0:02

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:05

to Here's the thing. Stanley

0:07

Tucci is one of the most beloved actors

0:09

and directors working today. He

0:12

has a great reputation both as an artist

0:14

and as a deeply decent guy.

0:17

We've worked together twice, and that

0:19

reputation is well deserved. Even

0:22

over a zoom after a decade, it's

0:24

my pleasure to have time with him

0:26

again. Motherfucker.

0:30

Now let me just say. Let me just

0:32

say that, of course, one of the fun bonuses

0:35

of zooming. As you can see the room they're in.

0:37

The room you're in right now looks

0:39

like those scenes in a thriller

0:41

when they go to the killer's house. There's

0:44

like a lot of sketches on the wall. Where

0:48

are you? What room are you in? Now? This

0:50

is my room,

0:52

and my family doesn't let me have another room,

0:55

So this is my room and

0:57

it's where I prepare you

0:59

know, two people. Tucci's

1:02

the first to say he's sometimes been typecast

1:05

as an ethnic heavy the ambiguously

1:08

Arab assassin in The Pelican Brief,

1:10

for example, but he's done plenty

1:13

of roles worthy of his immense talent.

1:16

From Puck and Michael Hoffman's A Midsummer

1:18

Night's Dream to fashion editor

1:20

Nigel Kipling in the Devil

1:22

Wears product, not to mention

1:25

his cult classic directorial debut,

1:27

Big Night steeped in his

1:29

love for Italian cooking. After

1:32

becoming a widower with two school

1:34

aged children in two thousand nine, Tucci

1:37

fell in love with an English literary

1:39

agent, and the two married a few years

1:42

later. The couple and their new kids

1:44

now live in London, which is where I found

1:47

my old friend for this conversation.

1:49

I always wanted to live in Europe because I lived in Italy when

1:51

I was a kid, you know, for a year when I was twelve,

1:54

and it completely changed everything, Like it

1:56

totally changed the way I saw the world

1:59

and everything, and and I always wanted

2:01

to go back and live here. And and Kate, my

2:03

my late wife, she and I always talked

2:05

about maybe we would go live in France,

2:08

or maybe we go live in Italy or something. And

2:11

then obviously that didn't happen. But when I met

2:13

Felicity, we did. And

2:15

I'll tell you it's like the

2:17

place I was supposed to be, but I didn't

2:19

know it. There was a slight intimidation

2:22

of you know that sort of upper

2:25

crusty British e stuff.

2:28

But once you're once you're here for a

2:30

bit, it's it's fine. It's

2:32

incredibly comfortable. I know why you

2:34

would feel comfortable here when I would shoot

2:36

there. I shot a couple of things there, and

2:38

I would shoot there. I would say, even a

2:40

taxi driver has

2:43

a grasp and a kind of facility

2:45

with the English language. That's like a college

2:47

professor back here. Yeah, there's an understanding

2:49

the language, no matter what social status,

2:52

somebody is right. But also there

2:54

is a profound sense of

2:57

irony here that unfortunately America

2:59

is great lacking in. And

3:02

and that's simply because

3:05

it's an incredibly old country and

3:08

we're not. When you met Felicity,

3:10

how long were you together when you made

3:13

the decision to move over there. We

3:16

were together for a couple of years because she

3:18

came and lived with us. She came and

3:20

lived with me and the kids for two

3:22

days city. No, No, we were up in Westchester.

3:26

Yeah, we're in west That's where I was living and had

3:29

a house there and um,

3:31

and then we rented an apartment in the city

3:33

for I don't know, like a year or something,

3:36

just because she worked so much in the city.

3:38

It was easier for her, um,

3:40

but it was it was great, you know, and it's

3:43

a really hard role. I mean, I I

3:46

you know, having been a step

3:48

parent, I mean, and then for

3:50

her to be a step parent at that young

3:53

age with three kids was you know, it

3:55

was really tough. I mean they're now,

3:58

they're the twins of twenty Camiliz a team

4:00

and then we have two little ones. So who pitched

4:02

the idea of moving to the u

4:04

K? You or her? She did? She did.

4:06

She was like, look, you know, I

4:08

have a full time job. You know, you

4:11

sometimes have a job. How about we go

4:14

there. I was nervous

4:16

about the kids, although the kids had spent a

4:18

fair amount of time here already, and I was nervous about

4:20

leaving my parents because I was

4:22

very close to my parents. There's still a lot, a

4:24

lot. My father just turned ninety and my mother just

4:26

turned in December. I love it. Where

4:29

is she? My mom and my sister

4:31

and then eventually my other sister. When my

4:34

dad died in three my dad was

4:36

only fifty five when he died. Oh my god. And

4:38

when he died very young, my mother

4:41

took a couple of years to

4:43

divest of her Long Island home and so forth,

4:46

and she and my sister, and then I mentioned my other sister

4:48

and their families. They moved to Syracuse, where

4:51

my mother was from, right near her

4:53

siblings who have all since then, all

4:55

of them have passed away. If you told me that

4:57

my mother would outlive my father and all her

5:00

blinks, I would have been a million dollars

5:02

against that. You know, But my

5:04

mother is not a health nut, you know what I mean. She

5:06

she drank diet coke every day. She

5:08

drank tab every day. You know, she was not a

5:11

health nut. But when you

5:13

decide to go there, are you calculating

5:16

the work thing? You're thinking, how am I going

5:18

to work from here? Or do you just dive? No?

