Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140211

Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Come in, ray. I saw it, i saw it, i saw it it is right here, ray. It is looking at me. It is an ugly little spud, isnt he . I think he can hear you, ray dont move. It wont hurt you. Ah take that what happened . Are you okay . He climbed me. That is great actual physical contact can you move . Ray, ray, come in, please. I feel so funky. Rose bill murray has had a remarkable career for more than 30 years, he got started doing improv at second city in chicago, he gained wide notice on saturday night live where he won an emmy award in mean 77, bill murray started, started in many films, caddyshack and then lost in translation, he can be seen in George Clooney the monuments men. What is going on . This seems to be a bit of a problem. A bit. Here is a thought. We put down our guns, you go your way, we go our way, no hard feelings. He doesnt speak any english. Not a word. Okay. Are you just going to sit down . Yeah. I will sit down for a second. Rose later this month he appears in the grand biewp pest hotel, the latest film by wes anderson who is one of his closest collaborators, he is a pop culture icon, and has been called by the new yorker one of the worlds most appealing hipsters. I spoke with him recently and we talked about many things, including the life that he lives. What was the attraction of monument men for you . Well, the story is a story that most people have never heard. The story of like a core of like a clique, a platoon of guys going down to hunt down the sfoal len art. Who are artists rather than soldiers. Yes, mature men, not warriors, not enlistees or draftees but past the warrior, you know, soldier stage, asked to join the effort and go on this hunt. Rose we forget in times like this of war that one of the casualties of war is cultural treasures. Right. Well, iraq was a big one where we sort of cleaned house in iraq and sort of won the war and 95 minutes or something, but their museums were looted and robbed and i dont know if it has been tracked down. Rose a lot of it has, yes. But that is something that really goes, and people things disappeared and what you know, with this symptomatic, you know, sister stemmatic of the. Museums by hitler and his people it really took a lot of stuff that they are still finding it. Rose exactly. What do they say . It is worth a billion and a half, four and a half billion. And a lot with one guy. Rose so thats a story, it is a great story based on a book by robert edsel, i think. Did you read the book. Yes. Rose did you read the book before you accepted the role . No, george told me george told me the story of the movie, a year before, while eating pasta and salad and i just went, oh, god, that sound so good, but then, you know, i thought, i wish george would ask me to be in that movie, and nine months later he says are you busy. Rose and you said . Im not busy. I am busy but not that busy. Rose but you liked the character . Yeah. It was great. It is sort of a composite. We didnt maim any we didnt use anyones name, but, you know, it was a handful of men and put them together. The character was i mean the character as it was written by grant it was just a wonderful character. Every actor in the movie has great stuff to do, every actor is given like, you know rose a hell of a cast. Home run swing, a couple of home run swings throughout the film. Rose yeah. So it is really made for you to have like great turns, great scenes while you are telling telling a story, it is an interesting story. Rose how does george work as a director . George is extremely well prepared, george put us to work in a great mood every day, it is the lightest set i have ever been on, really. I usually feel like i have to be the one that keeps things light, i am always trying to calm people down or loosen them up. George was just, and grant, they are both hilarious all the time and you put all of these people in one place, we got mortal tales and lies and stories to tell. Rose in the making of the movie you know, i dont you stop and shoot a scene and just balderdash for 25 minutes and just laugh and really you would laugh until you hurt, it was that hard, because people are pulling out their best stories to throw them over the top of the previous one. Rose and you cant top this . And you could and people did top them, it was really fun, it was really like rose he is a prankster too . Well, he is famous for playing a lot of pranks, and he didnt do so much on this one, he had good one on matt damon. He had this event, we knew his vows with his wife and working out all the time so he looked when he first got married or something and george told the seamstresses on the film to take in his pants a quarter of an inch every two weeks so he would go away and come back and put the pants on and just and all of us knew but everyone was, you know deadpan looking at him and you see just the look on his face, like, goll location was good too. Well, berlin is pretty great. I dont know if you spent my time there, but it is really nice, it is really a bubbling place, an artist colony and very unique, even in germany, sort of like austin, texas, very different than texas. Rose exactly. Berlin is very different than the rest of germany. And all the artists of europe the flee there because it is inexpensive and very reasonable to live, people live like sort of like socialists, there is a whaters and so forth, i know an american guy who was like a socialist here who moved to berlin and he rents out his little sort of place and he squats somewhere else, he is this crazy guy. Rose i know a lot of architects have done buildings there, there was a sense of a