
night before. So yeah, so it's to answer your question,
it changes every night. Well, what I love about this plant?
By the way, everybody has loved someone, and not too
(05:15):
far into the relationship, you say to yourself, not only
is this probably wrong, this is definitely wrong, but you
can't get out of it. How does this play resonate
with you in your personal life? I've been every person
in this place, a person betrayed everything, everything, and it's
(05:37):
the one who the other person in response to the betrayal,
the revenge every person. It's the kind of play you
can't watch without putting yourself in it. When you write
your material for stand up, how do the people in
your life react to how you fill at them on stage?
If you're you know what, I'm like a lawyer in
(05:58):
a sense. I mean that's it's almost like a legal document.
It's a word like it's all our wives and all
our you know what I mean. It's like like if
you if I gave you the transcript, he'd be like,
he hasn't talked about anybody. It's about your baby. It
would all hold up in court, you do. But you
never have anybody in your life? No, No, everybody's uncomfortable.
(06:20):
I remember I read a quote Tarantino said, if people
in your life aren't uncomfortable, you're not really writing, you're
not really hitting it. You know, somebody better be uncomfortable.
Did you grow up in a situation that was remotely
like this? And then emotionally and most turbulence my parents
place way My mother cursed a lot, screamed a lot.
(06:43):
You know. My father, my mother beat us with a
curtain rod. Yeah, well we got beatings with curtain rods
and brooms and brushings and hangars or whatever. But me
and my father, it's weird. My father, his temper towards
my mother was always controlled, right, what else he could
lose it? Why do you think it was you wanted
(07:04):
to protect that? I don't know. I mean, first of all,
I mean, guys from that era did not view women
as their equals. They did, and they were loving and
blah blah blah blah blah. But they did not view
women as their equals. Therefore they could actually deal with
the woman's emotional whatever swings way easier than a guy
(07:29):
in my age, because I view a woman as my equal.
So if I'm with a woman and she starts crying,
I look at her like I'm with you when you
start crying, don't go female on me. I'm like something,
I look at her life. I would look at a
guy that gets emotional. Yeah, I thought, if we were equal,
then you can't play that car. Don't play the female.
So I'll just say my father and my grandfather's both
(07:52):
of them were really delicate with their wives. You know,
not a child, but close to a child. How it's
different for you. My wife's my equal, and you know,
you know, any budding of heads is because I I
(08:14):
want I'm dealing with you the same way I would
deal with myself, or I deal with any guy. And
we're both wrong. What are you gonna do when this
is over? Do you know how much sure I think
I'm gonna direct a movie that sort I'm feeling. So
this is the time in your life, and you do
all the things you told yourself you'd never do. Play
on Broadway. Direct a movie. Why do you want to
(08:35):
direct a movie? I don't know. I put it away.
If I can get a great director to direct me,
I'll do it. But once, yeah, once you get to
the sea list, you might as well do it yourself.
That's what I say. Yeah, how picky are you about
the films you do? Because you don't do a lot
of films. Um, I don't know. I mean I turned
out a lot, but I don't have a list of
(08:56):
great films I've turned you turned down regardless of whether
they're great or not. Do you turn them down? Because
for you, you always have the stand up thing in
your pocket and the concert thing in your pocket. You're
not in any hurry to go out and make a living.
Most movies suck man, early suck. See. I'm I'm messed
(09:17):
up because I like to see something I haven't seen
or haven't seen with a black person. Black people in
film is still at its really at its infant stage.
And what do you think, I don't know? You know what,
here's the thing. You know, you hand a studio person
of script, and sometimes the studio people are good at
(09:39):
a time. When you hand somebody as script, they pick
a person in the movie that they identify with. So
if you hand a woman a script, if the woman's
got nine lines in the movie, the first person who
gives you notes about is the woman. And if you
hand the boss the script, he's gonna give you notes
about the main character. And if you hand his assist
(10:00):
the script is gonna give you notes about some other
everybody figures out who they are in the movie. Now,
when you had somebody a black script, they don't relate
to anybody. That's a very good point. I'm serious, even
when it's and when you have any seconative who does
relate to a black person's script, what does that mean
(10:20):
to you? You You struck gold Well, Really, they just they're
making a product all of a sudden, That's what I've experienced.
And when you do, because i mean, there's no black
studios or whatever, so you end up you always end
(10:40):
up with just a person trying to make a piece
of product. They might as well, they might still be
making an iPads kind of a sustainable stateship business. But
you seem to me, because you're so smart and so
clever that you have as much of a white audience
as you do a black ondies, don't you think so
in spite of the fact your stand up can be
(11:03):
pretty tough on white people. Yeah, but I always say
my stand ups like Chinese food and what's Chinese food? Well,
Chinese food is one of the most popular foods in
all of America, and they don't put Americans on their menus.
People really want Chinese food. They don't put fries and
(11:24):
grilled cheese, grilled cheese on the menu of the most
popular Chinese food of people comedy. So I'm just saying,
when people see people come to Chris's restaurant, think about
Chris's menure. I'm talking with Chris Rock backstage at the
Chaunfeld Theater on Street. This is Alec Baldwin and you're
(11:47):
listening to here's the thing. How old are you know?
I'm forty six forty six, which means you started and
you started. I started probably five seven years before I
got on S and O. But I always I haven't
been you know, I havn't been poor day since I
met Laura Michaels. I never broke a lot of his
(12:12):
stuff sticks with me. What thing he said to me
is like everybody loses their first money. Now if you're talented,
you'll make some more. That He's so right, he knows
more about Let's take a moment to talk about the
wisdom of Lord Michael. You know, he's always there to
remind you how you can lose perspective about this business.
At least in my case. He's very good. But how
(12:34):
much of things changed in your mind? And not just
for you but for you specifically, but in the business.
I don't know about you. I find a business a
lot smaller, less movies, less, I mean less stuff that
relates to me, you know what, Less stuff that relates
to me. I'll say that for the young people. You know,
(12:56):
this whole reality thing, I'm not going to dismiss it.
You know, sound like I'm some old person talking about
rap music. It's not gonna last, you know what I mean.
But do you think the same time I don't get it.
Do you think you'd make it today if you came
in today? Yeah? Me and Sana, Well that's our little
tests with each other. We kinda we assessed the stand
ups we're gonna Yeah, we still got it. I still
(13:19):
got it. Yeah, I keep the weight off a little bit.
You know. That's what I'm trying to do it. Du
bon Jovi, still doing it, Still doing it, man, Just
look hot, Just trying to look hot to somebody. You
don't have to lie. You're still got you still look
how many kids you have done to nine? Get ready
nine and get ready by seven? So what are you
(13:40):
worried about raising your kids in this world? I care
that they're good with money. I don't care if When
I say good with money, I just mean you've got
two dollars and you spend one and you put a dollar.
But I don't mean that they run Microsoft or they
flip money and buy a house. I just mean, does
that come from your childhood? Yes, it comes from my childhood.
(14:02):
I just mean can they handle their own That's it?
Because to get out of it's a tough hole to
get out of, and it's a weird hole for a
pretty woman to get out of, and they end up
in relationships with guys they wouldn't have relationship with. There's
a great line that Anthony Quinn has in Lawrence of
Arabia where he says, I am a river to my people. Yeah,
(14:24):
I'm getting a lot of that now. Well, Hey, here's
the thing. You can only help. Like, I got some
family right now, guy wouldever losing his house whatever, I'm
gonna help him move in to wherever he's gonna move into.
I'm not buying his house because he's never gonna be
able to fold the house. So yeah, I my, I'm
(14:49):
a river. But it's a little river. It's a little
river because when you turn down somebody and they know
you have the money, this is one thing to go.
These kids are kicking or whatever, and you don't have
the money. They know you have the money. It's so
it's almost like a woman. It's like I know you
(15:11):
have vagina and you have sex, you just don't want
to have it with me. I remember I used to
do a movie and they'd say to me in whatever way,
what would come back was, Uh, we don't have the
money for that. And what they really were saying was,
we don't have the money for that for you, for you,
we don't we have the exactly for Leo, we're gonna
(15:34):
sell our houses. Remember, for you, we don't have the money.
And that's what you're saying to people in your life
is I don't have the money for you. I don't
have the money for you. You're not gonna be the
reason I'm doing some bad Kung Fu movie. Okay? Comedian
and actor Chris Rock. When we come back, we'll have
(15:56):
Alex conversation with Jerry Seinfeld from two thousand thirteen. It's
an understatement to say that Jerry Seinfeld broke the mold.
(16:16):
His brand of observational comedy is universal and led to
his success as a stand up comic and in his
namesake sitcom, Seinfeld The Show About Nothing ran for nine
seasons and became one of the most memorable, acclaimed, and
influential series of all time. Following up one success with another,
(16:37):
Seinfeld then produced and hosted the roving talk show Comedians
in Cars Getting Coffee, which is exactly what it sounds like,
for eleven seasons, and he continues to do what he loves,
touring the nation performing stand up. Here's Alex two thousand
thirteen conversation with the legendary producer, actor, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
(16:59):
Who makes it in comedy? Who are the ones that
make it? And it's a change in your lifetime? What
does it takes in show business? Let's answer that question,
because I haven't. I'll tell you who's in show business.
You know it's in show business? Like who wants to
be more than anyone else? Those are the people that
are in it. The people that just go, I want
to be in it. I'm going to be in it.
(17:21):
Do I have the skill set? Do I have a talent?
I have something to offer? We'll find out or not.
But it doesn't I may not take on that with
between Baccino, I said to him, what do you do
when you do a movie and the other person isn't
that good? Like you're doing a scene and I said,
do you go up to the director and give them notes?
Say tell them this other? And said, no, I never
do that. I never do that. No, no, no, I said,
(17:43):
I said, what do you do? I? I said, what
do you do when the people that you're working with
they just I mean, you're so talented, and it's like
tennis and you and you're and you're hitting the ball
with some and they're not that talented. And he said,
I like, like all of us in the business are talented.
Everybody's talented. Some of us are just more talented than others.