5:20

No, I was nervous. Yeah, there's no question. I was nervous.

5:22

But I knew that I had worked here before

5:25

I saw that production. Now this is seven years

5:27

ago. Now there was a lot being shot

5:30

here. I had done Captain

5:32

America here, and I talked

5:35

to the director and the producers about it,

5:37

and they were like, everything is moving

5:39

here because the tax

5:41

breaks are so huge, the union

5:43

structure is different, and basically

5:46

by shooting this movie, it was tens of millions

5:48

of dollars that they saved on that movie alone

5:51

shooting it here. And then, of course

5:54

Atlanta change things because

5:56

you know, a lot of stuff is done in Atlanta now, but still

5:59

so much stuff. And at

6:01

first was a little slow going, but

6:03

honestly, after a few months, six

6:06

months, it was not a problem at all. What was

6:08

the union particulars meaning? And

6:10

and for you you became a British citizen

6:12

as well because you married her. No, I'm not a British

6:14

citizen. I might. I have permanent

6:17

leave to remain or whatever they call it, so

6:20

I'm a permanent resident. Had to take

6:22

a test a little while ago and proved

6:24

that I knew enough about British history,

6:27

you know, which you know, yes, yeah, which

6:30

I knew nothing about, not really, but you know.

6:32

And then but the kids have that

6:34

too, which is great for

6:36

me. It's wonderful because I was a lot of the stuff

6:38

I was doing anyway, was shooting either here

6:41

or in Europe or wherever, you know, because

6:43

we don't make movies in l A anymore,

6:46

which is really I always

6:48

told people, you do a movie on a on a set

6:50

in New York, the prop guy

6:52

would come to you and he'd say, I

6:54

want to pick out a watch with you for your character,

6:57

and he'd open up a box. He had like forty watches.

7:00

When you went to l A, they say the propram, I want you to

7:02

look at a watch, and he brings like nine cases

7:04

with five hundred watches. In

7:08

l A. Everything is just more more

7:10

because that's what it is. That's what it is. It's

7:13

nothing but that. The last time I worked

7:15

there was when I did the thing with

7:17

them with Susan Surrandon and

7:20

Jessica Lang about Betty Davis

7:22

and Jones that I

7:24

loved that so much fun Do you know

7:26

that I called each one of them.

7:29

I called Jessica who I know, and Susan,

7:31

I mean Susan Surrandon. I literally got her

7:33

on the phone and she kind of had this tone like

7:36

how can I help you, Like like I'm just I'm

7:38

just completely puzzled as to why you're

7:40

call me me. Then I said, I'm

7:42

calling you to tell you how fabulous

7:45

you were. I mean, no one could have pulled

7:48

it was impossible to pull that off. I

7:50

loved that show. They're great performances

7:53

and they're both funny, and Susan

7:55

I knew I had made a lot of movies with Susan. I had

7:57

directed her in a movie, and but

7:59

I never met Jessica, and we

8:02

really had one sort of major scene together.

8:05

It's just fucking amazing,

8:07

amazing. You go there,

8:10

you're a permanent resident. And

8:12

I'm imagining in terms of the

8:15

acting thing in the union thing, does that become

8:17

an issue as well? No, No, the union thing,

8:19

as far as SAG and all that, that's

8:21

fine. What I meant unions. What

8:23

I meant is that the crew unions

8:25

and the driver unions and things like that are very

8:28

different here. And what they what

8:30

they like here, as you know, because you've shot

8:32

here a lot, is that they In

8:34

America, it's very hard to shoot.

8:37

And I'm a big believer in unions.

8:40

But America, you know, if you try to

8:42

do a continuous day, which is basically

8:45

like, you know, a ten hour day where

8:47

you're not taking a lunch break, you're you know, you're

8:49

just you're in. You start shooting

8:51

at eight and you're and you're out at six. Okay,

8:54

so you're in at six thirty, in makeup at seven

8:56

o'clock whatever. In

8:58

America, you can't do that. You

9:01

can't do it. You can only do it if it's location

9:03

dependent or like dependent. Here,

9:06

if they go, oh, we're doing a lunch break today. If you go to

9:08

the pudish, you go, why are we taking a lunch break. We're

9:10

shooting inside, we're shooting in the studio. Why are we doing

9:12

that. Let's do it. Let's do a continuous day. He

9:14

goes, yeah, all right, The crew goes, yeah,

9:17

let's do that. We're done at

9:19

six o'clock. We get to go home and be with our families.