great, almost one of the great towns for architecture anywhere, because after the reunification and everything they were really building and havent an opportunity to do great things. You know, there is a lot of new stuff, and the old stuff, the funny thing is like even though i would think that berlin would be a wreck and they bombed the heck out of it but what they didnt bomb was, it was a fairly good city, what they didnt bomb is completely intact because on the east german part of town nothing changed, because no buildings changed, nothing was built so all the apartment buildings are beautiful, you walk through and it is hike look at this, you know, these row of town houses and what a great streets, there are lots of streets like that in berlin. Rose and the nightlife is good. Night and daylight, life they really go hard, they show i mean, the germans we were working with, yes, we are going to dance night and damages night lasts 41 hours, they go out and they go for a day and a half it lasts. Rose how do you side whether you wanted to make a movie or not . Sometimes the people involved, like. Rose like george . Well, george or wes anderson or someone who just said you want to do the job . Sure, what time . Without a. And george called again you would be there. Absolutely we would all come for tomorrow morning in greenland, it was really wonderful to work, to be that welltaken care of. Rose yes but does it make it difficult if he is also one of the stars of the movie . Because he is acting and directing . Well and in this case he wrote the script along with grant. That can be a hazard, you would think that would be a problem and with another actor you are absolutely right that might be a problem, but george, what he does in this movie is self less, he is doing all the grunt work, he is doing all the like the plot line, he is telling all the fact and doing all that stuff, just really severe, those arent huge emotional moments he has got, like selfless serving stuff and he gives us all the merrygoround stuff, we are doing the great stuff and he is doing the service work. Rose the do yo do you want o correct. I did once in quick change, i really enjoyed it and thought i would do it every year for the rest of my life, but then life changed and i havent done that again but i would like to do it, i think if you can direct a movie you should direct a movie, if you are able to, you know, and i will probably do it again when life slows down a little bit and i have a little more space. Your life is interesting in that it is not a carefully thought out, well planned life. [laughter. ] why do you say that . I have never heard that, i have never heard you be so compassion matt toward me. Compassionate toward me. Rose it is true, it has an additional advantage of being true. Well,. I am a little bit, you know, seat of my pants. I try to be just alert, you know, and available, i try to rose see that is a good point, be available. So that you are not so on a treadmill that you dont see or take advantage of something. Yes. And i mean more than just for work, available for work but available just for life to happen to you, you know, we are living this life, we are in this life and if you are not available, this sort of ordinary time goes past and you didnt live it, the day goes past and you didnt live it but if you are available then life gets huge, you jump up dimensions and life becomes much more full. You are really living it. I mean. Rose is that old max similar is half the game is by being in the arena, by saying yes and being in the arena you can experience so much more. Well, yeah, and yes to life, it is like yes, this is not easy for me to pay attention. This is not easy life, you know, and it is not easy to really engage all the time, it is so much easier to zone, you know, to get distracted today dream, to do something, but to be available and to be there, then things because things are happening all the time to us and if you are not aware, you miss them, you know rose but you seem to be a guy that reads a lot, too you are really aware in reading about you, and i was struck by the point that someone asked who you would like to be and i said, inn 7 and gregory mendel, who was yes. Rose all the stuff about genealogy. [einstein] these are two scientists. I get excited about science stuff because there are laws, laws of nature, and if there are laws of nature then they are sort of like heavenly laws and laws inside of you too, so if you can get someone to tell you, explain a little bit, crack your head, just turn your skull a little bit, and you heard something a little differently, it just came in your ear differently and landed differently, you would understand something more about life. Rose where do you live . Well, i live right now in South Carolina. Why . Well, life took me there. Life took me there. And so thats where my, thats where my sons are and thats where i am. Rose you like South Carolina . Yes, i really do like South Carolina. I didnt choose to go there and it is kind of like [mumbling intentionally] but i love it there now. I love it there now. The people are kind, and the place is beautiful. Rose good place to be a parent . Yes. It is easier, it is easier than being a parent in new york was. Being a parent in new york was quite a bit harder. Rose i read somewhere when you are in la you burchgd at, bunked as georges house. Bunking as georges house, that is always a pretty good place to be, you know. Rose and a nice party. It is a easy, it is easy. But where you are, i like to go i like to go around america, i like if it, we are going on this trip, a little trip to berlin, we are going to berlin, millan, london and paris, yes, i have a week and have to go to work