Dunham, the creator of HBO’s GIRLS, says when she was younger, she thought she’d be a "Gender and Women’s Studies teacher who showed movies at the occasional film festival." Instead she's trying to figure out what to wear to shoot the cover of Rolling Stone. Dunham talks with Alec about getting a dog and her first date with her boyfriend Jack Antonoff. She’s not ready for children—yet—but they are on her mind: “I was raised to think that the two most important things you could do in your life were to have a passionate, generous relationship to your work and to raise children.”
In 2013, Alec sat down with the late stage and screen veteran who, among many famous roles, played his mother Colleen Donaghy on 30 Rock. Stritch spoke to Alec about her transition from the Sacred Heart Convent and finishing school to finding herself in the New York theater classes sitting between Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando. She performed for nearly 70 years and throughout career, Stritch comments, "I was the funny kind of offbeat girl. I was never the romantic lead.”
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This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policymakers, and performers, to hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. I'm obsessed with my mom. I love my mom. Are you the complicated one? Oh? I think so. My guests today are women whose ambition and uninhibited talent have disrupted and reimagined what it means to be a female performer for their respective generations. Lena Dunham is the creator and star of the HBO series Girls, which explores the painful struggles of a group of twenty something women with an often uncomfortable honesty. Except for the fact that I haven't had sex, I'm like totally not even a virgin. I think the least VIRGINI virgin over. Dunham has helped define male strength in part with her own blend of fearlessness and vulnerability. I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time and thinks I'm the best person in the world and wants to have sex with only me. Women of Elaine Stritchest generation were expected to behave like the weaker sex. But that changed when Stritch stepped on stage with unapologetic confidence, and she's been doing so ever since. Show Why Not, Lena Dunham's my first guest this hour. I should have dressed up more for you. It's radio, so don't care. I'll get good. Perfect and three years ago, Dunham shot a little budget movie in her parents Manhattan apartment. In tiny furniture, she played a version of herself, a recent college graduate moving back into her childhood bedroom while making plans for her future. I'm going to be staying in her house. Last I checked. It's my house too. I have a whole bedroom. You used to have a whole bedroom. It's my special space now. Dunham was proclaimed a fresh, original voice, a director with a bright future. Writer director Judd Apataw was one of those who took notice, and today he and Dunham executive produced Girls, which she stars in as Hannah Horvath. Once again, she didn't have to travel far to find inspiration for her character. I think that Hannah is someone who I'm very capable of being, who's wounded, ambitious but doesn't know where to place it. Hannah sort of the version of myself if I'd had less understanding parents and sort of less drive to get things done. And I think who I am as a person who was always sort of if I had to describe the war within myself that exists currently, it's sort of the challenge of trying to reconcile the part of me that that always thought I would be, like, you know, a weird gender and women studies teacher who occasionally showed movies at film festivals and hung out in my strange apartment that was stacked high with books. Trying to reconcile that with the part of me that has to like figure out a cover of Rolling Stone magazine exactly was to shoot the rolling cover of Rolling Stone magazine, was to figure out a dress to where that for an event that everyone seems to be worried about whether or not the dresses in stores, because it has to be my own dress. And so I'm dealing with all these sort of this strange ecosystem and all these weird politics that I kind of never imagined would happen to me in my lifetime. You never imagined, No, you really never imagined it. I think I my dream situation was that I would be someone who people thought, oh, she's doing important work in her own little corner, like a ros Chast cartoon character, exactly like a ros Chast cartoon character. Or like I think because I went to pretendious private school, the biggest dream you would have as you'd be like, I'm going to be Joan Didion. That was kind of where your brain was allowed to want maybe Norah from maybe you'll make films, but you're not going to be in film exactly, And I don't think I never was able to. I think I had a twofold thing about it. One is that I came from a family of artists, and so the idea was sort of like you made your work and then got out of the way of it. Like part of what was I think I in ernalized the idea that your work was supposed to speak for you. You were not supposed to speak for your work. And so I think I was self conscious about the idea of being any self self promoting and although that's not what acting is, it's it's become that. And then I also think that I thought, well, there's people who are professionals who can do this better than me, So I'm just going to act until I have access to the people who should be acting. And sometimes I still feel that way. Sometimes I think, like, you know, I'll do this a little longer and then Michelle Williams can play me every day until I die. Something that's really nice about making the show that isn't that is a comedy that isn't stuck in any sort of I mean, thirty Rock was able to bust out of a lot of network sitcom tropes. But I think one of the biggest things that networks prevent, besides curse words and showing your breasts is development. I think that when you play, I think so many sitcom characters end up playing the same version of themselves in various scenarios. This is the thing as God is my judge. This is the thing that we talked about in the meeting to prep this thing with you, which was shows I've seen where the protagonist, male or female, they're going through the same set of problems in season six that they were in season one. It's just different lines in different coasters. And with you, I'm wondering, do you have a Bible on the show? Do you have an arc in your mind? Not even on paper, not even approved with your other because you do this with Judd, correct. I do it with Judd and