March 23, 2021 • 50 mins
British Actor Malcolm McDowell trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. While he’s had many notable stage roles, audiences likely know him best for a single, iconic character, Alex DeLarge, the anti-heroic criminal turned victim in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971, A Clockwork Orange. McDowell tells Alec how he developed Alex DeLarge’s signature look with the cricket codpiece, bowler hat, and single disorienting lower eyelash. McDowell also talks about his life-long friendship with mentor Lindsay Anderson, who directed McDowell in his debut film, if, in 1968. In his mid-70s, McDowell is still going strong, acting in film and television and enjoying roles such as a talent agent in HBO’s Entourage and a retired orchestra conductor in Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has graced
some of the world's most famous stages. Of veteran of
the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the
illustrious Royal Shakespeare Company. He played Sebastian in Twelfth Night
(00:22):
at the Royal Court, Andrew in Manhattan Theater Club's production
of In Celebration, Johnny in Holiday at the Old Vic,
and Jimmy in Look Back in Anger at the Roundabout.
That's but a small sample of his many credits. It's
no understatement to say that his talent and his range
are remarkable, Yet most audiences around the world know him
(00:45):
best for a single iconic character. It was the next day, Province,
and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon
to play it their way and sit back a hotta
show cooperative Malchick in the chair of torture while they
flashed nasty bits of ultra violence on the screen, though
(01:06):
not on the soundtrack my brothers, the only sound being music.
Then I noticed, in all my plain and sickness, what
music it was that like cracked and boomed. It was
Ludwig fan ninth Symphony, fourth Movement. That is the incomparable
(01:31):
Malcolm McDowell playing Alex de Large, the anti heroic criminal
turned victim in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. That groundbreaking
film premiered some fifty years ago, and McDowell's performance in
it is as riveting today as it was then. Though
Clockwork made McDowell famous, it was in fact the director
(01:53):
Lindsey Anderson, McDowell's lifelong friend and surrogate father, who got
him started in movies when he cast young Malcolm as
the lead in the award winning film If. Yet, for
all his success, Malcolm McDowell did not grow up with
acting in mind. It's so nice to see you. God,
are you too? Before we get to you know, the
(02:14):
obvious things when you grew up, because when you first
started making films, and I want to talk to about
your career before you meet Lindsay Anderson, before you make
films and so forth. What kind of a kid were
you in terms of were you like a rough and tumble,
rough house kid on a soccer field or a rugby field? Yes,
so you were a tough guy. My father who ran
(02:37):
a hotel and pubs and you know, establishments way you
could get drunk very easily. He sent me to a
we call in England a public school, you would call
a private school. You have to pay in other words,
and it's a boarding school. So because I was disruptive,
(02:59):
I was a subversive child, and so he just thought
for my own salvation, and actually I don't thank god
he did. He sent me to a school where the
headmaster was in love with the theater. So the acting
thing started when I was eleven at school with this
(03:19):
wonderful man, Mr L. F. Baker Lance fag f A G. G.
Baker No, yeah, and he I don't know. It's an
old English family name. And his brother was the Air
Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir John Baker,
who I used to go cuss his lawn and get
(03:42):
afternoon tea where I first tasted Lapsang Susan. I'm going,
what's this perfume in the team? No more Prince of
Wales for me, No more Earl Gray for me? PG tips, Yes,
PG tips for me. When you say, at least in
your father's eyes, it sounds that you were a subversive child,
(04:05):
how did that benifest itself. Well the head you know this.
Mr Baker said to my father that after I've been
there a year, he said, yes, well Malcolm is very naughty,
but he's not malicious. That were you close to your dad? No,
my father was an alcoholic. I mean I loved him
in many ways, but the alcoholism just towards the end
(04:29):
of his life. I just figure, hey, come on, dad,
let's go down the pub by your drink, you know.
You know, he just couldn't get off it. Did he
live to see your success? Yes, yes he did. He
was actually a driving instructor of the time. And I
still have these people in Philadelphia, right. I was, you know,
(04:49):
taught by your dad, you know, And of course he'd
always say pull over here, just gonna pop into this pub.
I've got to call my son in America, and of
course just go in an order quick, you know, gin
and tonic or something. Now, when you leave Mr Baker,
when you leave his school, where do you go for
your training? I went back to Liverpool and I had
(05:12):
this girlfriend who was taking elocution lessons because she was
a receptionist. She took me to this lovely lady called
Mrs Harold actually, and I went to meet with her.
She was eighty two blind as about very sweet, charming, chrismatic.
(05:33):
I mean, I just listened to her, pay my ten
shillings an hour and just basically listened to her talk
about her time as being in a silent screen star.
You know. She said, look, you've got a good voice.
You could probably be an actor. Why didn't you take
this lander exams? You know, and you can then teach acting.
(05:56):
I mean, good God, I don't know anything about it
because I knew a bit from school because I played
all the great parts in Shakespeare before I left school.
So I did these I won a gold medal. Then
I went down to London and did an audition at LAMBDA,
and they gave me an associateship of LAMBDA. So one
(06:16):
of the judges there offered me a job in repertory theater,
which I leapt at and did you sing? No? Not then,
because there are people who don't know LAMBDA is the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. No singing for you?
No singing? No. At the time I think I was there,
I didn't go there. I just went into the theater
(06:38):
and did my pieces, the audition pieces, and I was
offered a job to go to Shanklin in the Isle
of Wight in a repertory theater for the summer season,
and you do one play every week and new play.
So you've had four plays in your head. They were
all Agatha Christie, you know, really horrendous things. You were
(07:01):
at LAMBDA for two years. The associates program was too
No no, no, I didn't go to Lambda. I was
just I just won their associate chip, got it. And
between that time between the time when you are engaging,
you know, Ibsen and the Aisle of White, four shows
in your head at the same time, and you're gonna
meet Lindsay Anderson when you're years old and was down
(07:23):
the line for years down the line. Not only what
were you doing in those intervening years you were you
were at the RSC correct for a little while. Yes, well,
I soon got fed up with this weekly rep so
I figured I wanted to get to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
So I went to this old actor who taught auditions,
(07:45):
because I figured, you know, I never get past the
damned audition. I so I know I can play the part,
but I can't convince them. So I went to somebody
that knew how to actually do auditions, and he found
only a piece of Shakespeare that was so out of
the run of the mill stuff. It was the prologue
(08:08):
to Henry the Eighth. I don't even know whether the
Shakespeare ready wrote this play or not, but anyway, I'll
never forget. The first line was I come no more
to make you laugh. I don't remember anything else about
it except that, of course they hadn't heard the peace,
and so you know, most people were doing to be
(08:30):
or not to be or you know, once more until
the breach, so they hadn't heard. This kept them awake.
They actually offered me a season, so I went there
and I pretty much really hated it. Well, I found
the stuff that they were doing to be. You know,
even in my young youth, as a young actor, I
(08:53):
could distinguish pretentious behavior. Who was running the show there,
Pieter Hall, you know, an extraordinary director really through the years,
but he was a very young man. I mean it's basically,
you know, sex booze gambling the whole season. So we
(09:13):
would literally go to the Dirty Duck pub and start gambling.
This actor from Ireland, Godfrey Quigley, he actually played the
priest in Clockwork Orange. He was a wonderful guy, the
prison priest. Yeah, he's a wonderful actor, wonderful. He was
playing you know, good parts to that. I was playing lousy.
(09:34):
But the priests, so people who realize for people who
like me are clockwork freaks. And we'll do our clockwork
thing in a little bit. But the moment when Alex
is envisioning himself pitching right in to the Crucifixion, I
bideing myself pitching right in or whatever the words are.
That's the priest who comes and interrupts your dream state.
That's right by sardon, he says, the big, big, big,
(09:58):
wonderful irish. You know my boys, he says, my boy. Yeah.
He invented this gambling game which you turn these handles.
You have these little toy horses. It was such a
stupid game, but we ended up literally I think I
was two and a half months behind on my I
owed him everything from my checks, not that I was
(10:21):
getting very much, but in those days and I'd see
him backstage and they'd go, malcome where you owe me?
I mean, I know, no, no, I'm I'm getting that together.
Don't worry, don't worry. Go for it. It's coming. You
weren't sure if you wanted to go on another day
in that condition. But let me just say that other
people I've spoken to older than you, different generation. But
(10:45):
you know, when I talked to Tony Hopkins and he
talked about being at the National and always dutifully performing
in the British theater and working at the feet of
Olivier so to speak, not just dreaming, but knowing he
was going to get the funk out of there. He
said he couldn't get away from England fast enough. Yeah,
(11:06):
and leave behind you know that great tradition. That did
you feel the same way? I knew that I did
not want to be exclusively a stage actor. In fact,
when I gave my resignation to Peter Hall and he
looked at me and he goes, you don't want to
come back? I went no, no, He goes, well, what
(11:26):
are you going to do? I said, well, I'm I'm
going into film. He looked at me and went good luck. Yes,
real condescending. It was fun when I saw him a
couple of years later in the RSC. Were there people
you were around who that you idolized? Were the actors
you've got to be even just be around them who
(11:48):
you loved. Yeah, the number one were beside David Warner,
who was a friend, but someone that I really idolized,
who wasn't necessarily a friend, was in and In Home
gave I think one of the greatest performances I've still
ever seen. And I was actually in the play with him.
