Patti LuPone

Published Feb 18, 2013, 5:00 AM

Patti LuPone was only four years old when she realized she belonged on stage, and she started by entertaining family members in her Long Island living room.

LuPone won her second Tony Award for Evita, which she initially described as merely “noise from Britain.” Although she has enjoyed tremendous, long-term success, she talks candidly to Alec about blows to her career and ego. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. According to the online Urban Dictionary, today's guest has become a verb. To LuPone is quote to give an outstanding theatrical performance, to make an audience revel in, open mouthed awe at your unparalleled brilliance. Unquote. Won't fry for me a gentry in a The truth is I left you all through my wild days, my mad existance, I kept my proms your distance. Paddy Lapone as twenty six Broadway credits to date and has won two Tonies, one for a Vida and one for Gypsy in London. She originated the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and Fantine in Le Miserabla, for which she won an Olivier Award. She's worked in film and on television, most notably as the mom on the ABC drama Life Goes On. Before all this success, Patty was in the first class of the Drama Division at Juilliard, in which seems like a reasonable place to start dreaming of a career in the theater. But Patty lapone story really begins even earlier. I knew when I was a kid that I had a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker because I grew up in that era, transistor radios at the beach, The Rascals we started in the fifties, Little Anthony and the Imperials. I mean, all through the fifties and sixties and seventies, I knew I didn't have a rock voice. Though I knew I had a Broadway voice. This this is all instinctual behavior, completely instinctual behavior. And my mom listened to opera and my dad listened to jazz. He was a principle of an elementary school on Long Island and Northport, and my mom was a housewife, a homemaker. HOWI twin brothers and me, you know, typical in a ranch house on Long Island. Yeah, exactly. And I was enrolled in dance at four years old, and I fell in love with the stage. But that wasn't really the first inkling of some sort of connection to the stage. My mother used to troop me out in front of guests to do my Marilyn Monroe imitation. And I don't even know how I came up with this, but I would come out, they'd laugh, and I'd go, oh, this is cool, Like you know, I was. I was pretty astute when I was very very young and pretty. So I started dancing, and I fell in love with the audience, and so the performance aspect started very very young in dance. When Juilliard happened, it didn't happen. Well. My my brother attended the dance division of the Juilliard School and told me that they were starting a drama division. I actually had moved into New York City and was auditioning for musicals and working. And I just wanted to be in musicals and hang out in New York City and party. And I auditioned and I got in. And what happened in the four years the course of the four years of the Juilliard schools, I fell out of love with musical and in love with classical theater. And I was actually trained as a classical actress. So we did know a lot of other great classical actors. Yes, Kevin Klein, David Stires, David Schram, Mary Louisato, and then of course the classes below me have gained more recognition than my class did. We were the very first class. But that girl from Northport who's doing Marilyn Monroe impersonations in the ranch House with your family. What's that like for you, that transition to be in that very heavy, sophisticated well, it was. It was tough for me because I was not a favorite at school. My best friend, who I met in the first year, Nancy Nichols, was a favorite and I was not. But Nancy and I would always pile around together and make trouble, but Nancy would get the roles and I would not. And that went on for several years. I think it was only my third year when I realized that they were trying to throw me out of school. And what they did. They couldn't throw me up because I didn't like my personality. But what they did was that through every conceivable role in my direction to make me fail as an actor. But what happened was they why do you think that they didn't like Yeah, they didn't like me. They or that you know, I didn't get cut every year students got cut, So we started with her. Over the years, we ended up with the seventeen of the original thirty six. In the fourth year, I never got cut. So I'm confused as to why that actually happened, because why didn't they just cut me, possibly because every role I played I succeeded in. But what they did was they trained one actor in my class and versatility, and the rest of them were pigeonholed, as you know, life will pigeonhole you into exactly the supret the leading lady, the character woman. But I went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, which taught me that I could. There were no boundaries, no, And if you look at my history, I've done more places than I've done musicals. But because I guess the voice is a powerful instrument, do you know what I mean? And it's an American cultural event. The American the brought the musical, not the broad Also the music that you've performed. When someone is as successful as you, And I've said this to people who have careers of music beyond the theater, as as leading actresses in the theater. Music distinguishes things because it's a product you can consume anywhere. You know, your career goes to another level where I can drive in my car and listen to the soundtracks anything goes. I can be on the