| Issue #2- April 6, 2007 |
Alec Presents
Alec Baldwin Talks of Movie Making at Bay Street in Sag Harbor
By T.J. Clemente
On a beautiful, crisp spring night with an almost-full moon, the star of the evening was Alec Baldwin as he entertained the audience at the Bay Street Theater after they all just watched the screening of William Wyler’s The Big Country. Mr. Baldwin had chosen the 1958 Oscar-winning film himself after having it recommended to him by Julie Andrews. The film is a classic western starring Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Carol Baker and Jean Simmons. Although the big screen brought The Big Country to life, it was the discussion after the movie that sold out the Bay Street Theatre.
Jeffrey Lyons, the host of “The Lyon’s Den,” a TV show for movie buffs, was once again at Bay Street, hosting Alec Baldwin for a conversation comparing old Hollywood practices to the way pictures are made today. Mr. Baldwin, who lives in Amagansett, demonstrated his knowledge of all aspects of filmmaking, sharing stories, including some from the time he spent making his thesis on Al Pacino at NYU. Explaining that, after interviewing Al Pacino for eight hours, he wrote 68 pages on the famous actor. As for the movie, Mr. Baldwin refused to speculate which part he would have liked to play. Instead, he told so many entertaining, animated stories that he had the crowd listening to him as if they were having a cold beer on a hot day on the beach. He did say that, when Julie Andrews recommended he see The Big Country, they were on a flight with Mary Tyler Moore. Alec remarked that Ms. Andrews had wondered who would get top billing if the plane had crashed. He also said how proud he was that Martin Scorsese received the Oscar for The Departed, but thought that The Aviator truly deserved an Oscar. Saying that Clive Owen would have made a great Howard Hughes because of his brooding, dark looks, the performance by Leonardo DeCaprio was truly remarkable and showed the scope of his amazing talent. Baldwin regretted the cruel way Juan Trippe (the role he played in the movie) was portrayed. Mr. Trippe lived on an oceanfront property in East Hampton, off Georgica Pond, for many years.
Mr. Baldwin expressed that as he approaches 50, he prefers to be home more than when he was younger and running around from location to location. Although he confessed to missing some of the leading roles he had early in his career, he is very comfortable with the work he is being offered today.
When Jeffrey Lyons teased Alec about all the work he is doing at the moment, Alec smiled and confessed that it’s hard for him to say “no” to friends, even if they are not award-winning projects. He also joked about seeing some of his worst work on cable TV over and over again, comparing it to seeing a former girlfriend who said you were a lousy kisser parading in front of you while you try to eat lunch. He claimed that, prior to 1980, if you made a bad movie it would play for three weeks and never be seen again. Now, new movies are out on DVD in no time and on cable forever. Mr. Baldwin explained to Jeffrey Lyons that movies are now made for global markets, not just the United States. He praised Jack Nicholson as a truly great actor of his generation that could carry a film and complimented Tom Cruise on his ability to make more money on his last film than the studio did — a movie that grossed $130 million.
Alec seemed at home on the Bay Street stage. He is such a regular guy. He prefers to tell stories to amuse the crowd than dwell on his accomplishments. One story he told was of a famous director, whom he would not name, who pulled him over to say, “I never told anyone this story ever before,” then use the same line on another actor ten minutes later.
Jeffrey Lyons then told a story about the making of the original Manchurian Candidate. Frank Sinatra was famous for doing only one take per scene and Lyons claimed that an out-of-focus shot was put into the film because Frank had to go somewhere and wouldn’t stay to do another take. Then Alec told Jeffrey that he thought Sinatra had agreed to return to the set for another take due to the damaged film.
If someone from management hadn’t signaled it was time to wrap up, the audience might have stayed all night. Alec Baldwin and Jeffrey Lyons did a great job bouncing around from topic to topic, keeping the audience interested. No one left until it was over having learned something about how films were made in old Hollywood and how films are made today..
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