(12:10):
It was Henry the Fifth and you know, Ian was
only five ft two or something. It was tiny. The
power of this actor was extraordinary. And you know, he
used to invite me out to go play tennis. A
couple of us actually go play tennis because he'd rented
this place that had a grass tennis court, and every
(12:33):
Sunday we'd go and you know, kind of have doubles
matches and then have cream tea. I just loved this
man so much. And when I wasn't on stage, where
I would go and I had a place in the
wings to go watch him, and I think I watched him,
you know, for nine months most nights. Yeah, yeah, right
(12:55):
when I did a play the great great Black comic
act I mean, just the ceaselessly intoxicating Joe Maher, who
owned all the roles in Orton that he played Joe
was Irish but raised in England and and and trained
in England. And my first Broadway show was in six
I did Loots. Oh my god, I love that play.
(13:18):
And you know he got put in prison for defacing
bibles in the library. Yeah, and book drawing cox all
over him in the garden as well, and he was
coot actor Malcolm McDowell. Another actor who has moved effortlessly
from stage to film and back is Kevin Klein. I
(13:41):
interviewed clin live at the two River Theater in Red Bank,
New Jersey, where we talked about his great film career. Actually,
Meryl was a tremendous help. I remember once I was
making a huge meal out of just had to give Stingo,
the character's name. I had to give him some money
because he had been robbed, and I was doing, you know,
(14:01):
you're a writer, you need this money in Milliba and
I was just emoting, and she said, just give money.
To listen to my full episode with Kevin Klein, go
to our archives at Here's the Thing dot Org. After
the break, we get a glimpse into his unique relationship
(14:22):
with the great director Lindsey Anderson. McDowell says they were
like a married couple with all of the ups and downs,
and tells us what he learned from Anderson about acting
life and the importance of not imitating Lawrence Olivier. I'm
(14:47):
Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. We're speaking
today with actor Malcolm McDowell. Now, where does Lindsay Anderson
find you? Where does he find you? Well, you know,
it's my agent Gold say, oh, I gotta go. I
was actually rehearsing at the Royal Court doing um twelfth
Night of Modern Dress version at the Royal Court, you know,
(15:09):
very trendy and all that. So in the middle of
the rehearsal, my agent said, go quickly, get to the theater.
Whether it's a director, you know, I want you to
meet because he's doing this film and what kind of film.
I don't know. We don't know what kind of film. Anyway,
So I go there and I was late. They were
just about packing up to go to lunch, and I went,
(15:30):
I'm sorry, I came on, you know, to the stage.
He said, sorry, I'm being stuck rehearsing. They wouldn't let
me go, and so he jumped up on the stage
and we're talking, you know, I'm Lindsay and said, oh hello.
He said, well what are you doing? And I said,
you know, I'm doing a twelfth Night at the Royal Court.
(15:52):
It's a modern dress version. And Lindsay looked at him
me and he went, oh, sounds awful. I went, well,
and look, I mean it's not awful. I mean, I'm,
you know, very happy to be working at the Royal
Court of great theaters supposedly, but it is sort of actually,
to be honest, it is awful. It's very pretentious. These people,
(16:13):
I mean, who they they think they are. They've got
their noses up there. Asked, it's you know. And so
we spend the next twenty minutes ragging on all the
people and gossiping about the Royal Court. Then there's an
impasse and he just says to me, of course you
do realize, Malcolm, that I'm a director of the Royal Court.
(16:33):
I went, what, Oh no, I said, well, I suppose
I'm not going to get this part then, am I?
He said, not necessarily. So that was it. I read
the scene very badly, I think. But he called me
back in in two weeks time for a kind of
final audition, and I met this girl who I was,
(16:58):
you know, I said, Oh, I thought we would. I
thought it was about a boy's school. He went, well,
thre's other elements, you know, and you're going to be
playing with this girl. And I looked over and instantly
fell in love with this girl, who I thought was
one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She
actually played the part in the name was Christine Nonan.
(17:21):
And we have this scene now. So I kept looking
at I thinking, oh, my gods, fantastic. This is going
to be fun if I gotta get this. So I
read the thing and it says Mike grab's hold of girl,
kisses her passionately, and it was supposed to be in
the set of a coffee bar, and I pulled her
over a table that was purporting to be the counter,
(17:45):
and you know, kissed her, but our lips teeth banged together.
That was blood and um. Suddenly I find myself sitting
on the floor. I hadn't read the next line, which
was savagely slapped Mick. But apparently she didn't slap me.
(18:05):
She reared up a punch and punched me so hard
that I literally went down, I mean, like boom out
for the count and I sort of sat there for
days because you know, my ears were ringing and I
was started to tear up. I was just like basically
(18:27):
crying like a baby. Overwhelmed. Yeah, I was so humiliated
that I got up and I went at the screw.
I don't know what happened to the script, and it
was electric. I mean it really was. I'll never forget
the moment. You know, you rarely get moments like that.
That was sort of just came out of nothing. And
(18:50):
eventually Lindsey said, okay, thank you, and the writer jumped
up and he goes, we found our mick, you know,
And of course he said, shut up, David, that's not
what we do. You know, we will call his agent
and do it in the correct way. Now sit down
and shut up. But if you get back to Anderson,
I want just want to say that from what I've read,
(19:12):
I mean, you did a one man show where you
play Anderson, and Anderson who embodied him? Well you embody him,
and Lindsey Anderson is a famous director and those films
are famous films. If a no lucky mana so for
then he had a great career. But he's not Stanley.
You didn't decide to embody Stanley on stage. And my
point is is that was Lindsey Anderson more of an
(19:33):
actor's director than Stanley way more. I mean it's obvious
I think from Stanley's movies that really he's not really
an actor's director. But do you know, listen, why should
he be. I mean he had in the main a
fear of actors, and I say a fear because it
was the one element he couldn't control and he was
(19:55):
always obsessed with. Now we're on Stanley. I'll get to
him in a minute. Let me just say that Lindsay
Anderson the reason I did a one my show about him,
because he is he has so much complexities as a
human being and as an artist that he meant so
(20:15):
much to me, you know, because it was my first
movie and it was literally your first movie meeting, not
even small roles before this, this was your first time
on a movie. I want you to talk about that.
What was it like? Well, you know, I've done television,
so I knew what a camera was, so you've done
some TV. I knew what I could do and what
(20:35):
I couldn't do, and I knew that it was an
internal process. Whereas most actors who are trained. Of course
in England it's very external, you know, not now, but
in those days there were no film actors and also
film actors were looked on as scum sellouts. I mean,
you you're doing it just for the rent, are you?
(20:57):
And I know Michael Caine had that all his whole life,
you know, them going but yes, but Michael, why don't
you do something in the theater? You go, well, why
the funk should I? When? When are we going to
see your leer? Michael? Yeah, exactly, that would be interesting.
But anyway, but Lindsay, you know, he was a commudgeon.
(21:20):
He was. My relationship with him was like a marriage
almost in that it was huge rows, big makeup. I mean,
he was just that's just the way it was. He
really taught me so much about just life and being
an actor and what it meant and the responsibility that
(21:41):
you had, you know, to be a leading actor. And
it's not just you know, just doing the part. It's
way more than that. He meant so much to me,
you know that. You know, when he died it was
the saddest, one of the saddest days of my life.
Way more affected me than my father. You know, yeah, yeah,
(22:02):
now know with Anderson, when you do the film and
the film is over, I mean, you do three films
in a row after you do if you did which film?
I did a movie called Figures and the Landscape directed
by Joe Losey, right, and they only have two actors
(22:24):
in it, the other one being Robert Shaw. That's a
whole chapter in itself. Figures in the Landscape and Raging
Moon with another film you did before you wind up
with Stanley. But my point is is that whether it's
if Clockwork eventually caligulate with some of the content, these
are films where you wonder could these films even get
(22:45):
made today? I mean, you know, if it's very violent
in the end, and the kind of swifty and satire
of Clockwork and its attitude towards sex and violence, which
you know, never bothered me. I mean, Clockwork Ards is
a movie to me where I was with a friend
of mine. We were eighteen years old, and it was
in a revival house or showing somewhere in a theater,
(23:08):
uh in the heart of residential Long Island, where I
grew up, and my friend and I we both smoked
a joint like the size of a flashlight, you know
what I mean. And we smoked this joint and we
go in and we sit down, and the and the
crushing episodic rhythms of clockwork, like when you get to
certain points you go, certainly, this has to be the
(23:28):
end of the movie. This is it. It's over. And
then also they go and then then the film is
gonna look at you going not yet. And then he
does this, and then he goes here, and now they're
going to drown him in the trough. Here he meets
the boys again, and it's gonna stick his head in
the trough. But my point is when you saw if,
when you first saw the film, after you were finished,
when it was screened for you, what were your thoughts?
(23:50):
What did you think? I was in shock really because
in those days it took almost a year to edit
the thing. Yeah, you know, this is just before all
those fancy editing systems. So they do it literally on
a movieola, which steam on a steamback before steamback before
stola with a pedal and you. So it took nine
(24:12):
months and I had no idea. They've done a screening
which I wasn't invited to, and it was for sort
of public opinion people that kind of we're going to
talk about it supposedly. So when I saw it, of course,
you know, I saw it from a very different perspective.
I'm and I'd come out of the thing and I go,
(24:34):
why did you leave that shopping where I had my tongue?
And he go, it's charming, don't worry. I went, no,
it's horrible. I can't even watch that damn movie again,
you know. So, and then we went to the Canned
Film Festival, which was mind blowing because I had no
idea about any of it, and of course, um, you
(24:57):
know that it won the ground prize it won. And
was thrilled for Lindsay because he put so much. You know,
he was a critic and this magazine called Sequence, and
it was a brilliantly highly a sort of intellectual film magazine.
