>> haskins: coming up on "theater talk"... >> daniels: imagine if we had earwigs in "blackbird." boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. >> riedel: oh, my god! >> daniels: we're waiting for some guy with a script?
[ laughter ] >> haskins: "theater talk" is made possible in part by... ♪♪ >> haskins: from new york city, this is "theater talk." i'm susan haskins. >> riedel: and i'm michael riedel of the
new york post. now, susan, one of my favorite actors is jeff daniels, who not only is a terrific film actor, but really one of our great american stage actors. welcome to "theater talk." >> daniels: oh, that's very nice, thank you.
>> riedel: and congratulations on the success of the play he is in now, giving a harrowing, brilliant, and unforgettable performance in "blackbird" by david harrower at the belasco theater. congratulations on the success of the play.
>> daniels: thank you very much. >> riedel: now, um, there's certain things we don't want to give away in this play, of course. >> haskins: like everything. >> riedel: [ laughs ] but is it fair to talk about your character and his partic--
>> daniels: yeah. >> riedel: all right. you play a man who had a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old in the past. >> haskins: i think that's giving away. >> daniels: there was an illegal relationship, yes, yes.
that's pretty specifically true. and it's 15 years later. >> riedel: right, right, right. >> daniels: and she has -- she showed up at my place of work. i am now living seven hours away from where it occurred. i served time in prison.
>> riedel: mm-hmm. >> daniels: i've changed my name. i've created a new life trying to move on. and out of nowhere, she finds me, and she shows up, and she wants to talk about it. >> riedel: all right, and that
is essentially the play, and there's a lot of... >> daniels: and you're stuck in a room with these two people, in a conference room at his pick-a-company conference room. >> riedel: that's right. >> daniels: it's that wonderful drama premise.
it's man, woman, and an insurmountable problem, and a door, and they can't leave. >> riedel: and they can't leave. i was thinking about that, 'cause this goes back to, oftentimes, when you're an acting student, or an acting exercise -- why doesn't the
person leave? why don't you just leave? >> riedel: yeah, why don't you walk out? >> daniels: and harrower, the playwright -- it's pretty evident why neither one of us can leave. >> riedel: and i love the -- i
guess you would call it -- a metaphor, of there's a lot of garbage in this conference room. and that garbage just does not stay in that trash can. >> daniels: no, it doesn't. >> riedel: this man's life does not stay where he's tried to contain it.
>> daniels: that's good, i like that. >> riedel: that works for you? >> daniels: go with that. never thought of it that way. i just thought it was trash i had to put in the thing that wouldn't fit. >> riedel: it's not good for
actors to think these deep ways. leave that to critics. >> daniels: no, we can't act metaphors. >> riedel: you cannot act that. so when this play crosses your desk and you read it, what was your attraction to this character?
>> daniels: lynne meadow at manhattan theatre club sent it to me in 2006 maybe. and the movie career was not great, and i was bored with what i was doing, and the opportunities didn't seem to be there, and she took a shot. she took a flier.
"maybe jeff would want to come back to the theater. it's been a while." and she sent me "blackbird," and i didn't know how to do it. >> riedel: hmm. >> daniels: and i said yes. partly to get away from what i was doing in hollywood, but
also, i didn't know how i was going to pull this off, so i would have to work really hard to figure that out, and the challenge of acting came back again, which i'd been missing. >> haskins: you sure figured out how to do it. >> daniels: well, joe mantello
was a big help, the director then, and we did it with alison pill. and it was -- but you don't always get that in hollywood. you get, "do what you did before, just do it for us." >> riedel: right, right.