and thats my job, where i have to go for a week. Rose but you said george allowed you to ply in and do the movie and fly out so you had it was spectacular. They allowed me to go back and forth from berlin to South Carolina every two weeks so i could keep my house together and keep the guys rolling, keep the place spinning, you know. Keep those guys going, and still do the job. And he made it for everyone. Mine was maybe the most difficult, but he i never had anyone do that for me. Do you look for when you look at what you are going to do next, i mean, are you actually out there letting people know i really like to be making movies . No. No. You know, and i quit every once in a while. Now you are going to quit after certain movies because it is really great and how can i top that . A. I really thought that, i mads and i thought i cant do any better than that, i mean, he wrote a beautiful script and edited all my lousy stuff out and it was perfect. I just thought i have got to stop. I should stop right now, should get out like john elway and get out and now i will just look for the other career and i looked around and i have no other skills, charles. I cant do anything else. This is it. I have interviewed some great, some people who sugar ray leonard, i said to him, why are you coming back . He made a lot of money. I know. Rose and managed it well. Right. Rose so he had all the money and had no problems and he said to me . He said because it is what i do, it is what i know. Yes. I remember having the conversation with him when he made his first 30 million and he said you should quit, you look good, i cant understand you, dont box again and he came back quite more after that because thats what he knew. Rose i know. But i dont think i can quit now. Because you love doing it . I really like the acting, the action of it, i like how i have to be myself to do it correctly. I have to really work at, it is the best i am when i am working because you talk about being present and being alert and aware and everything, but i know that because it is going to be on the screen, i am going to get to see myself failing to be alert and aware so it really is such a strong powerful reminder to work at it, to really be just in the game, to be there. So i like it and i enjoy i like the whole gypsy mentality of the movie business, where you get together and live very intimately for a couple of months and then you scatter and may never see these people again but in that short amount of time. Rose you have the experience while you are there. Very intense, very close, people just really slave, there is no limit to how hard you can work on a film, and i mean, i used to think, i used to really think that about only film but i understand it is about parenting too, but you can work so hard on a movie, there is no limit to how hard you can go, and people, you get in this harness with other people working hard and it is exciting, like these guys here, it is like, they all know that, you know, so it is like, please, i see one, you know, they made a big thing about we are in the snow and working in the mountains or Something Like that and the next scene and jod good man picks up sand bags and boxers and what are we doing . Well we are going to the next scene. We are all in this together and this is what we do. This is how we do it. Are you still learning . Well, i dont, this was movie with a bunch of movie stars again, it was very different, it was difficult different to see that, to see how you go, and george you do one or two takes and 52 acts you got it pretty much but interesting how the spacing, there is sort of a different spacing, everyone, everyones tempo is just a little bit slower and it is like we are talking about professional golfers, their tempo is slower and smoother and that is like real big time actors, their tempo is slow and smooth, where everyone is slow and smooth like that, it was different to have everybody rose you are watching, you are absorbing . Yes. You are always getting something, i mean, it is fun to watch someone like john goodman who is such a natural actor and yet it takes work. You cant people say, oh he is not acting and just being himself, well it is hard to be yourself. Rose it is. It is hard to be yourself. I mean, it is impossible, it is the hardest job there is, right it is harder than anything, just be yourself. It is so hard. Rose i mean, when i did that little small part with george he said, you know, you do a great charlie rose. I thought that may be a compliment. It is, it is a compliment. It is a compliment, and i am sure he meant it that way. It is kind of it is a joyous thing to it is fun to be here, but it is fun to work with people that are enjoying their job. You enjoy their job. I dont know how many years you have done this job, but you know, you just seem to be rose more than 25. Okay. And yes for you, you light up when the camera turns on. Rose and it is as fresh as when i first started doing it and the excitement and the interest and all of that and because it is unpredictable too, you dont know where it is going to go. Yes and you get to meet just the entire, huge range of people and, an enormous rose i dont if you dont learn something doing what i do there is something wrong with you. Yes, you are so lucky, you are luckier than you are luckier than hell. Rose that have very nice i will say my prayers tonight. So you have made your mark in second city. Uhhuh. Rose improvisational. I would assume that is great training for what you have done with your life. That was a perfect pound indication foundation. Yes, i have been really lucky, people say how can i make it in show business . Well, goll, i am only the luckiest guy in the world, i am not