The film stars Lauren Ambrose, Frank Langella, Lill Taylor, Karl Bury, Anitha Gandhi, Sean T. Krishnan, Jessica Hecht and Adrian Lester. âStarting Out in the Eveningâ was was directed by Andrew Wagner.
A few weeks ago I was able to participate in a roundtable interview with Frank Langella and we got to speak about not only this film, but all the other great projects heâs involved with â including the new Richard Kelly film âThe Box.â Heâs tells a great story about meeting Rich. Of course we covered what's sure to be a big film next year... "Frost/Nixon."
As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the roundtable interview as an MP3 by clicking here. Finally, if you missed the movie clips I posted you can watch them here.
Question: Itâs so good to see you looking so well and alive and (laughter).
Frank Langella: You mean not falling over from a stroke?
Q: Iâve got to say you brought me to tears watching the movie.
Frank Langella: Oh, good. That was my ambition.
Even before the stroke in the film, Leonard looks like heâs barely holding on in every scene. How did you work up to that presence?
Frank Langella: It wasnât hard really. As a matter of fact it was kind of sort of liberating because Iâm Italian and Iâm rather gregarious and Iâm healthy and Leonard was quiet, imploded, terribly contained, very proper and it was good for me to just sit and be, you know, which is the aim of life anyway and most of us never get to it. Leonard was just a man who sat very quietly and didnât express himself wildly and lived in his head. So those were interesting things for me to do and to work on. They werenât difficultâI mean they werenât painfulâdifficult but not painful.
Can I ask how you came to the project? What attracted you? Was it the script?
Frank Langella: Andrewâfirst the script. Itâs always the script with me. Always the words and they were glorious words. I kept reading it, turning the pages and thinking this canât be true. This cannot be true. Then of course they had no money and no production planned and no actors and they had nothing, but then I got a copy of Andrew Wagnerâs his first movieâhis only movie is called âThe Talent Given Usâ which is a wonderful documentary about his family. We met here at Orsoâs and its famous now amongst the little band of us but he didnât say to me âI would like it if you would consider doing my movieâ, he sat down and said âNow, youâre going to do this movie.â And I said âDonât be so sure, donât be so cocky.â And we got up 3 hours later and I was crazy about him. Then we had many, many, many hours before I committed, many hours of going through it page by page and making sure because I said to him âWe only have 18 days. We better know each other and we better know the character and we better know what weâre aiming for because weâre not going to be able to stop the shoot and go sit in a corner and debate anything. There wonât be any timeâ. So the preparation was actually more work than the actual shoot, but once we got through it we were able to really concentrate on putting Leonard on film.
Your dynamic with
Frank Langella: Sheâs the best.
Itâs precious.
Frank Langella: Sheâs the best thing that ever walked this earth except my own daughter.
Like yourself, sheâs very alive and exuberates in all of her roles.
Frank Langella: She is and sheâs a heavenly actress to be around and to work with. Weâve become very good friends. My own daughter is only 24, and I love herâLiliâjust about as much. Some women exude a kind of compassionate graciousness and Lili has it in spades. I enjoyed her very much.
My question is in 2 parts. Over the years youâve played many different kinds of characters and I wondered if they really affect you in life and if you kind of take a part of them with you?
Frank Langella: You take a part of every one of them with you. Iâve been lucky in playing great roles in the theatre and sometimes when the play closes shards of everybody Iâve ever played lived with me. They donât live with me to any crippling effect and I really canât stand it when I read an actress says âIt took me a year to get over Hamletâ. Well then you did it wrong. You should be over it by the time you hit Orsoâs. But certain charactersâI gain from every character I playâI never loose anything.
