Alan Alda Interview, Resurrecting the Champ

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Alan Alda at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, "Resurrecting the Champ,” in which he plays the hard nosed newspaper editor, Metz.

"Resurrecting the Champ” is based on an article of the same name published in 1997 by Los Angeles-based reporter J.R. Moehringer that retraced the life of a former legendary boxer who went from being a Chicago City Golden Gloves Champion to narrowly missing a shot at a title fight to winding up homeless on skid row. The gritty but ultimately uplifting drama directed by Rod Lurie also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Kathryn Morris, Rachel Nichols, David Paymer, and Teri Hatcher.

Although it was Hartnett and Jackson who were on screen most of the time, several of the actors who were in the film for only a short period truly made an impact. "Alan Alda lent just the type of authoritative air I was looking for as the tough newspaper editor. He pushes Erik’s character and makes him want to prove himself that much more,” observes Lurie. "Alan’s not only an Oscar nominee, but a multiple Golden Globe and Emmy winner, and his presence alone gives the film a higher stature.”

Alda is perhaps best known for playing the character of Hawkeye Pierce for 11 years in the highly regarded TV series, "M*A*S*H.” He has earned international recognition as an actor, writer and director appearing in Woody Allen’s "Crimes and Misdemeanors,” writing and starring in "The Seduction of Joe Tynan,” writing, directing and starring in "The Four Seasons,” "Sweet Liberty,” "A New Life” and "Betsy’s Wedding.” He has also appeared on Broadway and received Tony Award nominations for his performances in Neil Simon’s "Jake’s Women” and the musical "The Apple Tree.” His other appearances on Broadway include "The Owl and the Pussycat,” "Purlie Victorious,” and "Fair Game for Lovers” for which he received a Theatre World Award.

In 2005, Alan Alda earned the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy and made The New York Times bestseller list, all in the same year. He received the Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA Award nomination for Martin Scorsese’s "The Aviator,” the Emmy nomination and a Screen Actor’s Guild nomination for his portrayal of Arnold Vinick, the Republican candidate for the presidency in NBC’s hit series "The West Wing,” and the Tony nomination for his performance in the Broadway revival of David Mamet’s "Glengarry Glen Ross.” That same year, Alda’s memoir, entitled "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, and Other Things I’ve Learned,” became a best seller.

Alan Alda is a terrific actor and a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Sporting a blue blazer and a light beard for a new film he’s currently filming, he talked to us about his work in "Resurrecting the Champ,” his new book coming out in September, and what his black cocker spaniel has in common with a horse named Trigger:

MoviesOnline: What attracted you to this project and made you want to do it?

ALAN ALDA: You!

[Laughter]

MoviesOnline: Are you interested in the newspaper business and the integrity behind it?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah, it’s even more personal than that. I would like to know that when I read the paper in the morning, it’s telling me something that actually happened and I think the vast majority of journalists want the same thing. It’s amazing to me how there’s no – not that I know of anyway – some rule book for everybody but everybody has the same standards of integrity. That’s why I think lately so many of these unfortunate slips have come to light because editors – I guess editors – have been watching out for that. It’s important to journalism but it’s important to the rest of us even more so.

MoviesOnline: Was your character based on a real person?

ALAN ALDA: I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. I doubt that the editor is based on anybody real. I think that was invented in the course of writing it for the purpose of telling the story. I think. I don’t know. Nobody told me that it was based on anybody real. But, as you know, the Moehringer story really happened and not exactly the way it is in the movie. I think it’s heightened a little in the movie. He’s a really good writer. He wrote this bestselling memoir. It came out the same year that my memoir came out.

MoviesOnline: Oh really.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah.

MoviesOnline: You probably outsold him though.

ALAN ALDA: I don’t know. We both did very well.

MoviesOnline: What struck me about Josh’s character…

ALAN ALDA: Oh let’s talk about my book first. [Laughter]

MoviesOnline: Didn’t he do an end run around you?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah.