But everybody in the room when you're working, they've got
(18:04):
some kind of time, like you'd say he has a
talent for storytelling, he had a talent for this. But
you're saying that people who determination is a big part
of it. I'm saying it's most of the people we
see in in the arts are there not because they
had the most to offer, but because they wanted to
(18:26):
be there the most, you believe. So when you're in
clubs in your early years and you'd see people who
were working, did you have did you not? Not that
you cared about this or you were focused on this,
but would you Sometimes because my friends who were in
clubs and who were comics, there was a lot of
evaluating of each other in the competition. It was very competitive.
And would you look at people and say, I think
he's got it or she's got and they're gonna make
(18:47):
it and they don't or this one doesn't and and
a big part of your saying is just the drive
as they wanted. They're a dog on a bone. You
see a lot of that, don't you think? I think so? Well?
In the in the movie business, you can see people
who they put it before everything else, you know, I mean,
they're not what business, what what field of endeavor? Has
the highest bullsh factor right in your opinion, Um, because
(19:13):
you've been in a number of different branches. Now, well,
I think, well, obviously a government is government higher than
I think entertainment. Did you enjoy the Anthony Weiner show
this season or not the show that he put on
for us when when that was going on? Did you
(19:35):
were you disgusted? Were you going? I love this? I
I loved it because to me it was the visible man.
Let's take off the face of the clock and watch
the gears. And that's what that was. This is you know,
we're talking about people our ownership show business because they
want to be he wants to have he wants it
wants and most of most of them have all the
(19:56):
guyses and veils and and you know, well they pretend
that what you just hit on a very important point,
which is that they pretend to some degree that it's selfless.
That well that also, yeah, that that they don't crave power.
But the other thing about Weener that I found unusual.
I mean, listen, this is I'm not going to say anything.
I don't think I'm capable of saying anything that hasn't
been said before. But the idea that you want to
(20:19):
take pictures of your genitalia and send it to women
that you barely know. I wonder if there's an unconscious
part of him that's like, I'm gonna send pictures of
my genitalia to a couple of women who I don't
even know that well, and let's see what happens. Let's
let's roll the dice here. I'm putting all my chips
on black. I'm all in. I got another pile, and
(20:40):
I'm all in on sending this chicken picture of my
you know what of my personality? I don't have that desire, right,
I'm not I'm not exacts. It's easier to understand than
his get off was. Ding. He looks at the phone, Ding,
let's it just press send? Where where's the thrill? Everybody
has as some component of them for what I call
(21:01):
negative excitement, like what's your thing? You want to do
that that you indulge some weakness of yours? You know
what I mean? Some people have food issues, they have
drinking your mind, what would be yours? Uh? I don't
think I mean beyond tomato sauce. Maybe, yeah, that's not that.
Yeah you are. And for people who don't know you
(21:24):
see This is the thing that, in all honesty, I
always when I think about you, the list of things
I think about is, is how not just professional and
committed in all those other kind of lame were you know,
lazier words, but how you know, just just focused and
hard working. You are like a lot of people look
at you and view you as someone who is but
(21:46):
let's be very candid. You're someone people people view you
as someone who is this incredibly gifted person. I love
this show, right, and no you are. But the point
is that you like you don't work like you do
things like like you going on a trip to go
do some gigs. It's kind of a thing. You're probably
just doing a favor for someone. I think that's more you.
(22:07):
I don't think that's the general perception. I think that's you.
I think your image of me or what you think. Yeah,
I think that's your sense I'm projecting. Yeah, I think
you're projecting. But you know that that's not me. No, no,
not at all. You know that I love to work.
You've incredibly so, but but not um, I'm not driven
(22:29):
by anything very healthy healthy, I'm not driving by anything unwholesome.
But you're healthier. But you are healthier than anybody else
I've ever met in your profession. Everybody else I've met
in your profession, it was you could do Saturday Night
Live and be roaming the hallways of that building. Yeah,
for over the course of you know, it's really more
like four days, not a full week. And you're around
(22:50):
them other people. I did a sitcom with other people.
I've been around a lot of people who make their
living in comedy. I made films with them, and some
of them, you'd be around them. You know, within ten
minutes you understood what was really their deepest problem that
they hadn't resolved. Some of them took a question a
few days. You don't have any problems, No, I don't,
but I do relate very deeply to to all of
(23:12):
those people describe. In fact, I was watching the Emmy's.
Is the only part of the Emmys that I like
When they do the Comedy Writing Award and each Comedy
Writing staff puts up funny pictures, and then when the
the actual staff comes up on the stage and you
see these gnome like cretans just kind of all misshapen,
and and I go, this is me, this is who
(23:34):
I am, This is that's my group people. Yeah, but
you don't. Yeah, do you see that in me? Oh okay,
well then you've learned something here today. What did I learn?
You learned that despite maybe I am healthy and somewhat functional,
but I can I see myself as one of those
(23:55):
guys that that that that group of Colbert Report writers
that are us. It looks like would never let them
speak Colbert musticks. Now those that's where I want to
hang out with those guys. You do, Yeah, like Barry, Yeah, yeah,
you're more comfortable with the berries of that. I'm only comfortable,
(24:15):
only comfortable with those people. Really. Yeah, describe Barry, you
have a special relation. Harry Martyr is my very special friend.
Barry is the author of the Letters from a Nutbook
under the nom de plume ted L Nancy, and he
is um. He's also fascinating compilation of function and dysfunction,
(24:38):
which any interesting person is. UM. He's a guy Who's
what I love about Barries. I can call him right
now it's eleven thirty that he will just say hello.
He's always there, always at home. He's got a red couch.
His living room looks like a murder scene. This you know, Uh,
very scary looking stains on a white ug. He lives
(25:01):
into Lucca Lake to Luca Lake and we talk every day,
usually an hour on a good day, two hours. And
um we were talking yesterday about the chantics, the quit
smoking drug commercial where they list the side effects, and
one of the ones that people have experienced with chantics
(25:24):
is weird dreams. And now we're trying to figure out, well,
what's a weird dream? And do they have a hotline
that you can call up? Say, Bob, I got a
guy here's you know, woke up? He dreamt he had
orangutank feet. Is that weird? And he goes, no, I've
had that one. You know, that's that's weird. Who who
(25:46):
doesn't have weird dreams? There's no dream, it's not weird.
More of Alex conversation with Jerry Seinfeld after the break.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
(26:08):
Thing on the TV show. Seinfeld, Jerry, Elaine Cramer, and
George were characters driven largely by unabashed self interest. Come on,
let's go do something. I don't want to just sit
around here. I want to go get something to eat.
Where you want to go? I don't care, I'm not hungry.
Growing up, Jerry Seinfeld's own family life served as a
(26:29):
useful model of just that. Look, my mother is an orphan.
My father left the house probably eleven years old to
work on the street and make a living on the
Lower east Side. You know, they got married in their forties.
They had no concept of what a family should even be.
And all I craved was the same fierce independence that
(26:51):
they had in their lives. They rested on instructible, indstructible,
self contained, self reliant people. This is not great going
into a marriage, may I say? You know? And I
was that guy saying, well, I gotta go now, I
gotta go to work. And you don't think that this
might be a problem for a person that's not used
(27:11):
to being around that. So it took me a long
time to learn that. You know that you have to
be understand because to me, to me, this life, my life,
what I would call my life in comedy, is a
life of sacrifice that I am only too happy to make.
All my relationships I got married at forty five. All
(27:31):
my relationships were as disposable as a dixie cup. Excuse me?
With women you make yes, I gotta work. You've gone.
But well if you don't, if you don't want you know, well,
if you if you're gonna be on the road that much,
we can't be together. Goodbye, goodbye. This is this my
I have had a sense of mission. You were like
Lee Strasburg in The Godfather Part two. Yes, he say,
(27:54):
if I come back here, I have a partner. I
have a partner. If it's not, I'll know, I don't,
I'll know. I don't what he said, I'm going in
the other room. It's the last time I really out
of shape. Man took his shirt off in a movie
and it wasn't bad. Hair on the top of the shoulders,
(28:15):
a little little little like a little tumbleweeds of hair. Yeah,
did you know him? Did you know when I studied
acting at this school on fifte Street. When I went
to n y U, I went to Strasburg. They assigned
you to the studio. You went to Adler Strasberg's up.
I went to Strasburg, and I had wonderful teachers, Marsha
how Freckt and Jeffrey horn Is a wonderful too, beautiful people.
(28:35):
But you know the method of Strasburg was very uh severe.
Did it work for you one of the well, it
opened up your eyes to the idea of whatever word
you want to use. I'm never going to use the
right word for everyone. To mind your past and mind
your emotional fabric to get where you want to go.
Whereas Strasburg and Stanislavski, both people don't necessarily stumble across
(28:59):
this fine print and all these writings of their where
What Stanislavski and Strasbourg both said is that the method,
so to speak, is something that you apply only if
the inspiration fails you. You don't you don't need to
go off into a room and twist yourself into some
kind of psychological pretzel to do this work. If you
can just say the words and you're there, you feel
connected to the character in and of yourself. Do you
(29:20):
do you have a desire as an actor to be
one of those guys, one of those I'm gonna take
my rib cage and separated. When I was younger, I
did you did When I was younger? I did did
you feel you there was there was there a role
where you felt you got close to that? When I
did street Car named Desire on Broadway and Amy Madigan,
I would scream stella stella for her to come downstairs,
(29:41):
and Amy would come and the minute I would touch Amy,
I'd burst into tears. Remember I didn't I loved Amy
more than any woman I ever loved, you know, at
that moment, I mean and it was real. I was
in love with Amy. Do you think I'm capable of
that kind of work? I think you are. Be a
tremendous mistake your car, it would be a huge would
(30:02):
be one of the poorest choices probably in show business history,
for you to go and to sell. You want to know,
what do you want to do? A street car? On um?
I was in an acting class where a guy did
have me play Brick, but that's cataa hot tin roof.
He because I was able to handle the light comedy
so easily, he said you, I need to challenge you more.
So he had me and he said, I want you
(30:22):
to study the role of Brick. Wasn't that the name
of the character street and the Yeah, Maggie and Brick. Yeah.