the right person to ask. You know. Rose you know well. But i was really lucky. I got to go, my brother was in second city ahead of me so i got to watch me and Harold Ray Moss and joe flaherty and john be lucic all of these guys, belushi. I would hide and watch these guys of no intention of ever doing it myself. Rose no intention of doing it yourself . Huhuh. Rose what did you think you were going to do. I wanted to be a doctor once, but i would have to study, i had no idea whats i was going to do, i had Trouble Holding jobs because they want you there on time and stuff like that. Being alert. Rose they wanted you to play by the rules. And acting in the theatre we didnt have to get to work at 9 00 oclock at night. Rose thats right. But so i learned a lot just watching those guys, what i finally did, when i finally did begin to try it myself i render so much, i learned so much by observing and seeing what they were doing, i didnt i didnt really peak at the second city, i was just learning it, i was sort of the new guy and for a while, and, you know, i was just i was just getting i was just getting kind of good and then i got this second this saturday night live job and another Ensemble Group working with not only talented actors but writers this time too so you got to use your writing and acting skills and this was a great secondary education. I mean i started second city and then went to saturday night live, if you did saturday night live for five years and on that show five years you were able to do anything, you could go into anything, because it was really you learned a lot and all those pros, all those guys on the set, when we got that job, all those guys that did your show of shows and sid caesar and all those things they had seen and done it all and guys who, we were just kids. And they would just go, hmm and tell you something and it was an amazing education. Rose timing is important, i assume, and in other words you are not going to make the joke. [laughter. ] rose okay. The flip side of that, i mean, it would seem to me if you do comedy wow develop a higher sense of timing than if you simply had nothing but dramatic experience. Thats a serious question. Well, yes. And a fair one. It seems like, you know, at second city we didnt call ourselves comedians even though we were funny. Exactly. We were actors. Rose exactly. And so. Rose comedic actors. And being funny you have to be able to play straight to be funny which sounds like a paradox but it is not, you have to play straight to play funny so if you can play straight to play funny, playing straight is not a big thing at all. Rose like lots of so called funny people asking good in a dramatic role. I started making comedies because i came out of saturday night live and those are the jobs i would get asked to do and then after a while people would ask me to play a straighter parts and now i get all kind of straight parts and people go, any, well you made a change in your life. Well, no. This is just what i get asked to do. I only do the ones i like and lately people would ask me to do straight things or straight things that have a little bit of humor to them. Rose do you wish they would ask you to do comedy . I dont know. I dont wish that, but i sometimes i feel like i want to do something really funny. I am feeling like i am going to do something funny soon and usually when i think that way it comes. Rose that is a great thing to have. You can just wish something and it will happen. Well it starts with a wish, doesnt it . Rose yes, it does. So i wished i had a wish that i could do a movie that was sort of romantic and then Sophia Koppel asked me to do this lost in translation which was sort of a romantic movie and about love, even though i wasnt in love with Scarlett Johansson she was love and struggling and i was in love and struggling and we talked about love, it was really about love. Rose nominated for an oscar. Uhhuh. Rose you thought you were going to win it. I really did think. I won all the prizes on the way to it. Rose i mean you were the guy. I had funny things i was going to say, you know, i was ready to go, i didnt rose what were you going to say. When i heard i was nominated and name these other people, i thought i really had a pretty good chance. You know, and i just thought there is nobody reviewing that speech. Rose exactly right. Knowledge had, no one had ever given that speak. And i didnt have agents or handlers and any of that stuff so i wouldnt have to get that extraordinary kind of speech but just go out and entertain. If you are on a tv show with a billion people, show up and do something, okay . Just give them something, a moment to speak to a billion people on the planet. A and here is what i want to say. You you said to your hairdresser what . What . I want to thank there is Something Else, i cant remember who it is. And then they forget and start reading it off the notes. It is an actor and rea reading s lines off a piece of paper. Rose how disappointed were you at the moment . Well, you are just sort of i was just sort of surprised, i was surprised. I didnt really feel. You thought, queue waited. Well, i was just surprised, i was really surprised. Rose because you heard it before. I wasnt like angry or anything, it is just like what . I dont know. You know, thats the academy, they do things funny sometimes. But i found later, about six months later, i realized that i had come down with something. I sort of like that prize winning stuff and about the prizes that i sort of had like a lowgrade infection of liking winning the prize and wanting to win the prize. Rose yes. And i thought, oh, good, because i often say and i am sure, people win the prize, and then for the next couple of