>> daniels: and this wasn't that by any stretch. and i dove in. >> haskins: now, i saw it in 2007, and i saw it again the other night, and i asked you if you were tired, because you give such a performance. it's just excruciating.
you said you were less tired now than you were in 2007. how so? >> daniels: i think it has to do with film. for me, specifically, it has to do with "newsroom." >> haskins: oh, and i have to say, my favorite tv series
probably ever. >> daniels: well, thanks, but "newsroom," especially with sorkin, there was so much dialogue, so much preparation, so much work just to get ready for today, let alone tomorrow, let alone friday, let alone the next week, that it was in and
out, in and out, in and out. you had to... you also... you give them options. we're shooting fast, so here's take one, which is different than take two, which is different than take three. gonna speed it up on four and
slow it down on five. now you've got options. so now you come into "blackbird" on broadway, and you're with michelle, who's been nominated for an oscar three times, not by accident. >> riedel: yeah. >> daniels: and so how do we
bring film -- that urgency and that immediacy and that "it's only happening tonight," eight shows a week -- to "blackbird," with an emotional descent into hell that we got to do? and i think the film thing really helps us. we're not giving those
quintessential stage performances that we've all seen, and certainly, actors have seen, where you're watching it, and you're going, "you're not here. you're thinking about joe allen's. you're thinking about what --
you're thinking about who -- you just looked into the audience." >> riedel: your friend is here from... >> daniels: "you just looked into the audience. i saw you look. you're giving the speech, and
you're not here." and with michelle and joe, i just said, "let's just --" the audience just happens to be there. we could care less about you. we really could. it's two people in this room trying to figure out...
you just happen to be watching. and now let's make it different every night. let's make thursday different than friday, take two different than take three. we're still in where joe wants us to be, but he's given us that room, that latitude to make it
come alive. >> haskins: so what would make it different every -- >> riedel: even in terms of -- >> daniels: some nights i'm looking at you saying it, sometimes i'm not. >> riedel: oh, you have that freedom?
coming in under, some nights i'm pounding you right, bang, right across the forehead -- to michelle. and she has to react differently. and it becomes alive. and everybody says, "oh, what's chemistry?"
it's two people ping-ponging, tennis at a -- boom, boom. now, tonight, it's over here. and you got to go -- you can't just wait for you to stop talking and then do what you've done eight times a week. we'll smell that. we'll smell it.
>> riedel: do you have the freedom in the blocking, too? can you change the map at all? >> daniels: not really. i mean, he gives you a little bit of movement, but... and joe was saying, "it needs to be spontaneous. pick it up. don't --
if it's on your mind, let it come out of your mouth. don't manufacture some motivation with your objective that you learned in acting class 20 years -- who cares? react." acting is reacting, and you
certainly learn that with the speed of film or in "newsroom," where there's no rehearsal. >> daniels: where you've got to rely on emily mortimer or sam waterston, and he gives it to you, and you take it, and the camera catches it 'cause it happened for the first time.
that's what michelle and i are trying to do every night. >> riedel: very interesting you say that, because we had brian dennehy on the show when he was doing "long day's journey into night" with vanessa redgrave, and he said -- he'd done it out in
chicago, and he thought, "i know this play, i've done this part." he said, the moment he started working with vanessa redgrave, she did it differently every single night. to the point where he didn't know where her entrance was going to be.
sometimes she'd come down from the attic, sometimes she'd come in from the porch, sometimes she'd come up from -- >> daniels: that's a little extreme. >> riedel: [ laughs ] brian, at first, didn't like it, but then he came to really like
it because, he said, with her, you were living that moment every night, and it was different. it was not, "hey, i got to get to the theater to do this play 'cause that's my job." >> daniels: i've always said that, eight times a week, week
after week, month after month, it's designed to beat the performance out of you. [ riedel laughs ] performance number 100 has just -- i mean, you can't do it anymore. and what's fascinating, as a stage actor, is to find that you
get better at it, and you can make it even more alive and more moment-to-moment. if you approach it that way, like vanessa did, or like we're trying to do in "blackbird." >> riedel: i mean, the highest compliment i can give you is you don't see the acting.
and all right, jeff daniels comes in, and it's interesting 'cause i was just there the other night. you come in, you're a star. there's some applause, but it goes away quickly because of the state you are in when you walk on that stage.