a woman named Jenny Connor, who's the other executive producer. And we have a great little writer's room. But our writer's room doesn't really work like. It's not like we write a script and then all sit together punching it up. It's much more we sit together at the beginning of the season and really talk through It's like a giant therapy session where we work out the emotional arc and then we go to it. And when you work out that emotional arc, do you think to yourself, are the things that she's going through? Now? Your character and the other characters where you're saying to yourself, and let's make sure they're not going through this. There is a growth a season from now or by the end of the season completely. And that's why I feel like it's okay for me to cut my hair, or it's okay for me to start spinning, or it's okay for me you know whatever I whatever to change to change, because I feel as though so much of what this show is about is about seeing these girls off into their adulthood. Like in my Bible, the ideal finale to the show would be a feeling like, you know, they don't have to have kids, they don't have to have husbands, but you look at them and you kind of go there on their way. They're more okay than they were when they started, or they're less okay, but we have an understanding what kind of adult we think they're going to be. So described to me how that works? Because because the theme here is control and you are, like other brilliant comedy writing chicks I've known over the years, you have this is your show, this is your thing. So how does it start? How does Whose idea was Girls? Was it yours? It was mine? Because I made this movie Tiny Furniture, and I made it, you know, my mom and sister starred. We shot it in my mom's house, my mom and dad's house. We um it was totally populated with friends, some of whom have made their way to Girls with me. And what motivated you don't want to do Tiny Furniture on a practical, real life level. I wanted to talk about that moment between college and adulthood that felt so floundering, and so every day I felt like I was walking through the strangest, most surreal soup, and so I sort of also wanted to capture this moment where I was, I knew that I wouldn't live at home forever, that my little sister wouldn't be sort of seventeen and ambitious but also stuck in her bedroom forever, that my mom was sort of looking in this beautiful moment where she kind of was I mean, shilled murder me for saying this, but she looked that kind of beautiful way where it's like you're not quite old yet and you just look kind of she just looked kind of perfect to me, and I just like a great car. Yeah, and I just not my mother, so I could say exactly, and I just thought, I want to capture all of this. So you really love your mom. I'm obsessed with my mom. I love my mom. And then but I'm saying, that's interesting that you have that feeling and that's what makes you survey what's around you. Wouldn't want to capture that because I find typically people who are not happy, they gotta wait a while until they can negotiate the pain to go back and talk about that. It's one of the biggest things that inspires me to make work is this feeling of looking around and going, even if you're not perfect, you're also perfect right now, Let's let's capture this and then you know, I'd love the feeling. I was just watching like Panic in Needle Park last week, that movie, which is you know, Kitty Win Katie Gosh, she's so good. Where did Kitty Win go? Yeah, let me get that violin out for Kitty Win. She's incredible. But so I was watching that and I was just thinking about how exciting it was to be able to watch sort of like al Pacino at that first moment when he was sort of like he still almost looked a little adolescent and he was still and he was learning his craft and just behaving on film. Yeah, and I just love capturing that. And that's something that I've tried to do with girls too, is sort of grab people and go, let's just let's just see you as you are right now now. So the film did well, So then how does girl has happened? So then I went to l A and kind of did that. I went like, Okay, I guess what you do next is get an agent, And I guess what you do next is trying to figure out what I mean you're on the runway. Now, Yes, I was. I was on the runway, and I was going around l A doing the sort of what I call the couch and water bottle tour of l A, where you meet everybody and have those kind of general meetings where and remember so funny because at first I didn't understand that everybody says to you at the end of the general meeting, oh, I'd love to find a way to work with you. And so I would call my agent afterwards and go, oh my god, it was amazing, and he said he wants to find a way to work with me, and many wants you to come clean his pool. Yeah, basically. And my agent, who I feel like, you're not supposed to say you love your agent because it makes you sound really Hollywood. And of everyone, I love everyone. And also I have the best agent. He's like really been at it for a long time. He's like a cigar smoking you know, he's what I imagined in Nation. His name is Peter Bennedeck, Peter Bennedictine now Peter Benedeck, and he smoked cigars. He's old school. He's old exactly, and he belongs to a cigar club. Which one does he want? I think it says it has a Cuban flares. I think it is. I'm on the board of Grand Event, are you. I know Peter and I probably have seen him at Grand Eva. Wow. He always probably hung out there and smokes gods with him. When you were still a gleam in your parents you weren't even around no no no. So so he's your agent and you love him. I love him. And he said to me that I should go for a meeting an HBO and I did, and I said, well, here's what I'd want to see, is like a show about all my girlfriends, like sort of like Tiny Furniture, but there's more of us and we don't live with our parents anymore, but it's still about that. It's like it was pitched so weekly, like a year after my movie, but there's more of us and it's a TV show. So the conversation wasn't coming out of Tiny Furniture in the indie and in the festival world had a very good buzz. There was no conversation but us going right into films and making more films. Normally they're gonna want to steer some especially your age was very young. They're gonna go, let's just keep making movies. Well, you know, there was a conversation. But I think I picked up on the fact very early going on the Couch and Water Bottle tour that the kind of stories that I wanted to tell we're not really being funded on a larger scale. And film