Well that's when I left that. There's a girl I
could you'll you'll appreciate this because you're from Long Island.
And I met this woman, uh many years later and
even she laughed about it. So I can say this,
remember Pergament's hardware storm. Okay, I went to I went
(30:46):
to college. I went to g W for three years
and I went and I took my last year there,
my junior year before I climbed over the wall there
and went to end. While you to study acting, I
took acting for non drama majors. It was a gut
course you take at g W. I took acting for
non drama majors. And everyone in the class. This was
one of the things that gave me the impetus to
be an actor, because everyone in the class was so
(31:08):
horrible and I could, I could. I squeaked by like
I wasn't that bad. I was okay in terms of performing.
And the teacher said to me, I want you to
do a scene from Canada Hutton roof of Maggie Brick scene.
And your partner is Debbie Pergamant, who was the daughter
and I don't want to call her the heir to
the pergam And fortune, but let's just say that for
our comedy purposes, Debbie Pergamant and literally she was this
(31:30):
lovely girl, adorable, gorgeous, really cute as the day is long.
But she was from you know, like Roslyn or somewhere.
So when she would say she was the only person
who made brick a bi syllabic where she was like
brick brick, I am like a cat's on a Hudson
roof here, I am so upset. Debbie Pergamant was who
(31:55):
was my partner in a scene study class? And it
was it was I open. So where do we want
to go now? Your your career now? Um you you
you're seeing another carridor for yourself? Is something you want
to explore, something you have to offer or be honest
with me. Are you just tired and you just don't
(32:16):
want to travel and slap and deal with these idiots
you want to know? The truth is I want to
be more like you, really, because you are a very
happy like I look at you when I see to myself,
everything is always like, why aren't you doing what other
people do? What? Meaning? Like the first thing people would
say in the business, I mean even outside the business,
if they have some savvy about it, what they say,
(32:37):
did Jerry want to ramp up a production company and
just print TV shows? I mean, I mean how many
sitcoms could you have? Launched with the promoter of your name.
Forget it. Forget it. You can have your own channel,
the Jerry Channel. But I didn't take that bait. Why
because I know what it is. I know what it is.
(32:59):
That's what if you can't pull that over on me?
What what is? I've sat in all the chairs, I've
been in all the rooms. I know what it is.
Look alec you you've you've been there, right, Yes, you
can't trick me into thinking thinking what that's that's good? Why?
(33:20):
Because don't Most of it is not creative work and
not reaching an audience. You want to be on the water.
How do you want to be on the water. You
want to be on a yacht. You want to be
on a surfboard. I want to be on a surfboard.
I don't want to deal with the yacht. That's a yacht.
And you just also some people want a yacht to say,
to see my yacht, And you just didn't want people
(33:43):
do you. And you also didn't want to ultimately wind
up putting your name as is often the case. Look
at which if you're the goose that lays the golden egg,
you're the successful person, and it all emanates you're the godhead,
if you will, comedy wise, and you go launch all
these other shows, and all those other shows they aren't
maybe as good, they're not, And how much of your name?
But well, why doesn't he want to do it? How
much would we have to even get much for you
(34:03):
to be in the performs just to whatever it is? Yeah,
whatever it is. Let me tell you why my TV
series in the nineties was so good bespides an inordinate
amount of just pure good fortune. In most TV series,
fifty percent of the time is spent working on the show.
Fifty percent of the time is spent dealing with personality, political,
(34:27):
and hierarchical issues of making something. We spent our time
writing me and Larry the door was closed, some somebody calls.
We're not taking the call. We're gonna We're gonna make
this seem funny. That's why the show was good. I
didn't want to go from that two. Um you know
(34:48):
some some H. G. Wells contraption machine you know of
of trying to control the weather. That's what that's what
these these deals are. That's what making a movie is.
It's a movie. It's this giant machine, is this giant
ship and everybody gets on it and they shove off
and nobody knows where it's going. And the captain is
(35:09):
doing where's the captain? He's getting high and and and
and you know, and sleeping with the first mate. He's
his sleep period. Yeah, So it's too much time and
energy spent on that is not the juice. The really
good stuff is a great line. So when you go
(35:30):
out that stand up comedian, I can control that. So
when you go out on stage now, so for now,
for you, other than whatever other things you're involved with,
writing or comedians and cars with coffee and so forth,
you go out on stage, you perform live. How many
shows you do on average? Would you say, I'm not sure.
It varies, but you're on the road how many how
many shows a year? Um? Maybe sent so so you
(35:52):
do seventy five appearances a year? And is it just
very simply a case where you walk out there, that
exchange of energy between you and then they want what
you've got, you want what they've got. You're at home,
you feel comfortable, you're happy. It's a it's a it's
it's a very fulfilling, uh unsolvable puzzle that is endlessly Um.
(36:17):
It just because it was right to your soul. Does
every night need to be different? If you can make it? So?
Do you try to make it different? Says there's nothing
I can do about that. It's gonna be different. It's
gonna be different. But if I can get them right
where I want them and and get myself where I
want myself, and the thing just explodes, Well, you know,
it's fun. That's life. People who perform live. I'll never forget.
(36:38):
There was an article like an Esquire magazine or somewhere,
and they did an article about Wayne Newton and they
took it was about Vegas, and I think it was
about Wayne Newton, and I love this article. And they
weren't mean toward him, were diminishing him, and they were
saying how they thought it was uncanny how the guy
went to the show in Vegas with a stopwatch and
Newton came out and you did the same thing every show,
the same exact thing, the same exact beats. It was
(37:00):
just it was just he just cloned one show after
that and he would come out, but he would create
the dynamic tension that this show was different, and he
come out on stage and people will be screaming and
the women are throwing their panties and they're throwing their
hotel room keys. Had him his crowd, and then he
sit there and he'd say, um, um, you know, we
gotta we gotta wrap this up. But you know, I
love you people. I'm gonna do someth I'm gonna sing
a song I never sing anymore. And the song he
(37:22):
just sang, like you know, ninety minutes ago, I must
sing a number for you guys. I never sing anymore.
I never would never break this one out anymore. And
he just re created the same, uh you know, mock
freshness of the whole thing, which many performers. I assume
they do that. Yeah, he used to say to him,
locked the doors, they don't want me to go long.
But but this audience, I don't, I don't. I'm gonna
(37:42):
do something I never do. I'm breaking the rules. Yeah,
And of course you would write on the button you
performed in Vegas all the time. So they throw the
hotel room key. How desperate is this entertainer, by the way,
to just pick up fifteen D and go I'm heading
over there. I'm going over there, which one of you
was fifteen D. Oh you I'm sorry, let me give
you your key back. I'm sorry. I don't want that
(38:03):
kid coming up. More from Jerry Seinfeld. He's got so
(38:23):
many years of stand up under his belt. When he
travels as he does most weekends, every move is planned.
It is organized with military precision, not an ounce on
the day. It's three guys, three suits, three garment bags.
We're in, we're out, and we have a great time.
(38:45):
We worked very hard. It's zero dark thirty. Yeah, get
in loud and go thinker with the dead bodies bag.
It's a beautiful thing. This is what I was given
from the TV series, that I could live like this
now on my own terms. That that's what we're looking
(39:07):
for on my own term term. Right, God, that's such
a foreign concept to me. Yes, the lack of an
actor is anything but anything but right. But this is
where we're moving now with Alec God. Yeah, my god,
on my own terms. More wisdom from Jerry Seinfeld in
(39:28):
a moment, This is Alec Baldwin. Take a listen to
our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policy makers,
and performers like Patty Lapone, Erica Young, and Debbie Reynolds.
Good morning, Good morning, it's great to stay in Blake.
(39:49):
Good morning, good morning. Look fun you see, I can't
sing to save my life if you put a gun
to my head and said saying are you almost saying
go too? Here's the thing dot org. Here's the thing
(40:17):
is supported by Capital one offering the venture card from
Capital one. What's in your wallet? Information about benefits at
Capital one venture card dot com. This is Alec Baldwin
(41:55):
and you're listening to Here's the Thing. When Jerry Seinfeld
was ten years old old, he started feverishly studying the
techniques of stand up comedians on TV, devouring it everything.
It's like, just like my daughter does. Now, my daughter
has totally got whatever that gene I had, She's got it.
She can do any voice, accent, takes lines. Her brother
(42:19):
said to her, this one. She's wearing glass. She has glasses.
Her brother said, he said, are those are those real glasses?
She looked at him, She said, what do you think
that's she's twelve, She's she's not ready to go play
(42:39):
iron Rand at the local library. And the fake glasses.
But um, okay, so my house, Um I assume my
my childhood was my relationship to my parents, was you
do what you gotta do. I'll do what I got
(43:00):
to do, and I'm just living here till I can
figure something else out. That was my house, and to me,
that was great. We've talked about this. You and I
was very independent. My father never hugged me, never told
me he loved me, never threw me a ball. No problem.
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. He's you're good. I'm
(43:20):
watching you, gonta do whatever some time together? Right? Who
was the guy who blew the horn in the in
the when the tower and the tower fell over? Remember
at the beginning of each show, I forget what was it?
Was it Larry? It was another No, Larry Storch was
a garn he was an There was another Larry was
Captain Parmenter. Captain Parmenter. He wasn't really funny. But there
(43:45):
was another guy, another Larry, who was at the top
of the time the tower would fall over because he
was very kind of vanilla looking. Yeah, it wasn't. It
wasn't Larry Wilcox. He went on to do Chips. No, No,
it was another Larry anyway, But yeah, I was Abbert
and Costello was I really became obsessed with them because
(44:05):
of the precision word play they were see that's where
they went beyond there was there was Laurel and Hardy
and then Martin Lewis, but Aben and Costello had this precision.
I mean, who's on first is a piece of It's
like that that museum in Spain, you know, the what
(44:27):
you know, the no, the other one that what's his name?
Did that? Yeah? Whose real name is Goldberg? By the way,
really yes it is. He changed it in college, Frank Frank, Yeah,
the what's the name of that museum in northern Billo. Yeah, anyway,
that's what Who's on first? This? It's like what a construction,
(44:48):
What a brilliant piece of construction. So and when I
heard things like that, I um, I just would get
very excited that you could do things like that with words,
ideas and attitudes and and have laughs, you know, I
have laughs. I remember when I was a kid and
my dad would go to work and my brothers and
sisters would go to school, and my mom was lonely.