it is not a star entrance. >> daniels: no. >> riedel: this is a man whose world has just cracked up. >> daniels: yeah, the applause gets in the way, to be honest. >> riedel: yeah, yeah, yeah. >> daniels: which is nice, it's terrific, stop doing that.
we're here. >> riedel: precisely, exactly. i do want you to take me back to one of my favorite theaters, no longer with us -- circle rep -- and you were a big part of that company. can you just sort of tell us what it was like your kind of
first day on the job there at circle rep, if you'd just evoke that world for us? [ chuckles ] >> daniels: at 21 years old, fresh out of a cornfield in a norman rockwell town in michigan, i pulled into greenwich village, realized i
might be the only straight guy there... walked into the circle rep offices. marshall w. mason was the artistic director, had found me in a college production, and brought me here to be an apprentice.
i walk in, first day, september 1976, and there's lanford wilson. we had just done our college production of "hot l baltimore." and playwrights are dead. they aren't living and breathing. they're shakespeare, they're
ibsen, they're you know. but here was a living, breathing playwright. it was the first star i'd ever met. >> riedel: did he hit on you? >> daniels: no, he laid there -- he sat there in his chair like lanford would, and i, you know.
"mr. wilson, hello. i'm jeff daniels. yes, how are you?" "hey, doll, how are you?" and i'm fumbling for words, and i said, "we just did 'hot l baltimore.'" and, "oh, yeah, it's a good play, it's not bad, not bad."
"what are you doing now?" he goes, "oh, trying to write a second act." you know, it was lanford. >> riedel: with the cigarette? >> daniels: he never changed. it was always that bigger than life. i do want you to also evoke a
place that's gone, too, but i used to hang out there, where the journalists and the actors hung out. the lion's head. >> haskins: oh. >> riedel: that was the pub that was across the street. >> daniels: yes, it was.
>> riedel: there must have been some wild circle rep nights at... >> daniels: [ sighs ] yes, yes, yes, there were. i can't name names but... he's under the table, and i have to get him home. yeah.
and it wasn't lanford, though he certainly could put it down, but no -- yeah, that was a wild... >> riedel: but it must have been an exciting time though, 'cause you were all young actors, and we talked about this before the camera, but living in new york when you could afford to live in
new york, you didn't have to pay $750,000 for your walk-up studio apartment. you could all live down there. you could eat in the village. you could do things on a budget. you didn't have any money when you came here. >> daniels: i'm concerned about
new york city now for the young artist, because back then, you didn't have to be rich to come now, where do people -- like, i don't know, my purple rose theatre company, they come and they live in queens, and they live in hoboken or -- i lived in staten island
in the '70s. >> haskins: where is your purple rose -- is that gone? >> daniels: in chelsea. no, we're 25 years old, professional theater. >> haskins: excellent. >> daniels: in chelsea, michigan, right near ann arbor.
and these young artists, that i used to be, come trained -- i mean, we train them like that i got at circle rep -- come to new york, they stay for six months, a year, and they can't -- and they leave. >> riedel: they can't afford it. >> daniels: they can't afford
it. so does that mean the young artists of today have to be rich with daddy's trust funds? because, you know, where's the middle-class artist? which is where all of them really tend to come from. the true hunger and ambition and
see the dream and have that talent that just -- i mean, that's what happened with me. my dad owned a lumber company. you know, that was it. and, "you're going to be a what? an actor?" and you go wit this dream.
i don't know how they do it nowadays. the money -- they're going to go elsewhere. they're not going to come to new york. the level of talent of the young artists is going to go down. because if you have to be rich
to be here, fsst. >> riedel: it knocks a whole group of people out who've got a lot of talent but who are not going to have a chance to try >> haskins: and it changes the look of people in things. >> daniels: changes the look, and i don't know.
i don't have the answer. maybe they're going to all go to digital movies and do all that. maybe that's the next frontier. >> haskins: and thinking of you being a young actor, we recently had reed birney here, and you were his understudy on broadway in "gemini."