MoviesOnline: Was it because, as his editor. he knew you would ask some tough questions which he had not answered?

ALAN ALDA: Ah, that’s interesting. Yeah.

MoviesOnline: A lot of us journalists were saying halfway through the film that he’s relying entirely on what Samuel Jackson’s character tells him.

ALAN ALDA: You could see it coming. Sure.

MoviesOnline: He’s been told that he has to talk to the son and that really hasn’t happened. He’s more comfortable sending what he wrote to the magazine than sending it to his editor who would ask the tough questions.

ALAN ALDA: Well why wouldn’t the magazine have done that, I wonder?

MoviesOnline: Because I don’t think magazines are as scrupulous.

ALAN ALDA: Oh?

MoviesOnline: Unless it’s something like The New Yorker or Time, a fast fact check isn’t going to be as scrupulous.

ALAN ALDA: I know. That’s very interesting. I noticed that you mentioned two magazines: Time and The New Yorker. When they did pieces on me, they called me up about the tiniest facts.

MoviesOnline: Really?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah.

MoviesOnline: Good for them.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. But so did TV Guide. [Laughter]

MoviesOnline: You looked very much at home in the Calgary Herald newsroom.

ALAN ALDA: What’s interesting about that is that many of the people, if not all of them, that you see in those cubicles were real reporters who, while we were shooting, continued to work on their stories. They were on the phone and they didn’t even look up at us. They were just doing their work. It’s very interesting how quiet it is in a newsroom. I noticed that when I went through the New York Times too. I think it was different in the old days.

MoviesOnline: The teletypes and typewriters are now gone.

ALAN ALDA: Typewriters are gone and there are no copy boys running around with the actual pieces of paper in their hands.

MoviesOnline: Did you think your character was ever threatened by Eric or did he really think Eric was not very good?

ALAN ALDA: I think he thought he could be good. You know you always see the character from the character’s point of view. I mean that’s the best way to do it. I understand that he had to get a section out every day. He had to fill the space and fill it as well as he could. But if all this guy could do was fill the space, he needed that too. He put in a quick word letting him know he could be better but he wasn’t going to waste any time on it. [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: Did you base your character on anyone that you knew?

ALAN ALDA: No. It’s really in the writing. It’s there in the writing. But I have a lot of friends who were journalists. Many of them happened to be at dinner one night and I realized that there was like 150 years of journalism in the room so I just asked them a few questions. They had some ideas. Little things. I talked it over with Rod and he said, "Yeah, that’s good.” Mainly our advisor on the set every day was Rod because he spent years in newsrooms himself.

MoviesOnline: How was it working with Rod Lurie?

ALAN ALDA: I like him very much and I like working with him very much. We were very free and open with each other. He’d just say, "Why don’t you try it this way?” and that was easy to do because he’s very attentive. He sees what’s going on and hears what’s happening. It seems odd to praise a director for that but there are many directors who actually don’t see what’s going on. They’re busy thinking about the shot and what happens in this shot is just a certain amount of content that you provide. It’s not the best way to get the best out of the actors.

MoviesOnline: Last year you were involved in one of my all time favorite parts on TV: the ice cream eating sequence in the Presidential kitchen.

ALAN ALDA: That really stands out in a lot of people’s minds. Maybe it was the ice cream that did. I mean the combination of that particular discussion and ice cream and the idea that there was a secret cache of ice cream in the basement of the White House. I think those three ideas really combined. What was it that made it stick in your mind?

MoviesOnline: Well, all that plus the way you and Martin Sheen played it – political adversaries from the office caught in the spectrum and you had some common interests starting with ice cream. You don’t need to work these days so what makes you work?

ALAN ALDA: I love getting better. I try to get better all the time and you can’t get better staying at home playing with the computer, although I get better at that when I do that. That’s a real pleasure for me and I’d like to see how long I can keep doing that and not lose my energy while I do it. And the better I get, the more interesting stuff I get to do. I like that. It’s really nice.