Tina says that sometimes the Tina I will just finish work that that that it's it's it seems like it's more difficult to a to have the control you want in the film business and be to say what you want to say it is. And the fact is I could have kept saying what I wanted to say, you know, making movies, but I wanted It's weird. The reason that I like having some budget is not because you know, I want to stage car crashes or I want to have you know, ten makeup artists on set, although those things but will would be lovely. But but it's more because of the fact that I do so many jobs. So it was so exciting to not have to worry anymore about answering the doorbell, about returning the equipment, about making sure that people had the pizza. Also, that's going to happen in TV and has money, and HBO has an HBO is time warnering, but they have money, but they use it in this amazing model, which is that they don't have to answer to advertisers in the same way. So HBO can sort of fulfill its odd little interests. And that's what I started out as, and I what I didn't predict was how much I would love the opportunity to develop characters in this way and the kind of the fiber of TV itself now, So the template of four women and obviously HBO is no stranger to the template of four women talking about but obviously those women were older. And you've been a fan of that show, Yes, I think that I can't find one girl who isn't at least secretly a fan of Sex in the City. Who's my age. You know, Sex one City is a specter that hangs over in a I mean in a positive way, everything female centric. And you know, there were so many episodes of Sex City and they tackled every area of sexual function and dysfunction that there's almost nothing you can pitch that they haven't done. But I found that the women on Sex in the City that those women would have things happen, and they tended to brush off the consequences pretty quickly, whereas the girls on your show, the tone seems very different. Everybody seems to almost be doubting what they're doing, or they have a kind of a sense of fear or anxiety about it while they're doing it. It It seems more real. Was that is that? Was that deliberate in your partner? Well? Something I feel about being in your twenties, which is different than you know. Sex and the City was a show about women in their thirties who had successful careers prerecession, the best, most supportive friends. They didn't have. I mean, they had little friend TIFFs. But the characters on our show are tortured. It's like, if you ask a in her twenties, are you a happy person? I think she can say I have happy moments, But I don't think it's possible. Maybe I'm maybe people radically disagree with me, but I don't really think it's possible to be sort of an at peace human when you are between twenty two and thirty, and so I think there's still I don't because that's a problem that I mean, for me, that's something I've noticed because I'm much older than you. And one thing that I I noticed when I went to college, which is a long time ago, an interesting numb of people. They really knew what they wanted to be, they weren't quite sure how to get there. That they had a dream. I want to become a lawyer. I want to become a doctor. I want to go into politics. I want to go into and now people today, it seems like younger people, they really they think they have more time to figure it out, returning twenty five, and they really don't have that picture and focus. Do you agree? I do agree, And I think a big part of it is being I think the world the Internet has cracked things open in a way that's both beautiful and that it helps you find. There's so many things that I never would have even known about, things that have been huge for me that have existed because of the Internet. And I think that I've been able to partially, you know, connect with people who would be fans of the show because of the Internet. I think, you know, it's always exciting when like there's this website called Rookie mag dot com that's run by this girl Toavy Jevinson and it's a like a smart team magazine that exists only on the Internet. And I just think if when I was a teenager there had been that place and that message board, I would have felt like the world was my oyster like just meeting other weirdo girls who had the same who like, you know whatever. At the time, I just wanted to talk to someone about Connor Oberst or something on the Internet, and that would have been possible. But I think now the fact that like the Internet has created so many strange specialized jobs and so many things where it's like, you know, I'm a brand consultant, slash blog enhancer or whatever people are like suddenly the world feels wide open, but there are less jobs available, and so it's a really confusing moment to make any decisive choice about what you want to do. It's interesting you say that the Internet is responsible for that and the idea of having too many choices then you need wind. That could also be a metaphor for like men in their twenties dating. I feel like men in their twenties, like I once had dated a guy who told me that he didn't feel like he could be serious about anyone in New York because it would be like eating at the same restaurant every night in New York. In a minute, I'll talk with Lena Dunham about setting limits. I don't ever want to like have a makeover scenario where someone's doing better after they've put on a great dress and you know, straight ironed their hair, like I just I'm Alec Baldwin. And here's the thing. Take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policymakers, and performers, people like Fred Armis and Billy Joel and producer Judd Apatow, who talks about Lena Dunham. It's pretty amazing to be around someone who is so in their moment and has so much they want to express. So I find it kind of reinvigorates my own writing and my own tapping into my thoughts. Take a listen to more of Apatow's thoughts. And here's the Thing. Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Lena Dunham, creator and star of the HBO series Girls, is smart and funny. Her character on the show, Hannah horn Bath, is a mix of intelligence, raising confidence and crippling self doubt, and while Dunham's comedy is painfully incisive, it doesn't come from someplace mean. First thing, my dad is like a Manner's Nazi. So I think that I grew up feeling like the worst thing you could do was offend someone. Could you sit up straight in that chair? And your dad told me to say that way? Oh my god, my dad still tells me to sit up straight constantly. I'm going to call it and then And it's funny because both my my dad is an artist and he paints these sort of outlandish intense I mean, he paints things that are pretty pretty sexual images, pretty aggressive images, you know, a man with I mean, they're funny, but they're intense. It's like two men with penises for noses in a war with guns and knives with three women. Grew up around and I grew up around it. But it was what was interesting was that my dad was sort of like you can do. Dad had penises on on the stage on his face, on everyone's face, But you know, you I grew up around it. But I think that my ad always really showed me that there was a difference between you know, what your work was and who you are, and he's so My parents are so polite and so sort of they just I think so much of this. Again, I've never had kids. I've you know, I forget what I'm saying. But I'm glad you don't think. I mean, I get too guilty if I ever make a mean joke. Appreciate what I'm saying, I do, well, I'm terrified. It's one of the reasons I don't I don't really feel like a comedy writer because there's sort of like a quickness and a harshness, and you need to have those people in your bullpen there. Do you have some more really traditional edgier we do have. I have a couple of writers on the staff, but no one on our staff has that particular kind of darkness. I've been around a lot of those comedy writers, and you know, there's that feeling of like, even when they're saying something nice to you, they're kind of trying to murder you with their eyeballs, and it's it's it becomes too much salt to the soup exactly. It's impressive to me in small doses, but terrifying. My thing is also I only really make jokes about people I like. Like when there's a joke that references a celebrity on the show, it's usually a joke that I making because I have really taken note of their work and him fascinated by you slept with them, and you want to get even No, I don't have that that instinct. Now you're going to do how many seasons of the show are you signed on to do? Well? You know, it's not clear. I mean HBO contractually has me, I think as an actor for six years, but as a writer, and I wish I should pay more attention to my deals, but I'm just so excited to have my job. I just go, okay, whatever you say. The question becomes how you can maybe you know, do that TV show? And the schedule is how many? How many episodes we've been doing ten? I think, uh, between you, me and McGee, I think we might do twelve next year. But I would love that. I think that a little more would be just a little more storytelling, real estate and it would be amazing. But you know, so I shoot four and a half months out of the year. Then I'm editing, than I'm doing pressed, then I'm writing, then I'm back so so not four half months, So it's not it's it's actually more like twelve months. And so did you make a movie during the breakfast now? Because there was just no time. I finished shooting in August, I was editing. Why don't you make a deal with HBO with will finance your films. You're working for them and it's all in house. It's very smart. I mean, I really want to make a movie. I have two features scripts that I've been working on that I just I want to make another before I make like a big, massive ambitious movie. I mean, I want to make a creatively ambitious movie, but I want to make another small movie I have. I have small movie ideas. Do you have a massive ambitious movie inside you? I do, But it's so weird. The four year old psychotherapist. There's there's a fifty four year old somebody and I mean, I'll talk to you later in traffic control. Working with you is one of my long standing dreams. But I um, and I'm also I'm writing a book, So that's something that was really wired about that. It's something that was really important to me to start doing at this point in my start. And you write and produce your own TV show and you're writing a book. Does that remind me? What're you gonna write a book about? I'm writing book. Well, I guess it's about me, although it's a little less about me because it also has advice an advice component, but it's like personal essays. So was it like Paula Pell's Hey Young Girls? Oh my god, I love Hey Young Girls. Makes me so happy. Paula Pell is funny. Paula Pell is someone who is funny and not mean. She's just a dreamy person. But you know, the thing that's been so great about writing the book cause I've always loved writing pros and I wanted to make it a part of my career sooner rather than later, because I didn't want it to be like when I decided to write a book in ten years, it was like, oh look, here's a celebrity memoir number fifty seven. I wanted it to really feel like I'm a person who writes pros and that it's a part of my life and career for a long time. But unlike other people that are writing books, they don't have TV shows that they're starring in and writing. When you're done doing now, not just ten but twelve episodes. What do you have left to go into the book. There's stuff that's just for the book. There's an example. Well, I write a lot about my childhood in the book. I write a lot about my parents. I read a lot about um college and sort of like that. I read a lot about that period. I read a lot about sort of the beginning of being sexual person. I read about relationships. I'm writing a lot about sort of female role want to say about sexuality. It's interesting. I've had to become more conscious about what I say and what I promote, not in a way that stifles me, but just in a way where I realized now that there are seventeen year old girls who come up to me and tell me that the show means a lot to them. And this one of your audience is influenced. This is what I learned from of your is genuinely and in any way influenced by what you do and say. That's still tens of thousands of people. It's amazing. It's a platform that you have to take seriously, which is why sometimes it's like I used to be really into Rihanna, that pop star, and then it was like again, I don't want to ever, you know, throw stones from my glass house. But I follow her on Instagram and I just think about how many little girls, beyond what I could even comprehend, are obsessed with Rihanna, Like, you know, she left Barbados, She's had this amazing career, she's you know, one Grammy, she's talented. And then she gets back together with Chris Brown and post a million pictures them smoking marijuana together on a bed, and it cracks my heart in half in a way that makes me feel like because she got back together, it's going, oh, yeah, you you made a really good joke. And I got two emotional and