>> daniels: i was. >> haskins: but tell us about that -- we were wondering about your understudy experience. >> daniels: marshall mason got me -- i was in new york for about a year, and i was threatening to leave. i wanted to go back and work at
the lumber company. he was going, "no, you're not. stay here." and he said, "i'm going to give you a job as an understudy." "gemini," albert innaurato's play was moving to broadway with danny aiello and everybody. they had -- very successful at
circle rep. and, "you're going to understudy three roles. you're going to understudy reed birney, bob picardo, and jonathan hadary." >> riedel: jonathan hadary. >> daniels: and i'm going, "wow, wow, broadway.
i can do that." and i literally had colored the script in three different colors. i had it down. i could do each one. i was there every night for five months. never went on.
i remember picardo throwing up in a bucket at five minutes to 8:00, going, "bob, i'm in the clothes, i'm in the clothes." pbht. >> riedel: but those are the professionals. like my friends like harvey fierstein say, you know,
with some of the kids in "hairspray," they go to the dentist and they call out for the whole day. >> daniels: oh, man, when we were doing "god of carnage," we heard about -- was it "west side story"? >> riedel: yes, the kids --
yeah, they were -- yeah, yeah. >> daniels: kids were -- they'd get hungover. they wouldn't show up for the wednesday matinee. and i remember telling gandolfini -- jim was sort of new to the theater scene -- we hired the understudies, you
know, during previews. and jim said, "when do they go on?" i said, "they go on in baltimore, they go on in philly, they go on in d.c. we don't miss a show." >> haskins: did he miss? did he never miss?
>> daniels: jim gandolfini never missed a show. 256 shows from march 1 to thanksgiving. didn't miss a show. >> haskins: that's good. >> daniels: so then we heard about the "west side story" kids dropping out.
>> daniels: and i'm going, "oh, let me over there. let me over there. let me over there." >> haskins: what would you say? yeah. i mean... >> daniels: get out of here. i'd say, "get out of here, go home.
this isn't how it's done." >> haskins: but it's in the culture now. >> daniels: huh? >> haskins: it's in the culture now. >> daniels: my attitude is go to get out of here, we don't need you.
this is hard work. film actors can't do what we do. >> riedel: right. >> daniels: sometimes we can go, and i love being one of the guys who can go to stage, go to film. but we've had -- michelle and i have had -- and "carnage," i remember actors
would come back who've done film, big-name people, going, "i can't do what you guys do." >> haskins: we see a lot of actors who come from film, and they can't do it. >> daniels: can't do it. >> haskins: they don't have it. >> daniels: and that was one of
the things with casting of "blackbird," with getting michelle, is that she had done "cabaret" before, she had done "killer joe," so she knew the drill, she knew what eight shows a week meant. and there were some names floating around before michelle
that were -- "what about so-and-so?" i said, "she's never done a play." "yeah, but she might be --" i said, "no, no, no, here's the problem. she'll open on march 10, but where's she going to be on
april 20? what's she gonna be like on may 5? because i'll tell you what she's going to -- she's going to suck, and i'm going to be standing next to her, so enough with the movie star thing."
if you don't know the drill... >> daniels: ...stay in it's okay, it's okay. we don't need you. >> haskins: i'm not naming names. we recently had a big, though aging, movie star starring in a play, and he had an ifb in his
ear, and he did not have stage presence. but i'm sure that his people lulled him into believing he could do it. >> daniels: i'm not going to bash guys who didn't know. you know, pacino had gotten -- for "china doll," had gotten
written up about that. >> haskins: well, but he was better than you think. >> daniels: well, listen. "dog day afternoon" is one of the reasons i came to new york. >> riedel: and he was a stage actor, a great stage actor himself.