beach and I can listen to the soundtrack from Sweeney Todd Music performers will always have the upper hand on actors. But you were saying, how you um the versatility thing? You you were almost forced to embrace this versatility to survive. And you graduate from that program the first class graduates. What year and where do you go? John Houseman? So in our third year he presented a season to um the prominent people in New York theater and critics, and mel Gussa was the one that said. Mel Gussa was a second string critic for the New York Times, and he was the one that said, why break this company up? Why not form a permanent acting company? Which was John's q And when we graduated, he handed us our equity card and four years. But we stayed for four years of touring the country performing classical plays in true revolving rep, which is a different play every single night. So we got even more training because in our first year we lost several bookings because we didn't know how to tour, We didn't know how to maintain a performance. We only did three at Juilliard and we had no idea what happened on the fourth And that sounds crazy, but it's we lost. Do you think this acting company idea, and the worry was what Housman had up a sleeve the whole time when he instigated the Juilliard program. No, I don't think so. You know, the training was intense and emotionally intense, psychologically intense, physically intense. But there was one production where the company formed an invisible circle of support around each other, and that was his. He saw the ensemble and I remember, I mean, I know it was. It bores Tomorrow's production of of You from the Bridge, and oh, I could cry now thinking of it. It was an extraordinarily powerful experience to be a student actor but in a professional mindset. And I remember our curtain call and the pride and the power, and it was an amazing moment that changed the course of all of us. And we understood what ensemble mean, and we understood what support meant, and we understood the power we had as individuals and as actors. And John saw that in his actors. There's been a couple of experiences that I've had that it's that same ensemble mentality. So that's the other thing I have to interject. When I left Juilliard and left the acting company, and then of course landed musicals. We all did, by the way David Stys did, Kevin did, um many did. We all ended musicals. But there's only a couple of times where I felt I had that kind of ensemble. And one was Limas in London because it was a Royal Shakespeare Company actors, and the other was Gypsy, where every actor owned their part, big or small, and gave themselves to the play every single night. The other one was Sweeney Too, because and our stage manager said in Sweeney that we acted more like a band than a bunch of actors. So the acting company thing less for how long you didn't have I did it for four years. Nobody goes in for four years anymore. We all did it for four years, and you know, I thought about the I don't know why we stayed, except we thought, I'm sure we all went we are not going to be able to play these parts in real life. And that was back in a time when they were the very last vapors in the air here in New York of the Old Way, and the old way was you went downtown and you carried a spear for Joe, where you carried a spear in the park, and there was an apprenticeship in the theater, and if you didn't have credit in the theater, Raoul and Chris Walking and Sigourney and you and Kevin and everybody, everybody who were the princes and princesses and Mandy of the theater in New York, that's where you headed. So when you finished the acting company and you've decided, you know, you've done enough, it's four years, which was a typical of people, Then where do you go? Then? Um, we came home, Kevin and I came home. And so you you're with Kevin Kevin and you're Kevin and you were a couple for seven years. We broke up, we got back together, we broke up, we got back together, we broke up, we got backing. Can you imagine the children you would have had for him? Could God in Heaven, good God, would have a theater big enough to house that person's ego and talent. So we both came home and Kevin went off and did a play. And I had auditioned for and didn't get The Baker's Wife Steven Schwartz musical The Baker's Wife based on Marcel But I got a telephone call from David Merrick's general manager, Helen Nickerson, and to ask if I was free, because they wanted me to come out to LA to replace the leading lady. And I wanted to do this musical so badly. So I went out and I did my first big, gut wrenching rip out of your body, squished heart, the most horrible, vulnerable experience of my life. The baker's wife, Who does he think he is? Who could be as handsome, who could be as smart as he thinks he is? He just had to snap his face. Good women fall uppart? What does he think that a single way with them rise? And it was an unbelievable disaster and we were on the road for six months. That is that's the big question. It is a great idea, it's a great film, and had Stephen Schwartz music, It had John Milzino's last sets, Jennifer tipped into the lights and theonyologist did the costumes. David Merrick was producing. It had all the potential to be a smash hit, and it got progressive. I joined two days after they opened in l A. And it got progressively worse. For you while you were doing no I thought it was gonna be okay, but I didn't realize that nobody realized what was really going to happen to us and it and what did happen, Well, six people were fired. The show never got better. David Merrick came out. One of the most theatrical moments I've ever