years they really struggle, because they are sort of stuck, like hey, i am an Academy Award winner, baby. And so now what do i do . Rose i want to see an Academy Award winning script. Exactly. And so they cant they cant put pull the trigger on anything and then they start thinking i have got to find a script that is an Academy Award winning script and so they get all messed up. Rose and dont work for three years. And i think that possibly could have happened to me but it was object months later i thought oh, my god, look at me, look what happened to me. Rose ar are you a confident guy that says, when you sat that script, and saw that opportunity, i can nail this . Within me is the capacity within this script to do an Academy Award winning performance . Well, write think of it as an Academy Award winning performance. Rose i know how to mail in character. But yes, i knew i was going to mail this character. Rose how did you know . When you are a man, you know. You are not a man, you are a boy. When you are a man you will know. It is rose i hope so. You just know. I mean, gone through a whole process of trying to find me and called up, and i met her, found her just charging, just wonderful, and so for sure i thought, okay, i am throwing in with her. I like her and sent me the script and looked at the script, it wasnt overwritten and it wasnt sentimental and maudlin, it was clean, it was really spare, it was only about 90 something, 95 pages or 94 pages, Something Like that, you know, accomplish can be 130, 140 they can get ugly and i thought oh look at this, it is all here. Everything is there. I mean, and i can bring a little bit more to this too. And i know what they are i know what she is talking about here, i know what she is talking about. It sort of resonates. Rose what was she talking about . She was talking about like Emotional Intelligence and what it means to really be in love, you know, to really love someone and to be torn with the idea of being faithful to it or and struggling with that, and seeing yourself in that moment, because you are in front of that moment of life, like how you know, it is like saint peter denied jesus, right . Rose yes. Saint peter is a pretty solidify but even saint peter chickened out. Rose yes, he did. And any man or woman can chicken out in the face of pressure and so here were some people under pressure and how did they deal with it and how and they shared something and rather than like let the pressure sort of throw them at each other they just sort of threw their feelings at each other without demand or responsibility to like change each others route. Rose . What did you whisper in her ear . You know, he told someone once, i told someone the truth once. Rose and they. And they didnt believe me. Rose . Hell i am not telling anyone. Have you thought about it since then or has she told you or do you know . Has who told me . Well, i whispered in her ear, but the moment happened, there was a moment when it happened, when it actually happened, i was miked and wired, you know, they had microphones, so there i was and miked to her and eva cabrera, who is the script supervisor, and sophiaable, had this moment where they just looked at her and said, you dont have to say anything. You dont have to hear anything. But at the same moment and i had the same feeling from 60 yards away, i went, it doesnt matter what the hell i say in her ear in this picture. This is really it will just be a wonderful mystery. But those two really, and then i heard them say it, and i was like, thats right. This is how it is going to roll. Rose when people want to hire you, what do you think they are hiring . What do you think they are looking for . I am hanging around for that i am hanging around for that one. Rose i certainly hope so. Other than experience and craft and talent and, you know i mean, is there i mean, is there something within you and your persona that say i need that persona in my film . Well, i think i get some work now because one thing i have sort of, sort of tried to do is not be sentimental, is try to really just squeeze all the and try not to allow it and i have been relatively successful doing that, and so if someone has a script that walks a tightrope of sentiment tattle, they asking me. Because i will be committed to like not falling into that pit, i think that is one thing. I always feel like when they hired me they get the whole thing, which includes like goofing around on the set. Like just trying to liven it up. You are right to to liven it up or that is just who you are . I mean, you loved, you know, i have heard stories about you that are uncanny where they are doing a pickup basketball game or stickball or Something Else and you just want to go over there and get in their face and say let me play . Well, you know, that is true, i can jump in, that is the that is the available thing. Rose about being available to life experience. Yes. Not feeling like i cant do that,. Rose i am the same way, just a sense of being able to know, i can be, i can get inside of whatever kind of experience, whatever they are doing and make them feel it is perfectly mal, perfectly natural for you to be there. The jobs i have got it also looks like i am game, i have tried some stuff and sort of the range of movies i have done has sort of moved around a little bit, i have done different kind of things and know i came from an improvisational background so i can help out a little if there is a little, that is a little fuzzy maybe he can figure out how to make this work a little bit and i can do that, you know, i am a mature actor now, or relatively, and so if you dont i would say like if you dont embarrass yourself and make a fool of yourself, early on or people