9:23

And it's a completely

9:25

different People say,

9:27

like work ethic. It's not really an ethic,

9:29

it's simply logic. I

9:32

mean, the crews are incredible, the drivers

9:34

are incredible, but they're

9:36

not interested in being there for fifteen

9:39

sixteen hours a day. I mean in America,

9:41

I couldn't do

9:44

it. I couldn't do continuous days.

9:46

I tried. They wouldn't let me. Um,

9:49

but I still would finish

9:51

at six o'clock because

9:55

how long do you really want to be on a movie

9:57

set. I mean, let's face it, you know,

10:00

it gets tedious

10:03

and there's a lot of fasting about that

10:05

goes on, when really we

10:07

don't need a lot of that stuff. Let's just

10:09

get to it. Unless you're doing an action sequence

10:11

or something quite complex.

10:14

It's not that complicated. And I did like a day,

10:17

maybe two. I don't remember it. So long ago

10:20

when Peccino did Richard the

10:22

Third and the documentary

10:24

that he made about it was looking for Richard,

10:27

and the first day we shot, we

10:30

did this scene that Paccino gathered all

10:32

the cast and crew around. He said, I want to ask you

10:34

all one favor, and everyone

10:36

leaned in, like what is it? And Peccino said,

10:38

don't tell anyone how fast we worked

10:41

here. They

10:44

don't tell anybody how quickly we did this. Then

10:47

they'll then they'll make us all work at the space. I

10:49

have been on sets where we were really

10:52

you have an efficient director is really good in

10:54

America. And they finish

10:57

what you're done like four and

10:59

they're like, let's get out of here, and they go, no,

11:02

we can't leave, and you're like why.

11:04

They're like, well, the studio actually needs

11:07

you to stay. They need to They

11:09

need the crew to stay, so you need

11:11

to stay, or if you want to go, it's

11:13

fine, but the crew has to stay because otherwise

11:15

it looks like you're not getting the job done. You're

11:17

like, the job's done. That was

11:20

Lament's reputation. Yeah,

11:22

yeah, I admire that. One thing I

11:24

feel in the time that I've fantasized

11:27

about even moving there for like a year

11:29

or two. That's my dream, like just a camp out there for

11:31

like a year or two. The mountain i'd

11:33

want to at least try to climb would be the theater.

11:35

Have you done theater over there? No? Because

11:37

I have little kids, I think what I

11:39

would prefer to do is direct again in the

11:42

theater and not go on stage

11:44

again. Every now and again I get

11:46

a yearning, but then

11:49

I think, you know, I don't get to see my kids.

11:51

You don't put them to sleep, you don't have breakfast

11:53

with them in the morning, because you're, like, you know, completely

11:56

out of it. The one thing about it

11:59

is that you can do shorter runs here

12:01

in a substantial theater. You can go to the

12:03

old VIC and do a short run. And that's

12:06

pretty cool. And where are the older kids.

12:09

They're here, they're here, Well, they go to un there,

12:11

two of them go to The twins go to university

12:13

here. And because

12:15

we all moved over, the twins were only thirteen

12:18

and Camilla was eleven. For listening,

12:20

and I had Matteo in the first house, and

12:22

then now we have our second house, which is bigger,

12:25

thank god. So

12:27

you have you have Felicity have one, No, we

12:29

have two, Matteo and Amelia

12:32

who's she just turned two and he's

12:34

five, and then the twins of twenty

12:37

and Camilla is eighteen. So you

12:39

have five children, yes, right, And

12:41

I have five children, including my older daughter

12:44

Ireland, who lives in Los Angeles. So it

12:47

is weird to have kids

12:50

and think about. You know, my dear friend

12:52

who's ten years older than me and had a ten year

12:54

old he said, don't worry, it's great.

12:57

Besides, by the time they're saying

12:59

things that really bother you,

13:01

you'll be deaf anyway, So it doesn't even well,

13:05

it's so true I think about. I

13:07

mean, I think I can hear them now screaming in

13:09

the house, screaming. I think it's screaming

13:12

or singing. I don't know which. Who knows. Literally

13:14

the older I get a loud noises to

13:16

make me very jumpy, like if you hear a crash

13:19

or or a loud everything

13:22

that goes along with having children. So

13:24

if I if I come and very

13:26

quietly and very patiently,

13:29

I try to lay down the law with my kids. They

13:31

look at me and then they go, mom,

13:34

and yeah, because

13:37

I know what you mean. I mean, I suddenly

13:41

I'm gonna turn sixty in November,

13:45

and I suddenly feel

13:48

like I'm doing things and I'm

13:51

saying things that I

13:54

always watched old people do and

13:56

say, and how is that possible?