in my response because I want to be it's terrible. It's terrible, But so you are as a role model. What won't Hannah or the other girls in the quartet do? Jenny and I talked about this a lot. We won't fuck someone because they have a nice apartment. There's not going to be any version of sort of like proceuding yourself. There's not gonna be any version of dating somebody because he can take you out to nice dinner. Wait, wait, you're putting down my whole playbook. This is all I have left for my wait a second, that is so wrong of you. Come on, it's interesting. I have so many friends who are so sort of tortured by their romantic relationships, and I think such a big part of it is that the desires of young men and young women are not caught up with each other. So you say they won't monetize sex, they won't monetize sex, And it's like even more subtle than that, Like, I don't like a storyline that's like unless it's really saying something about where characters are. I don't like a storyline that's like, you know, he bought me an entire trousseau of dresses and so I'm his forever. Like that's just not the way that I want to idealize anything. I think that the characters, the characters can make mistakes, but they have to be emotionally responsible for the things that they've done. I don't ever want to like have a makeover scenario where someone's doing better after they've put on a great dress and you know, straight ironed their hair, Like I just there's it's a really instinctual thing. Now, two things that I think are kind of connected, which is how do men present themselves? You have a boyfriend. I don't. I don't want to pry to your personal life, but you how do men present themselves to you differently? You said that Hannah was this and that and a chubby girl who now the name Lena Dunham means something else to people. How do men present themselves to you now different from the way they used to? It's interesting. I mean, I'm so bad at knowing if any he's hitting on me, like someone literally has to beat me on the head with a drumstick and dragged me back to their cave for me to understand that it's going on. And then you would press charges again, and then I would, and then they and then and then I hired Gloria Alread is my attorney. Yeah, exactly. But you know, the thing is is that sleazy people are attracted to and sleazy people and not sleazy people are attracted to any sense of gravity toss that someone might have. So so I definitely had felt less ignored by the opposite sex. But I'm also so bad at perceiving any of it, and so sort of did you know your boyfriend liked to Well, we got set up on a blind date, so I knew he liked well, I didn't know he liked me, but he was pretty disposed. He was predisposed to like me because what we were going on was a date. And then that was a special situation because I went, oh, I think he likes me and I like him. And now you don't have to tell me if you don't want answer this question. But I just find it charming. Where did you go on your first date with your boyfriend? We went to Blue Ribbon Bakery in the West Village. And the reason I was happy is because I find picking a restaurant so anxiety producing, because I feel like area because as it really is started that and also, what if I choose the wrong restaurant and you have a bad association with it or you think I'm freez Exactly, it's just the worst. And like what if we go there and you don't like muffin? Exactly? It's stressful. So he said, before I even had say anything, he said, if it's stressful for you, I can pick the restaurant. And I felt like, okay, I'm going to be in great hands. Where did you pick? And then he picked Blue and Maker and then I had a cheese and then I ordered a Hamburger and he said, I think you should get cheese on it. It's not nice and went, oh my god. Yeah that season I was so glad you Like, did my mom call you for this date? And let you know I like Yarlsberg Burgery you've been dating for a while. Yeah, Like, he's a very very great person to meet you and tell me if I'm onto something here. You seem like someone that regardless of what you look like or didn't look like, or what you had or didn't have, whoever you were, you have a very very healthy and kind of guileless sense of who you are, and you presented yourself to people your entire life, going this is who I am and if you like me, great, and if you don't, there's another six point five billion people out there, so go for it, am I Right? That's the most stress That's the most lovely way of putting it. I mean, I think I think I always had a feeling like if you just stick around and continue to be yourself, the correct people will find you. And that's something that's been so wonderful about the show is that it kind of confirmed that for me, which is not everyone watches it, but the people who watch it understand it and that feeling I'm sure you've had this before of uniting with your appropriate audience and sort of uniting with your people is like about as comforting as feelings get. Lena Dunham's desire to connect with her audience is one my next guest understands completely. She's been doing it for decades. For nearly seventy years, Elaine Stretch has been bringing her characters to life with a playful ferocity that naturally leads to scenes stealing performances. She's built an enviable career in film and television. Baby, but Stritch is a self professed Broadway baby. A big break came in nineteen fifty when she was hired to understudy for ethel Merman in Irving Berlin's musical Call Me Madam. She Scared me to Death's when I got to the end of Call Me Madam, it was mine. It is not so surprising that you feel very strange. But Elaine Stritch remained on stage for much of the fifties and sixties, playing such iconic roles as Martha and Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and Amanda in Private Lives by Noel Coward. In nine seventies, she originated what is arguably the role of her career, the acerbic Joanne and Stephen Sondheim's Company. And Here's to the Girl Who Just Watch. In a TV documentary about the cast recording of that production, we meet Elaine's toughest critic, herself. Here she is listening to a take of that song she made famous, Ladies who Lunch. Just to be clear, that's Elaine yelling at the sound of her own voice. That was over forty years ago. But Elaine Stritch has continued to hold herself to impossibly high standards, and her dedication to the craft she loves is clear, at least until recently. Earlier this year, Elaine Stritch announced that she was leaving New York for her home state of Michigan. There's