(45:11):
M I probably missed school like thirty or forty days
a year. You did, and it was a game. I
was totally foolish. I said to my mom I don't
feel good. Remember like, all right, you get in there
and go to the breakfast table and pretend you're going
to school until your father and then when he's gone,
you can go back upstairs. And I would go and
lie on the couch and they would show the same
(45:33):
movie five days in a row. So the housewives who
could only catch a piece of it here and a
piece so they show Inherit the Wind, And by Friday
I was laying in bed. I missed school for three days.
And Friday Spencer Tracy would say, this man wants to
be afforded the same rights as a sponge. He wishes
to think, and my lip sync the words I knew that.
I'm like the Door. I became a complete movie, so
(45:59):
that to where it began. And then we got into
the arrand spelling years. I abandoned. He never watched TV again.
No Charlie's Angels, And now what do you watch? Uh?
Now I come into your house. It's ten forty five
at night. Everyone's the wife, kids, babies of sleep. I'm reading,
you're reading. I'm reading on the internet. I read, I
read them, I read a book, or I read the
(46:20):
New York or to get me to sleep reading, we
get full asleep. But when I watched TV, God, when NFL,
I watched Makeup Hoements for NFL sixty minutes. I watched MSNBC.
I watch Uh, I've watched snippets of these shows, you know,
like Breaking Bad and these contemporary you know, these jobs.
They don't. I don't have time. I don't have time.
(46:40):
I don't don't I don't understand either, And I don't
know where are they find in the time. Did you
download House to Cards now? Eight hours is the first episode? Yeah,
I can't do What are they doing? What kind of
how long are their days? Well? Always weld get that
I would always be flattered for a moment. There was
always a double beat there. When someone would walk up
(47:01):
to me with Lauren and they woke up, they'd say.
Lauren would say, you know Dave here, Dave Swanson from
you know, from Comcast, and I'd go high, nice to
meet you. And he turned to Lauren and go, god,
you guys, I gotta tell you. My son broke his
leg skiing and he was in bed. He was in traction.
And we watched seasons two and three or thirty Rock
and I thought I'd smile and then I thought, well,
(47:22):
that's how you get to watch season's two or three.
You gotta go and break your leg skiing. You gotta
go wrap yourself around a tree. Then you can lay
in back and binge view all this. I don't understand
how people are fitting this into their day. So there's
not even one show that your I really love Madmen
because that was my dream growing up on Long Island
was to get us Sampson I briefcase going along Island Railroad.
(47:44):
I was going to go in the city and I
was gonna work at a big ad agency and right
funny ads. That was my first dream. That was because
stand up comedy that I was seeing on the Sullivan Show.
That was too far out. That was these are some
genius alien people. I could never be one of those.
I'm not gonna get that, but maybe I could be
(48:05):
a copywriter or or something in the ad game. I
love advertising. I like I like man I love Manhattan.
You remember, growing up in Massapeko, Manhattan was was oz
it was the Emerald City. Tell people when we were kids,
there was no Bergen County correspondent. The Martians could have
landed out in in in in in Hempstead. No one
(48:25):
cared that the Martians did land in because they knew
there were no cameras out there. When you grew up
in our generation, it was like the mayor announced today
of the subway. Today, the cops shot on the I
n D. The prepetating this, the bank robbery, this, And
it was all Manhattan, Manhattan, the garden today the heavyweight shot.
Everything was Manhattan, not even the other outer boroughs, right.
And when you lived where we lived, that was Saskatchewan.
(48:47):
To the media, remember Alan Burke, did Jevers Allen Burke, Yes,
And they would come up and they never correctly estimated
the average height of New York of the podium was
always way too high. Mr Bike, I just came in
from Mars where the Taxi and Limousine Commission there they
right back from New York issue. What were we saying before?
(49:08):
I just lost my train of though. When we were
talking about before you said about New York and Madman. Now,
oh yeah, so Madman that is my fans said. When
did you cross over and decide I could do the
other thing? Um? It was beginning in college, Queen's College.
What did you study there? A theater, communications, film all
(49:30):
that stuff. I was. I was circling the field, you know, going,
how do I How could I? I wonder if I could?
You know, did you decide? And then there was Andy Kaufman.
Then Andy Kaufman happened. There's this guy in New York
who goes up on stage and he plays the bongos
and starts weeping. He's crazy to So we all ran
(49:52):
in to see Andy Kaufman at the improv. And as
soon as I walked in that room and I saw
what was going on in there, I gotta get in
on this. Yeah, I want to be one of these.
And when you got up there and finally through whatever
apprenticeship you had, and when you got up there and
you did that was your a moment where like some
guy comes up to you. I don't want me to
be too Broadway Danny Rosen. Yes there was. Did some
guy welcome to and go kid call me? Yes? There was?
(50:16):
And you know who that guy was, Jackie Mason. Jackie
Mason alec I was doing comedy about three weeks. Three weeks,
and I mean stumbling nobody three weeks. I'm nineteen years old,
twenty years old of going up on stage. But there
wasn't even a stage. There was a restaurant where they
take a table out and they would take one of
(50:37):
the lights, the lamp and they would take the shade
off it. That was the show. He was in the
audience people right, was one of these cabaret things West
forty four Ster was called the Golden Lion Pub. He
crooks his finger and he says, come over here. He
takes me over to the bar. He says, you have it.
(50:58):
He says, you are going to be so big. He says,
it makes me sick to even think of it, how
successful you're gonna be. And I was just starting wow.
And that I mean, that was that was it because
he was, like, you know, he was very big comedian.
It's still one of my favorites, a great comedian. But
(51:19):
to have a guy like that come up to you
as a kid, I had that. That's still you know
when I talked to you about I went in the
improv and I saw all these guys and I thought,
I want to be one of these guys. That's still
how I feel now. Was there a moment when for
me one of the real pure joys of this business
(51:40):
are the people I've gotten to me and I don't
want to, you know, go on and on on. But
were there people who came to you that were like
these godlike figures to you? Were you just admired them
from your world They came up to you and said, hey, man,
they wait to You said, it could be it could
be Carson across the room. Well, Jack Rollins, who I
looked up because I saw your movie which I loved,
(52:01):
Blue Jasmine. You were great, And I see, like Jack
Rollins in the credit, like I look, he's still alive.
His daughter was a waitress at a comedy club on
the Upper East Side, and she brought him in to
see me and Larry Miller and Jimmy Broken and he
watched the three of us, and then he sat and
talked with us afterwards, and he was very encouraging, very flattering.
(52:21):
That was really big because we were in about a
year at that point. We didn't know. There was no
business to get into even if we could do this
didn't even exist. There was no place to work as
a stand up comic in seven didn't even exist. It
happened in the eighties. Once they were all these guys
around then these clubs started opening around the country. What
(52:42):
about someone else, someone beyond year old man have exist.
In the credits of a Woody Allen movie, who was
some iconic stand up figure. I saw Richard Pryor and
in those days, um he would come into the clubs
and we would say, George Carlin. No, we never said
anything to me, but just to meet, to be those people.
Was there one at some point who give other than
(53:02):
Mason said you've got it? Was no, no, no. If
you don't need that any any self respecting professional comedian,
you don't need that. You don't need anyone or anything.
You are built for brutality. You have this relationship with
the audience that is private between you and them. You
(53:26):
critics want to write, people want to talk. We we
have our own thing that nobody, nobody can break that.
Once you build that, it can't be broken by outside forces.
This is the difference between being a comedian that has
his own thing and everybody else in the entertainment field
who needs to cooperate. Our thanks to Jerry Seinfeld. Thank
(53:54):
you for listening to this week's Summer staff pick. Here's
the Thing is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Kathleen russo Zach McNeice and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer, well that's me, Frank Imperial. Our social media
manager is Danielle Gingrich. Alec Baldwin will be back next week.
M
Hi, I'm Frank Imperial, the engineer at Here's the Thing.
We're in the middle of our summer staff Pick series,
where we choose our favorite episodes from the archives. This week,
I wanted to share with you two interviews that are
among the most popular and funniest we've ever done, comedians
Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. Chris Rock has always been
(00:21):
a boundary pushing comedian. The Emmy and Grammy winner is
well known for his work on Saturday Night Live, his
numerous comedy specials, films like Grown Ups and Madagascar, and
the sitcom based on his life, Everybody Loves Chris. In
recent years, the funny man has been pushing his own boundaries,
digging deeper into his acting. He starred in the fourth
(00:44):
season of Fargo on f X, but before that, Alec
met up with the comedian when he was on Broadway
in his very first play Here's Alex two thousand eleven
conversation with comedian and actor Chris Rock backstage at the
Showenfeld Theater. His dressing room in Broadway shown Field Theater
was five floors up, no elevator. Chris's show The Mother
(01:09):
with the Hat was about a group of dysfunctional friends
and lovers, where every relationship had gone bad, really bad. Drugs, booze, cheating,
No one was loyal to anyone. Chris played a recovering
alcoholic who had first glance seems to be a good guy,
but after a few minutes it was clear he was
the most self serving of the bunch. Oh Man, you
(01:31):
do a great man, you want to press If this
is something beautiful, come and stay with me and Vicky
Man get on a nutritional beverage program. Man. Before this
past spring, Chris might have been the last person you'd
expect to see starring in a Broadway show. I mean,
Chris can sell out Madison Square Garden, ps. They have
an elevator. Yet there he was between performances in his
(01:54):
attic dressing room at the Shoonefeld Theater. I wanted my
acting to grow. Do you have to see a huge
following black and white in your concerts? And yet when
you go out in this audience, how black is the audience? Well,
I mean put this way. In the old days, they
used to have signs up whites only, whites only. Now
I have a new thing. It's called prices. You know,
(02:17):
some nights it's darker than other nights. I buy tickets
every night when this play is over. Spent almost a
whole weekly paycheck on tickets as gifts for friends otherwise
couldn't come see the show. Otherwise could not afford to
see this show. I tour and I'm normally you know,
(02:37):
at the garden or whatever, like sixty thousand seats to
give away what I'm normally on tour, and people have
gotten used to this. My man takes care of us,
and you know, I don't. I can't take that away
from friends and family. You haven't done a lot of theater. Correct,
This is the first play I've ever done. This is
the first play you've ever done. I didn't do a
(02:59):
play in high school. I didn't go to high school.