13:58

Like, how is it possible that that just came out

14:01

of my mouth? How is it possible that I went

14:03

how is it possible that hair is growing out

14:05

of places where it just shouldn't and

14:08

not on my head. There's a lot more creaking

14:10

and cracking, and I believe

14:13

me, there's a there's every night I do

14:15

my push ups in my bedroom and

14:17

the creaking and cracking is just so

14:20

it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing when you go into

14:22

a store and you're like if you're looking to it. Let's

14:25

say you're going to a shoe store and you bend

14:27

down to look at those shoes like on a slight lower,

14:30

you know, and you're just here like, you know, this

14:32

fucking cracking, and you're like, and

14:34

it reverberates and you see like

14:37

the salespeople kind of look and go

14:39

like it's embarrassing. But I

14:42

don't remember all that time passing so

14:44

quickly, and that was it possible that my attitude

14:47

towards work has shifted so dramatically

14:49

as it has now. You know, people

14:51

will send me things and I'll go and I'll say to myself,

14:53

well that's a movie I'd like to go see, but

14:56

I wouldn't want to go make like

14:58

I can't be on a set in uh

15:01

Costa Rica for six weeks. I don't care

15:03

how much money you pay me. I

15:05

need to live my life right now. Yeah, you

15:07

can't. I mean I feel the same way.

15:09

I mean obviously, I mean I have to

15:12

work because I have this overhead

15:14

and I have a mortgage here, so I

15:16

have to do it. But if I had my

15:19

choice, I would do it

15:21

a lot less. I am much

15:23

more discerning now. But the problem is you've

15:25

done it so much, like you just know

15:27

it. You see the script and you

15:30

go, that's a nightmare.

15:33

That is a nightmare right there waiting

15:35

to happen. I can feel it as

15:37

soon as I say, well, no, they think they're going

15:39

to be able to get helicopters to get like, No,

15:41

I'm not doing that. No, I'm

15:44

not doing even the role itself but they'll

15:46

send me a role and I'll go, oh

15:48

god. I think I did that summer years

15:50

ago. So what it takes for

15:53

me to get as excited about a script

15:56

to forego this part of my life? I

15:58

remember when I was making films and

16:00

before I did thirty Rock for seven seasons

16:02

and really parked myself in New York and got into

16:04

TV and got into a

16:07

schedule that was friendly for my visitation

16:09

with my daughter I was commuting to I

16:13

remember I used to sit

16:15

on sets and people would

16:17

FedEx me my mail from New

16:20

York and I opened up my mail

16:22

that would come every couple of weeks and I literally sit in

16:24

my room kind of very sad and

16:27

go, oh god. I missed the Bacon

16:29

exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum.

16:32

So many things I wanted to see and

16:34

do, and field going by because I'm shooting

16:37

up in Canada. Now you've

16:39

directed, Obviously you're very

16:41

known as a director for one big

16:43

movie, you did Big Night, but you've six

16:45

different things. Correct. Yeah, I

16:48

made you go back. I love doing

16:50

it. I did three in a row and did Big Night, and I

16:52

co directed it with Campbell and

16:55

co wrote it with my cousin Joe Tropiano.

16:57

And then I did The Impost,

17:00

which was a force that seven fewer people

17:02

saw it than were actually in the cast. And

17:05

then I did Joe Gold Secret with Ian Home

17:08

that was sort of dumped by the company

17:10

that made it, unfortunately, because it is actually quite

17:13

a nice movie and Ian is brilliant. And

17:15

then I didn't make a movie for eight

17:18

years as a director, and then I

17:20

did a tiny movie. There was a remake of

17:22

a Theo Vango movie, a very dark, weird,

17:25

kind of sucked up movie called

17:28

Blind Day with me and Patty Clarkson

17:31

about this couple that had

17:33

lost a child and this is very bizarre,

17:36

dark relationship. And

17:38

then another ten

17:41

years went by or eight year, I can't remember.