nothing to time me here. Doesn't give me any satisfaction. I don't go home and say I guess I told them. In April, at the fitting age of eight, she performed her last cabaret show at the Carlisle Hotel. As long as I've got arms to clean, it's you all be clinging to. I shouldn't live in New York anymore. It's not for me anymore. It's too fast for me. Or no, it's not too fast. And I changed my mind about that. It's not this, It's not that. It's just not for me. This is a this is New York taxi low, and it's dinner and tonight and tomorrow and and I can't handle it anymore because I'm not interested in handling it. You just don't want You could do it. You just don't want to do it. I said the other night. When is pretend going to end? Slowly but surely? Alex Is? I'm starting to say, I don't want to pretend anymore. I want to get up in the morning and I want it to be real. You know what talent is? Why have you lasted all this time? Because you're talented? Certainly, isn't because people think you're an easy time of it? Because I have to accomplish something in that department Almost every day of my life I have to. You've never stopped trying to prove yourself. That's the key, isn't it. No, I gotta go and do that part in that soap, in that smoke. I don't care what it is, or I'm with no old coward on the west End, or I'm with how Prince on Broadway, I'm with all the big, big, big big shots, and they're directing me well and guiding me well. And I'm I'm you would approve you belong there with them, yes, And I'm being directed in the way of the big shots, and I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. I'm I'm, I'm doing fine. But you but there's a point, I'm assuming when did you feel that you're in the room and all of a sudden it's like, I don't need anybody's advice. I know what I want to do. Here's what I do. Was there a time, remember in your life when that changed? I got self satisfied about the parts that I played? For example, Well, like I was the I was the funny, kind of offbeat girl. I wasn't. I was never the romantic lead. I wasn't good that kind of looking girl in the movies. I couldn't be that kind of looking girl. I was. Well, you could, you could have been look spise, but you just don't want to play it because those we're dull parts. Well yeah, parts, but I ye, you're a sassier woman and you played those parts. But I didn't want to be eve Ardon. I really didn't. Okay, okay, that's a good point. Why what did you sprinkle on top of that to make sure that it wasn't eve Harton? What do you do that eve Harton didn't do I get dramatic or frightened or real about something or pain. Yeah, there's a pain. It's not any Bard's work. Something dramatic happens to me in the course of a comedy, right, I don't know. But what was I always what a way complicating things with the pain of your existence? There's this thing you tap into. Did you do when you were very young? I think so? I think I did. Were you the complicated one? Oh? I think so. I mean there's very often I would hear around our house where is he lane? And then my mother was and they say oh, and I'd say, I'm right here. They were worried about you. Yeah, everybody was worried about me, because when I wasn't accountable, I was. I scared him. When did performing begin? For he was a were performer As a child, I was laughing, I was born laughing. Oh God, I was funny. I really was funny, and I made everybody laugh. And I wasn't conscious of it. I want to tell you something. I'd love to tell you a line from my life to see if you get this. My mother and dad, as a present to me when I was six years old, took me to Niagara Falls, which was very close to Birmingham, Michigan. And I kept hearing about this. And I was going to wear my new pink coat and hat, and I was going to Niagara Falls. And I kept hearing it, and you know, Christmas morning, Christmas morning, whatever it was, and and I never said a word. I just sat in the backseat and I just waited. The pulled up Alec to the parking lot in Niagara Falls. And here we are. We're here, Landy, We're here, Come on, get out. And it was just me, mom and dad. So the two sisters, the older sisters, you know, the hell with them. And I got very teary eyed and pulled my mother back from the car and said, Mama, what what We're going to go see Niagara Fall? And I asked her if Niagara Falls had a baby. And to me and to my mother and my father, it was one of the most extraordinary dramatic lines of all time. All I was interested in is Did this woman Niagara Falls have a baby? Because then I could play with it? And it was I think an absolute proof of how lonely and sad I was as a kid. I didn't know what the hell artistic was all about. I really didn't. I knew I had to express myself. I knew I had to express myself, and that's all there was to it. So when you left Michigan, when you left home, you lived at home in Michigan. Your family lived in Michigan until you left home. Did you go to college? No, I didn't go to college, which I graduated from high school? Where Sacred Heart Convent? You went to a convent. I went to a convent, the Soccerquer, highly educational, big scholastic, scooby doo. You went there for what twelve years? That was your high school? When you left there, where'd you go to Deshen Residence? Which was also the soccer Quer but it was a residence finishing school for what it was like um after school stuff, you know, Like I'm trying to think of one of the courses that we took current events, isn't that? I guess how long were you there? Uh? Two years? Two years after and I went out and majored in dramatics at the New School in Greenwich Village. The Finishing school was in the city when you were back in Michigan, Greenwich Village. I'm in New York and you went to Finishing School in New York absolutely on ninety one and Fifth Avenue. Oh my god. Yeah, and I uh, I took these three courses at the school, which is fine. I had a roommate from Chicago who was majoring in journalism, and we were all very sophisticated broads. You went to New School for drama. That was your first acting exposure. What do you think about it when you first I loved it. I sat next to Marlon Brando. That wasn't hurt at all. You through class. Yeah, Walter Mattha was on the other side of me at the New School. Yeah, we had a very stellar cast. I was getting along fine and having the most fun I've ever had in my whole Life's the first job. Well, first of all, I was at the studio theater at the New School, and we had our own theater, and Piscata directed and Stella Hadler directed, and we had all those Stanislavski people. We had more fun Alex. You