Whether the film was considered art, yeah, yeah, he wrote
(25:17):
this wonderful essay about why film should be considered an
art and not only an entertainment. And the thing was,
Lindsay was a great theater director. I mean he only
made what five movies or something, but yes, but he
was always directing one of David's stories plays. I mean
(25:38):
they were literally the great plays of that the seventies
and eighties, But he did I think at least ten
or twelve of David's stories plays, including The Changing Room
and all these great in celebration, which Alan Bates did
in London and I did it in New York at
the Manhattan Theater Club in the wake of all your
(26:02):
success with IF and you win the prize it can
Did Lindsey try to get you to come back to
the theater with him? Did he try to cajole? You know?
He wouldn't bother. He'd say to me things like you're
a very Bracketian actor, aren't you. And I go, well,
if you say so, what exactly are you referring to?
(26:26):
And he'd say, because I noticed that sometimes you're telling
the audience, you're showing them that you're acting this, but
you're saying but you're gonna believe me anyway. I went,
that's very interesting. So um, he'd say things like that
to me, you know, which I hadn't got a clue
really what. I went to see Olivier do uh one
(26:48):
of the O'Neill plays that went on for seven hours.
But Olivier I went to see, I mean, we were
shooting a lucky Man, and I noticed the way Olivia
got a round of applause just by crossing his legs
on a sofa. He did it in such a way
he got a standing ovation, and I'm thinking himself, God,
that's so brave, you know, to do that. So we're
(27:11):
shooting a scene, no lucky man, and I did something
completely off the wall, and Linda goes, cut, what on
earth are you doing? And I went, he goes, I
don't even tell me. I know what this is. This
is because you've seen Lawrence Olivia, right, And I well,
I thought it would be more interesting, you know, to
(27:33):
try and just live on up this. He goes, Malcolm,
just do what you're supposed to do. Let's have none
of that nonsense. I mean, okay, okay, that's funny. I
did a performance of a play I did Eques out
here on Long Island at the Bass Street Theater, and
Shaffild was alive and attended all of the rehearsals. And
I sat down with him and I said, do you
(27:55):
think I should go to Lincoln Center Library and watch
the original performance which was taped. Chaff It says to me, Oh,
I don't know, Alec you should Barbara going to see
the recording, he said. None of them wanted to be recorded.
He said, with button Maxwell refused to come to work,
and the videotaped in the nude for the nude scene,
(28:16):
so they brought on her understudy, and Tony and Peter
didn't want to be recorded. So Tony did the entire performance,
doing an impersonation of Larry Olivier, and he said, and
Peter changed the dialect and made him a boy from
the North Country and completely changed everything. And he said,
(28:37):
the performance that's recorded for posterity and Lincoln cetera, he said,
it isn't at all the one from the production. Then
he took a long pause and looked at me and said,
naughty boys, very naughty boys. And sure enough I go
see it and there's Tony saying all his lines like
this and this and this this, and doing Olivier. Of course,
(29:00):
anyway I would find myself in my acting, I thought,
My God, who was in my head? Like I'm trying
to channel, Like I think I'm getting tricked into doing
a voice here, my oh, my gable and my brand.
Oh what there is something beating on the door in
my head that I gotta get rid of and just
try to make it, make it my own. But when
(29:21):
you arrive, I want to get to Kubrick when you
arrive on the set to shoot that from how you
read Burgess's book. Stanley called me up and I was
shooting out in Bournwood with Brown Forbes. So I was
going out close to his house. He lived out there.
He said, would I come me to him a lunchtime?
I'm sure? So I went to see him with He was,
(29:46):
you know, very pleasant, very nice, and all the rest
of it, but just chit chat, you know. And at
the end, I said, look, Stanley, I've got to get back,
I've got to get into makeup. But it was there
anything you particularly to talk to me about? Thrilled Scott
to meet you, and he said, yeah, there's a book
(30:06):
I'm thinking And they said, oh, WA's the book? And
I could see he didn't want to tell me. I mean,
you know, I'm I'm the one who's going to be
starring in this movie. And he didn't even want to
tell me what the book was called. That was just
his nature, you know, that was just the way he was.
And he said, read the book? Have you heard of it?
(30:28):
I went no. He went, really, it's a cult book.
I went, no, sorry, he said, read it and call me.
So I started reading this book and I found it
a real struggle to get through the first time, and
I thought, oh my god, they can't make a film
of this. I mean, how they're gonna do. And then
I read it again and the words, the language became
(30:50):
a little more glossary. Yeah, going the first time you
read it, you got to go back to the glossary yeah,
all the time. But I felt that I knew it
pretty well, and I said to myself, Holy god, this
could be an amazing movie. I mean, forget the Cubrick element,
just on the book. And then I read it a
(31:11):
third time before I called it, and this time I
knew that this was one hell of a part. So
I called him. I said, I read that book. Now
there's a week had gone past. He thought I was
going to call him the next day, and he goes, well,
(31:31):
I said, look, I was very thorough. I read it
three times. I wanted to make sure that when I
spoke to you, I could do so with a certain
amount of command of the material. Now, in the meantime,
I had met in home. I said I and God,
how nice. I hadn't seen him for years. He said,
what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this thing. But
(31:52):
Stanley Kubrick, you know, and I saw him kind of.
I said, what he goes? Watch that bastard. I went, really,
what what he goes? That son of a bit offered
me Napoleon, he said. I was out to his house
for eighteen months. I was the best friends of the family,
the whole deal. And then suddenly I couldn't get him
on the phone. I went, oh my god, you're kidding.
(32:15):
So when I had this call with Gubrick, I had
this information because it happened just a couple of days before.
So I said to Stanley, are you offering me the part?
And there was a silence and he said, yeah, wait
what Yeah? Because I didn't really I was a young kid.
(32:39):
I didn't know that. You don't ask great directors stuff
like that. Let's have no ian the home here, shall me? Yeah? Yeah,
that's the incredible Malcolm McDowell. If you like here's the thing,
don't keep it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can
subscribe to hear the thing on the I Heart radio app,
(33:01):
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
come back, Malcolm tells us how Alex Delarge came by
his iconic look that is cod peace over trousers and
such long long eyelashes, and talks about some more recent projects,
playing a serial killer in the film Yva Lenko, a
talent agent in HBO's Entourage, and a retired orchestra conductor
(33:25):
in Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon. That's all after
the break. This is here's the thing. I'm Alec Baldwin,
and today my guest is the legendary actor Malcolm McDowell.
There are performances, whether it's Humphrey Bogard and Treasure of
(33:49):
Sierra Madre Brando in Waterfront, Meryl Streep in a variety
of films you know, great actors and things. There are
films in which you realize. I often say, and I've
learned this as I've developed projects for me to be in.
We'll reach the point where I feel the spirit of
(34:10):
the character, or the potential spirit of the character, or
the of the piece, my fondness for the piece leave
my body and I'll say to them, let's move on
and cast someone else. We've been talking about this fucking
thing for two years now, and I realized there's very rarely,
almost never one actor who can play a part, and
(34:31):
of course you are the one actor who could play
that part one of the greatest, most iconic performances. When
you first saw that movie, when he screened that movie
for you, how did you feel? In total shock? You know.
It wasn't until later that I realized that really it
(34:52):
wasn't just the performance. It was a collaboration with all
of it, all of it, I mean obviously, and you know,
people go, do you like him? And I go, have
you seen the performance? Have you seen the film? I
loved him? Are you kidding me? It's one of the
great love affairs between an actor and director. I mean,
(35:13):
of course I'd take the piss out of him. The
thing was, he never understood like I did, because I
had had Lindsey Anderson. He never really bothered about performance,
about how a scene would progress, you know, like a
graph on a patient's bed, you know, and you know,
(35:33):
so that you come on here and you lay back
here like music, like like music exactly. He'd say, I
need more from you here, Malc. I mean, that's that's boring.
I went, good. Boring is good here give him my
time to get that breath. Yes. Now, the response to
the film, I mean, the film is I was joking
(35:56):
say now that that clockwork orange is actually tearing Tino's
first film. You know, we've gone so much further. But
back then people were really really overwhelmed by this film.
Oh my god, I mean they did, and there was
so much there was so much controversy. How did you
handle that with a sort of amusement, you know, I mean,
(36:16):
for whatever. You know, the film is very complex, as
you know, and it's about many things, mainly the freedom
of man to choose and to choose whether he becomes
an immoral man or immoral one. But it's choice, and
that's what Burgess is saying basically. Of course, you know,
(36:37):
he's put it in the most incredible settings and all
the rest of it with wonderful language. And but you know,
let me just tell you. So, I'm standing outside getting
in my car after having dinner with Stanley. This is
before we should and we're just chit chatting and he said,
I'm going, yeah, what are we going to wear? He goes,
(36:58):
I don't know, what have you got? I mean, what
have I got? As it standard this is a futuristic movie,
isn't it. I mean, we're in the future here. What
do you think I've got something in my you know,
in my wardrobe that's sort of gonna be gonna fit that.
I went, the only thing I've got in the car
is my cricket gear. And he goes, well, let me
(37:19):
see it. I mean really, So I get out my
cricket white and he goes, and what's that And went, well,
that's a protector. He goes, wear it on the outside,
that's what it's. Yes, yes, yes. And then I found
a yard of eyelash at the bus store, so I
(37:40):
bought that as fun to show him. It was this long,
you know this, It was great. And when I gave
it to me said, oh, that's great, and he looked
at it, looked at me, and he goes, put it on.