17:43

And then I did this movie I

17:45

had written about Alberto dracom Eddie with Jeffrey

17:48

Russian Army Handra, Yeah,

17:50

which you know, which I had written fourteen

17:52

years ago. What about directing made you

17:54

keep coming back? The whole point

17:56

of directing is that you're

17:59

able to control old time and space,

18:03

and as an actor you

18:05

can't do that, so you

18:08

can control only what you're doing basically,

18:11

but as a as a as a director, you can control

18:14

it all. The palette the shape

18:16

of it, the space in between people,

18:19

the tone of it, the time that

18:23

that that scene takes, but also the amount

18:25

of time that you want to shoot during

18:27

the day. So on the Jacob

18:29

Meti film, I would start shooting by

18:32

the time Jeffrey got out of makeup. It would be about

18:34

nine thirty and I would shoot eight

18:36

pages. Granted it was quite contained,

18:39

but I would shoot eight pages and

18:42

I'd be done by four

18:44

o'clock in the afternoon because

18:47

I would rehearse it, rehearsed

18:49

in advance, and I knew, I knew

18:51

what I wanted, and I had to had this incredible

18:54

DP Danny Cohen um,

18:56

and it was so

18:59

satisfying and so wonderful,

19:02

just wonderful. That's why I like it because

19:05

and I don't I have I really

19:08

don't have an interest in making sort of big

19:10

Hollywood movies. I should, but I don't.

19:13

I have only an interest in making

19:15

smaller movies that tell the story I want

19:17

to tell, like one that I want to make now about

19:20

George Bernard Shaw and his

19:22

relationship with this woman Mrs Patrick Campbell

19:25

at the when they were rehearsing Pigmalion

19:27

the very first time in the in the early

19:29

nineteen hundreds. It's a fascinating,

19:32

weird, intimate, funny love

19:34

story. But I'm not a hard I'm

19:37

hardly a technical person.

19:39

I can create, I can create. I'm interested

19:41

in creating shots. I'm interested in

19:44

in creating really interesting masters

19:47

and stuff like that. But when it comes to the mathematics

19:49

of it, there's no way I could even

19:52

Everything to me is is by I Do

19:55

you know what I mean? It's the guy who who, instead

19:57

of measuring to put a painting up on

19:59

the wall wall, I'll just kind of look at the wall

20:01

and go, there's the middle of the wall, and

20:04

inevitably I'm right.

20:09

Actor and director Stanley Tucci,

20:12

if our conversation has put you in

20:14

the mood for a sixty year old Italian

20:16

American character actors from Greater

20:18

New York here in luck John

20:21

Tuturo joined me at a live event of

20:23

two thousand and seventeen and talked

20:25

about the inspiration of seeing a movie

20:27

star who didn't look like Robert

20:29

Redford. You know, it wasn't until I

20:31

saw Dustin Hoffman, actually, which when

20:33

I saw clips for the

20:35

Academy Award, I was too young to see Midnight

20:37

Cowboy. I was shocked. I was.

20:39

I remember seeing him. I saying like, wow, this guy

20:41

looks like someone in our family, you know what, you

20:43

know, what's he doing in the movie? How

20:47

can he be in a movie? You know? And I was like kind

20:49

of shocked to see him. And

20:52

it was kind of shocking because he sort

20:54

of opened the doors for these other Paccino

20:57

and you know, the Narrow and all those guys. For

21:01

our full interview text to Turo,

21:03

I know you need this one t U R

21:06

t U R R O two

21:08

seven zero one.

21:21

I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's

21:23

the thing. Stanley Tucci

21:26

as a director creates truly beautiful

21:28

tableau. Change some

21:30

details in a still from the lush,

21:33

chaotic dinner scene and Big Night

21:35

and it could be a Toulouse l trek. It's

21:38

not an accident. Tucci takes

21:40

inspiration from painters as much

21:42

as his fellow directors. Yeah,

21:44

because my dad is a retired our teacher

21:47

and we lived in Florence for a year.

21:49

He went to Florence to study sculpture,

21:51

bronze casting and figure drawn.

21:54

When he had a sabbatical, he was

21:56

teaching and he used to teach in Chappaque and

22:00

so I grew up with somebody who

22:02

painted all the time. It did sculpture

22:04

all the time, and we're constantly looking at

22:06

the time slides, remember the old slide

22:09

machines and stuff. He would, you know, and

22:11

I would go to his classes sometimes,

22:13

you know, as I got older, and he was

22:15

a great, great teacher. Um.

22:18

But so all that stuff just sort of seeps

22:20

into you, and those images just

22:22

become a part of you. And then

22:24

when I was in New York, when I moved to New York,

22:27

I you know, I was unemployed

22:29

for extended periods of time, and I spent a

22:31

lot of that time in museums

22:33

and just reading about art. I

22:36

didn't really read about film. I

22:38

didn't really read about I went to films,

22:40

but I didn't really read about film. I read

22:43

about art. And I became a sort of

22:45

autodidact. And so

22:48

those images are there,

22:50

and they can't help but frame what

22:52

you frame because they're so

22:54

beautiful. Everything comes from those

22:57

images, whether we know it or not. Well, obviously,

23:00

Ignite is such a

23:02

cult movie. It's always those

23:04

movies that people in the business love, Yeah

23:06

they do. Ye, people in the business love

23:09

Big Night. They that they say, oh God, what a great

23:11

movie, and of course food

23:13

in your childhood. On reading this article where

23:15

you're talking about how you had

23:17

an egg plant parmer gan sandwich you take

23:20

to school that was the size of you know whatever, I'm like

23:22

a two by four and I am the

23:24

same way. I crave a good Italian

23:26

food and that becomes such a part

23:28

of your identity. Is

23:31

there more or is

23:33

there always a lot of cooking in a Tucci household

23:35

or has it gone to another level now because of the

23:38

COVID No, it never, it literally

23:40

never stops. So I was cooking for

23:42

eight people every day.