will trust you later, like this sort of Second Generation of directors i have gotten to work with like wes anderson and so at this, a these are younger directors and i have done casting myself and you go like, you say hike well there is so and so, oh god he did that horrible and cite some movie that should be set fire to, but and if you dont make those movies that should be burned, people trust you, they think, okay he is not going to he hasnt sold himself, sold his soul for rose for whatever it is worth, i mean there is some sense of at the Core Integrity value, there is some sense rose i knew you would ruin that. But there is a sense of you get a sense that there is something very real of that, a man as who you said squeezed all of the shmaltz of it, that is the core of you and you decide in your own mind, in your own life where that is. Well, i have learned something about living, i have learned something about living and it works all the time, you know, it works in life, you know, it is like i can make it through the city. How did you get in here . Well, i went into the super bowl press junket thing the other day in the sheraton or Something Like that and i just made my way through, how did you get through . Well, i lived here so i kind of know how to do things, you know, i can get from this side of the street to the other and wrote get in trouble. Rose but you have a couple of stories about you go into places where you arent invited and somehow being able to look them in the face and sort of say, i belong here. Well, you know, if you continue feel like you taking over anyones space, like you are there to rob their fun, you are there to share and contribute, people will let you go, you know. It is like that feeling, last night we went to the movie premiere, right . 02 yes. And a big party afterwards and a lot of noise and alcohol and everything, but then you want to go out and get a bite of eat and decompress a little bit, we went a little place called snip, i had never been there, over by Lincoln Center and there was a thing where you look and saw there were a handful of people in there, like they are probably closing, you know so the driver of the car you want to check it out . Well let me try it. So i had a food feeling about myself, so i walked in and i look at the maitre d and the look was like, oh, sure, here is this guy, i said, hello. I was just wondering if you are still open and there are a couple of us and just thinking about, we were wondering if you have any food, any food, it is a restaurant, right. And he said, no we just closed. And someone on the way in said, he already said, sent two people away so dont count on anything so he went in the back and he said, okay. Stake and salads, and it was oysters too,. Rose quea, right. But it was just great, but that was kind of the fun, it was like they could have gone home but it was like maybe this will be fun and ended up being a lot of fun. We made it a lot of fun and, you know, we just clownd around and had the fun with the cooks and waitresses and the maitre d and it was just a really nice time and easy, everyone was pretty easy and not difficult and, you know, that is the fun thing of getting in, it is like there is no limit to how much fun, how much you can give. Rose and how much you can play. Rose you really can play with somebody. Yes. Rose and if you can play with them, it will open it all up and you can make them a hero and they love that. Yes. And they were heroes. They were. Because there were five of us and our prospects werent good. It was midnight try to trying to find food. Oh you could find food. We could have found some but drive through a lot of selection to get to it wes anderson you mentioned several times what is it about wes and the films he makes that you instantly say yes when he calls . Well i got a lot of pressure to do rushmore, i had agents and lots of people, and i kept getting copies of bottle rockets i have the largest single record of beckett rocket videotapes because all kind of people were sending them to me, and sent me the script and they said, and then it is like, okay, we are going to set up a meeting with you, and with wes, i dont have to meet with him. A long silence. And they were like i think you should. It is okay, i dont have to meet with him, i have read the script and he knows exactly what he wants to do. Now you are trying to tell the truth and i just cant believe. I have never really seen that before in a script where someone so specific, the script is so specific he knew exactly what he was going to do. I said, i am in. I am fine. Rose you could tell from the script. You could tell from rose you were there. And obviously his movies just keep getting better, wait until you see the next one, this grand budapest hotel. Rose this this is like a time Square Billboard dropped on your head. It is amazing. It is amazing, it is really. Rose coming into town soon . Yeah,. And he is just great fun, we have become great friends and i really love him. I love him, and he makes the making of movies his life. Rose yes. He really makes the living rose and a mixed style, his personal style. He has his own fashion set i am pretty sure and he tries to dress plerch the movies like himself, which is really cruel and i have to say, yeah, yeah, i know he wants the cuffs this short, wrote go this way, okay. You can make his that sort. The pant cuffs never reach the shoes and you dress like him. So what was it about the life of having all of these people work for you, agent and the like that you said, oh, no. Not that is not what i want to do in i will have a phone number and you can call the phone number, i will hear the message and if i want to call you back, i will call you