So so not only your Broadway debut, but your first
play period. You're with a pretty cool group of people,
a lot of experience, you know what, and they have
held me up. No one ever got frustrated at what
I didn't know. You know, this is a bunch of
(03:22):
little things that people take for grant. I have no idea.
You're never supposed to walk straight at somebody, supposed to loop.
Just all these weird little things My favorite is that
you don't give information to the person. So if you're
standing here telling them something, you tell it out. You said,
they're going to open, open, open to the audience as
much as possible. All that open, open, open, open open stuff. Yes,
(03:43):
even today, I'm working on it. The Chris Rock that
I know from your live shows, I don't see much
of him in this show because that Chris Rock is
like marauding the stage and as complete control over the audience.
This is a different Chris I see in the play.
I'm really try to act here, you know. Have you
enjoyed it? I'm enjoying it a lot. A lot. Is
(04:08):
the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my life.
I always tell people it's like having the Empire State
Building shoved up your one brick at a time and
to play. Can't believe there's ever gonna be a day
when you know these lines. What's been the surprise about
doing this for you? Honestly, I'm surprised I'm doing it.
(04:29):
I mean, I'm surprised that I'm not bored with it already.
Are you afraid of that? I'm really that that what's
the that's the biggest fear to actually be stuck doing anything.
Does this change for you night by night by day?
You know what's weird? I'm figuring out how to make
it change now. So I'm actually figuring out how to
(04:49):
add lib every night without saying words, how to work eat,
seeing a little different in each line, and try to
find laughs and places that I didn't find one the
night before. So yeah, so it's to answer your question,
it changes every night. Well, what I love about this plant?
By the way, everybody has loved someone, and not too
(05:15):
far into the relationship, you say to yourself, not only
is this probably wrong, this is definitely wrong, but you
can't get out of it. How does this play resonate
with you in your personal life? I've been every person
in this place, a person betrayed everything, everything, and it's
(05:37):
the one who the other person in response to the betrayal,
the revenge every person. It's the kind of play you
can't watch without putting yourself in it. When you write
your material for stand up, how do the people in
your life react to how you fill at them on stage?
If you're you know what, I'm like a lawyer in
(05:58):
a sense. I mean that's it's almost like a legal document.
It's a word like it's all our wives and all
our you know what I mean. It's like like if
you if I gave you the transcript, he'd be like,
he hasn't talked about anybody. It's about your baby. It
would all hold up in court, you do. But you
never have anybody in your life? No, No, everybody's uncomfortable.
(06:20):
I remember I read a quote Tarantino said, if people
in your life aren't uncomfortable, you're not really writing, you're
not really hitting it. You know, somebody better be uncomfortable.
Did you grow up in a situation that was remotely
like this? And then emotionally and most turbulence my parents
place way My mother cursed a lot, screamed a lot.
(06:43):
You know. My father, my mother beat us with a
curtain rod. Yeah, well we got beatings with curtain rods
and brooms and brushings and hangars or whatever. But me
and my father, it's weird. My father, his temper towards
my mother was always controlled, right, what else he could
lose it? Why do you think it was you wanted
(07:04):
to protect that? I don't know. I mean, first of all,
I mean, guys from that era did not view women
as their equals. They did, and they were loving and
blah blah blah blah blah. But they did not view
women as their equals. Therefore they could actually deal with
the woman's emotional whatever swings way easier than a guy
(07:29):
in my age, because I view a woman as my equal.
So if I'm with a woman and she starts crying,
I look at her like I'm with you when you
start crying, don't go female on me. I'm like something,
I look at her life. I would look at a
guy that gets emotional. Yeah, I thought, if we were equal,
then you can't play that car. Don't play the female.
So I'll just say my father and my grandfather's both
(07:52):
of them were really delicate with their wives. You know,
not a child, but close to a child. How it's
different for you. My wife's my equal, and you know,
you know, any budding of heads is because I I
(08:14):
want I'm dealing with you the same way I would
deal with myself, or I deal with any guy. And
we're both wrong. What are you gonna do when this
is over? Do you know how much sure I think
I'm gonna direct a movie that sort I'm feeling. So
this is the time in your life, and you do
all the things you told yourself you'd never do. Play
on Broadway. Direct a movie. Why do you want to
(08:35):
direct a movie? I don't know. I put it away.
If I can get a great director to direct me,
I'll do it. But once, yeah, once you get to
the sea list, you might as well do it yourself.
That's what I say. Yeah, how picky are you about
the films you do? Because you don't do a lot
of films. Um, I don't know. I mean I turned
out a lot, but I don't have a list of
(08:56):
great films I've turned you turned down regardless of whether
they're great or not. Do you turn them down? Because
for you, you always have the stand up thing in
your pocket and the concert thing in your pocket. You're
not in any hurry to go out and make a living.
Most movies suck man, early suck. See. I'm I'm messed
(09:17):
up because I like to see something I haven't seen
or haven't seen with a black person. Black people in
film is still at its really at its infant stage.
And what do you think, I don't know? You know what,
here's the thing. You know, you hand a studio person
of script, and sometimes the studio people are good at
(09:39):
a time. When you hand somebody as script, they pick
a person in the movie that they identify with. So
if you hand a woman a script, if the woman's
got nine lines in the movie, the first person who
gives you notes about is the woman. And if you
hand the boss the script, he's gonna give you notes
about the main character. And if you hand his assist
(10:00):
the script is gonna give you notes about some other
everybody figures out who they are in the movie. Now,
when you had somebody a black script, they don't relate
to anybody. That's a very good point. I'm serious, even
when it's and when you have any seconative who does
relate to a black person's script, what does that mean
(10:20):
to you? You You struck gold Well, Really, they just they're
making a product all of a sudden, That's what I've experienced.
And when you do, because i mean, there's no black
studios or whatever, so you end up you always end
(10:40):
up with just a person trying to make a piece
of product. They might as well, they might still be
making an iPads kind of a sustainable stateship business. But
you seem to me, because you're so smart and so
clever that you have as much of a white audience
as you do a black ondies, don't you think so
in spite of the fact your stand up can be
(11:03):
pretty tough on white people. Yeah, but I always say
my stand ups like Chinese food and what's Chinese food? Well,
Chinese food is one of the most popular foods in
all of America, and they don't put Americans on their menus.
People really want Chinese food. They don't put fries and
(11:24):
grilled cheese, grilled cheese on the menu of the most
popular Chinese food of people comedy. So I'm just saying,
when people see people come to Chris's restaurant, think about
Chris's menure. I'm talking with Chris Rock backstage at the
Chaunfeld Theater on Street. This is Alec Baldwin and you're
(11:47):
listening to here's the thing. How old are you know?
I'm forty six forty six, which means you started and
you started. I started probably five seven years before I
got on S and O. But I always I haven't
been you know, I havn't been poor day since I
met Laura Michaels. I never broke a lot of his
(12:12):
stuff sticks with me. What thing he said to me
is like everybody loses their first money. Now if you're talented,
you'll make some more. That He's so right, he knows
more about Let's take a moment to talk about the
wisdom of Lord Michael. You know, he's always there to
remind you how you can lose perspective about this business.
At least in my case. He's very good. But how
(12:34):
much of things changed in your mind? And not just
for you but for you specifically, but in the business.
I don't know about you. I find a business a
lot smaller, less movies, less, I mean less stuff that
relates to me, you know what, Less stuff that relates
to me. I'll say that for the young people. You know,
(12:56):
this whole reality thing, I'm not going to dismiss it.
You know, sound like I'm some old person talking about
rap music. It's not gonna last, you know what I mean.
But do you think the same time I don't get it.
Do you think you'd make it today if you came
in today? Yeah? Me and Sana, Well that's our little
tests with each other. We kinda we assessed the stand
ups we're gonna Yeah, we still got it. I still
(13:19):
got it. Yeah, I keep the weight off a little bit.
You know. That's what I'm trying to do it. Du
bon Jovi, still doing it, Still doing it, man, Just
look hot, Just trying to look hot to somebody. You
don't have to lie. You're still got you still look
how many kids you have done to nine? Get ready
nine and get ready by seven? So what are you
(13:40):
worried about raising your kids in this world? I care
that they're good with money. I don't care if When
I say good with money, I just mean you've got
two dollars and you spend one and you put a dollar.
But I don't mean that they run Microsoft or they
flip money and buy a house. I just mean, does
that come from your childhood? Yes, it comes from my childhood.
(14:02):
I just mean can they handle their own That's it?
Because to get out of it's a tough hole to
get out of, and it's a weird hole for a
pretty woman to get out of, and they end up
in relationships with guys they wouldn't have relationship with. There's
a great line that Anthony Quinn has in Lawrence of
Arabia where he says, I am a river to my people. Yeah,
(14:24):
I'm getting a lot of that now. Well, Hey, here's
the thing. You can only help. Like, I got some
family right now, guy wouldever losing his house whatever, I'm
gonna help him move in to wherever he's gonna move into.
I'm not buying his house because he's never gonna be
able to fold the house. So yeah, I my, I'm
(14:49):
a river. But it's a little river. It's a little
river because when you turn down somebody and they know
you have the money, this is one thing to go.
These kids are kicking or whatever, and you don't have
the money. They know you have the money. It's so
it's almost like a woman. It's like I know you
(15:11):
have vagina and you have sex, you just don't want
to have it with me. I remember I used to
do a movie and they'd say to me in whatever way,
what would come back was, Uh, we don't have the
money for that. And what they really were saying was,
we don't have the money for that for you, for you,
we don't we have the exactly for Leo, we're gonna
(15:34):
sell our houses. Remember, for you, we don't have the money.
