(2009, on The Muppet Movie (1979) and landing Starting Over (1979)) That was just after I'd had, as an actor in New York, a disastrous season on the stage, where every role I played... I went from being one of the highly praised actors in New York to the most reviled in a period of three months. There were reviews that were actually advising me to leave the profession. It was like free-fall. And indeed, for years after that, I couldn't get a job in a play in New York. But then they began to happen again. I just didn't know it could happen that quickly. I thought every actor goes through ups and downs, but this, I was like hiding under the sofa. And in the middle of this comes this call for The Muppet Movie, and by this point, I was so depressed. I read it and it was sort of a nowhere little part, from the script I read. So I said to my agent, "I'm turning this down." And she said, "Dear, it's a movie. You could use this." It was just that I had played some really good parts in movies, and I didn't want to play this part. I wanted to wait. And then the director, his name was Jim Frawley, called me at home and asked what my problem was. I told him "The part doesn't do anything; he doesn't go anywhere. He just drives the car and occasionally makes some offhand remark about it." I told him I'd just had a rough time and I didn't want to do that. He said, "I know you've had a rough time. I've been following it." And his tone was "You really better do this." And I told him I heard him; I did hear him. But I said I wasn't up to it right then. So then he called me in about a week and said he'd added a lot to my part; he'd given him a whole arc. I said, "That's very kind of you." Then he said, "Now will you do it?" And he described how he'd built the role. So I said okay. It would have been just plain rude if I didn't. That was a very unhappy set, because Jim was very unhappy directing that movie. And I noticed that was the only time the Muppet people used an outside person to direct a Muppet movie. They never did that again. After that, it was either Jim Henson or Frank Oz. And I would have liked to have been in one of those, because those sets were very harmonious. But this was not. All my scenes were with Charlie Durning, whom I already knew, because he had a part in Fiddler On The Roof when I was in it, but his part got eliminated out of town. We got to know each other during that. And now of course he's having quite a film career. So at the L.A. airport, just after we were through with The Muppet Movie, on my way back to New York, I called Charlie from the airport and said, "I loved working with you, and I don't know how I would have gotten through that movie without you." Just hanging out with him really pulled it together for me. He said, "Well, we can hang out some more, because I'm about to go to New York and do a film." I asked what, and he said, "An Alan J. Pakula film." I said, "Oh fuck, you lucky dog." And so he said he'd get me into the film, and he did. It was that Alan Pakula movie with Burt Reynolds (Starting Over). I had to audition for Alan, but I got the audition because of Charlie. So that's what The Muppet Movie led to. I got a call to come in and meet Alan again at the end of the day, because he wanted to have a long talk. He said he wasn't going to have me read again, but he didn't understand why I wanted to be in the film. I said, "What do you mean?" And he said he didn't think it was my kind of material. "In what way?" He said, "This is like a regular human being in life." And I said, "Oh, well, I think maybe I can do that." He said, "I don't know if you can. People enjoy you on film because you're like from some other place. And that would really hurt this film. Besides, it's not your gift. I don't know why you'd be interested in this." But he was saying all this very benignly. And he was taking the time to have this conversation with me. It didn't just come through my agent that they weren't going to use me, which is what usually happens. So he asked why I wanted to be in it, and I said, "First of all, I love the script, and I would like to play a part like that." Although the part did emerge pretty eccentric. But underneath that there was another reason, and I said, "All The President's Men [which Pakula directed] has more good performances in it than any movie I've ever seen. That's why I want to be in this movie. I want to see what you do. I want to experience it." I thought since I was clearly not going to get the job anyway, I might as well say that. "I won't blow the part by being too manipulative, because I've already blown it, so I've got nothing to lose." And he said, "Oh, that's fair, and nice to hear." I said, "I understand if you don't want to cast me, although I do think I can do what you want, but that's the real reason: I just want to work with you." So then he called me in for another reading, this time with Burt Reynolds, and I got the part. But it turned out it was all because of one line-reading I did that they loved. But of course when it came time to shoot that scene, I couldn't reproduce that line-reading. I just couldn't do it, and I thought "Oh God, they cast this dude for one moment, and the guy can't do the moment anymore." He got openly worried about it, and finally I said, "Alan, I can't. I've lost it. I don't know. That was just an impulse in the reading. I don't even know where it came from. I'm trying to do it, but I can't do it." He finally said okay, but he was disappointed. But other than that, it was a great shoot. I loved that shoot.
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