back i will take it seriously but i dont need all of this other stuff . Well, that became too much remember Ellen Mcpherson said i had a dream i was being drowned in a flood and i realized it was a flood of people and had all of these People Living around her and this kind of stuff, but i found that the phone like i would be in he home and the phone would ring, and it would ring, and ringlike 30 times, 40 times, and then it would stop and you go, like, who in the hell was that . And then three minutes later the phone would ring and it would be 30 or 40 times and finally i just walk over and go like, who is this . And it would be oh, hi, is michael there . And i am like, you have got to get on a job. It was just like someone, their job was to let the phone ring 6,000 times in the hope someone would answer, and if they havent been able to find you because one said go find him they will call every three minutes. Everywhere. They will call every place, all your relatives. So you divide decided i dont need all of that. You know, i had the greatest, i had michael, he was like the great agent, and he was, you know, he was my monster, he was great, i mean, he is a famous character but he was my character, you know and when he is on your side, boy, life, you know, he is a weapon, he is really something and i loved him and he was great, but then when he became Something Else, he was no longer and agent. Rose he became an executive. He became, you know, all kinds of things, so, so then it just changed, it changed and the people the other people were lovely and wonderful people but it wasnt the same. I wasnt it wasnt the same and i found like then i really started looking at it a little more closely and realizing that so much of what they do is they just want to sort of corral you with someone else, within their company or, you know, i dont know, it was just a lot of phone calls i didnt really want to take. I didnt didnt want to talk rose so today there is a phone number they can call and some people get u frustrated they just cant get you. Thats all right. You know, you miss some, but i dont think i have ever missed any that i really wanted, you know. But it just cleans your life out and just purifies a space a little bit you dont have to have all of these i would rather choose my own distractions, rather than have someone else rose well you are in charge of your own life in a big way. Rose more than most. Yes. Rose thats what i in enin the beginning you have to define the life you want to have. Well, i am getting there, i am getting there,. What is not there that you want to get to . Oh, i think i would like to be i think i would like to wake up better, you know, talking about yesterday, sid, why dont you try you know, just try it and keep an eye on what you do when you wake up, you know, i wake up sometimes and i go like, goddamn this pillow is good or goddamn i wish i was with that person, you know, something, and i wish i were someone else instead of jumping up, i did hear a good thing one day, i went to church, i go to the soulful black church and Catholic Church and the music is fine. The music is better, and the gospel sometimes, the preaching can be kind of good and they had like a guest guy one day and he said, how about, this you wake up in the morning and you wake up and look over and say, lord, what do you want me to do . Rose exactly. And boy, i havent held on to that forever but it was a great feeling, what do you want me to do . Like i am weak now, what, awake now, so what do you want me to do . Rose so when you look at where you are and in come difficult today, i think back about caddyshack and this is a wonderful thing about it and i will tell you what it relates to for me, there is a guy named Norman Cousins, used to be editor of a magazine called saturday review, and he had a very serious life threatening disease and he found out that laughter helped him, and he would put up things that mid him laugh. Uhhuh. Rose and i am told that people, that that is part of what caddyshack does as a therapeutic experience. I guess i can tell thisuwo6 story, you know, steve, who Stevie Knicks is from fleetwood mac, she told me this story and i thought she was like an ice queen, i didnt i loved her voice but i was sort of like, you know, and she came to me once, she walked up and said you know i was having a hard time once and i watched that movie and i watched it like for a week or something, i just kept watching that movie, and it just cheered me up so much and i thought, man, i did Something Like that for someone who is such an important person to so many people and what she brings, you know, i felt really good about that. But it is true about the laughter thing, and Norman Cousins is the thing, i thought he watched abbott and scott fellow and those guys and he healed himself. Rose yes. And. You know, laughter is the best medicine isnt that what it says . And when you think of movies like that and ghost busters are those movies that are a different era than today and nobody is going to make them . Have comedies and comedic movies gone to a different place . You know, if i could be sort of constructively critical. Rose of me . No, not of you, of just like i feel about the funny ones, i just feel, i feel like some of the concepts, some of the premises are so unrealistic in a way, you know that it doesnt hold a whole you know, you have to be able to engage with the characters, and if the premises are so big and such a heavy load, you cant you cant hang them on a character, you cant hang them on a person, so you dont really react and respond to the character any longer, you are just going with the gags, it was just the gags and the situations, you dont really get the