>> daniels: yeah, and i'm not in my 70s, and you just can't keep them in there, and i know that's been -- >> haskins: but this isn't him, no. >> daniels: no, but... if it's just laziness, if it's just you and your approach, you
don't need to be here. >> haskins: but isn't it a different skill, a different energy, to hold stage? >> daniels: of course. oh, my god, i mean, in "blackbird," imagine if we had you know, are you kidding me? are you kidding me?
i told michelle, i said, "we're going to get good reviews just 'cause we know our damn lines." >> riedel: exactly! i have been harping on this in my column. you have a job to do, and if you're an actor on the stage, the job is to know the line.
>> daniels: how much are they paying? how much are they paying to see you on broadway? too much money. the least you -- and michelle and i take this approach. we have an obligation to live
up, not only to the characters. you got to pretend they're alive and they're sitting in the back of the house. you got to -- they're -- they're doing that. but you have an obligation to the people paying this amount of money to throw everything you
got at it eight times a week. i don't give a damn if it's a >> riedel: yeah, right. >> daniels: throw everything you got at it, otherwise, go home. get somebody else. and that goes to the kids that are dropping out and not -- "eh, i didn't come in thursday
night, but it's --" get out of here, get out of here, you don't get it. you don't get it. >> riedel: that's the work ethic you instill in the kids that you teach at the purple rose of cairo theater? >> daniels: purple rose theatre
company. show up. show up and professionalism, reliability, bring everything you got every night. find a way to get there every night. it's not okay to phone it in. it's not okay to kind of sort of
do it 'cause it's thursday. >> riedel: but that was the ethos of circle rep, right, when you worked down there? >> daniels: well, yeah, yeah. i mean, marshall would drop in unannounced, and if you were phoning it in, you heard about but, no, the whole circle rep
thing was more about moment to moment and all of that. this is just about learning how to do it eight times a week. and being on stage with someone who's not there. >> riedel: when you were a young actor, and you came to new york and you started at circle rep,
was there a moment or something marshall or lanford said to you where you realized there's a kind of acting that i don't know how to do yet that i'm going to have to learn how to do? that they're going to push me in a way i didn't think was possible?
>> daniels: when "fifth of july," lanford's play -- i don't speak very much in the play, but i listen all the time. tanya berezin told me this, who was one of the founders of circle rep... opening night card.
i think i still have it. she goes, "you hear every word that's said in that house." and so that's what i would do. and i listened, which teaches you to react. spencer tracy's one of the great reactors ever. um...
where it's not -- you know, hollywood doesn't do us any service by "i'm ready for my close-up, mr. demille." you're acting in front of a mirror. well, you can't, not at take the mirror down. it's all about you.
in "blackbird," it's all about "fifth of july," i would stand on a porch while they were inside the living room, the other six characters or so, talking, diddly-diddly-da. and i was just sitting there in the shadows looking down at the garden or whatever for 15
minutes. and hogan, jon hogan would say something -- his character -- that was important to land, and i would just turn my head and look. and lanford said, "the entire audience went with you." >> daniels: and it was just
stuff like that, simple little reactions that circle rep taught me, which is the -- it's the secret to chemistry, all of that. i didn't know it at the time, but certainly, it stayed with me through film. >> haskins: and you were in
"terms of endearment" with jack nicholson and shirley maclaine, and that was something. and i want to ask you a question, and i hope you don't think i'm being rude. why did you take "dumb or dumber to"?
>> daniels: the career was not going well. >> haskins: for "dumb and dumber to"? >> daniels: oh, "to"? >> haskins: yes. >> daniels: i wanted to be with jim again. >> haskins: oh, you wanted to be
with jim, okay. >> daniels: how much money? i wanted to be with jim again. >> riedel: hey, work is work. >> daniels: i really did want to be with jim again. >> haskins: and it didn't affect you, but you'd just been will mcavoy.
will mcavoy! >> daniels: oh, but that's the fun of it. >> haskins: that's what i thought. >> daniels: that's the fun of it, because guys like michael, they'll write and they'll go -- or not, but certainly in
>> daniels: hollywood, they'll go, "okay, they want to brand you." >> riedel: yeah, yeah. >> daniels: and i mean, you see the action guys, you know, the cruises and the schwarzeneggers and the stallone -- all those guys, the action guys.