I went, really, I'm the thing I know how to.
So we got, you know, glued. He took pictures and
the next day he called me he said, one eyelashes
(38:01):
great because you see your face and you know there's
something wrong, but you don't know what it is. I went, okay, great,
And that's how that all came into being. That shot
at the milk bar is like an eyelash commercial started
on your face and they pulled back, pulled back on
you and your mates there. Now Clockwork also, it's not
(38:22):
like it's a star studied cast now in terms of
like many Hollywood films, and yet it's filled with unforgettable performances.
There are actors in this film. I want to just
go say that when you watch Clockwork Orange Aubrey Marris.
I can't believe you just said that. Aubrey Marris. I
mean if you knew how much the guy had gotten
(38:44):
into my vascular system for years after, I would turn
to my friends, we would just do Aubrey Morris, regardless
of the context. I look at my friends and say,
as you didn't want to go downtown and ev dinner,
yes town and need something near I is, we would
just do Aubrey Mars. It worked anywhere, anywhere where you
(39:06):
wanted to have like like a tinge of confrontation with someone.
Philip Stone I cost him because he was doing Lindsay
Anderson play and I love Philip and I told Cubrick
he's got to play my dad. So he had a
man and went, oh yeah, and then he he did
also that he was in The Shining too. Now, who's
the guy that that played the border that live with
(39:28):
your parents with that great scene when you come home?
Brilliant prive Francis. Joe, Yes, what you love is Philip
Stone is such a great actor. Just the pain. Oh
he turns to you and says, well, that's Joe. Yeah,
that's Joe, and then mom stocks that's all right, I
(39:52):
love It's all right. Now let me ask you this
before we get to other later things. Who the fuck
direct did caligulate? Was there a director? Oh? Yes, there
was a director, and he was an extraordinary man, actually
very radical. The problem is, of course that the man
paying for it was Guccioni, who thought that he had,
(40:17):
you know, great taste and all the rest of it.
That's debatable, I mean, but in the end of the day,
of course he did put up the money, but he
put it up because of Gore sold it to him.
The fact is, when I read Gorvidal script, I thought
it was really rather amateurish, right, And you're referring to
Tinto Brose, Yeah, tinto Browse. Yeah. Now, in more recent years,
(40:41):
what is something you've done that really excited you, that
you were really really. Oh, I played this some amazing
serial killer in Russia and Soviet Union. It's called Eva
Lenko Evil with Enko on the end iv Lenko. That
was an amazing thing because I didn't really want to
do it, but it was a friend of mine and
(41:01):
I had urged him to write the script, then urged
him to direct it, and through some extraordinary piece of luck,
he actually got the money. And I went when they
called me, he goes, mob, we're shooting. I have the money.
I went, what, No, really, well, I think I'm busy then,
(41:23):
oh my god. So anyway, it was amazing really to
be faced with this person who I despised and was
a not only a pedophile, serial killer cannibal. I mean you,
I mean, just add anything on this one. So how
to play through that minefield was so exciting. It was
(41:46):
interesting that I realized I'm gonna have to do a
Larry Olivier on this one and just find an external
thing to take me through. And that's how I did it.
It was really interesting. But anyway, I like the television,
you know that Mocha in the Jungle. I had fun
doing that, had a lot of fun doing Entourage, you know,
(42:08):
and I love taking the piss out of Piven, you
know who would Now I'm gonna finish with this. You know,
I'll never forget. Some people accuse me of hitting the
appreciation button too heavy handedly, but I can't help it.
When I did the movie Hunt for Red October, they
had cast Sean Connery and then he got sick and
(42:28):
he had all kinds of throat problems and they said, uh,
they said, he's not coming and uh when I when
I arrived to work, they said to start rehearsing days.
I didn't even know they had courted him. And they said, well,
so and so, and I'll be kind and I won't
mention who's so and so. Another famous European actor is
going to play the part. Yeah, And then they get
a phone call from Sean's agents said, Sean's better, he's
(42:49):
feeling better and he's ready to come back to work.
So Paramount, which I think has a certain gift in
this department, they call up the other actor and they said, now,
what were the dates you said, we're a hard no
that you're gonna be directing this other project of yours.
You said there were dates that you couldn't shoot with
us because you must be on this set somewhere in Europe,
(43:10):
and you must be doing this thing. And he gives
the dates and they were too bad because we had
to move the schedule to exactly those days. Those are
exactly the dates that we're going to be shooting now.
We're so sorry, and thank you and best of luck
to you, goodbye, And they got rid of him, and
they turned to me and they said, Sean is back.
And I was so excited because I love Sean. But
as John mcteeren and the director explained this toll to me,
(43:33):
I said to myself like, go, you know, I was
just a ghast and how Hollywood really worked on that
level and these were top tier people. And my friend
turned to me and he goes, he goes, God didn't
want that guy to play the lead role in the movie.
God wanted Sean to play the lead role in that movie.
It's what God wanted. Yeah, And I look at you,
(43:53):
and I look at you and I go, God wanted
you to play Alex de Large. He didn't want any
but else to play that part. You had to play
that part. And when you look back at that, did
you ever imagine that it would be that indelible with
other actors. No, but I knew that I was doing
something which I which probably was new territory certainly for me,
(44:19):
but you know, to be out there, I had decided
to play it with a style my influences, if you
can call him that, besides of course always Jimmy Cagney always,
but Olivier doing Richard three. And also the language which
is of course Shakespearean. So that was all easy. It
(44:41):
was difficult to find, you know, the style exactly. But
there again it was Lindsay Anderson who gave me the
key because when I said Lindsey, I suddenly panicked. You know,
I've got a week ago. I've been with cubric for
eight months and he hasn't once to about the character.
And I said, well, what do you think? And he goes,
(45:03):
that's why I cast you, Okay, that's why I don't
talk about that. I went, oh, excuse me, I thought
you were the fucking director. Stanley is brilliant thinking on
his feet, and if he sees that the movies not
going down the path that he thought it was, he
would swing and go another way. You know. Listen, um.
(45:25):
When I came up with Singing in the Rain, he
changed the whole thing about that being the key, you know,
singing in the rain is the key to how they
discover him and all the rest of it. But you know,
I knew working on it that something magical was sort
of happening, but I didn't really want to dissect it
(45:47):
because I go away. You know, it was an instinct.
You know what it's like when you're in the zone. Yeah,
you're in the zone, and so it doesn't matter what
they do. There were certain ad libs, but I didn't
had lived very much. But you know, for instance, at
the end, when the minister is cutting up my steak,
(46:08):
now he has this long speech which basically wraps up
the movie, and I could see out of my periphery
vision Stanley was bored, and I knew he would start cutting,
you know, so to hurry the actor up, I just
sort of went, yeah, yeah, exactly, I know what you did.
(46:29):
We all know what you did, okay. But the reason
was I wanted to hurry his ass up, you know,
because otherwise he was gonna lose his faith. It's a metronome.
And I saw Stanley stick a handkerchief in his mouth
and turn away, and I saw him heaving shoulders, and
he was so and tears were streaming down. It was laughing.
(46:52):
So you knew what Stanley wanted the other actors to
do as well, and tried your best to provoke that.
Let me just ask one question, which is as much
as the part is this seminal role. It's one of
the greatest acting roles in film history ever, ever, ever,
You are so indelible. I have all of Kubrick's library
(47:13):
downloaded on my computer and sometimes I can't watch it
because it's such a rich meal, you know what I mean,
Because you gotta what, you gotta eat, the whole thing, whole,
you know, I mean, yeah, I know. But but have
you as much as you've loved it and benefited from it,
did you ever hate it as well? Oh? I did.
For the first ten years. I was so sick of it,
and you know, they wanted me to just play the
same part over and over, and I kept walking away
(47:35):
from those But then I suddenly realized, what the hell
am I doing? It's made my life transform my life?
Are you kidding? I should get down on my knees
and say thank you all the time, which I do now.
And you know, I sort of remember I can go
back to the actual set and the actual feeling of
(47:55):
you know, talking to Stanley and I was basically all
the time. It was my job just to tease it.
And a lot of it is you know a lot
of my relationship with him is me just pulling his
leg alot. You know, Well, everybody wants to make a
great film, and you want the work that you do
(48:16):
to contribute to what makes it great, and those chances
and if you make more than one great when if
you'r Hanks or someone like that who's made who is
acting has driven Spencer Tracy, all the greats, Bogart Brandon,
people who they're the Nicholson of course, where the power
of their acting has made the film's great films. The
thing is that what you benefit from you you almost
(48:36):
it's almost impossible to get there if you don't have
the script and the director, and you were the great
fortune of having the script, and you're the great fortune
of having the director, but they had the great fortune
of having you. It really is one of the twenty
five greatest film acting performances in history. I mean you
(48:57):
just when you watch it, you go, oh my god,
look at this fucking guy. It's like you think you're
gonna fly through the roof and to stink off like
a rocket through the fucking roof of the set. You know,
I mean, that's how alive you are. You're the most
alive performance I've ever seen in my life ever. Thank you,
My love to you, and thanks for doing this with me, Alec,
you know how much I love you, my friend, you too.
(49:18):
All the bust, the unforgettable Malcolm McDowell. He's still hard
at work and celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his career
making role in A Clockwork Orange. If you haven't seen
it lately, or you haven't seen it at all, I
recommend you don't delay. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing.