had in my career was David Merrick showing up in San Francisco. We were performing in San Francisco with no director. We were told to stay after the show. They assembled us on the stage and there was it was not lit except for the ghost light. David Merrick shut up and stood in front of the ghost light, so he was totally back lit. Couldn't see his face, only saw the outline of a long coat and a bowler hat, and proceeded to ask us to go into rehearsal for nothing, so that we could save this wonderful show. And it was so dramatic, because he's incredibly dramatic, and so in the light of day, everybody went, what we had just gotten out of rehearsal for nothing. We were in rehearsal every single day, performing at night for six months, and what we rehearsed that day when in that night only to rehearse the next day, and that stuff would come out, some new stuff would go in that was not better than what we had just taken. A little laboratory. We were not but people were dying. The rats were dying. That's losing air. Oh my god. It was so horrible. And you know, there's an expression, Larry Gilbert's expression, if Hitler were alive today, his punishment should be to send him out on the road with a musical in trouble. I did a movie once in the movie was going really badly and said, this is as if the government made movies. You know you, I've always said there's a fine line between a hit and a flop, and it's you don't know what it is. You don't know why it is a hit, and you don't know why it is a fun. You know, if it's really terrible, you know right off the bat and you're not going to take the job. But if it has the potential to be a hit and ends up being a flop, you can't figure it out. So you do this show and when you come out of that, like, what's the lesson for you? Was there something you said to yourself? Never again am I going to know? I went into a depression for nine months. I was on valium to sleep for the six months and I went into a valium depression for nine months, gained forty pounds, woke up, went what the hell just happened? And I couldn't say. You think like you? You care a lot. There's nothing casual about you, there's nothing amateurish about you. You know, you're very serious and you're very dedicated. You're very hard working along with being very talented, and you feel these wounds. Why do you think that is why? Well, our business is subjective. It's all subjective, you know what I mean. You talk to anybody from the baker's wife and they can remember it as if it was yesterday, and there's blood spilled and we became blood, a blood family. I just ad to me Jerome, who's in phantom now and we see each other, and that what we recall is that bonding in that horrible experience and we can talk about it as if it was yesterday. I think it's because you know it happened to us. Of course it happened to the creators, but they're not on stage. We're on stage, succeeding or failing in front of an audience. We're on stage being judged by the audience. Were the messengers, We're the ones who take the hit. We take the hit all the time. This was really abusive. It was just horrible. I woke up one morning and my face was filled with what looked like white heads. The entire face had raised bumps on it. I didn't know what it was. I went to sleep, woke up and the entire face. Maybe it was from the value. I have no idea what I was. Things were happening to us, physically happening to us. And when does the sun come out for you? When does the sun come out for Patti Lapone? Career wise, I think when I go back to work with David Mammitt, I go back and work with David, I go into and go back. David and I did a play in Chicago. Wh was that? After Baker's wife? Was that? I see, I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep it straight. What play does you do with him? First? The very first play I did with him was a thing called All Men or hors Kevin Sam Chiefs and I did it at Yale rep for one night. I said, Hey, Dave, we opened it closed in new Haven, and new Haven used to be one of the circuit. Uh. You know, when you took a show out of town, your first stop was new Haven and it was a big deciding factor. So we opened and closed, we bombed well and him there. He gave me a play called The Woods. And what happens when you do the Woods, Well, I go back to what I was trained for, and I go back to an honest environment pretty much, and you're back to the circle of trust, having feels right. This is more like it. And it's a risk. It's a big risk. And when every time I work with David, I learned so much as a human being, approximate And I think nineteen late nineteen seventy seventy seven, you had a relationship with him, Yes, well we met him five years Yes, yes, and I will. I will drop everything to do a play by David everything. I don't care how risky it is. I learned so much from David and I instinctually have the mam At speak. That's something that I know how to do. His his rhythms um and I think it's because, as someone said, I cut my teeth on David. David's words when you know starting with Allmen or Horse and the Woods and the Water Engine and Edmund. I had finished Evita and I went down to the must play us at the opening of Um Edmund, and I said, why couldn't I have been in this in the back of my head? And not two weeks later I got a call from Gregory Mosher and David saying, would you replace Linda. Linda's a Chicago actress and she wanted to go back to Chicago. She was playing the wife. She came on and she was at the beginnings and broke the dish or whatever it is exactly. I'm leaving you. She's what do you mean you're leaving? Of course we'relieving, We're really geting dressed. We're thinking, No, I'm