bruce willis. and they've got great careers, god bless them. i mean, they were doing that since gable and tracy, cagney. you'd get the one thing -- edward g. robinson -- and you'd play to that, and you had a great career, you made a lot of
money. it's great, that's okay. i just didn't want to do that. we never heard that in we never heard, "okay, you've got a part in this play that we're going to do. just we want you to do what you did in that last play, just do
it here." you hear that on film and tv, but you don't -- it was always completely new, completely different. so, to win the emmy for mcavoy on a sunday night, which, by the way, was a huge surprise in that room, when they called my name.
>> riedel: really? even to you? >> haskins: though not to me. >> daniels: oh, trust me. i was at someone else's party, and when they said my name... >> woman: and the emmy goes to jeff daniels. >> daniels: there was a woman behind me as i was getting up,
said, "what?!" >> haskins: oh, well, then she's just dumb. >> daniels: got up. but to win the emmy on a sunday night, and then, tuesday morning, day one of "dumb and dumber to," crossing the street, getting off the bus
with a butt crack showing, i'm going, "yeah, i think this is range." >> haskins: all right. >> riedel: [ laughing ] that's good, that's great. we got to wrap it up. the play is "blackbird." terrific, terrific play.
>> haskins: but not the feel-good experience of the -- oh, my god, it's incredible! >> riedel: no, jeff daniels is absolutely brilliant. very important, harrowing, dramatic play, and you will not see acting like this very often anywhere.
congratulations. >> daniels: thank you, michael. thanks, susan. >> riedel: thanks for being our guest. pleasure. >> haskins: so, michael, we have a minute left, so give us an insight or prediction from
your insider perspective. >> riedel: well -- and i think this is going to be a little unexpected, but i believe that "hamilton" is going to win best musical at the tonys this year. and i think lin-manuel is going to win for his book...
>> haskins: and his performance, i think. >> riedel: ...and his score. >> haskins: you're phoning this one in. tell us something, really. >> riedel: i disagree with you on lin-manuel winning for his performance.
it's going to be leslie odom jr. plays aaron burr. he is going to beat lin-manuel miranda for the tony. >> haskins: i disagree. >> riedel: well, you're wrong. i'm the one with the insider knowledge. >> haskins: and you're so good
in your predictions. >> riedel: did your mother ever tell you not to point. it's impolite, susan. >> haskins: all right, now tell us something that nobody knows. besides leslie odom jr. and tell us one more thing. >> riedel: one more thing that
nobody knows? >> haskins: yep. >> riedel: my book, "razzle dazzle" -- >> haskins: no, no, no. something else. >> riedel: i don't know. i have nothing. >> haskins: you know, somebody
actually wrote me and said, "michael riedel's getting all this free advertising of 'razzle dazzle.' that's disgraceful." now tell us one insider thing. >> riedel: but that was funny, the lin-manuel. we should keep that --
>> haskins: yes, we're keeping everything. >> riedel: but i say the best musical. >> haskins: that's right. tell me one more thing. >> riedel: well, once again, anna wintour, her highness of fashion, will be taking over the
red carpet and dressing a number of the nominees because she thinks the tony awards are schlubby, and she runs the red carpet now, and she's going to stock it with a bunch of leggy russian models. and the kardashians are coming to broadway probably again.
>> haskins: that's just pathetic. >> riedel: and i think donald trump may put in an appearance. >> haskins: the world as we know it is almost gone, and it's a very sad thing. >> riedel: well, you know,
susan, it's all about glamour. >> haskins: and money. >> riedel: and money. >> riedel: and i want both. >> haskins: okay, everybody. >> riedel: that's depressing. >> haskins: at least i'll be back here next week. all right, see you next time.
>> riedel: with no money and no glamour. >> haskins: i have my own all right, good-bye. >> haskins: our thanks to the friends of "theater talk" for their significant contribution to this production. >> announcer: we welcome your
questions or comments for "theater talk." thank you.