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Elliott, George Segal and California Split screenwriter Joseph Walsh yakking nostalgically about all sortsa things with Kim Morgan:
EG: [Working on MASH] sometimes Bob would get flustered. We were fighting the clock and he has got to do it a certain way by a certain time otherwise you go into golden hours. And I remember the scene in MASH — and it was actually around that scene that Sylvester Stallone, who I’ve only met a couple of times, said he doesn’t admit that he was ever an extra in any movie but he admits that he was an extra in MASH. And when I told that to Bob he said, “No. I don’t accept that Sylvester Stallone was in my movie. I don’t accept it.”
[Everyone laughs]
EG: So that day we have a really complicated, delicate crane shot and we’re fighting time for lunch. And, you know, it’s all the surgeons are working triple shifts and we’re talking non sequiturs and there was the script and then we go to lunch. We were at the Fox Ranch out in Malibu, and Bob said to me, “Why can’t you be like someone else?” And I had my lunch on a tray. And he pointed to Corey Fischer, you know, and said, “Why can’t you be like him?” Who was a part of The Committee, an improvisational group that Altman hired. And I shook my lunch, I threw it up and I said, “You motherfucker. I’m not gonna stick my neck out for you again. You know and I know where I come from. I know precision, I know repetition. You’ll tell me what you want and that’s what you’ll get.” And he said, “I think I’ve made a mistake.” I said, “I think so.” He said, “I apologize.” I said, “I accept.” And that’s when Paul Lewis the production manager for Getting Straight came out to meet with me for the movie which was my next picture. And Tarantino said it’s a part of his library. He’s got Getting Straight there.
KM: Yes, he loves that movie.
GS: What had Ingmar seen you in that got his attention?
EG: He had studied … but Getting Straight. He said, when he saw Getting Straight.
GS: I’ll be damned.
JW: Oh, so that’s how Ingmar Bergman came about?
EG: Yeah, also I was really hot. So, you know, I mean …
KM: What was it in Getting Straight that he responded to so much?
EG: He said it was a scene in Getting Straight — there was something where my character was in such a rage. There was just a rage in me. It would almost be like me facing the Tea Party right now, you know. There was just a rage and an insult and Ingmar said to me, “You showed great restraint in that scene.”
JW: Taking an American actor, that was a big deal at the time.
EG: Oh God, yeah, everybody in the universe was up for it. [For The Touch] I almost didn’t do it. I said, but how can I say no. You know, let’s see if I can …
KM: You almost said no? To Bergman?
EG: Well, here’s the deal. I was making a living for my family for the first time. And you know, and I didn’t understand anything. We had Begelman and them but they were in it for what they could get out of it. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand myself. I didn’t know anything about meaning. You know, if I could do something for my family but even then you get to the family. You’re more educated formally than the rest of us, George? Dartmouth, right?
GS: Columbia.
EG: Columbia? I met somebody who was at Dartmouth. I have his card. I like to get it clear.
JW: I’ve got a few dollars on Columbia.
GS: Oh right, yeah.
[Everyone laughs]
EG: So that sort of worked out. But it was tough. Oh yeah, making a living. I don’t know how I’m gonna act with the best actors in the world with Bergman. I mean, Bergman didn’t write scripts like we do with indication of direction; it’s like a novella. I thought, oh my God, I can’t expose my ignorance to that, but I can’t say no. So they had him call me in the West Village. [Does Bergman voice] “Hellloooooo. Little Broooootherssssss.”
JW: What did he say?
EG: [Bergman voice] Liiitttttlle Brottttthhhherrrrrr.
JW: Little Brother?
EG: Little brother. He called me that. And so my hair stood up. And I thought, oh, I can trust me with him and him with me. It’s like I talk to a dog or a baby. And so I came. And, whoa, that was really interesting.
http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/california-split-40-years-later-interview-elliott-gould-george-segal-joseph-walsh-three-parts
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 December 2014 17:33 (nine years ago) link
part three!
KM: The improvisation continues through the entire film … with the elephant.
EG: Oh sure …
JW: When Elliott rubs the trunk. That was a continuation of what you guys created. Yeah, I wrote almost all the scenes in the movie including all the interior scenes. But the one scene that happens to be my favorite scene in the move, the seven dwarves, I didn’t write it! I said in Telluride, that one scene was my favorite scene, and I didn’t write it!
EG: Yeah, but it’s so the spirit of your script … I remember when Joey first went out to California and a few of us, didn’t we chip in a few dollars to help you get out?
JW: Yeah, I think you did.
EG: And then I got a letter from Joey saying, “It’s really tough out here. It’s really tough to get work. I’ll tell you how tough it is: it’s so tough out here that Bambi is having to do The Yearling.”
http://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/california-split-40-years-later-part-iii-interview-elliott-gould-george-segal-joseph-walsh-three-parts
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 December 2014 15:59 (nine years ago) link
eleven months pass...
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