leaving you. What do you know this? You know? I begged Mama to give me the right to do the movie, but he gave it to Bill Macy and so I um joined the company and my agent was so furious with me. He said, this will hurt your negotiational you know ability, And I went for what you know, If anybody in the business knows who I am, they know that this is where I came from before I did Evita, and they did not want me to go backwards. They didn't want me to go to the Gut three to do Rosalind and As You Like It. But I was able to work with leave you Chule, a great Romanian director, or just passed outrest to sell in his internationally famous production of As You Like It At the Gunman. I was raped over the calls by the critics. One critics said, you know, basically, what was Evita doing here? And it was It was difficult, as you say, to straddle that, but I kept doing it because I was given the opportunity to do it. And I wasn't going to say no, I have to wait for the next VI to part to come along. If I waited for the next part to come along, I'd still be waiting. Is Evita the next big thing for you? Is the big thing that was? But how does that happen? I auditioned um Joanna Merlin is how princess casting director and of course how directed, how directed? And as I said earlier, all of those people had come to see this acting company at Juilliard were aware. They were aware, yes, And so I was brought in for a preliminary audition and then I was told to make myself free, make sure that I made myself free for the final callback. And as I understand that how wanted to cast actors in the role the roles as opposed to just musical theater people. So I think that's one of the reasons why I got in there, because I knew they knew I was an actor. In between, there were several plays. There was stage directions by Israel Horovitz, John Glover, Ellen Green and Night Down at the Public. While Merrill is doing, um, you're doing everything you can to scratch that inch of yours and not become a star. Now I get it. No, no, it was it was It was the available work. We're about to talk about the moment when perhaps one of the greatest musical stars of the last fifty years is born on Broadway. So let's talk about how that the moment this happens, How Prince wants people who can act and sing, and you go to the make yourself available to the final cullback and what happened. How do you feel when you're in that room. Well, I was very mad because I was actually shooting and there was a little issue about yes, about letting me go and the producer said, if you're not back tomorrow or the next day, you're you'll never work in Hollywood again. So I left Hollywood with those words ringing in my ear, and I woke up in New York to the nineteen seventy eight blizzard where they're like two ft of snow on the ground. I couldn't get back to l are you no? Um. Christopher Reeve got me on the plane. I only missed three hours of shooting. When they said howd you get here? I said, Superman. I did. It's exactly. So I went to the final callback, but I was really mad because I didn't want to do this musical. I didn't like the music. I thought, Evita, you didn't like it? What specifically? You're a smart woman, what specifically didn't you like? Well, I didn't like I heard the White album the Julie Covington David Essex called Wilkinson very rocky, weird music, but right it rocked out a lot, and I thought, what's rock? I want to be a rocker. It was really really high. Didn't grab me. I mean, I grew up on Rogers and Hammerstein. I grew up on Julie Stein, Mereth Wilson, Stephen Sondheim. This was not a musical to me, This was noise from Britain. Do you know what I mean? It wasn't. It just didn't. It did. So how did you go out there and do it? I went out and and the final audition, I was wet from my knees down. I was wearing sneakers and jeans, not knowing it was going to snow. Who you know, I did so stupid. I didn't look at the weather report. I went out there and I blasted, literally blasted through rainbow high Buenos Aires and don't cry for me, Argentina. And there were tears in my eyes apparently, and there were there were tears of rage, necessarily not tears of And I left, and um, I got I got a call on the set. I made it back and I got a call on the set and the makeup trailer and they said you've got the part. And I started to cry again because I had promised David that I would reprise The Woods at the Public Theater with Hulu gross bar directing. What I love is that you're gonna blow your Hollywood film career to go do a musical. You don't even like, and then that when they are for too, you don't sure you're gonna because you gotta go do another little man play well. I had been trained to be an actor, and I thought my responsibility was to act at every possible opportunity, and especially good opportunity. It put, you know, apply your craft and if it's good material. And I David and I forged a friendship and a bond, and I didn't want to let him down. David and I became really really good friends. David lived on twentieth Kevin and I lived on twenty first Tree. He'd come over all the time for breakfast. We'd walk around, we'dn't do anty. I'm gonna start calling you out, by the way, because you keep changing the subject. What happy with? How? How did the hell get you to do that material? And and it became what it became? Well, No, I knew I had to do it. I cried because I knew that I would have to. I couldn't do the woods and I had to do with the tip because I knew I wanted to work with how and I knew that it would change the course of my career. You knew going in that was going to be a hit. There was so much hype before had they done it in London? Yeah? What