23:45

So you got to twenty year olds plus a friend

23:47

of theirs who's also twenty who went to university

23:50

with them, and an eighteen year old.

23:52

Do you know how much food they eat? Like

23:55

in one sitting, not just one sitting.

23:57

I mean, so they come down, then they need

23:59

a dinner or before dinner, you

24:01

know, not to mention lunch and breakfast. I

24:03

have three brothers, so I yeah, you know, unbelievable.

24:06

But now three of them have gone

24:09

back to school to study, which

24:11

is good. But I also love to cook. Tonight

24:13

I'm making Paya I

24:16

love I

24:18

bet she does. Yeah, you've done

24:22

too much. I've done too many movies. Well,

24:24

you've done a lot of films. When

24:27

you look back on your career, who were the people

24:29

you work with? It you go, that was really a dream

24:31

come true to work with this one and this one. Well,

24:33

I had a great time working with you, first of all, and I'm

24:35

saying not saying that to be warm and fuzzy, but

24:37

I had a wonderful time working with you, um

24:40

merrill without the question. I

24:43

had to remember not

24:45

to watch her like I had

24:47

to remember to be in the scene because I was so

24:49

fascinated. Do you know what I mean? I

24:51

mean I'd go like, oh, ship, I have to say a line now,

24:53

because I would just be watching her thinking I was

24:56

really good? Did you do that?

24:58

I had that with DeNiro when I did Good

25:00

Shepherd. You would hear cut and

25:03

he would talk to Bob Richardson. Uh

25:05

I shot with a couple of times he talked to Bob

25:08

and then he'd approached Matt Damon and I and

25:10

he would give us the directions and

25:12

he was about sixty seconds into talking to us

25:15

and I'd say, I'm sorry,

25:17

could you repeat everything you just said?

25:18

I wasn't really listening. I

25:20

was a kid. There was a film screening

25:23

in my mind the whole time, just watching

25:25

that person that you've watched for so long. And

25:27

I think, also, I did this movie

25:30

a long time ago with Joe Pesci, and

25:33

there's a movie called The Public Eye. Uh,

25:36

and I was I was quite young,

25:38

and I was very excited

25:40

to work with him. But one of the things that was

25:42

so impressed me about

25:45

him, and it still does every

25:47

time I watched him, is that I have never seen

25:50

an actor listen

25:53

the way Joe Pesci listens

25:56

to another actor. And I was watching,

25:58

um, you know that I wishman

26:02

and I said to I said to

26:04

my son, I said, watch

26:06

him, now, watch what he's doing.

26:09

Nobody else listens like

26:11

that. And that's what makes him so captivated

26:13

is that he's actually fucking and I like,

26:15

in the middle of the scene, I'd be talking to him

26:17

and I thought, he's really

26:19

listening to me, like I've never had an actor

26:21

really listened to me like that I had. I gave

26:24

him his award from the New York Film

26:26

Critics Circle for The Irishman

26:28

in the Fall, and I gave this

26:30

speech and I said that you

26:32

know Strasburg and Santa Slowski and those

26:34

guys would always say, we're never the

26:37

character. We're

26:40

the character, and there's a little piece of us out

26:42

of the corner of our eye that's watching us perform.

26:46

And we're at these knobs and dials,

26:48

adjusting them a little bit more of this, a little

26:50

bit less of this. And you see Pesci

26:52

someone who goes to these outer extremes of

26:55

kind of this craziness and rage, but

26:57

he knows exactly what he's doing. It's

27:00

all these settings he has. He's very deft.

27:03

He's so deft,

27:05

he's so deft. Who else that you've

27:08

worked with that you I did this movie at the Edge

27:10

with Tony Hopkins. De

27:12

Niro originally was supposed to do

27:14

the film. Mammock wrote the screenplay

27:17

and Art Linson, whose DeNiro's friend,

27:19

was the producer, and we did a reading

27:21

and the character's name was Charles

27:23

Morrise and I think that Bob realized

27:26

that he was more Adriatic

27:29

than than he was Plymouth Rock, so

27:32

he left the film.

27:34

I was on vacation with my ex wife and the phone

27:36

ring and they said they got Tony Hopkins to do the film,

27:39

and literally tears started running down my face.