(49:40):
Is brought to you by my Heart Radio. We're produced
by Kathleen Russo, Sarah Evry and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
is Zach McNeice with help from Justin Wright, and our
engineer is Frank Imperial. Four
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today has graced
some of the world's most famous stages. Of veteran of
the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and the
illustrious Royal Shakespeare Company. He played Sebastian in Twelfth Night
(00:22):
at the Royal Court, Andrew in Manhattan Theater Club's production
of In Celebration, Johnny in Holiday at the Old Vic,
and Jimmy in Look Back in Anger at the Roundabout.
That's but a small sample of his many credits. It's
no understatement to say that his talent and his range
are remarkable, Yet most audiences around the world know him
(00:45):
best for a single iconic character. It was the next day, Province,
and I had truly done my best morning and afternoon
to play it their way and sit back a hotta
show cooperative Malchick in the chair of torture while they
flashed nasty bits of ultra violence on the screen, though
(01:06):
not on the soundtrack my brothers, the only sound being music.
Then I noticed, in all my plain and sickness, what
music it was that like cracked and boomed. It was
Ludwig fan ninth Symphony, fourth Movement. That is the incomparable
(01:31):
Malcolm McDowell playing Alex de Large, the anti heroic criminal
turned victim in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. That groundbreaking
film premiered some fifty years ago, and McDowell's performance in
it is as riveting today as it was then. Though
Clockwork made McDowell famous, it was in fact the director
(01:53):
Lindsey Anderson, McDowell's lifelong friend and surrogate father, who got
him started in movies when he cast young Malcolm as
the lead in the award winning film If. Yet, for
all his success, Malcolm McDowell did not grow up with
acting in mind. It's so nice to see you. God,
are you too? Before we get to you know, the
(02:14):
obvious things when you grew up, because when you first
started making films, and I want to talk to about
your career before you meet Lindsay Anderson, before you make
films and so forth. What kind of a kid were
you in terms of were you like a rough and tumble,
rough house kid on a soccer field or a rugby field? Yes,
so you were a tough guy. My father who ran
(02:37):
a hotel and pubs and you know, establishments way you
could get drunk very easily. He sent me to a
we call in England a public school, you would call
a private school. You have to pay in other words,
and it's a boarding school. So because I was disruptive,
(02:59):
I was a subversive child, and so he just thought
for my own salvation, and actually I don't thank god
he did. He sent me to a school where the
headmaster was in love with the theater. So the acting
thing started when I was eleven at school with this
(03:19):
wonderful man, Mr L. F. Baker Lance fag f A G. G.
Baker No, yeah, and he I don't know. It's an
old English family name. And his brother was the Air
Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir John Baker,
who I used to go cuss his lawn and get
(03:42):
afternoon tea where I first tasted Lapsang Susan. I'm going,
what's this perfume in the team? No more Prince of
Wales for me, No more Earl Gray for me? PG tips, Yes,
PG tips for me. When you say, at least in
your father's eyes, it sounds that you were a subversive child,
(04:05):
how did that benifest itself. Well the head you know this.
Mr Baker said to my father that after I've been
there a year, he said, yes, well Malcolm is very naughty,
but he's not malicious. That were you close to your dad? No,
my father was an alcoholic. I mean I loved him
in many ways, but the alcoholism just towards the end
(04:29):
of his life. I just figure, hey, come on, dad,
let's go down the pub by your drink, you know.
You know, he just couldn't get off it. Did he
live to see your success? Yes, yes he did. He
was actually a driving instructor of the time. And I
still have these people in Philadelphia, right. I was, you know,
(04:49):
taught by your dad, you know, And of course he'd
always say pull over here, just gonna pop into this pub.
I've got to call my son in America, and of
course just go in an order quick, you know, gin
and tonic or something. Now, when you leave Mr Baker,
when you leave his school, where do you go for
your training? I went back to Liverpool and I had
(05:12):
this girlfriend who was taking elocution lessons because she was
a receptionist. She took me to this lovely lady called
Mrs Harold actually, and I went to meet with her.
She was eighty two blind as about very sweet, charming, chrismatic.
(05:33):
I mean, I just listened to her, pay my ten
shillings an hour and just basically listened to her talk
about her time as being in a silent screen star.
You know. She said, look, you've got a good voice.
You could probably be an actor. Why didn't you take
this lander exams? You know, and you can then teach acting.
(05:56):
I mean, good God, I don't know anything about it
because I knew a bit from school because I played
all the great parts in Shakespeare before I left school.
So I did these I won a gold medal. Then
I went down to London and did an audition at LAMBDA,
and they gave me an associateship of LAMBDA. So one
(06:16):
of the judges there offered me a job in repertory theater,
which I leapt at and did you sing? No? Not then,
because there are people who don't know LAMBDA is the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. No singing for you?
No singing? No. At the time I think I was there,
I didn't go there. I just went into the theater
(06:38):
and did my pieces, the audition pieces, and I was
offered a job to go to Shanklin in the Isle
of Wight in a repertory theater for the summer season,
and you do one play every week and new play.
So you've had four plays in your head. They were
all Agatha Christie, you know, really horrendous things. You were
(07:01):
at LAMBDA for two years. The associates program was too
No no, no, I didn't go to Lambda. I was
just I just won their associate chip, got it. And
between that time between the time when you are engaging,
you know, Ibsen and the Aisle of White, four shows
in your head at the same time, and you're gonna
meet Lindsay Anderson when you're years old and was down
(07:23):
the line for years down the line. Not only what
were you doing in those intervening years you were you
were at the RSC correct for a little while. Yes, well,
I soon got fed up with this weekly rep so
I figured I wanted to get to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
So I went to this old actor who taught auditions,
(07:45):
because I figured, you know, I never get past the
damned audition. I so I know I can play the part,
but I can't convince them. So I went to somebody
that knew how to actually do auditions, and he found
only a piece of Shakespeare that was so out of
the run of the mill stuff. It was the prologue
(08:08):
to Henry the Eighth. I don't even know whether the
Shakespeare ready wrote this play or not, but anyway, I'll
never forget. The first line was I come no more
to make you laugh. I don't remember anything else about
it except that, of course they hadn't heard the peace,
and so you know, most people were doing to be
(08:30):
or not to be or you know, once more until
the breach, so they hadn't heard. This kept them awake.
They actually offered me a season, so I went there
and I pretty much really hated it. Well, I found
the stuff that they were doing to be. You know,
even in my young youth, as a young actor, I
(08:53):
could distinguish pretentious behavior. Who was running the show there,
Pieter Hall, you know, an extraordinary director really through the years,
but he was a very young man. I mean it's basically,
you know, sex booze gambling the whole season. So we
(09:13):
would literally go to the Dirty Duck pub and start gambling.
This actor from Ireland, Godfrey Quigley, he actually played the
priest in Clockwork Orange. He was a wonderful guy, the
prison priest. Yeah, he's a wonderful actor, wonderful. He was
playing you know, good parts to that. I was playing lousy.
(09:34):
But the priests, so people who realize for people who
like me are clockwork freaks. And we'll do our clockwork
thing in a little bit. But the moment when Alex
is envisioning himself pitching right in to the Crucifixion, I
bideing myself pitching right in or whatever the words are.
That's the priest who comes and interrupts your dream state.
That's right by sardon, he says, the big, big, big,
(09:58):
wonderful irish. You know my boys, he says, my boy. Yeah.
He invented this gambling game which you turn these handles.
You have these little toy horses. It was such a
stupid game, but we ended up literally I think I
was two and a half months behind on my I
owed him everything from my checks, not that I was
(10:21):
getting very much, but in those days and I'd see
him backstage and they'd go, malcome where you owe me?
I mean, I know, no, no, I'm I'm getting that together.
Don't worry, don't worry. Go for it. It's coming. You
weren't sure if you wanted to go on another day
in that condition. But let me just say that other
people I've spoken to older than you, different generation. But
(10:45):
you know, when I talked to Tony Hopkins and he
talked about being at the National and always dutifully performing
in the British theater and working at the feet of
Olivier so to speak, not just dreaming, but knowing he
was going to get the funk out of there. He
said he couldn't get away from England fast enough. Yeah,
(11:06):
and leave behind you know that great tradition. That did
you feel the same way? I knew that I did
not want to be exclusively a stage actor. In fact,
when I gave my resignation to Peter Hall and he
looked at me and he goes, you don't want to
come back? I went no, no, He goes, well, what
(11:26):
are you going to do? I said, well, I'm I'm
going into film. He looked at me and went good luck. Yes,
real condescending. It was fun when I saw him a
couple of years later in the RSC. Were there people
you were around who that you idolized? Were the actors
you've got to be even just be around them who
(11:48):
you loved. Yeah, the number one were beside David Warner,
who was a friend, but someone that I really idolized,
who wasn't necessarily a friend, was in and In Home
gave I think one of the greatest performances I've still
ever seen. And I was actually in the play with him.
(12:10):
It was Henry the Fifth and you know, Ian was
only five ft two or something. It was tiny. The
power of this actor was extraordinary. And you know, he
used to invite me out to go play tennis. A
couple of us actually go play tennis because he'd rented
this place that had a grass tennis court, and every
(12:33):
Sunday we'd go and you know, kind of have doubles
matches and then have cream tea. I just loved this
man so much. And when I wasn't on stage, where
I would go and I had a place in the
wings to go watch him, and I think I watched him,
you know, for nine months most nights. Yeah, yeah, right
(12:55):
when I did a play the great great Black comic
act I mean, just the ceaselessly intoxicating Joe Maher, who
owned all the roles in Orton that he played Joe
was Irish but raised in England and and and trained
in England. And my first Broadway show was in six
I did Loots. Oh my god, I love that play.