is it? Big hit in London? And you were in the American cast. It was huge in London, so you knew this was a big opportunity and there was hype. You can't That was my first indication that this was going to be a tough experience because it was I went, how am I going to get around the hype? It was the first musical that I was aware of that had so much pre opening the Modern Way, not even buzz, you know, not word of mouth, hype, media hype. And it was created, of course by really isful, by Andrews company, do you know what I mean? That's how he operates. And it was frightening and I had no vocal time. So now this thing is all hyped up. You've been through everything you've been through. You've had some good times and some tough times, and you've worked hard, god knows four years in the road with Holisman in that company, and you stepped out for the Broadway opening, the opening of Avida. What was it like for you? How do that evening? Perfect? Of course you did? And I threw up in the sink before I sank. Don't cry from Argentina. I'm sure it was a combination of I got, I got extremely bad notices opening in l a and extremely bad notices opening in San Francisco. And Al came to me and said, we're going to laugh about this in twenty years, Patty. They pulled the entire company together, and he said. There was an article coming out in Susie Nicko Parker's column the next day that I was going to be fired and that actor's equity was waiting to clear Elaine Page to take my place, and this was in the newspapers. Yeah, she's the one that originated in London. I'm dealing with all of this press of me being fired and me not being able to sing the part and still going on from well that was that was opening night, and so so you go out and do the opening of What Happens? Bad reviews again? Actually they weren't bad. Were They dismissed how and this is this was an innovative This was an innovative concept and innovative production. They dismissed how and they barely touched on Mandy and me. And that's worse when you're ignored It's one thing if they're passionate and you're back and passionate when you're good, but when you're ignored. And Mandy and I at one point, I said, you want to go out for a drink? He said yeah, and we we were in fifty second I think that's where the the Broadway theaters, and we walked down Eighth Avenue and simultaneously we burst into tears. I mean, we worked hard in those parts and then to be ignored is tough. And then, of course nine months later they give us the Tony's. When you win the Tony did? Was it any vindication for you at all? Or was it just anything? You felt good? Such a relief. It was such a relief, because really have you? Because I was still performing and still scared out of my mind every night. I envied Mandy because Mandy was just all over the place. He didn't have a problem singing it. So he literally he told me. He told me something the other day we were talking about it beat in. He said, well, how teld me to go? He wanted me over there? And I said to how how do I get there? He said, I don't know, just get there, And so that's where he does a jatte across the stage, and I went. I would see it every night, going Whites Mandy doing that. And it was because How told him to get there, getting there, and he didn't care how so many put it in and it became part of his performance and and so. And I suppose in that respect How gives the actor freedom. But I didn't have that freedom because I was so tied up and a not because I didn't think I could sing it. I wanna be when that who what I did? If I haven't thought, if I hadn't known that, we would stay to get really and you know when you in a rehearsal period, you know this, you have to do it over and over and over again. So you're not hitting that d in. Screw the middle classes once you're not hitting that g in. Screw the middle classes once you're doing it over and over again. I didn't have vocal technique to know that. I didn't have to hit those notes every day. I didn't have vocal technique. I got it during the run by from a kid the chorus, Oh, David Vosberg. I came off stage in Tis I they got him a piano that put a piano in my dressing room, and he worked with me an hour every single day before the show. He would come to me and um work out of the goodness of his heart. David Vosper David vosperg he's in Ohio, he's a director of opera. But he would um give me a vocal technique. He would warm me up. And the difficult thing was to be to apply what he had just taught me that night. Because I would do one thing right, something else would go disastrously wrong. But at least I was getting a technique to sing that part. He saved my job and they knew that, and they paid him. Now, you say, when you talk about this, you talk about the tension and the anxiety and the fear, and you don't really want to necessarily be doing a vide because you got another David play and this and this and that didn't start to become fun for you. Oh, anything goes with a ball because of the material and because of the cast, and and it was hysterical, I mean Jerry's acts. And Jerry did a great job of direct Yes he is. And but however, these were the way musicals used to be written. You'd have a joke coming and then a gorgeous song. The material was so ripe and so beautiful. If I was in a bad mood, all I had to do was hear that. Okay, I know where I am tonight, just looking at the audience and seeing tears of joy from laughter. The only thing we are as actors are messengers. That's all we are. Correct. We are delivering the playwright's intentions through the concept of the director. And I come on stage if I feel confident in the role, then I give it away. I