MoviesOnline: TV, film, stage and writing, you’ve done it all. Is there one you’d like to do more of than the other?

ALAN ALDA: No. I really love it that the writing has hit and that I’m able to do that. It’s really a perfect thing for me. The second book is coming out on September 4^th.

MoviesOnline: What’s it called?

ALAN ALDA: It’s called "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself.”

[Laughter]

MoviesOnline: That’s very brave. Where did you get that?

ALAN ALDA: I can’t resist these cockeyed titles.

MoviesOnline: What is it about?

ALAN ALDA: It’s me trying to figure out the meaning of my life. It seems odd at this point in my life but I almost died about three years ago. I forget how many years ago now. But everything that has happened to me since then has been a bonus. And like a lot of people who get a second chance, I’m really interested to know how to get the most juice out of everything, out of all the time that’s ahead of me. Part of that is trying to figure out what would make it seem really meaningful to me. It’s a weird word. It’s a crazy quest. I can tell you right now there’s no end to it. It’s a dumb thing to look for. The book is kind of funny and kind of heartfelt at the same time.

MoviesOnline: Is it more a memoir than a hard philosophy?

ALAN ALDA: Well a search more than philosophy -- a real kind of quest. The talking to myself part is I go back over things that I’ve said. Over the years I’ve given advice to kids, to my own kids, my grandkids, graduating classes, and I go back and listen to that again and see how it applies to me and if I’ve done what I asked them to do.

MoviesOnline: That’s a good point.

ALAN ALDA: So what I started to say was – and thanks for asking me about this – it’s really fun for me to have a book come out because then I go around the country talking about it. When I go into a book store, I don’t just say a few words. I get up and I do like 30, 40 minutes. And it’s fun. It’s like a little performance for me. So I get the pleasure of writing it and I get the pleasure of doing a little routine.

MoviesOnline: Do you read from it?

ALAN ALDA: I don’t read it. Instead of reading, I convey it in talking so it’s more lively.

MoviesOnline: And you sign copies.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. I do that too.

MoviesOnline: Who’s the publisher?

ALAN ALDA: Random House. And it’s funny, you know, signing things is really interesting because when I was signing for the first book, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed” [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: Great title.

ALAN ALDA: Sorry about these titles – a woman came up to me with a photograph of my stuffed dog, only before he died, before he got stuffed. That’s the only copy of that picture I had.

MoviesOnline: You had your dog stuffed?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. I’m sorry to say.

MoviesOnline: Was that why you wrote the book?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. Yeah.

MoviesOnline: How did she have a photo of your dog?

ALAN ALDA: I don’t know. She was maybe a relative of a relative or something.

MoviesOnline: What breed did you have stuffed? Not a Chihuahua?

[Laughter]

ALAN ALDA: No, no, no. A black cocker spaniel. It was because I was 8 years old and when the dog died, my father thought it would be a good idea to take it out and bury it together so I was sobbing after a few shovelfuls and he didn’t know what to do. He was stuck. He said, "Well maybe we should have it stuffed and that way you’ll always keep it.” And I said, "Okay.” And the taxidermist said, "What kind of expression did he have on his face?” Do you think of dogs as having expressions? They don’t have an emotional life like that. They look like a dog. So the dog came back with this hideous look on his face and he looked… People were afraid that he was going to leap off this blue pad and bite them because he looked sort of real but fierce. He was in the living room for awhile and people actually backed out of the living room.

MoviesOnline: It would kind of creep me out, I think.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. It creeped them out so it really became an image for me of how I couldn’t ever hope to hang onto anything that came my way. Whatever it was, when it left, it was gone. So I don’t hang onto memories but it’s a lesson that I keep learning over and over again. That was like the central theme of that whole book which was really about me trying to learn how to become a person.

MoviesOnline: How long did you keep the dog?

ALAN ALDA: [Laughs] Everybody is so concerned about this dog. He’s gone. Don’t worry about him.