(13:18):
And you know he got put in prison for defacing
bibles in the library. Yeah, and book drawing cox all
over him in the garden as well, and he was
coot actor Malcolm McDowell. Another actor who has moved effortlessly
from stage to film and back is Kevin Klein. I
(13:41):
interviewed clin live at the two River Theater in Red Bank,
New Jersey, where we talked about his great film career. Actually,
Meryl was a tremendous help. I remember once I was
making a huge meal out of just had to give Stingo,
the character's name. I had to give him some money
because he had been robbed, and I was doing, you know,
(14:01):
you're a writer, you need this money in Milliba and
I was just emoting, and she said, just give money.
To listen to my full episode with Kevin Klein, go
to our archives at Here's the Thing dot Org. After
the break, we get a glimpse into his unique relationship
(14:22):
with the great director Lindsey Anderson. McDowell says they were
like a married couple with all of the ups and downs,
and tells us what he learned from Anderson about acting
life and the importance of not imitating Lawrence Olivier. I'm
(14:47):
Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. We're speaking
today with actor Malcolm McDowell. Now, where does Lindsay Anderson
find you? Where does he find you? Well, you know,
it's my agent Gold say, oh, I gotta go. I
was actually rehearsing at the Royal Court doing um twelfth
Night of Modern Dress version at the Royal Court, you know,
(15:09):
very trendy and all that. So in the middle of
the rehearsal, my agent said, go quickly, get to the theater.
Whether it's a director, you know, I want you to
meet because he's doing this film and what kind of film.
I don't know. We don't know what kind of film. Anyway,
So I go there and I was late. They were
just about packing up to go to lunch, and I went,
(15:30):
I'm sorry, I came on, you know, to the stage.
He said, sorry, I'm being stuck rehearsing. They wouldn't let
me go, and so he jumped up on the stage
and we're talking, you know, I'm Lindsay and said, oh hello.
He said, well what are you doing? And I said,
you know, I'm doing a twelfth Night at the Royal Court.
(15:52):
It's a modern dress version. And Lindsay looked at him
me and he went, oh, sounds awful. I went, well,
and look, I mean it's not awful. I mean, I'm,
you know, very happy to be working at the Royal
Court of great theaters supposedly, but it is sort of actually,
to be honest, it is awful. It's very pretentious. These people,
(16:13):
I mean, who they they think they are. They've got
their noses up there. Asked, it's you know. And so
we spend the next twenty minutes ragging on all the
people and gossiping about the Royal Court. Then there's an
impasse and he just says to me, of course you
do realize, Malcolm, that I'm a director of the Royal Court.
(16:33):
I went, what, Oh no, I said, well, I suppose
I'm not going to get this part then, am I?
He said, not necessarily. So that was it. I read
the scene very badly, I think. But he called me
back in in two weeks time for a kind of
final audition, and I met this girl who I was,
(16:58):
you know, I said, Oh, I thought we would. I
thought it was about a boy's school. He went, well,
thre's other elements, you know, and you're going to be
playing with this girl. And I looked over and instantly
fell in love with this girl, who I thought was
one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. She
actually played the part in the name was Christine Nonan.
(17:21):
And we have this scene now. So I kept looking
at I thinking, oh, my gods, fantastic. This is going
to be fun if I gotta get this. So I
read the thing and it says Mike grab's hold of girl,
kisses her passionately, and it was supposed to be in
the set of a coffee bar, and I pulled her
over a table that was purporting to be the counter,
(17:45):
and you know, kissed her, but our lips teeth banged together.
That was blood and um. Suddenly I find myself sitting
on the floor. I hadn't read the next line, which
was savagely slapped Mick. But apparently she didn't slap me.
(18:05):
She reared up a punch and punched me so hard
that I literally went down, I mean, like boom out
for the count and I sort of sat there for
days because you know, my ears were ringing and I
was started to tear up. I was just like basically
(18:27):
crying like a baby. Overwhelmed. Yeah, I was so humiliated
that I got up and I went at the screw.
I don't know what happened to the script, and it
was electric. I mean it really was. I'll never forget
the moment. You know, you rarely get moments like that.
That was sort of just came out of nothing. And
(18:50):
eventually Lindsey said, okay, thank you, and the writer jumped
up and he goes, we found our mick, you know,
And of course he said, shut up, David, that's not
what we do. You know, we will call his agent
and do it in the correct way. Now sit down
and shut up. But if you get back to Anderson,
I want just want to say that from what I've read,
(19:12):
I mean, you did a one man show where you
play Anderson, and Anderson who embodied him? Well you embody him,
and Lindsey Anderson is a famous director and those films
are famous films. If a no lucky mana so for
then he had a great career. But he's not Stanley.
You didn't decide to embody Stanley on stage. And my
point is is that was Lindsey Anderson more of an
(19:33):
actor's director than Stanley way more. I mean it's obvious
I think from Stanley's movies that really he's not really
an actor's director. But do you know, listen, why should
he be. I mean he had in the main a
fear of actors, and I say a fear because it
was the one element he couldn't control and he was
(19:55):
always obsessed with. Now we're on Stanley. I'll get to
him in a minute. Let me just say that Lindsay
Anderson the reason I did a one my show about him,
because he is he has so much complexities as a
human being and as an artist that he meant so
(20:15):
much to me, you know, because it was my first
movie and it was literally your first movie meeting, not
even small roles before this, this was your first time
on a movie. I want you to talk about that.
What was it like? Well, you know, I've done television,
so I knew what a camera was, so you've done
some TV. I knew what I could do and what
(20:35):
I couldn't do, and I knew that it was an
internal process. Whereas most actors who are trained. Of course
in England it's very external, you know, not now, but
in those days there were no film actors and also
film actors were looked on as scum sellouts. I mean,
you you're doing it just for the rent, are you?
(20:57):
And I know Michael Caine had that all his whole life,
you know, them going but yes, but Michael, why don't
you do something in the theater? You go, well, why
the funk should I? When? When are we going to
see your leer? Michael? Yeah, exactly, that would be interesting.
But anyway, but Lindsay, you know, he was a commudgeon.
(21:20):
He was. My relationship with him was like a marriage
almost in that it was huge rows, big makeup. I mean,
he was just that's just the way it was. He
really taught me so much about just life and being
an actor and what it meant and the responsibility that
(21:41):
you had, you know, to be a leading actor. And
it's not just you know, just doing the part. It's
way more than that. He meant so much to me,
you know that. You know, when he died it was
the saddest, one of the saddest days of my life.
Way more affected me than my father. You know, yeah, yeah,
(22:02):
now know with Anderson, when you do the film and
the film is over, I mean, you do three films
in a row after you do if you did which film?
I did a movie called Figures and the Landscape directed
by Joe Losey, right, and they only have two actors
(22:24):
in it, the other one being Robert Shaw. That's a
whole chapter in itself. Figures in the Landscape and Raging
Moon with another film you did before you wind up
with Stanley. But my point is is that whether it's
if Clockwork eventually caligulate with some of the content, these
are films where you wonder could these films even get
(22:45):
made today? I mean, you know, if it's very violent
in the end, and the kind of swifty and satire
of Clockwork and its attitude towards sex and violence, which
you know, never bothered me. I mean, Clockwork Ards is
a movie to me where I was with a friend
of mine. We were eighteen years old, and it was
in a revival house or showing somewhere in a theater,
(23:08):
uh in the heart of residential Long Island, where I
grew up, and my friend and I we both smoked
a joint like the size of a flashlight, you know
what I mean. And we smoked this joint and we
go in and we sit down, and the and the
crushing episodic rhythms of clockwork, like when you get to
certain points you go, certainly, this has to be the
(23:28):
end of the movie. This is it. It's over. And
then also they go and then then the film is
gonna look at you going not yet. And then he
does this, and then he goes here, and now they're
going to drown him in the trough. Here he meets
the boys again, and it's gonna stick his head in
the trough. But my point is when you saw if,
when you first saw the film, after you were finished,
when it was screened for you, what were your thoughts?
(23:50):
What did you think? I was in shock really because
in those days it took almost a year to edit
the thing. Yeah, you know, this is just before all
those fancy editing systems. So they do it literally on
a movieola, which steam on a steamback before steamback before
stola with a pedal and you. So it took nine
(24:12):
months and I had no idea. They've done a screening
which I wasn't invited to, and it was for sort
of public opinion people that kind of we're going to
talk about it supposedly. So when I saw it, of course,
you know, I saw it from a very different perspective.
I'm and I'd come out of the thing and I go,
(24:34):
why did you leave that shopping where I had my tongue?
And he go, it's charming, don't worry. I went, no,
it's horrible. I can't even watch that damn movie again,
you know. So, and then we went to the Canned
Film Festival, which was mind blowing because I had no
idea about any of it, and of course, um, you
(24:57):
know that it won the ground prize it won. And
was thrilled for Lindsay because he put so much. You know,
he was a critic and this magazine called Sequence, and
it was a brilliantly highly a sort of intellectual film magazine.