give it away anyway. But it's all about them, So I have to go out there and love them, and I do. And I think they see that they can relax with me because they know I'm giving it to them. I'm not. You know, there are some actors that don't want to be on stage because you just nailed it. Because because Patty the pone to me as a woman who comes out there when the first thing does she stopped here and she's like, you know, how's everybody doing it? It's like a little moment like a nightclub singer, like you know how you all doing tonight? Without saying how you all doing to it? Like just connect to them and let them feel like there's no place else we'd rather be. Is there than here right now? Well, I think our responsibility is to relax them. You've been in an audience. I've been in an audience where we're worried for the performer and then we're not having experience. They're paying a lot. And if I'm worried for the performer and they and they should be worried for then I'm worried for me because I want to get the f out of there. Yeah. Hello, Our responsibility is a minute we hit the deck, is to relax the audience. And that is what is called command of the top. You're the col You're the top, You're the lou Museum, You're melody. From how long did you do anything? Goes fifteen months? I think, Oh I laughed my ass off, and that's we had such a ball. And then and the same thing is, is this this idea that the someone said to me, why do you like doing the theater? I mean, even now, did you get it? A lot of actors do it for a period and you get it out of your system. I said, you know, the one thing I've never gotten out of my system is if the play is the right play. I said, I go to work at six o'clock. I like to get to the theater early, kind of drain the day out of me. And then I go out on stage and I said, you know what I love. I said, I know exactly what I'm gonna say. I know exactly what the other guy is going to say for the next two and a half hours. I don't know exactly how people are likely going to react. I said, how often can you say that in your life, that you know exactly what's going to happen and it's a good thing for the next two and a half hours of your life. I never get tired of that. No, and I it's magical. It's magical. And you taught you said, draining the day out during the day out to have a magical night. Do you know what I mean? Really, to have experience with a group of people. Do you know I mean not just your your fellow actors on the stage, but people that want that leave the theater going oh my. I mean I've done that. I've walked out of a production going oh my, oh what street we on? You know, we've been transported, we've been taken away, We've drained the day out of our life and we've experienced something that has changed us. It's another thing I love about our profession at the arts. I mean you can do that in the in the movies too, as a woman, as an actress who was known for a raft. Now of these heavy duty, you know, uh, powerful musical roles. Was there another one that I'm missing? Between uh Evida and uh No? We did all? I did? Oliver? I did Oliver? I did know Oliver? Here Lim is in London who Oliver Ron Moody and Graham amble Guard rescissal. Ron Moody was reprising his Royal Spagan. Yeah. He was great, beautiful song as long as he needs me, one of the most beautiful songs in all of Yeah, he wrote a great score. Um. And then I went to London and did Ley, miss Soley, miss you did only in London? Yes? Why well? And this because I didn't want to do well? And it's a it's a it's a reason that I have questioned my entire career. When I was at the Barbicane rehearsaling the Barbicane was then the Royal Shakespeare Company's London home, it felt so much like being in the hallways of Juilliard. It was amazed the rehearsal rooms. I just felt like I was at Juilliard. And Trevor actually said to me, if anybody belongs in this production or with the Royal Shakespeare Company, it's you, Patty, because Michelle sun Denis was an artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Michelle Sundni was one of the co founders and an artistic director of the Drama division of the Juilliard School. So I came full circle two different countries. But I had come full circle in training. The notice for you when you did they miss in London. I don't even remember, but I wanted Olivier Award for Fantine. So I have no idea. Everybody that I know that so you do it said to you were breathtaking in that role, so there was no desire you had. Well, this is what happened. Two weeks after we opened at the Barbercan. I came off stage in my barricade uniform because I was in the barricade scene and I I can't do this in New York. It was an instinct, I can't do this in New York. And I went to the stage door to drop off a name to the stage doorman at Cameron McIntosh, the producer you know besides the r SC, was standing there and I said, Cameron, I can't do this in New York. I was the only American in the company. He said, I know, the parts too small and said, no, that's not it. I said, this is my company. I realized when I came off the stage that I was in the perfect theatrical environment, in the perfect play, with the perfect cast, and I didn't want anything to touch that memory. And I made it It It would be different in New York totally. It would be a reproduction of this production. And I didn't think that I would seeing And you know, I've never known whether I made the right decision or not. But what did you do after that? Lb J? I came back to do lb J, and we've been didn't talk about film in your life now because in and around all of your historic career in the theater, what is going on for you? Film was