characters so much, you dont feel that they are driving it, you know, this thethey are pulling you into the stuff but there is like bridesmaid, i thought that was a wonderfully funny movie because i thought the premise was so good, brides may, as the powerful premise but the characters were so good, you know, and they were so, lif life like the girl trying to be in love like with the cop and that crazy thing, but it was so real that you committed, you engaged you bought in, i dont buy in to these high premise movies that go, oh, you know, you cant make me believe this could ever possibly happen, you know. Have you turned down things you wish you made . You know, i thought about it. No, i never turned down things i wished i made, i knew they would be successful. Rose they had commercial success i read airplane and this is going to work but it is not for me. But it is going to work. I just didnt you know, and i knew some things that some people were going to make and a lot of movies i passed on that people have made and had great is success with but they just werent for me. Rose tell me what it is you want that you dont have. Well, i would like to be i would like to be more consistently here, you know. I would like to really get on i would like to just and i know it is not probably ever may be possible but because it is so improbable and so impossible, i just would like to really see how long i can last as being really here, you know, really in it, really alive in the moment, you know, and you see people i like to live to be old, you know, so i think i have a chance. That would be my only chance. It is like, you know, a golfer wants to shoot his age, i want to live to be 100. Rose one of my great dreams. Go ahead. I would like to just be more here all the time, and i would like to see what i could get done, what i could do if i really didnt cloud myself with automatic, you know if i were able to not get distracted, to not let to not change channels in my mind and body, you know, so just, you know, i am my own channel, you know, it is just really here and always with you. You know, but you can look at me and say okay, he is here, there is someone there. And i could, you know a when you look in the mirror you dont think about it but you look in the mirror and oh there is that guy, and you catch yourself like what you were the state you were in when you looked in the mirror, you know and you can make a face and kind of tough 15 yourself up or handsome yourself up or whatever you do but when you catch yourself in that anywhere proper you see mistakes, states you are in, like who are you happy . Are you sad in are you confident . Arare you rosie . Are you beleaguered . Are you here . You know and most of the time you are not. You are just like, oh, oh. It is almost like you want to look away, because it is like that is not me there. That is what i am doing right now but that is hot necessarily me. Rose what is mess for you to get there . Well, it is all contained in your body, you know, everything you have got, your mind, your spirit, your soul, your emotions, it is all contained in your body, at all prospects, all the chances you ever have, i remember this Clint Eastwood line he killed a man, he killed every opportunity he had, i cant remember which movie it is from. Rose it is a really good line. Yo you spend every, you took every opportunity he ever had. Rose and i think what might have happened if that person had lived. Right. Like just a week ago, it is like he has been dead as long as he has been alive now, belushi. He has been dead as long as he has been alive and that is a funny sand dial to put in front of yourself. To flip that thing over so it is done. It is that wish to, you know, t is a wish, it is really a wish, you have to dream a dream but you have to wish big, you have to wish big. And i would like to go i would like to see what i could do. I got sort of a drunken phone call from a friend of nines cities and i like her, in at the really funny and drinks a lot, she called me in the middle of the night and i am like, oh boy you ever get you, get somebody to call you in the middle of the night but she was so charming and so lovely and she kept saying, you have no idea how much you could do, bill, if you could just you can do so much and i never had anyone talk like that, and it was funny because it was like a drunken phone call in the middle of the night and i listened to her for 40 minutes or, so 45 minute while i was, you know, i was sound asleep, but it was such it was really like it came from the other side, you know and it felt like it the. It was sort of like, you know, a voice, a voice that was sort of intoxicated, it was like, you know, one of the visionaries, a visionary speaking to you in the night and coming to you in your dream, and, you know, i hope to remember that kind of thing, you just try to remember those things, those that encouragement. Rose i suspect you know, you know, whatever she was saying you knew it, you do know that inside of yourself. Well, it resonated, it rang a bell inside of me that says, remember, bill, come back, remember. You know, remember. This is your life. This is the only one you have got. As we always say, my one brother , this is not a dress rehearsal. This is your life. This is in the a dress rehearsal. This is your life. You know. So rose thank you for coming. I have enjoyed it. It is a pleasure as always. Thanks for having me. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org announcer a kqed television production. Its sort of like old fishermans wharf. It reminds me of old san francisco. And youd be a little bit like jean valjean, with the teeth, whatever. And worth the calories, the cholesterol, and the heart