Whether the film was considered art, yeah, yeah, he wrote
(25:17):
this wonderful essay about why film should be considered an
art and not only an entertainment. And the thing was,
Lindsay was a great theater director. I mean he only
made what five movies or something, but yes, but he
was always directing one of David's stories plays. I mean
(25:38):
they were literally the great plays of that the seventies
and eighties, But he did I think at least ten
or twelve of David's stories plays, including The Changing Room
and all these great in celebration, which Alan Bates did
in London and I did it in New York at
the Manhattan Theater Club in the wake of all your
(26:02):
success with IF and you win the prize it can
Did Lindsey try to get you to come back to
the theater with him? Did he try to cajole? You know?
He wouldn't bother. He'd say to me things like you're
a very Bracketian actor, aren't you. And I go, well,
if you say so, what exactly are you referring to?
(26:26):
And he'd say, because I noticed that sometimes you're telling
the audience, you're showing them that you're acting this, but
you're saying but you're gonna believe me anyway. I went,
that's very interesting. So um, he'd say things like that
to me, you know, which I hadn't got a clue
really what. I went to see Olivier do uh one
(26:48):
of the O'Neill plays that went on for seven hours.
But Olivier I went to see, I mean, we were
shooting a lucky Man, and I noticed the way Olivia
got a round of applause just by crossing his legs
on a sofa. He did it in such a way
he got a standing ovation, and I'm thinking himself, God,
that's so brave, you know, to do that. So we're
(27:11):
shooting a scene, no lucky man, and I did something
completely off the wall, and Linda goes, cut, what on
earth are you doing? And I went, he goes, I
don't even tell me. I know what this is. This
is because you've seen Lawrence Olivia, right, And I well,
I thought it would be more interesting, you know, to
(27:33):
try and just live on up this. He goes, Malcolm,
just do what you're supposed to do. Let's have none
of that nonsense. I mean, okay, okay, that's funny. I
did a performance of a play I did Eques out
here on Long Island at the Bass Street Theater, and
Shaffild was alive and attended all of the rehearsals. And
I sat down with him and I said, do you
(27:55):
think I should go to Lincoln Center Library and watch
the original performance which was taped. Chaff It says to me, Oh,
I don't know, Alec you should Barbara going to see
the recording, he said. None of them wanted to be recorded.
He said, with button Maxwell refused to come to work,
and the videotaped in the nude for the nude scene,
(28:16):
so they brought on her understudy, and Tony and Peter
didn't want to be recorded. So Tony did the entire performance,
doing an impersonation of Larry Olivier, and he said, and
Peter changed the dialect and made him a boy from
the North Country and completely changed everything. And he said,
(28:37):
the performance that's recorded for posterity and Lincoln cetera, he said,
it isn't at all the one from the production. Then
he took a long pause and looked at me and said,
naughty boys, very naughty boys. And sure enough I go
see it and there's Tony saying all his lines like
this and this and this this, and doing Olivier. Of course,
(29:00):
anyway I would find myself in my acting, I thought,
My God, who was in my head? Like I'm trying
to channel, Like I think I'm getting tricked into doing
a voice here, my oh, my gable and my brand.
Oh what there is something beating on the door in
my head that I gotta get rid of and just
try to make it, make it my own. But when
(29:21):
you arrive, I want to get to Kubrick when you
arrive on the set to shoot that from how you
read Burgess's book. Stanley called me up and I was
shooting out in Bournwood with Brown Forbes. So I was
going out close to his house. He lived out there.
He said, would I come me to him a lunchtime?
I'm sure? So I went to see him with He was,
(29:46):
you know, very pleasant, very nice, and all the rest
of it, but just chit chat, you know. And at
the end, I said, look, Stanley, I've got to get back,
I've got to get into makeup. But it was there
anything you particularly to talk to me about? Thrilled Scott
to meet you, and he said, yeah, there's a book
(30:06):
I'm thinking And they said, oh, WA's the book? And
I could see he didn't want to tell me. I mean,
you know, I'm I'm the one who's going to be
starring in this movie. And he didn't even want to
tell me what the book was called. That was just
his nature, you know, that was just the way he was.
And he said, read the book? Have you heard of it?
(30:28):
I went no. He went, really, it's a cult book.
I went, no, sorry, he said, read it and call me.
So I started reading this book and I found it
a real struggle to get through the first time, and
I thought, oh my god, they can't make a film
of this. I mean, how they're gonna do. And then
I read it again and the words, the language became
(30:50):
a little more glossary. Yeah, going the first time you
read it, you got to go back to the glossary yeah,
all the time. But I felt that I knew it
pretty well, and I said to myself, Holy god, this
could be an amazing movie. I mean, forget the Cubrick element,
just on the book. And then I read it a
(31:11):
third time before I called it, and this time I
knew that this was one hell of a part. So
I called him. I said, I read that book. Now
there's a week had gone past. He thought I was
going to call him the next day, and he goes, well,
(31:31):
I said, look, I was very thorough. I read it
three times. I wanted to make sure that when I
spoke to you, I could do so with a certain
amount of command of the material. Now, in the meantime,
I had met in home. I said I and God,
how nice. I hadn't seen him for years. He said,
what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this thing. But
(31:52):
Stanley Kubrick, you know, and I saw him kind of.
I said, what he goes? Watch that bastard. I went, really,
what what he goes? That son of a bit offered
me Napoleon, he said. I was out to his house
for eighteen months. I was the best friends of the family,
the whole deal. And then suddenly I couldn't get him
on the phone. I went, oh my god, you're kidding.
(32:15):
So when I had this call with Gubrick, I had
this information because it happened just a couple of days before.
So I said to Stanley, are you offering me the part?
And there was a silence and he said, yeah, wait
what Yeah? Because I didn't really I was a young kid.
(32:39):
I didn't know that. You don't ask great directors stuff
like that. Let's have no ian the home here, shall me? Yeah? Yeah,
that's the incredible Malcolm McDowell. If you like here's the thing,
don't keep it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can
subscribe to hear the thing on the I Heart radio app,
(33:01):
Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
come back, Malcolm tells us how Alex Delarge came by
his iconic look that is cod peace over trousers and
such long long eyelashes, and talks about some more recent projects,
playing a serial killer in the film Yva Lenko, a
talent agent in HBO's Entourage, and a retired orchestra conductor
(33:25):
in Mozart in the Jungle on Amazon. That's all after
the break. This is here's the thing. I'm Alec Baldwin,
and today my guest is the legendary actor Malcolm McDowell.
There are performances, whether it's Humphrey Bogard and Treasure of
(33:49):
Sierra Madre Brando in Waterfront, Meryl Streep in a variety
of films you know, great actors and things. There are
films in which you realize. I often say, and I've
learned this as I've developed projects for me to be in.
We'll reach the point where I feel the spirit of
(34:10):
the character, or the potential spirit of the character, or
the of the piece, my fondness for the piece leave
my body and I'll say to them, let's move on
and cast someone else. We've been talking about this fucking
thing for two years now, and I realized there's very rarely,
almost never one actor who can play a part, and
(34:31):
of course you are the one actor who could play
that part one of the greatest, most iconic performances. When
you first saw that movie, when he screened that movie
for you, how did you feel? In total shock? You know.
It wasn't until later that I realized that really it
(34:52):
wasn't just the performance. It was a collaboration with all
of it, all of it, I mean obviously, and you know,
people go, do you like him? And I go, have
you seen the performance? Have you seen the film? I
loved him? Are you kidding me? It's one of the
great love affairs between an actor and director. I mean,
(35:13):
of course I'd take the piss out of him. The
thing was, he never understood like I did, because I
had had Lindsey Anderson. He never really bothered about performance,
about how a scene would progress, you know, like a
graph on a patient's bed, you know, and you know,
(35:33):
so that you come on here and you lay back
here like music, like like music exactly. He'd say, I
need more from you here, Malc. I mean, that's that's boring.
I went, good. Boring is good here give him my
time to get that breath. Yes. Now, the response to
the film, I mean, the film is I was joking
(35:56):
say now that that clockwork orange is actually tearing Tino's
first film. You know, we've gone so much further. But
back then people were really really overwhelmed by this film.
Oh my god, I mean they did, and there was
so much there was so much controversy. How did you
handle that with a sort of amusement, you know, I mean,
(36:16):
for whatever. You know, the film is very complex, as
you know, and it's about many things, mainly the freedom
of man to choose and to choose whether he becomes
an immoral man or immoral one. But it's choice, and
that's what Burgess is saying basically. Of course, you know,
(36:37):
he's put it in the most incredible settings and all
the rest of it with wonderful language. And but you know,
let me just tell you. So, I'm standing outside getting
in my car after having dinner with Stanley. This is
before we should and we're just chit chatting and he said,
I'm going, yeah, what are we going to wear? He goes,
(36:58):
I don't know, what have you got? I mean, what
have I got? As it standard this is a futuristic movie,
isn't it. I mean, we're in the future here. What
do you think I've got something in my you know,
in my wardrobe that's sort of gonna be gonna fit that.
I went, the only thing I've got in the car
is my cricket gear. And he goes, well, let me
(37:19):
see it. I mean really, So I get out my
cricket white and he goes, and what's that And went, well,
that's a protector. He goes, wear it on the outside,
that's what it's. Yes, yes, yes. And then I found
a yard of eyelash at the bus store, so I
(37:40):
bought that as fun to show him. It was this long,
you know this, It was great. And when I gave
it to me said, oh, that's great, and he looked
at it, looked at me, and he goes, put it on.
I went, really, I'm the thing I know how to.