nothing. I wish it did nothing, I mean but minor. But I don't know why I don't get cast or I don't know why that you know. And now it's probably too light because I'm one of those women that are too old for Hollywood, or maybe maybe I'm coming into my film career now. I don't know why it didn't happen, but it didn't. Um. I did Driving Miss Daisy, and Alfred Jury was responsible for my casting in that. I did UM And that's the best experience you had making a film, all of them working, especially working with the Australian directors Perspiras for it and Peter Weir. What did you do with them? We did Witness Peter Weir and I did Driving Miss Daisy with Perspiracy. Ever worked with Lamette very little. I had a tiny, tiny little part in something. I can't remember what it was, but I thought, oh my god, it would love to have worked with him. I don't remember the whole experience. I was literally I had one tiny scene and I can't remember if it was a movie or I can't remember television series. Could have been a television. But remember, life goes on for four years and then you know guest spots here and there. But it was it's odd that that that I haven't had that opportunity. Probably did have that opportunity, but you passed on it. Correct. No, I don't think I've diden the chance to do a television series. Come your way. No, it's interesting. I'm a hard sell, Alec. I've been cut at the studio level on auditions in California because I didn't believe I was I could do this or that. And you know, it's like, it's I'm a hard sell in California. I'm a hard sell in movies. I'm a hard selling TV. You know, I'm always a hard sell. I could tell you a story right now, but I can't. I've been asked to audition for a musical, and it's twenty five years since I'm auditioned for musical. When does it stop coming up? Patti Lapone talks about the most painful loss of her career, her subsequent illness, and how she recovered from both. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing, but the time is gone. The voice as soft as londer, as they tell your whole as the time you dream to shape. This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing. Patty Lapone originated the role of Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Sunset Boulevard in London. She was set to move with the show to Broadway until she found out she was being replaced by Glenn Close. To say she was devastated is an understatement. You know, there's always going to be some kind of stuff going on in a musical. That's just the nature of a musical. But it was a great company, We had a great time. It was the exterior information that was coming to me that was very painful. I mean, clearly, when I didn't get the reviews Andrew wanted me to get, I was on the chopping block. But I didn't find that out until after Glenn Close opened in New York and Vincent Canby gave her this review against my ad review. Meantime, I'm getting standing ovations in in London and there's nothing about me in the press in London because I show up every night. I'm turning in my working Yeah, but Andrew wanted something else, and the way they got me out was the way they were going to get me out was to have me quit because of the the barrage of negative publicity, and my agents and the lawyers said stay on stage. And I don't know if it was worth it, because it was really painful, and months before I closed, I got a telephone call from my agent. I'm in the dressing room getting ready for the show. I called my my agent called. He said he's sitting down and said yeah. He said, you've been fired. Glenn Close was replacing you in New York and he went. And I got up and had batting practice in my dressing room with a you know, a floor lamp, and left. Did They could hear me crying and screaming, and the company came up and uh, company manager, I said, I've been fired. I said, I'm leaving. I'm going by. I can't take this anymore. And if people say, what would you do for you saw Andrew again, I said, it's not what I would do, It's what my husband would do. Because whatever I had to absorb, I then took out on my husband when I came home. And that was like I went into therapy. I was on prozac. It was like it was like a long healing process because I had to absorb it and I couldn't. There was no place I could release it because I had to perform every night and um that But that company was extraordinary and we had a great time. We had a great time. So after that you do Sweeney. Then the next musical I do is Sweeney John Doe. Well, then it's two thousand. This is interesting. I come home beat up emotionally and also physically. I find out through a routine eye examination that I am in the middle of detached retinas in both eyes. There's like four hundred shots of laser and one eye two fifty in the other eye. Kevin Anderson gets into a life threatening motorcycle accident, and Bob Baby and the choreographer comes down with a really really severe case of I don't shingles or something. So three of us are manifesting illness at the end of this experience, which was so bad. So I take time to heal and I do a movie. I do bits and pieces. But the next big thing that comes comes on the heels of breast cancer. They say, do you want to play Nelly love It and Sweeney Todd with the New York film Brent Turvill playing Sweeney. I went first thing, I said to Steve no, because I've never been cast in Asantei musical. They said, yes, he gives the privileg said, of course I do. But this is a year earlier. Within that year, I find out that I have breast cancer. And what happens as I deal with it. There's nothing else I can do but deal with it and go through radiation. On my last day of radiation, start