What do you take from
Frank Langella: Itâs such a cliché but what I did take from Leonard was a sharper understanding of the time I waste, of the time I donât use creatively or intelligently or emotionally or romantically. The hours and hours we all waste in contemplativeness or fear or passivity, he reminded me of just a step up because Iâm not as old as him but Iâm close and playing him reminded me of how foolish it is to live in the past or for the future but just to live now which is the big catch word these days, you know, the book of now and now in the moment, but properly applied it is absolutely true. There is only this moment and if you do look at it that way and say anything in comparison to now is ridiculous. You canât say that was better, this is going to be better; this is going to be worse. The now is where you should be, so he kind of reminded me of that and I took stock of it.
So now that youâre wrapping on Frost/Nixon, what are you taking away from that experience?
Frank Langella: Well, Iâve gained a great deal from him and Iâll only answer 1 question about this movie because this movie doesnât need any help. A year from now believe me the machine will take over on Universal, âStarting Out the Eveningâ needs all the help it can get. Richard Nixon has taught meâand I just finished with him 2 days agoâheâs also taught me to be as un-judgmental as possible, to look at every person as a person and not look at somebody as a wicked President or an evil President or a drunk or crook. But to realize everybody gets up everyday with a whole host of monsters in their head. Some people are defeated by those monsters; some people are destroyed by them. He was one who was destroyed. So he also taught me to tell my monsters to go away.
Did you and
Frank Langella: I didnât eat that much. When you have a movie as tightly budgeted as this in time, thereâs only so much toast in the toaster, you know, I donât think they had enough budget for more than 1 loaf of bread and when that was gone we had to move on.
The language is fantastic in this movie. Are you able to find that in some of the bigger projects you get to do also?
Frank Langella: Well, certainly Frost/Nixon is brilliantly written and that was a lucky break. The movie Iâm starting on Monday for Rich Kelly called âThe Boxâ is equally brilliant. Iâm having an extraordinary year. Great role and a great cast and Iâm thrilled with what I have to say in that film.
Frank Langella: Yeah, I canât wait.
Any weird, challenging things that are hard to get your lips around?
Frank Langella: Well, in language no, not at all. There certainly will be physically in how Iâm going to appear physically because thatâs what Rich specializes in, but itâs so different than âStarting Outâ and so different than âFrost/Nixonâ. Iâm jumping into a whole other genre certainly with a much younger cast, a youngerâCameron Diaz and James Marsden are the hot young actors and it puts me in a new world. I met Rich Kelly and his producing partner Sean McKittrick the other day having had long conversations on the phone, and I didnât know they were the director and producer. I thought there were like AD assistants. I met a much older woman who was doing the clothes and these 2 young guys kept talking and interrupting her and I finally said âWhat do you do in the movie?â and he said âIâm the director.â I said âOh, okay. Youâre my boss!â
I was going to ask you what was it about that project that got you? Was it the quality of the script--?
Frank Langella: Oh, the script is wonderful. Itâs just wonderful. You know, this is a movie that starts out with Cameron and Jimmy in the morning waking up and the doorbell rings after Jimmy goes away to work and a mysterious man in a suit and a top coat and a hat is carrying a box and she says to him âAre you a salesman?â. He says Iâm offering you something. Thereâs a key there in an envelope. You have to talk to your husband if you break the seal of the key; you put it in the box. The box will open and there will be a button in it. You are free to press that button. If you press the button youâll be givenâits 1970âyouâll be given $400,000 in cash tax free and no questions asked. However someone you donât knowâhave never met, will never knowâwill die the moment you press the button. Make up your mind. And of course the movie then goes from there. Itâs wonderful. Based on a Richard Matheson âTwilight Zoneâ episode called âButton, Buttonâ.
And can I ask what character you play in the film?
Frank Langella: I play the man who brings the box of course.
Is that a long shoot for you?
Frank Langella: Yeah, 7 weeks starting in a couple of weeks.
So you donât just leave them alone after you deliver the package?
Frank Langella: Oh no. Believe Iâm there for the duration. Iâm there and itâs a remarkable script. Every actor I know says to me âHow did you get that part!â Iâm thrilled.
Now you will be forever romanticized by women all over the worldâ
Frank Langella: I hope so.
--for your Dracula performance.
Frank Langella: Thanks.