And that's what you're saying to people in your life
is I don't have the money for you. I don't
have the money for you. You're not gonna be the
reason I'm doing some bad Kung Fu movie. Okay? Comedian
and actor Chris Rock. When we come back, we'll have
(15:56):
Alex conversation with Jerry Seinfeld from two thousand thirteen. It's
an understatement to say that Jerry Seinfeld broke the mold.
(16:16):
His brand of observational comedy is universal and led to
his success as a stand up comic and in his
namesake sitcom, Seinfeld The Show About Nothing ran for nine
seasons and became one of the most memorable, acclaimed, and
influential series of all time. Following up one success with another,
(16:37):
Seinfeld then produced and hosted the roving talk show Comedians
in Cars Getting Coffee, which is exactly what it sounds like,
for eleven seasons, and he continues to do what he loves,
touring the nation performing stand up. Here's Alex two thousand
thirteen conversation with the legendary producer, actor, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
(16:59):
Who makes it in comedy? Who are the ones that
make it? And it's a change in your lifetime? What
does it takes in show business? Let's answer that question,
because I haven't. I'll tell you who's in show business.
You know it's in show business? Like who wants to
be more than anyone else? Those are the people that
are in it. The people that just go, I want
to be in it. I'm going to be in it.
(17:21):
Do I have the skill set? Do I have a talent?
I have something to offer? We'll find out or not.
But it doesn't I may not take on that with
between Baccino, I said to him, what do you do
when you do a movie and the other person isn't
that good? Like you're doing a scene and I said,
do you go up to the director and give them notes?
Say tell them this other? And said, no, I never
do that. I never do that. No, no, no, I said,
(17:43):
I said, what do you do? I? I said, what
do you do when the people that you're working with
they just I mean, you're so talented, and it's like
tennis and you and you're and you're hitting the ball
with some and they're not that talented. And he said,
I like, like all of us in the business are talented.
Everybody's talented. Some of us are just more talented than others.
But everybody in the room when you're working, they've got
(18:04):
some kind of time, like you'd say he has a
talent for storytelling, he had a talent for this. But
you're saying that people who determination is a big part
of it. I'm saying it's most of the people we
see in in the arts are there not because they
had the most to offer, but because they wanted to
(18:26):
be there the most, you believe. So when you're in
clubs in your early years and you'd see people who
were working, did you have did you not? Not that
you cared about this or you were focused on this,
but would you Sometimes because my friends who were in
clubs and who were comics, there was a lot of
evaluating of each other in the competition. It was very competitive.
And would you look at people and say, I think
he's got it or she's got and they're gonna make
(18:47):
it and they don't or this one doesn't and and
a big part of your saying is just the drive
as they wanted. They're a dog on a bone. You
see a lot of that, don't you think? I think so? Well?
In the in the movie business, you can see people
who they put it before everything else, you know, I mean,
they're not what business, what what field of endeavor? Has
the highest bullsh factor right in your opinion, Um, because
(19:13):
you've been in a number of different branches. Now, well,
I think, well, obviously a government is government higher than
I think entertainment. Did you enjoy the Anthony Weiner show
this season or not the show that he put on
for us when when that was going on? Did you
(19:35):
were you disgusted? Were you going? I love this? I
I loved it because to me it was the visible man.
Let's take off the face of the clock and watch
the gears. And that's what that was. This is you know,
we're talking about people our ownership show business because they
want to be he wants to have he wants it
wants and most of most of them have all the
(19:56):
guyses and veils and and you know, well they pretend
that what you just hit on a very important point,
which is that they pretend to some degree that it's selfless.
That well that also, yeah, that that they don't crave power.
But the other thing about Weener that I found unusual.
I mean, listen, this is I'm not going to say anything.
I don't think I'm capable of saying anything that hasn't
been said before. But the idea that you want to
(20:19):
take pictures of your genitalia and send it to women
that you barely know. I wonder if there's an unconscious
part of him that's like, I'm gonna send pictures of
my genitalia to a couple of women who I don't
even know that well, and let's see what happens. Let's
let's roll the dice here. I'm putting all my chips
on black. I'm all in. I got another pile, and
(20:40):
I'm all in on sending this chicken picture of my
you know what of my personality? I don't have that desire, right,
I'm not I'm not exacts. It's easier to understand than
his get off was. Ding. He looks at the phone, Ding,
let's it just press send? Where where's the thrill? Everybody
has as some component of them for what I call
(21:01):
negative excitement, like what's your thing? You want to do
that that you indulge some weakness of yours? You know
what I mean? Some people have food issues, they have
drinking your mind, what would be yours? Uh? I don't
think I mean beyond tomato sauce. Maybe, yeah, that's not that.
Yeah you are. And for people who don't know you
(21:24):
see This is the thing that, in all honesty, I
always when I think about you, the list of things
I think about is, is how not just professional and
committed in all those other kind of lame were you know,
lazier words, but how you know, just just focused and
hard working. You are like a lot of people look
at you and view you as someone who is but
(21:46):
let's be very candid. You're someone people people view you
as someone who is this incredibly gifted person. I love
this show, right, and no you are. But the point
is that you like you don't work like you do
things like like you going on a trip to go
do some gigs. It's kind of a thing. You're probably
just doing a favor for someone. I think that's more you.
(22:07):
I don't think that's the general perception. I think that's you.
I think your image of me or what you think. Yeah,
I think that's your sense I'm projecting. Yeah, I think
you're projecting. But you know that that's not me. No, no,
not at all. You know that I love to work.
You've incredibly so, but but not um, I'm not driven
(22:29):
by anything very healthy healthy, I'm not driving by anything unwholesome.
But you're healthier. But you are healthier than anybody else
I've ever met in your profession. Everybody else I've met
in your profession, it was you could do Saturday Night
Live and be roaming the hallways of that building. Yeah,
for over the course of you know, it's really more
like four days, not a full week. And you're around
(22:50):
them other people. I did a sitcom with other people.
I've been around a lot of people who make their
living in comedy. I made films with them, and some
of them, you'd be around them. You know, within ten
minutes you understood what was really their deepest problem that
they hadn't resolved. Some of them took a question a
few days. You don't have any problems, No, I don't,
but I do relate very deeply to to all of
(23:12):
those people describe. In fact, I was watching the Emmy's.
Is the only part of the Emmys that I like
When they do the Comedy Writing Award and each Comedy
Writing staff puts up funny pictures, and then when the
the actual staff comes up on the stage and you
see these gnome like cretans just kind of all misshapen,
and and I go, this is me, this is who
(23:34):
I am, This is that's my group people. Yeah, but
you don't. Yeah, do you see that in me? Oh okay,
well then you've learned something here today. What did I learn?
You learned that despite maybe I am healthy and somewhat functional,
but I can I see myself as one of those
(23:55):
guys that that that that group of Colbert Report writers
that are us. It looks like would never let them
speak Colbert musticks. Now those that's where I want to
hang out with those guys. You do, Yeah, like Barry, Yeah, yeah,
you're more comfortable with the berries of that. I'm only comfortable,
(24:15):
only comfortable with those people. Really. Yeah, describe Barry, you
have a special relation. Harry Martyr is my very special friend.
Barry is the author of the Letters from a Nutbook
under the nom de plume ted L Nancy, and he
is um. He's also fascinating compilation of function and dysfunction,
(24:38):
which any interesting person is. UM. He's a guy Who's
what I love about Barries. I can call him right
now it's eleven thirty that he will just say hello.
He's always there, always at home. He's got a red couch.
His living room looks like a murder scene. This you know, Uh,
very scary looking stains on a white ug. He lives
(25:01):
into Lucca Lake to Luca Lake and we talk every day,
usually an hour on a good day, two hours. And
um we were talking yesterday about the chantics, the quit
smoking drug commercial where they list the side effects, and
one of the ones that people have experienced with chantics
(25:24):
is weird dreams. And now we're trying to figure out, well,
what's a weird dream? And do they have a hotline
that you can call up? Say, Bob, I got a
guy here's you know, woke up? He dreamt he had
orangutank feet. Is that weird? And he goes, no, I've
had that one. You know, that's that's weird. Who who
(25:46):
doesn't have weird dreams? There's no dream, it's not weird.
More of Alex conversation with Jerry Seinfeld after the break.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
(26:08):
Thing on the TV show. Seinfeld, Jerry, Elaine Cramer, and
George were characters driven largely by unabashed self interest. Come on,
let's go do something. I don't want to just sit
around here. I want to go get something to eat.
Where you want to go? I don't care, I'm not hungry.
Growing up, Jerry Seinfeld's own family life served as a
(26:29):
useful model of just that. Look, my mother is an orphan.
My father left the house probably eleven years old to
work on the street and make a living on the
Lower east Side. You know, they got married in their forties.
They had no concept of what a family should even be.
And all I craved was the same fierce independence that
(26:51):
they had in their lives. They rested on instructible, indstructible,
self contained, self reliant people. This is not great going
into a marriage, may I say? You know? And I
was that guy saying, well, I gotta go now, I
gotta go to work. And you don't think that this
might be a problem for a person that's not used
(27:11):
to being around that. So it took me a long
time to learn that. You know that you have to
be understand because to me, to me, this life, my life,
what I would call my life in comedy, is a
life of sacrifice that I am only too happy to make.
All my relationships I got married at forty five. All
(27:31):
my relationships were as disposable as a dixie cup. Excuse me?
With women you make yes, I gotta work. You've gone.
But well if you don't, if you don't want you know, well,
if you if you're gonna be on the road that much,
we can't be together. Goodbye, goodbye. This is this my
I have had a sense of mission. You were like
Lee Strasburg in The Godfather Part two. Yes, he say,
(27:54):
if I come back here, I have a partner. I
have a partner. If it's not, I'll know, I don't,
I'll know. I don't what he said, I'm going in
the other room. It's the last time I really out
of shape. Man took his shirt off in a movie
and it wasn't bad. Hair on the top of the shoulders,
(28:15):
a little little little like a little tumbleweeds of hair. Yeah,
did you know him? Did you know when I studied
acting at this school on fifte Street. When I went
to n y U, I went to Strasburg. They assigned
you to the studio. You went to Adler Strasberg's up.