[Laughter]

MoviesOnline: We want to know what happened to him?

ALAN ALDA: I don’t know what happened to him. He’s probably…

MoviesOnline: Probably what happened to Trigger.

ALAN ALDA: Trigger got stuffed. Yeah. I wonder what happened to Trigger. Didn’t he get buried with Roy or something?

MoviesOnline: He’s out there in the museum.

ALAN ALDA: Oh, he’s in the museum? I thought that Roy got buried with him or something.

MoviesOnline: I think he was buried with Dale.

ALAN ALDA: Well, I don’t know what happened to the dog, but my guess is after all this publicity he’s on eBay. [Laughter] I’ve actually looked for him there but I can’t find him.

MoviesOnline: Since filming "Resurrecting the Champ,” have you done any other film projects?

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. I had this beard for a movie that I’m making with Matthew Broderick. It’s called "Diminished Capacity.” I play his uncle and I live in the woods in Missouri. He comes down from Chicago to try to put me in a home because I’m getting old and losing my memory and I’m fighting that. But meanwhile, he’s been in a bar fight and he got hit in the head and he can’t remember anything either. [Laughs] It’s very sweet.

MoviesOnline: You have two old coots out in the woods…

ALAN ALDA: …looking at the trees. It’s not stupid, it’s fun. It’s a nice story. And then I’m going to make another movie with Rod this October. Another newspaper story only this time I’ll be a lawyer.

MoviesOnline: Was it based on the Valerie Plame story?

ALAN ALDA: It’s not. It’s a similar story but it’s not based on…

MoviesOnline: A Roman a clef?

ALAN ALDA: Is that what he calls it?

MoviesOnline: Yeah.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. And then I’m going to make another movie. I can’t remember when. [Laughs] Sometime like September or October. And then I’m going to go to England about the book. I’m happily worn to a frazzle. [Laughs]

MoviesOnline: Does your enjoyment of writing date back to when you were doing screenplays?

ALAN ALDA: Even before. Yeah.

MoviesOnline: Do you miss screenwriting and directing?

ALAN ALDA: I don’t miss directing at all and I don’t miss screenwriting either because somebody’s always telling you to do something different. [Laughs] Somebody who has the talent to put the money together thinks that includes every other conceivable talent. Good or bad, right? I remember with one movie, I did the best I could and it probably wasn’t as good as I could have done or not as good as somebody could have done. But when the guy who ran the studio came and wanted to tell me how to rewrite it while I was shooting it – here I was acting in it and directing it – and I was supposed to stay up all night and rewrite it. I said, "You know, those are probably good ideas that you have. That may make a good movie. But this is the one that we agreed I would do and I’m willing to go down in flames with it.” Well you should have seen him blanch at that term "down in flames.”

MoviesOnline: Was that "Betsy’s Wedding”?

ALAN ALDA: It was one of the movies. I don’t want to tell people.

MoviesOnline: Well "Betsy’s Wedding” was your last one.

ALAN ALDA: Yeah. I didn’t feel like directing after that any more. I just got asked to direct a picture about a month ago. I don’t even remember what it was, but I took it so lightly, you know. [Laughs] I don’t really want to do it. I didn’t enjoy the time I had on "Betsy.”

MoviesOnline: Do you have more fun being a good guy or a bad guy?

ALAN ALDA: I’ve always thought I was just playing people. The so-called good guys often were… Hawkeye himself was a flawed character. A smart aleck, a skirt chaser, he drank too much, he always thought he was right. But I guess I covered people with the slime of my amiability. They just couldn’t resist.

MoviesOnline: Thank you.

ALAN ALDA: That was fast. Thank you. Nice to talk to you.

MoviesOnline: If we see your dog on eBay, we’ll let you know.

ALAN ALDA: Oh, please do! Yes. Email us here. I love a gag and I’m willing to pay 54 bucks for it.

"Resurrecting the Champ” opens in theaters on August 24^th.