27:41

I thought I can't believe I'm gonna go make a movie with Anthony

27:43

Hopkins. And it was one of the great

27:45

that the film was not a great film, that was a very

27:48

missed opportunity, but it

27:50

was the greatest experience I've ever had, was working with

27:52

Tommy. What about Sean

27:54

Connery, Well, Sean was a lesson

27:57

in um,

27:59

you know, one of the first big movies

28:01

I made. And John mcteern and the director said

28:03

to me, because why can't you just stand there

28:05

and say the lines? He said, he

28:10

said, you always need to be like packing a briefcase

28:12

and and and folding your trench

28:14

code because because you were very proppy. This is

28:17

early, early, couple of days of shooting, he

28:19

says. He says, because he was used to working

28:21

with stars where you just stand there

28:23

and say the lines. You know, it's I'm

28:26

enough. We need a minimum

28:28

of acting. And uh, I thought

28:30

about that. I thought that makes some sense. I guess that's

28:32

kind of maybe some good advice. And

28:35

then Sewan walked in and

28:38

they've done his makeup test, and they've done his wardrobe

28:40

test, and they did his hair. He had this beautiful

28:42

hair piece they put on him. It was and

28:46

he walked and I thought, I'm so fucked.

28:48

I said, no, one's going to see me in this movie. I'm

28:50

officially invisible. And he

28:53

talked to me every day we

28:55

shot. He was so kind to me and

28:57

and instructive. He said to me, are you going to the rush

29:00

his boy to the Russians, And

29:03

I'd say, what he said, the Rushes that the

29:05

film from yesterday? I say,

29:07

no, no, I never go to the Rushes. I thought, you know, what's

29:09

the point? But what am I going to give them my opinion?

29:12

He said, well, how do you ever expect

29:14

to larn anything? So

29:17

we go to the Rushes to Laren. I

29:20

was like, oh, okay, great. And

29:23

then one day my favorite moment with him was I

29:25

looked him and I said, He said, if you don't mind,

29:27

I won't be off camera

29:30

for you after

29:32

five on on Friday.

29:34

I said, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. So I have

29:36

to get on a plane and fly to

29:38

Vancouver for

29:41

the weekend. I said, really,

29:43

He said, yes, I'm a British tax exile,

29:46

so I can only be in the States. In

29:48

the States, so many days I'm

29:51

leaving out the s and he goes in the States so

29:54

many days and I said, wow,

29:56

Is said, you fly up to Vancouver every weekend.

29:58

He said, yes, I fly up to the coover every

30:01

weekend. I said, what do you

30:03

do when you're there in Vancouver? And he looked at me like

30:05

I was a brain damaged child. I

30:08

said, what do you do here there? He says, golf?

30:13

You morong. I

30:15

think I disappointed him on several

30:18

levels. I like that. I like that movie, though. I have

30:20

to say, I thought you were great in any of your

30:22

kids have the Bug? No, No,

30:26

thank god no. I

30:28

think Nicolo did some

30:30

plays in high school and he

30:32

actually did a thing for BBC here too,

30:35

but it's not it's not something he's

30:37

really desperate to do. I

30:40

think he's much more interested in documentary

30:43

filmmaking. And I took him to

30:45

see I worked with Matthew Hindeman. You know that

30:47

wonderful director who did Cartel

30:50

and he's extraordinary. Uh.

30:53

And he became friendly

30:55

with him from this movie that I had done with him, and

30:57

and I took Nico to see this other movie he

30:59

did called City of Ghosts, about um

31:02

Syrian refugees in Berlin,

31:06

and Nico

31:08

was just so excited about it, so

31:10

excited about it that he said, oh my god, Dad,

31:12

that's incredible. That's what I want to do.

31:15

So now he's studying politics

31:18

at university, but I know that he

31:21

wants to work his way into doing that,

31:23

which I think that it is so exciting

31:25

to me because that's an incredible life.

31:28

That's a great life. Can any of them cook,

31:31

Nico? Nico can cook. The girls

31:33

no, they have no interest, none. But

31:35

he came down. I did this. I just did

31:37

this thing for CNN. I'm doing this thing about

31:40

Italian regional cooking, a CNN

31:42

documentary series. So we

31:44

went to four different regions in Italy and

31:47

Nico came down to Sicily with

31:49

us and was you

31:51

know, became part of the crew and stuff like that, and

31:53

he was just thrilled. Plus, you

31:56

know, the food is Felicity

31:59

as happy as a clas. I'm is she happy to be home?

32:01

Yeah, she's really happy. Anything about

32:03

America, she made some really good friends in America

32:06

too, you know, through work and and then

32:08

she became very good friends like with Aidan

32:10

and Lizzie, you know Aidan Quinn and his wife

32:12

Lizzie, and Steve Bussemi

32:14

and now his late wife Joe. So

32:17

that was really nice that you know she you

32:20

know, she made a lot of really great friends and she really

32:23

enjoyed part of working there,

32:25

but she found the experience much

32:27

more corporate than it is here.