I went to Strasburg, and I had wonderful teachers, Marsha
how Freckt and Jeffrey horn Is a wonderful too, beautiful people.
(28:35):
But you know the method of Strasburg was very uh severe.
Did it work for you one of the well, it
opened up your eyes to the idea of whatever word
you want to use. I'm never going to use the
right word for everyone. To mind your past and mind
your emotional fabric to get where you want to go.
Whereas Strasburg and Stanislavski, both people don't necessarily stumble across
(28:59):
this fine print and all these writings of their where
What Stanislavski and Strasbourg both said is that the method,
so to speak, is something that you apply only if
the inspiration fails you. You don't you don't need to
go off into a room and twist yourself into some
kind of psychological pretzel to do this work. If you
can just say the words and you're there, you feel
connected to the character in and of yourself. Do you
(29:20):
do you have a desire as an actor to be
one of those guys, one of those I'm gonna take
my rib cage and separated. When I was younger, I
did you did When I was younger? I did did
you feel you there was there was there a role
where you felt you got close to that? When I
did street Car named Desire on Broadway and Amy Madigan,
I would scream stella stella for her to come downstairs,
(29:41):
and Amy would come and the minute I would touch Amy,
I'd burst into tears. Remember I didn't I loved Amy
more than any woman I ever loved, you know, at
that moment, I mean and it was real. I was
in love with Amy. Do you think I'm capable of
that kind of work? I think you are. Be a
tremendous mistake your car, it would be a huge would
(30:02):
be one of the poorest choices probably in show business history,
for you to go and to sell. You want to know,
what do you want to do? A street car? On um?
I was in an acting class where a guy did
have me play Brick, but that's cataa hot tin roof.
He because I was able to handle the light comedy
so easily, he said you, I need to challenge you more.
So he had me and he said, I want you
(30:22):
to study the role of Brick. Wasn't that the name
of the character street and the Yeah, Maggie and Brick. Yeah.
Well that's when I left that. There's a girl I
could you'll you'll appreciate this because you're from Long Island.
And I met this woman, uh many years later and
even she laughed about it. So I can say this,
remember Pergament's hardware storm. Okay, I went to I went
(30:46):
to college. I went to g W for three years
and I went and I took my last year there,
my junior year before I climbed over the wall there
and went to end. While you to study acting, I
took acting for non drama majors. It was a gut
course you take at g W. I took acting for
non drama majors. And everyone in the class. This was
one of the things that gave me the impetus to
be an actor, because everyone in the class was so
(31:08):
horrible and I could, I could. I squeaked by like
I wasn't that bad. I was okay in terms of performing.
And the teacher said to me, I want you to
do a scene from Canada Hutton roof of Maggie Brick scene.
And your partner is Debbie Pergamant, who was the daughter
and I don't want to call her the heir to
the pergam And fortune, but let's just say that for
our comedy purposes, Debbie Pergamant and literally she was this
(31:30):
lovely girl, adorable, gorgeous, really cute as the day is long.
But she was from you know, like Roslyn or somewhere.
So when she would say she was the only person
who made brick a bi syllabic where she was like
brick brick, I am like a cat's on a Hudson
roof here, I am so upset. Debbie Pergamant was who
(31:55):
was my partner in a scene study class? And it
was it was I open. So where do we want
to go now? Your your career now? Um you you
you're seeing another carridor for yourself? Is something you want
to explore, something you have to offer or be honest
with me. Are you just tired and you just don't
(32:16):
want to travel and slap and deal with these idiots
you want to know? The truth is I want to
be more like you, really, because you are a very
happy like I look at you when I see to myself,
everything is always like, why aren't you doing what other
people do? What? Meaning? Like the first thing people would
say in the business, I mean even outside the business,
if they have some savvy about it, what they say,
(32:37):
did Jerry want to ramp up a production company and
just print TV shows? I mean, I mean how many
sitcoms could you have? Launched with the promoter of your name.
Forget it. Forget it. You can have your own channel,
the Jerry Channel. But I didn't take that bait. Why
because I know what it is. I know what it is.
(32:59):
That's what if you can't pull that over on me?
What what is? I've sat in all the chairs, I've
been in all the rooms. I know what it is.
Look alec you you've you've been there, right, Yes, you
can't trick me into thinking thinking what that's that's good? Why?
(33:20):
Because don't Most of it is not creative work and
not reaching an audience. You want to be on the water.
How do you want to be on the water. You
want to be on a yacht. You want to be
on a surfboard. I want to be on a surfboard.
I don't want to deal with the yacht. That's a yacht.
And you just also some people want a yacht to say,
to see my yacht, And you just didn't want people
(33:43):
do you. And you also didn't want to ultimately wind
up putting your name as is often the case. Look
at which if you're the goose that lays the golden egg,
you're the successful person, and it all emanates you're the godhead,
if you will, comedy wise, and you go launch all
these other shows, and all those other shows they aren't
maybe as good, they're not, And how much of your name?
But well, why doesn't he want to do it? How
much would we have to even get much for you
(34:03):
to be in the performs just to whatever it is? Yeah,
whatever it is. Let me tell you why my TV
series in the nineties was so good bespides an inordinate
amount of just pure good fortune. In most TV series,
fifty percent of the time is spent working on the show.
Fifty percent of the time is spent dealing with personality, political,
(34:27):
and hierarchical issues of making something. We spent our time
writing me and Larry the door was closed, some somebody calls.
We're not taking the call. We're gonna We're gonna make
this seem funny. That's why the show was good. I
didn't want to go from that two. Um you know
(34:48):
some some H. G. Wells contraption machine you know of
of trying to control the weather. That's what that's what
these these deals are. That's what making a movie is.
It's a movie. It's this giant machine, is this giant
ship and everybody gets on it and they shove off
and nobody knows where it's going. And the captain is
(35:09):
doing where's the captain? He's getting high and and and
and you know, and sleeping with the first mate. He's
his sleep period. Yeah, So it's too much time and
energy spent on that is not the juice. The really
good stuff is a great line. So when you go
(35:30):
out that stand up comedian, I can control that. So
when you go out on stage now, so for now,
for you, other than whatever other things you're involved with,
writing or comedians and cars with coffee and so forth,
you go out on stage, you perform live. How many
shows you do on average? Would you say, I'm not sure.
It varies, but you're on the road how many how
many shows a year? Um? Maybe sent so so you
(35:52):
do seventy five appearances a year? And is it just
very simply a case where you walk out there, that
exchange of energy between you and then they want what
you've got, you want what they've got. You're at home,
you feel comfortable, you're happy. It's a it's a it's
it's a very fulfilling, uh unsolvable puzzle that is endlessly Um.
(36:17):
It just because it was right to your soul. Does
every night need to be different? If you can make it? So?
Do you try to make it different? Says there's nothing
I can do about that. It's gonna be different. It's
gonna be different. But if I can get them right
where I want them and and get myself where I
want myself, and the thing just explodes, Well, you know,
it's fun. That's life. People who perform live. I'll never forget.
(36:38):
There was an article like an Esquire magazine or somewhere,
and they did an article about Wayne Newton and they
took it was about Vegas, and I think it was
about Wayne Newton, and I love this article. And they
weren't mean toward him, were diminishing him, and they were
saying how they thought it was uncanny how the guy
went to the show in Vegas with a stopwatch and
Newton came out and you did the same thing every show,
the same exact thing, the same exact beats. It was
(37:00):
just it was just he just cloned one show after
that and he would come out, but he would create
the dynamic tension that this show was different, and he
come out on stage and people will be screaming and
the women are throwing their panties and they're throwing their
hotel room keys. Had him his crowd, and then he
sit there and he'd say, um, um, you know, we
gotta we gotta wrap this up. But you know, I
love you people. I'm gonna do someth I'm gonna sing
a song I never sing anymore. And the song he
(37:22):
just sang, like you know, ninety minutes ago, I must
sing a number for you guys. I never sing anymore.
I never would never break this one out anymore. And
he just re created the same, uh you know, mock
freshness of the whole thing, which many performers. I assume
they do that. Yeah, he used to say to him,
locked the doors, they don't want me to go long.
But but this audience, I don't, I don't. I'm gonna
(37:42):
do something I never do. I'm breaking the rules. Yeah,
And of course you would write on the button you
performed in Vegas all the time. So they throw the
hotel room key. How desperate is this entertainer, by the way,
to just pick up fifteen D and go I'm heading
over there. I'm going over there, which one of you
was fifteen D. Oh you I'm sorry, let me give
you your key back. I'm sorry. I don't want that
(38:03):
kid coming up. More from Jerry Seinfeld. He's got so
(38:23):
many years of stand up under his belt. When he
travels as he does most weekends, every move is planned.
It is organized with military precision, not an ounce on
the day. It's three guys, three suits, three garment bags.
We're in, we're out, and we have a great time.
(38:45):
We worked very hard. It's zero dark thirty. Yeah, get
in loud and go thinker with the dead bodies bag.
It's a beautiful thing. This is what I was given
from the TV series, that I could live like this
now on my own terms. That that's what we're looking
(39:07):
for on my own term term. Right, God, that's such
a foreign concept to me. Yes, the lack of an
actor is anything but anything but right. But this is
where we're moving now with Alec God. Yeah, my god,
on my own terms. More wisdom from Jerry Seinfeld in
(39:28):
a moment, This is Alec Baldwin. Take a listen to
our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policy makers,
and performers like Patty Lapone, Erica Young, and Debbie Reynolds.
Good morning, Good morning, it's great to stay in Blake.
(39:49):
Good morning, good morning. Look fun you see, I can't
sing to save my life if you put a gun
to my head and said saying are you almost saying
go too? Here's the thing dot org. Here's the thing
(40:17):
is supported by Capital one offering the venture card from
Capital one. What's in your wallet? Information about benefits at
Capital one venture card dot com. This is Alec Baldwin
(41:55):
and you're listening to Here's the Thing. When Jerry Seinfeld
was ten years old old, he started feverishly studying the
techniques of stand up comedians on TV, devouring it everything.