But youâve also had so many other indelible roles such as in â
Frank Langella: Yes, constantly. Constantly. The older I get the more recognized I get particularly in
We were talking about that earlier with
Frank Langella: Dave has been on a lot. Dracula has been on although I donât look anything like that anymore, but certainly Lolita has been shown a great deal more than it was when we first made it. I did to television series for George Clooney called Unscripted. That got enormous young audience for me and Good Night and Good Luck, the same thing.
And you were phenomenal as
Frank Langella: Thank you. Itâs been a great run.
I was going to ask you were you looking forward to playing
Frank Langella: Yes. I donât think that will happen until 2009 because they donât have quite a script yet. Theyâre not going to get one before the strike but I have 2 more of those to do and I love Brian Singer. I just love him.
Have you already thought about what youâll be doing after
Frank Langella: That wraps the middle of January and if I donât have a job it will be lucky for me the first time in over 2-1/2 years, so I will probably do something exotic like Iâve never done. Iâll go to
Speaking of Dracula with Halloween coming up I can ask you whatâs your favorite Halloween costume.
Frank Langella: Oh, itâs probably my birthday suit with somebody I really like. And the last words spoken before the candle gets blown out areTrick or Treat.
Do you have any plans to return to Broadway in the near future? Any projects under consideration?
Frank Langella: No because Iâve been on the stage now so much in the last few years that to be liberated from that routine--Frost/Nixon I did 360 some odd times from London to New Yorkâand the joy of just going on the film set every day and not knowing I had to do that enormous role night after night was great. And once you click into that schedule Iâm fine with it. Iâm very disciplined. But once youâre out of it, you realize my God itâs like waiting for the second hand to go at quarter to three when youâre a kid at school and the bell rings. Free. Now I feel free and I donât want to go back to it unless itâs something I just canât live without so I think Iâll stay away from the stage for maybe another year or two. Iâm luckyâI donât know whyâbut at this particular time in my career my film catalogue is getting better and better.
Thatâs because people are starved for good talent.
Frank Langella: Oh, thanks. Thanks.
Do you have any anticdotes or little stories about what happened on the set? Anything interesting or noteworthy?
Frank Langella: Starting Out In the Evening was a very interesting set because we were confined, you know, that little apartment I had was a real little west-side apartment. There was a room off camera literally 2 feet away where Lauren and Lili and Adrian and I changed. There was a little curtain hung up and Adrian and I were on one side of that curtain and weâd run in and make our changes and Lili and Lauren and someone else who came into that set were on the other. Then we would have to get inâone morning the producer called me and said the A.D.âs car broke down on the highway and Iâll be picking you up and she arrived with a sandwich in her hand, this old jalopy and I jumped in and we drove downtown to the village to shoot a scene in a restaurant--the scene where I come in very ill and Adrian takes me to the bathroom. I had to change clothes in that bathroom because there was no place else to change clothes. The night beforeâone day I became violently ill. I ate something I shouldnât have eaten in a restaurant and I literally couldnât get up off the floor of the bathroom. I was lying on the floor and I called Andrew and I said âIâm really, really sickâ. And Andrew said âYou have toâ¦we only have the set today! Iâll come up and Iâll carry you there.â So somebody came upâone of the assistants came up with Adrian Lester and they literally came into my apartment. You know that nausea you have where you donât want to move? I took some anti-nausea things and I laid in the back of this van and I got down there and we shot the scene.
Now, given the low budget and
Frank Langella: I had a cardigan sweater, a jacket, a couple of shirts and a couple of ties and that wasâmy own shoes I think-- I donât remember and that hat which was a lucky find. It was in a box with a bunch of hats and I went thatâs it. And the glasses, you know, a lady brought me over 4 or 5 pairs of glasses, and I picked one and he was nice to create that way, you know? I knew his clothes werenât going to be terribly important to him fashion wise. They had to be comfortable and that was nice not having to concern myself with that costume style and all that stuff.