32:31

Um. But ultimately

32:33

she's just happier here, much

32:35

happier, much happier. Her parents

32:37

are close by, you know, I get

32:39

it. The one thing I don't want to overlook very

32:42

important is tell me about Central Park. What's this

32:44

project that's the buzzer here.

32:46

We're gonna talk about your latest project. Josh

32:49

Gad. We did Beauty and the Beast, lovely

32:52

guy, really funny guy.

32:55

And then he calls me up and he says, I want

32:57

you to do this animated series

32:59

with me. And I was like, yeah, sure whatever. I love

33:01

doing stuff like that, you know, because if I wanted

33:03

to play an eight year old woman, I

33:06

was like, even better. Nothing makes me

33:08

happier than that. And also,

33:10

you know, you don't have to go on camera, you

33:12

don't have to come any makeup, you don't have to do a costume.

33:14

You go to the recording studio. It's

33:16

incredibly fun. So Kristen Bell is doing it and

33:19

it's a musical. I pretend to

33:21

sing, but I'm singing as

33:23

an eight year old woman. So it's fun share

33:25

with us. I mean, you're considered

33:27

a fantastic actor. Share one

33:30

is the secret of how you access the

33:32

singing voice of an eighty year old woman? What

33:34

did you do for that? I just had a martini

33:36

before I write I did

33:38

it.

33:41

Yeah, it's like if Rex Harrison

33:44

were an old woman, like

33:46

an angry, drunk old woman. That's the way I

33:48

do. I talk it, except for one

33:51

note every now and again. When this Central

33:53

Park coming out. I think

33:55

it's coming out in July. Now,

33:59

last question, Yes, Joy,

34:02

if there is such a thing as

34:04

a role that you wish

34:06

you could play marks you're

34:09

kidding? Now, why

34:12

because you used to do that as a kid. Fascinating

34:15

you would do ground your invitations to your family when

34:17

you're a kid. Correct? What about him?

34:19

Why? He and

34:21

his brothers completely changed the face of comedy.

34:24

And also the periods that they

34:26

worked through were incredible. When you think that they

34:28

did vaudeville and

34:30

then they went into movies just

34:33

huge stars. Then there was a sort of decline, then

34:35

movies again under Irving

34:37

Thalberg, huge hit. Then

34:40

it all starts to fade away. They're getting

34:42

older suddenly at the cusp

34:45

of the beginning of television.

34:48

He has this enormous hit that

34:50

went from radio, transition

34:52

from radio to television and stayed on television

34:55

for ten years. I mean, that's an incredible

34:57

career. Not to mention that he

34:59

was a real intellect and

35:01

an incredibly complex person,

35:04

not the happiest person, which

35:06

also makes it much Well, that's what

35:08

makes it much more interesting. Anybody's

35:11

really happy. I mean, how you know, who wants to who

35:14

cares? But when I always remember when

35:16

I worked with you, which is a million

35:18

years ago now it'll be thirty years ago next

35:20

year. We shot that movie,

35:25

and I remember shooting with you. I

35:27

remember walking away and thinking that, um,

35:30

you'd read this about certain actors where

35:32

they had a career and

35:34

nothing on screen could prepare

35:36

you for what they were like in person. Like

35:39

someone said that Vincent Price was a great

35:41

host, and he hosted some of the greatest

35:44

parties and dinner parties in Hollywood. He was a

35:46

gourmand, he was a food he was a foodie,

35:48

and the Vincent by people loved going to

35:51

Vincent Price's house and he played these

35:53

kind of cookie exotic characters.

35:55

But in real life he was this elegant or bane

35:58

guy. And when

36:01

I think of that, although you have no resemblance

36:03

whatsoever to Vincent Price in his career,

36:06

I think the same thing. When I've been around

36:08

you, You're one of the most elegant men.

36:11

You play some tough, crazy people and

36:14

they're not you at all. That's a real journey

36:16

for you, the real

36:18

I think it's nothing like that. No, I'm

36:20

not a I'm not a tough guy.

36:23

Now you're a Brit. Yes,

36:26

that's what I like. Now I'm brit. Now it's

36:28

all very different. You've been rehearsing

36:30

your entire life. Yes, my

36:33

son, my five year old, he

36:35

literally speaks like he's from

36:38

you know, like he just came out of

36:40

you know, Windsor. Stanley

36:44

Tucci is currently appearing in

36:46

Central Park. That's a TV show,

36:49

as villainous eighty year old mogul

36:51

Bitsy Brandenham. We're going to

36:53

do the biggest real estate deal in

36:56

the history of the world. It's

36:58

out now on Apple t be. I'm

37:01

Alec Baldwin and this is here's

37:03

the thing.