rehearsal for Sweeney Todd in the New York Film. And it's yes, the quintessential New York moment the New York Philharmonic on a New York stage in a New Yorker's production. And that was an unbelievable experience from the oven. What is that? It's priest, have a little priest? Is it really good? It's too good at least, then again, they don't calm it since all on the flesh. That was pretty fresh. Now, let's talk about Mami's last play. So here, your last venture in New York is you with your old buddy. So he calls you. He's got the play, and he called you. I called him. I saw November, and I saw after the play. I saw as his wife, Rebecca Pigeon. I said, Rebecca, I'm hitting David up for a play. It's too long. It's too long that we've worked together. And I wrote him a letter and I said, I don't want a relationship to end with the old neighborhood. I said, let's do something. And then he called me and he said, do you know who Cathy Bodin is? And I did, but he didn't, and and then he started to tell me about he was right. He was thinking about writing a play about the weatherman or the an anarchist. And I went, oh cool. And then then I found out this was last year. And then I found out that the play was being done in London, and I went, no, no, no, man, I said, I have to play this part. And I wrote to him and I said, is this the we were talking about? It? Said they don't want me in London because they don't want me in London? But can I do it in New York? And you call me said screw London, let's do it now. So that's how that happened. I knew it was a risk, but that you know you, I always take a risk with David, and I had You've been directed by David before a lot more often than you, more comfortable with him in both the aspects. And we talked about because I came and saw you that last performance, and we talked about how the financing and the financiers themselves have changed a lot, which is if they don't get those results very very quickly, they jump, They put the parachute. This is a risky play. And you know what Broadway should be, what Broadway is supposed to be, which is a vehicle for every idea. And I also am frustrated with the producers that have made gobs of money. They should have a Levy text attacks Levy against them. They should open a black box theater. They should support all the new play rights and composers. There should be a great deal of support. Art is the soul of a nation, and our art is not being supported. They developed, yes, and it's very, very very depressing. It's very depressing. If I go back on the stage in New York, I'm going to find out who the producers are and who their partners are, and I'm going to sit down and talk to them. And I want to find out what their marketing campaign is, what their marketing you know, yes, you definitely, And I want to pay and play, which you don't have pair play on Broadway. You don't have that. But you know they don't think we take the risk with them. We most certainly do. Actually we book out the pair play concept is in films is important because we book out and sometimes you gotta take it deeper. I think maybe I shouldn't care so much. I don't know whether that's true, Alec would it would not, It would reflect in your performance, do you know what I mean? I think that you can see when people care and when you an audiences can see when they don't care, because you see, because you see like someone in the years I've bumped into you, run into you, known you, known you better. You seem to care of the exact same amount as you used to. I love what I do, and I love the audience, and I love the fact that I get to do it, and I love I love our craft very very much, and it's it's a noble craft. We have a responsibility to it and to the audience and to the playwright into the message. I won't ever care less if the sky you should fall into those and the storms all laurron me the we have known. I will sing him to Love. Next month, Patti Lapone will go on a national tour with her concert entitled Far Away Places. This is Him to Love from the c D of the same name. Her book, Patti Lapone a memoir is now available both in hardcover and as an e book. So the last thing I want to say to you is a content and a question embedded in a content, and that is and I want to say this as carefully as I can, because I don't want to give myself in trouble. Watching you perform, Patty, sometimes it's like having sex with you, and it's like a sexual It's like sex. When you do what you do, it's like it's like and when you're done, I almost get this feeling like you're looking at me personally, look at me, going you really enjoyed that, dude? That was good for you, wasn't it? Do you realize? My question is do you realize the effect you have on people? Do you know when you come out there? Can you feel how much they're digging what you do? You must be able to feel it. Well, I don't know. If I don't go out there going they're gonna dig me. I go out there, and I do know that the people that have come to see me know that I have them in mind and that they already have them on my side. They know that I'm doing it for them. They It just it could be a persona could be a body language thing, but they know that I know they're there. And the differences when when actors don't acknowledge the audience, the audience can't come. When an actor acknowledges the audience, then you can have a moment of ecstasy and I'm doing something talking and a gipsy gips. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.

Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin

Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and perfor 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 421 clip(s)