Now, when you were typing, were you actually typing or where you just typing mumbo-jumbo?
Frank Langella: No, I was typing. I was typing words I wanted to say, but they werenât on paper. They were just for me typing. I love the way the film begins and ends. I think itâs very poignant.
So, I have to ask. Do you think
Frank Langella: You know, youâre only the 2nd person today who asked me that and actually it doesnât matter. What only matters is that he got up and he started again. Thatâs the point of the movie. Whether he finishes it, whether itâs well received, whether or not --he could start out as at the end of the picture heâs there typing and 5 minutes later he could have a stroke. An hour later his daughter could be hit by a car. Thatâs the whole point I think of what life is like when you get into these years is the result doesnât really matter. The outcome isnât as important as the process. And the point of the film is to say get up. Just get up and do whatever it is, just do it and donât worry about the outcome of it bad or good.
What is it like to hit a woman?
Frank Langella: Itâs great.
I was really hoping you would hit her much earlier in the film.
Frank Langella: Yeah, you would? The smack is â¦oh I guess we shouldnât give that away I guess but it doesnât matter.
Do you enjoy playing a good guy more or a bad guy?
Frank Langella: Well, he was good. Good, good, good to his toes and I loved playing him and I adored playing Richard Nixon. I just like to act. I really love to create people and it doesnât much matter because you know, theyâre all good to me. When you are a villain, you donât think youâre a villain. Other people do but you donât. You think everything youâre doing is right and correct and why donât people see it your wayâbang, bang. So I like it all.
Do you know people in real life as articulate as
Frank Langella: Yes. I live in the upper west side of
Itâs funny because when I was watching you in the performance a few weeks ago I interviewed an older writer and it was absolutely him. Impeccable.
Frank Langella: Really?
Impeccable. I donât know if you know the author
Frank Langella: No just as I said earlier those men all over my neighborhood. Theyâre just everywhere and theyâre so polite. So unfailingly polite even to the point where Iâll be coming along Central Park West off my bike or a run or just walking, and Iâll get to the door of my building and one of these older gentlemenâand theyâre older than I am and Iâm oldâand theyâll get to the door and heâll go like that and not in any phony way. I have all the time in the world you go in first and Iâm very touched by that and itâs around more than we think it is. It just is. We donât see them because theyâre not all over television and theyâre not pushing themselves on us in the media but theyâre all there; that generation of really old world, old fashioned people who observe a Seder in my building. Just lovely on the holidays. Just wonderful.
Can I ask you what itâs been like working with
Frank Langella: Well, Michael and I have worked together now for 18 monthsâat least 18 monthsâand 2 days ago he came out to me on the set and I said âwell, Iâll see youâ and he said âIâll see youâ. Weâre going to see a lot of each other next year as well. We both burrowed into our characters profoundly. Heâs a very strong savvy stage actor and you have to have that. You have to have a partner if youâre going be in a hit on stage for a year and a half who feels the same way you do about maintaining the level of the performance and Michael felt that way very strongly and so did I.
I just interviewed him and he said heâs really going to miss the character.
Frank Langella: Oh, I bet. Iâll miss Nixon a lot. A lot.
Now had you read this particular
Frank Langella: No, and I asked Andrew Wagner if I could read the book and I said I wonât read it if you tell me not to and he said âplease donât because the Leonard I want to create with you is not really quite the Leonard in the book. I donât want you to be confused.â I said âbut I can just pick things from it that work.â He said âno donâtâ. I said âyouâre underestimating meâ.
Have you read it since or do you plan to?
Frank Langella: Itâs sitting on the table in the room they got for me and I donât think I will. First of all I have to tell you and Iâm not being disingenuous, I didnât expect any of this from this movie. I expectedâI had a wonderful time doing itâbut when I saw it I was stunned by how beautifully he sewed it together. Iâm just going to keep the memory of the movie. Thank you folks.
So did you always want to be in a Superman movie?
Frank Langella: No. I didnât but Iâm very happy now I was.