It's like, just like my daughter does. Now, my daughter
has totally got whatever that gene I had, She's got it.
She can do any voice, accent, takes lines. Her brother
(42:19):
said to her, this one. She's wearing glass. She has glasses.
Her brother said, he said, are those are those real glasses?
She looked at him, She said, what do you think
that's she's twelve, She's she's not ready to go play
(42:39):
iron Rand at the local library. And the fake glasses.
But um, okay, so my house, Um I assume my
my childhood was my relationship to my parents, was you
do what you gotta do. I'll do what I got
(43:00):
to do, and I'm just living here till I can
figure something else out. That was my house, and to me,
that was great. We've talked about this. You and I
was very independent. My father never hugged me, never told
me he loved me, never threw me a ball. No problem.
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. He's you're good. I'm
(43:20):
watching you, gonta do whatever some time together? Right? Who
was the guy who blew the horn in the in
the when the tower and the tower fell over? Remember
at the beginning of each show, I forget what was it?
Was it Larry? It was another No, Larry Storch was
a garn he was an There was another Larry was
Captain Parmenter. Captain Parmenter. He wasn't really funny. But there
(43:45):
was another guy, another Larry, who was at the top
of the time the tower would fall over because he
was very kind of vanilla looking. Yeah, it wasn't. It
wasn't Larry Wilcox. He went on to do Chips. No, No,
it was another Larry anyway, But yeah, I was Abbert
and Costello was I really became obsessed with them because
(44:05):
of the precision word play they were see that's where
they went beyond there was there was Laurel and Hardy
and then Martin Lewis, but Aben and Costello had this precision.
I mean, who's on first is a piece of It's
like that that museum in Spain, you know, the what
(44:27):
you know, the no, the other one that what's his name?
Did that? Yeah? Whose real name is Goldberg? By the way,
really yes it is. He changed it in college, Frank Frank, Yeah,
the what's the name of that museum in northern Billo. Yeah, anyway,
that's what Who's on first? This? It's like what a construction,
(44:48):
What a brilliant piece of construction. So and when I
heard things like that, I um, I just would get
very excited that you could do things like that with words,
ideas and attitudes and and have laughs, you know, I
have laughs. I remember when I was a kid and
my dad would go to work and my brothers and
sisters would go to school, and my mom was lonely.
(45:11):
M I probably missed school like thirty or forty days
a year. You did, and it was a game. I
was totally foolish. I said to my mom I don't
feel good. Remember like, all right, you get in there
and go to the breakfast table and pretend you're going
to school until your father and then when he's gone,
you can go back upstairs. And I would go and
lie on the couch and they would show the same
(45:33):
movie five days in a row. So the housewives who
could only catch a piece of it here and a
piece so they show Inherit the Wind, And by Friday
I was laying in bed. I missed school for three days.
And Friday Spencer Tracy would say, this man wants to
be afforded the same rights as a sponge. He wishes
to think, and my lip sync the words I knew that.
I'm like the Door. I became a complete movie, so
(45:59):
that to where it began. And then we got into
the arrand spelling years. I abandoned. He never watched TV again.
No Charlie's Angels, And now what do you watch? Uh?
Now I come into your house. It's ten forty five
at night. Everyone's the wife, kids, babies of sleep. I'm reading,
you're reading. I'm reading on the internet. I read, I
read them, I read a book, or I read the
(46:20):
New York or to get me to sleep reading, we
get full asleep. But when I watched TV, God, when NFL,
I watched Makeup Hoements for NFL sixty minutes. I watched MSNBC.
I watch Uh, I've watched snippets of these shows, you know,
like Breaking Bad and these contemporary you know, these jobs.
They don't. I don't have time. I don't have time.
(46:40):
I don't don't I don't understand either, And I don't
know where are they find in the time. Did you
download House to Cards now? Eight hours is the first episode? Yeah,
I can't do What are they doing? What kind of
how long are their days? Well? Always weld get that
I would always be flattered for a moment. There was
always a double beat there. When someone would walk up
(47:01):
to me with Lauren and they woke up, they'd say.
Lauren would say, you know Dave here, Dave Swanson from
you know, from Comcast, and I'd go high, nice to
meet you. And he turned to Lauren and go, god,
you guys, I gotta tell you. My son broke his
leg skiing and he was in bed. He was in traction.
And we watched seasons two and three or thirty Rock
and I thought I'd smile and then I thought, well,
(47:22):
that's how you get to watch season's two or three.
You gotta go and break your leg skiing. You gotta
go wrap yourself around a tree. Then you can lay
in back and binge view all this. I don't understand
how people are fitting this into their day. So there's
not even one show that your I really love Madmen
because that was my dream growing up on Long Island
was to get us Sampson I briefcase going along Island Railroad.
(47:44):
I was going to go in the city and I
was gonna work at a big ad agency and right
funny ads. That was my first dream. That was because
stand up comedy that I was seeing on the Sullivan Show.
That was too far out. That was these are some
genius alien people. I could never be one of those.
I'm not gonna get that, but maybe I could be
(48:05):
a copywriter or or something in the ad game. I
love advertising. I like I like man I love Manhattan.
You remember, growing up in Massapeko, Manhattan was was oz
it was the Emerald City. Tell people when we were kids,
there was no Bergen County correspondent. The Martians could have
landed out in in in in in Hempstead. No one
(48:25):
cared that the Martians did land in because they knew
there were no cameras out there. When you grew up
in our generation, it was like the mayor announced today
of the subway. Today, the cops shot on the I
n D. The prepetating this, the bank robbery, this, And
it was all Manhattan, Manhattan, the garden today the heavyweight shot.
Everything was Manhattan, not even the other outer boroughs, right.
And when you lived where we lived, that was Saskatchewan.
(48:47):
To the media, remember Alan Burke, did Jevers Allen Burke, Yes,
And they would come up and they never correctly estimated
the average height of New York of the podium was
always way too high. Mr Bike, I just came in
from Mars where the Taxi and Limousine Commission there they
right back from New York issue. What were we saying before?
(49:08):
I just lost my train of though. When we were
talking about before you said about New York and Madman. Now,
oh yeah, so Madman that is my fans said. When
did you cross over and decide I could do the
other thing? Um? It was beginning in college, Queen's College.
What did you study there? A theater, communications, film all
(49:30):
that stuff. I was. I was circling the field, you know, going,
how do I How could I? I wonder if I could?
You know, did you decide? And then there was Andy Kaufman.
Then Andy Kaufman happened. There's this guy in New York
who goes up on stage and he plays the bongos
and starts weeping. He's crazy to So we all ran
(49:52):
in to see Andy Kaufman at the improv. And as
soon as I walked in that room and I saw
what was going on in there, I gotta get in
on this. Yeah, I want to be one of these.
And when you got up there and finally through whatever
apprenticeship you had, and when you got up there and
you did that was your a moment where like some
guy comes up to you. I don't want me to
be too Broadway Danny Rosen. Yes there was. Did some
guy welcome to and go kid call me? Yes? There was?
(50:16):
And you know who that guy was, Jackie Mason. Jackie
Mason alec I was doing comedy about three weeks. Three weeks,
and I mean stumbling nobody three weeks. I'm nineteen years old,
twenty years old of going up on stage. But there
wasn't even a stage. There was a restaurant where they
take a table out and they would take one of
(50:37):
the lights, the lamp and they would take the shade
off it. That was the show. He was in the
audience people right, was one of these cabaret things West
forty four Ster was called the Golden Lion Pub. He
crooks his finger and he says, come over here. He
takes me over to the bar. He says, you have it.
(50:58):
He says, you are going to be so big. He says,
it makes me sick to even think of it, how
successful you're gonna be. And I was just starting wow.
And that I mean, that was that was it because
he was, like, you know, he was very big comedian.
It's still one of my favorites, a great comedian. But
(51:19):
to have a guy like that come up to you
as a kid, I had that. That's still you know
when I talked to you about I went in the
improv and I saw all these guys and I thought,
I want to be one of these guys. That's still
how I feel now. Was there a moment when for
me one of the real pure joys of this business
(51:40):
are the people I've gotten to me and I don't
want to, you know, go on and on on. But
were there people who came to you that were like
these godlike figures to you? Were you just admired them
from your world They came up to you and said, hey, man,
they wait to You said, it could be it could
be Carson across the room. Well, Jack Rollins, who I
looked up because I saw your movie which I loved,
(52:01):
Blue Jasmine. You were great, And I see, like Jack
Rollins in the credit, like I look, he's still alive.
His daughter was a waitress at a comedy club on
the Upper East Side, and she brought him in to
see me and Larry Miller and Jimmy Broken and he
watched the three of us, and then he sat and
talked with us afterwards, and he was very encouraging, very flattering.
(52:21):
That was really big because we were in about a
year at that point. We didn't know. There was no
business to get into even if we could do this
didn't even exist. There was no place to work as
a stand up comic in seven didn't even exist. It
happened in the eighties. Once they were all these guys
around then these clubs started opening around the country. What
(52:42):
about someone else, someone beyond year old man have exist.
In the credits of a Woody Allen movie, who was
some iconic stand up figure. I saw Richard Pryor and
in those days, um he would come into the clubs
and we would say, George Carlin. No, we never said
anything to me, but just to meet, to be those people.
Was there one at some point who give other than
(53:02):
Mason said you've got it? Was no, no, no. If
you don't need that any any self respecting professional comedian,
you don't need that. You don't need anyone or anything.
You are built for brutality. You have this relationship with
the audience that is private between you and them. You
(53:26):
critics want to write, people want to talk. We we
have our own thing that nobody, nobody can break that.
Once you build that, it can't be broken by outside forces.
This is the difference between being a comedian that has
his own thing and everybody else in the entertainment field
who needs to cooperate. Our thanks to Jerry Seinfeld. Thank
(53:54):
you for listening to this week's Summer staff pick. Here's
the Thing is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Kathleen russo Zach McNeice and Maureen Hoban.
Our engineer, well that's me, Frank Imperial. Our social media
manager is Danielle Gingrich. Alec Baldwin will be back next week.
M
Host
Alec Baldwin
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