So we got, you know, glued. He took pictures and
the next day he called me he said, one eyelashes
(38:01):
great because you see your face and you know there's
something wrong, but you don't know what it is. I went, okay, great,
And that's how that all came into being. That shot
at the milk bar is like an eyelash commercial started
on your face and they pulled back, pulled back on
you and your mates there. Now Clockwork also, it's not
(38:22):
like it's a star studied cast now in terms of
like many Hollywood films, and yet it's filled with unforgettable performances.
There are actors in this film. I want to just
go say that when you watch Clockwork Orange Aubrey Marris.
I can't believe you just said that. Aubrey Marris. I
mean if you knew how much the guy had gotten
(38:44):
into my vascular system for years after, I would turn
to my friends, we would just do Aubrey Morris, regardless
of the context. I look at my friends and say,
as you didn't want to go downtown and ev dinner,
yes town and need something near I is, we would
just do Aubrey Mars. It worked anywhere, anywhere where you
(39:06):
wanted to have like like a tinge of confrontation with someone.
Philip Stone I cost him because he was doing Lindsay
Anderson play and I love Philip and I told Cubrick
he's got to play my dad. So he had a
man and went, oh yeah, and then he he did
also that he was in The Shining too. Now, who's
the guy that that played the border that live with
(39:28):
your parents with that great scene when you come home?
Brilliant prive Francis. Joe, Yes, what you love is Philip
Stone is such a great actor. Just the pain. Oh
he turns to you and says, well, that's Joe. Yeah,
that's Joe, and then mom stocks that's all right, I
(39:52):
love It's all right. Now let me ask you this
before we get to other later things. Who the fuck
direct did caligulate? Was there a director? Oh? Yes, there
was a director, and he was an extraordinary man, actually
very radical. The problem is, of course that the man
paying for it was Guccioni, who thought that he had,
(40:17):
you know, great taste and all the rest of it.
That's debatable, I mean, but in the end of the day,
of course he did put up the money, but he
put it up because of Gore sold it to him.
The fact is, when I read Gorvidal script, I thought
it was really rather amateurish, right, And you're referring to
Tinto Brose, Yeah, tinto Browse. Yeah. Now, in more recent years,
(40:41):
what is something you've done that really excited you, that
you were really really. Oh, I played this some amazing
serial killer in Russia and Soviet Union. It's called Eva
Lenko Evil with Enko on the end iv Lenko. That
was an amazing thing because I didn't really want to
do it, but it was a friend of mine and
(41:01):
I had urged him to write the script, then urged
him to direct it, and through some extraordinary piece of luck,
he actually got the money. And I went when they
called me, he goes, mob, we're shooting. I have the money.
I went, what, No, really, well, I think I'm busy then,
(41:23):
oh my god. So anyway, it was amazing really to
be faced with this person who I despised and was
a not only a pedophile, serial killer cannibal. I mean you,
I mean, just add anything on this one. So how
to play through that minefield was so exciting. It was
(41:46):
interesting that I realized I'm gonna have to do a
Larry Olivier on this one and just find an external
thing to take me through. And that's how I did it.
It was really interesting. But anyway, I like the television,
you know that Mocha in the Jungle. I had fun
doing that, had a lot of fun doing Entourage, you know,
(42:08):
and I love taking the piss out of Piven, you
know who would Now I'm gonna finish with this. You know,
I'll never forget. Some people accuse me of hitting the
appreciation button too heavy handedly, but I can't help it.
When I did the movie Hunt for Red October, they
had cast Sean Connery and then he got sick and
(42:28):
he had all kinds of throat problems and they said, uh,
they said, he's not coming and uh when I when
I arrived to work, they said to start rehearsing days.
I didn't even know they had courted him. And they said, well,
so and so, and I'll be kind and I won't
mention who's so and so. Another famous European actor is
going to play the part. Yeah, And then they get
a phone call from Sean's agents said, Sean's better, he's
(42:49):
feeling better and he's ready to come back to work.
So Paramount, which I think has a certain gift in
this department, they call up the other actor and they said, now,
what were the dates you said, we're a hard no
that you're gonna be directing this other project of yours.
You said there were dates that you couldn't shoot with
us because you must be on this set somewhere in Europe,
(43:10):
and you must be doing this thing. And he gives
the dates and they were too bad because we had
to move the schedule to exactly those days. Those are
exactly the dates that we're going to be shooting now.
We're so sorry, and thank you and best of luck
to you, goodbye, And they got rid of him, and
they turned to me and they said, Sean is back.
And I was so excited because I love Sean. But
as John mcteeren and the director explained this toll to me,
(43:33):
I said to myself like, go, you know, I was
just a ghast and how Hollywood really worked on that
level and these were top tier people. And my friend
turned to me and he goes, he goes, God didn't
want that guy to play the lead role in the movie.
God wanted Sean to play the lead role in that movie.
It's what God wanted. Yeah, And I look at you,
(43:53):
and I look at you and I go, God wanted
you to play Alex de Large. He didn't want any
but else to play that part. You had to play
that part. And when you look back at that, did
you ever imagine that it would be that indelible with
other actors. No, but I knew that I was doing
something which I which probably was new territory certainly for me,
(44:19):
but you know, to be out there, I had decided
to play it with a style my influences, if you
can call him that, besides of course always Jimmy Cagney always,
but Olivier doing Richard three. And also the language which
is of course Shakespearean. So that was all easy. It
(44:41):
was difficult to find, you know, the style exactly. But
there again it was Lindsay Anderson who gave me the
key because when I said Lindsey, I suddenly panicked. You know,
I've got a week ago. I've been with cubric for
eight months and he hasn't once to about the character.
And I said, well, what do you think? And he goes,
(45:03):
that's why I cast you, Okay, that's why I don't
talk about that. I went, oh, excuse me, I thought
you were the fucking director. Stanley is brilliant thinking on
his feet, and if he sees that the movies not
going down the path that he thought it was, he
would swing and go another way. You know. Listen, um.
(45:25):
When I came up with Singing in the Rain, he
changed the whole thing about that being the key, you know,
singing in the rain is the key to how they
discover him and all the rest of it. But you know,
I knew working on it that something magical was sort
of happening, but I didn't really want to dissect it
(45:47):
because I go away. You know, it was an instinct.
You know what it's like when you're in the zone. Yeah,
you're in the zone, and so it doesn't matter what
they do. There were certain ad libs, but I didn't
had lived very much. But you know, for instance, at
the end, when the minister is cutting up my steak,
(46:08):
now he has this long speech which basically wraps up
the movie, and I could see out of my periphery
vision Stanley was bored, and I knew he would start cutting,
you know, so to hurry the actor up, I just
sort of went, yeah, yeah, exactly, I know what you did.
(46:29):
We all know what you did, okay. But the reason
was I wanted to hurry his ass up, you know,
because otherwise he was gonna lose his faith. It's a metronome.
And I saw Stanley stick a handkerchief in his mouth
and turn away, and I saw him heaving shoulders, and
he was so and tears were streaming down. It was laughing.
(46:52):
So you knew what Stanley wanted the other actors to
do as well, and tried your best to provoke that.
Let me just ask one question, which is as much
as the part is this seminal role. It's one of
the greatest acting roles in film history ever, ever, ever,
You are so indelible. I have all of Kubrick's library
(47:13):
downloaded on my computer and sometimes I can't watch it
because it's such a rich meal, you know what I mean,
Because you gotta what, you gotta eat, the whole thing, whole,
you know, I mean, yeah, I know. But but have
you as much as you've loved it and benefited from it,
did you ever hate it as well? Oh? I did.
For the first ten years. I was so sick of it,
and you know, they wanted me to just play the
same part over and over, and I kept walking away
(47:35):
from those But then I suddenly realized, what the hell
am I doing? It's made my life transform my life?
Are you kidding? I should get down on my knees
and say thank you all the time, which I do now.
And you know, I sort of remember I can go
back to the actual set and the actual feeling of
(47:55):
you know, talking to Stanley and I was basically all
the time. It was my job just to tease it.
And a lot of it is you know a lot
of my relationship with him is me just pulling his
leg alot. You know, Well, everybody wants to make a
great film, and you want the work that you do
(48:16):
to contribute to what makes it great, and those chances
and if you make more than one great when if
you'r Hanks or someone like that who's made who is
acting has driven Spencer Tracy, all the greats, Bogart Brandon,
people who they're the Nicholson of course, where the power
of their acting has made the film's great films. The
thing is that what you benefit from you you almost
(48:36):
it's almost impossible to get there if you don't have
the script and the director, and you were the great
fortune of having the script, and you're the great fortune
of having the director, but they had the great fortune
of having you. It really is one of the twenty
five greatest film acting performances in history. I mean you
(48:57):
just when you watch it, you go, oh my god,
look at this fucking guy. It's like you think you're
gonna fly through the roof and to stink off like
a rocket through the fucking roof of the set. You know,
I mean, that's how alive you are. You're the most
alive performance I've ever seen in my life ever. Thank you,
My love to you, and thanks for doing this with me, Alec,
you know how much I love you, my friend, you too.
(49:18):
All the bust, the unforgettable Malcolm McDowell. He's still hard
at work and celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his career
making role in A Clockwork Orange. If you haven't seen
it lately, or you haven't seen it at all, I
recommend you don't delay. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing.
(49:40):
Is brought to you by my Heart Radio. We're produced
by Kathleen Russo, Sarah Evry and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
is Zach McNeice with help from Justin Wright, and our
engineer is Frank Imperial. Four
Host
Alec Baldwin
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