couldn't believe it was Stella like as a director, heaven she was what made her so die insight, all this kind of dramatics, you know, Lane and Malin and wolves and you do it. She screamed her head off us. She was crazy woman. But I just had the most wonderful time in dramatic school. And then what about your first child, Douglas. I did my first play with Kirk Douglas Craig's um, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'll tell you in a minute. You and Kirk Douglas, you're on a stage in New York. And also, where is my black bag? Alec? Hunter? I need I need orange juice? Hunter, come in plays? Can we send Hunter on here? Plays with the provisions? Hunter? Ryan Herdlica, who accompanied Elaine to the studio, came through the door juice in hand. I need some orange juice. My diabete Beties is kicking up. I need my good man Hunters here, now, Hunters here all right with the world. You know that I'm diabetic, Yes, of course, I mean the world knows by the world. Okay, you know what I quoted the other day, the line of my father's that It really is so naughty and just so much fun. Here's looking up your old address. Isn't it a great line? And he said it with no he used that was it? That's right? All right, I'm going to drink this the orangice now so we don't have some event here. That's cool, okay, alright, So now that you've had your orange juice and your brain freezes over, Kirk Douglas, what was the show? Do you remember now? Woman bites Dog? That orange juice. It's a miracle of lick, sir, I wanted to be a case of that orange juice dog, Woman bites Dog. What do you play in that? If you playing his girlfriend who he lived with? I didn't even know what that phrase meant. You were a floozy? Well no, I wasn't. I just but I live with him and I wasn't married to him. I didn't know what that meant. What do you remember about Kirk Douglas? Oh my god, I loved him, Oh God, I loved him. And what an actor I loved. And he's one of the few men who was as great an actor as he was a star. Oh, he was a great actor. He was a great actor. He was a great actor. I loved him and he loved me. He flipped over me, and he took me halfway away for the weekend, and then I discovered that I shouldn't go. He took you half way away to Palm Springs, and then I said, I shouldn't be going. So what did you hit? Like? What? He said? I don't know. We were halfway to Palm Beach, Palm Springs things. So you're driving east and we were driving for the weekend and you decide you didn't want to. Well, I said, I'm getting nervous because what do you want me to do when we get up here? Kirked us. Oh, Elaine, he knew I was a virgin, so he was dealing with that. Here are you? Isn't amazing you with this virginal You went to suck or cur and you went to finishing school and I played as soon as you're out. God is just tempting you. He's taking Marlon Brando on one side of you, and Kirk Douglas is reving up the cons able to take you to Palm Springs, and you're the fluzi here and you're the piece on the side, the busty femtwel But what I was really doing is learning my lines to the play or to the television or to the I was really loving acting. I loved it. I loved pretending. I just loved It's so hard and it's such hard work, but it's so gratifying. What's the hardest thing about it? For you? What's been the hardest thing? Do you find it hard just to have the fear of what that you won't be able to perform, the fear that I'm just gonna forget and I'm gonna not not so much forget, But it's the fear, it's the fear. Have you ever done a show. I'm sure you've done countless shows. You ever done a show where you're sitting backstage thinking what am I doing here? How did I get myself into this? Or? Were you always engaged by what you were doing? I was always engaged always. You never took I was leading up to it or coming down, you know, I I was trying to get it behind. You never regretted doing anything? Never? No, Wow, that's incredible. No, I never never regretted doing anything on the stage. You never How was that possible? Because I just one every time I walked out there. You know that old expression about I own the stage after all. Over the course of her career rear, Elaine Stritch worked with some of the best, like Stephen Sundheim. I don't think he knew anything about how successful he was. He wasn't conscious of that. He was too busy doing it. In a minute, our interview continues, and blood sugars are measured. Oh, there we go. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing. In the past twenty years, TV and film have introduced Elaine Stretch to a new audience. She garnered Emmy's for her performances in Law and Order and in Thirty Rock, where she played my character's mother, the irascible Colleen Donahey. Well, wow, whoa, whoa, whoa, This must be the one she welcome. No, no, no, mother, mother, this is not this is not Phoebe. Well, why the hell not? I ended up liking Tina Fey an awful lot and very quietly all by myself. Did you enjoy doing the show? No, you didn't know why. I didn't have any fun with with comedy. I did with you for a while, but then it got a little bit too routine for me. And I wasn't challenged. I didn't have a challenge with it. But I mean I was fine. But um oh, I don't know, Alexi, just it wasn't Would you think TV is not your No? I think TV is fine with me. There's nothing, nothing's wrong with it. I love TV. I love comedy. I loved working with you. It was almost like we need it was okay, yeah, I think so. Um, did you ever want to do a drama in your later years? I mean in the last years, I was just cut out for it, cut out for it. You were what's the last drama you did on stage? Edward All be Um Lady from Dubuq, No, No, No, Three twelve Women. No. I was asked to do that. I didn't do it. It's too much to learn. A delicate ballad one of the best players ever written in the whole world, and also a play for me. What did you like about the part? What did you like about it? Was very quiet and very subtle, subtle, like forget about it and just and I just went about my business on that stage, and I did everything. I drank too much, I talked too much. I did exactly as I pleased. I went upstairs when I wanted to go upstairs. I was absolutely all over the place and not promising anything to anybody. It was unbelievable. Who directed Jerry Gutierres, who is the best director with aside from George Wolfe. The two of them were what does it? No? No, no, help illuminate this for people, because this, to me is a very important question for you, and that is, you're so self directed. You know you've got the talent, you've got to feel good. But baby, you got so many bullets in your chamber, it's not funny. And you come out there you're loaded. And what does the director do for you? How does the director help you? Oh, he makes me feel comfortable about myself. He gives you. For instance, George Wolfe when he did My One Woman Show, he has a way of laughing that he had. When he laughs, he falls on the floor, he throws himself on the floor because he's got to do that. He's got to go ha. He goes crazy when he laughs and he's laughing and he's and that will make me listen to a director that will that will tune me in. Isn't a nice when a director gives you confidence? Oh my god, I've worked with so many of them. Were not that they undermined you, but they certainly didn't give you any comment. They almost resented the implication that they do that. They kind of looked at you like, well, you're getting paid all this money, you just get up there and do it. I'm not I'm not here to help you know. They don't help you at all. There's no mentoring or care. It's very, very strange. I want a little more orange juice, Gang Hunter. That beeping sound we've been hearing periodic? Is that a glucose meter? What's that? What's that thing that went off? Where's mine? It's ducks come. It's telling us to enter the blood sugars. Oh my god, I forgot all about them. When we're done with this, will enter him. Oh are we okay? Do you want to take a break into it now? How long will it take a minute? Go right? A hell? Please do it now? We wait. I wouldn't want it in the post that you were hospitalized on my account because Alec Baldwin refused to allow me to administer my diabetes treatment. Oh boy, okay, this is right away. I'm going to do it now. Okay, there we go. I don't have my ladies and gentlemen, okay, Elaine stretch and Hunter, the ever trusty Hunter or squeezing droplets of her blood onto a device. So I gotta tell us that we've nearly killed her here she okay, yeah, you're okay. And then it's done. And then and you want to keep it at what number? It's not a matter of keeping, it's just entering them. What what they are? Now? That are two hours after. I'd love to do mine too. While we're at it, Let's have a let's have a prick our finger and squeeze it on the glucose meter. Party, stop that, Alex, Listen, there's another BB. This is why you're so glad we're not doing this on television because to see this happening, it's really unsettling. And we've done both of them now, both of them. Yea. And what number you have anywhere do you want to be doesn't have to be that's fine, that's good, it's cool. Okay, she's cool. Oh oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. I want to tell him something that I that I got the nerve to tell John to tourists. Now when you told John to touro, when you wanted to tell him, because it's something that meant a lot to you, Because we will edit that you called him to tourists. A lot of people have. Alex Baldwin called John to tourists? What did you want to tell? Trying to tell somebody something about me and acting that sort of I thought kind of represented something about me that I had had courage to tell. And the thing was that, I, oh, how can I tell you this? Will you tell me that your secret and I'll tell you mine? All right? My secret is is that how can I put it to you? My secret is in Virginia Wolf. When I was playing Virginia Wolf, I am sometimes I get fuzzy when I'm telling a story. Now and it's we have in comment, go ahead. I wanted to tell something intimate about myself to John about when he was interviewing me. I told him that when I was doing Virginia Wolf, and when George and Martha had their scene together and George said, our son is dead, you know, big scene? Our son? He yells in my faith is dead and I went no. At the height of my force, I said no to him, and I had an orgasm for the first time in my life. Yes, really so so this is this is how important that moment was on stage to me. Ill be very particular about who he casts very Did you have a good relationship with him? You're close, He's very tough. Who we put he's very but he's and he's very fond of me. I got to last questions for you, and I want you to give me a simple answer to this first question. I've met a lot of people in this business, and I've worked with a lot of people who were powerful. Julie Harris played my mother on a TV series, and I work with I work with some great people, you know, great great people. Some I'm not so great, but some great ones. And you're one of the great ones I worked with. But just give me a yes or no if you're capable. And that is, do you realize what you mean to other people who were in this business, how much they love you and how much they admire Do you know I'm beginning to do you into the mic place. Don't talk to you. I'm beginning to because in this business as you know, especially for people who themselves are very talented and or successful other talented people, that's like um an aphrodisiact to them. Talent is the greatest aphrodisiac. And everyone basically says, there's no one more talented than you. You're an immensely, immensely incalculably talented woman and people, and you're a gigantic pain in the ass. Sometimes you're a legendary pain in the ass. You're a gigantic pain in the ass. But people don't, you know, they joke about that because they love you. And why do they love you? Because you're so talented, you're so funny, you're soever, your timing is impeccable. Now, what are you gonna miss about New York? The personality of human beings in New York They are so opened and second, they're not watching what they're doing. They're not you know, they're they're not watching their language, they're not watching anything. They're just going through life's saying what yeah, all right? You know, and everybody they're engaged. Every day is an event in New York. Elaine Stritch says she's going to miss New Yorker's and I can tell you that we will miss her too. She says the move back to Michigan hasn't been easy, but she's already found herself on stage in Detroit. This is Alec Baldwhen you can hear more of our conversations from Debbie Reynolds to Michael Douglas in our archive, Elvis used to tease him and put snakes down his pants, and that was the beginning for you. And I thought, no, I always knew I was going to be with people like this. Take a listen at Here's the Thing dot Org. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Bottine and Kathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon Mashehe, and Lou Okawski. Thanks to Larry Josephson and the Radio Foundation, This is Alec Baldwin. Then you're listening to Here's the Thing o