A Conversation with Amy Irving

[00:00:00] I'm Jack with Griffin and David.

[00:00:05] I'm Jack with Griffin and David.

[00:00:09] Don't go on to say it to expect.

[00:00:12] All you need to know is that the name of the show is

[00:00:16] I'm Jack.

[00:00:21] Hello.

[00:00:22] Hello.

[00:00:22] Hi.

[00:00:23] Hi.

[00:00:23] Hi.

[00:00:24] We're all saying hi.

[00:00:25] Hi.

[00:00:25] This is a different format available now. Congratulations. Do you know this Amy? Ben has a clothing line. I did not know this. Yeah, I've got various different designs, t-shirt designs, some accessories, berry jeans, berry jeans.

[00:01:40] Correct. Here we go.

[00:01:41] Again, feel free to dig into this.

[00:01:42] Well, it's berry jeans. Great question.

[00:01:44] I decided why not manipulate jeans naturally. I have a coffee machine. You can just send me one and I can put it on. I could find a thing. Is that what you mean by? I mean, I could print a little figurine if you, if you'd like. Oh, no. Yeah. I don't. I wanted to wear them. Oh, I see. Well, I like them. I want to wear. They're available. There's a picture. Oh, ew. God, I got that reaction. Mike.

[00:03:00] Also, just like day of the dead.

[00:03:02] Just be clear. He buried three pairs.

[00:03:05] One pair was unselfageable.

[00:03:07] That's true. It was Well, you know, it's all about layering. So I will try and come up with something to pair with the whole close. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Amy Murphy is here in the studio.

[00:04:22] I star of Yantl.

[00:04:24] No, well, not the star, but the star of Yantl.

[00:05:23] No, I'm not sure we've ever covered any of your other work, but we should. I've heard my feelings that you haven't even gone there yet.

[00:05:26] We're digging in a lot of movies in the world.

[00:05:27] We're starting.

[00:05:28] I'm here.

[00:05:29] This is the new era.

[00:05:30] I'm getting old.

[00:05:31] We're leveling up.

[00:05:32] We could do the Carrie series on Patreon because you're in Carrie too as well, right?

[00:05:35] Oh.

[00:05:36] I'm sorry to bring it up.

[00:05:37] I don't know.

[00:05:38] I've never seen it.

[00:05:39] I was hoping they'd cut me out.

[00:05:40] And you're not, are you not playing the same character or are you?

[00:05:43] I've never seen the rage.

[00:05:44] I think it's the same character.

[00:05:45] It is the same guy camera.

[00:05:46] I couldn't remember.

[00:05:47] I'm older and uglier.

[00:05:48] Come on. went to him and we talked about it and I gave him the script. And at the time, we liked the director of the director. The director. The director. Sure. That's a catch. Well, that wasn't the director. Oh, this is a different director. When I agreed to do the film, it was another director. I'm not going to go. I won't go. No, no, no, no. You're definitely not here to talk about the Rage Carry 2. I mean, you can if you don't.

[00:07:00] I don't want to talk about it.

[00:07:02] I don't.

[00:07:03] You clearly don't want to talk about it.

[00:07:04] I'm sorry I ever made that film.

[00:07:05] Okay.

[00:07:06] But at the moment, you agreed to it maybe.

[00:07:08] Except they paid me morning or whatever. I so had no You weren't like today's Oscar nomination morning. I'll wait for the I had no idea was even happening. I would never expect it from the role anyway. And

[00:09:21] by the Oscars. Yes.

[00:09:22] To David's point, it's like nowadays there are 70 awards

[00:09:27] that happen before the Oscar nominations.

[00:09:30] So you're maybe more aware if you're in the running or not?

[00:09:32] Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:33] Whether or not you're in a major film, you're like,

[00:09:35] okay, I've gotten five nominations so far.

[00:09:37] I might be in the mix.

[00:09:38] Right, but if I didn't even get the Golden Globe nomination,

[00:09:41] I guess that's why I didn't bother waking up

[00:09:43] for the only one.

[00:09:44] Actually, I have the one bellwether at that point.

[00:09:46] Aside from like critics groups, SAG doesn't exist. joke is this movie for real or not, right? And certainly we've dug into when it was coming out, that was the attitude it was met with. But also we're born into a world where even though Yantl had come out, was it hit? Got good notices? Was it a hit? It was. Did you not perceive it as a hit at the time or did you not really care? I never had a pay attention. Right, yeah, yeah.

[00:11:00] I never know how much anything makes.

[00:11:01] I never know if it's big or small.

[00:11:02] I know when I get recognized a little bit more or whatever for something, but I don't

[00:11:06] pay attention.

[00:11:07] Sure.

[00:11:08] What do you mostly get recognized for? early 40s, Barbara Streisand basically playing a teenager, right, like, you know, it's a musical, but only she sings. Like these things that are like, well, that doesn't make sense. He wouldn't like, I don't know. That's why you're until so good though. I mean, in my opinion. I agree. And I cited on the episode, not knowing at the time if you were going to come on around. So I swear I'm not just saying this to butter you up.

[00:12:22] But I do think your performance is really go to the biography. You'll notice that I marry directors. I have noticed that. And I gotta say her being the director automatically, she would be someone I would be respectful of and probably attracted to anyway. Interesting.

[00:13:40] Because I just am, I'm an all of people who can direct

[00:13:43] because I can't.

[00:13:45] When I read a script, I don't know, I always forget. Well, like for your photography, this is just film. I believe you, I believe. So not theater or TV, you just got Carrie in the Fury with Brian DePama, the great. You got voices with Robert Markowitz.

[00:15:01] You have Honey Suckle Rose with Chatsburg, right?

[00:15:04] Right.

[00:15:05] And the competition with I was feeling I needed to

[00:16:23] get back on the stage.

[00:16:24] And I did nine months in Amadeus.

[00:16:26] Oh, whatever. He's the boss. He's so good. He's very good. And it was one of those things where it's like, it's Peter Frick. He's kind of, you know does it come back around to you? Do they, like, why did you end up doing Antle? Well, one of my friends on the show was very angry at me because he was a big fan of Barbra's. And she'd been trying to make this movie

[00:19:00] for years at this point already, right?

[00:19:02] And she asked me, would I come up to her upper west side

[00:19:05] apartment and sit down with her?

[00:19:07] Hell yeah. It's impossible to say no. Also what you're saying of feeling, I've played this type of part before, it doesn't feel challenging to me on paper. You can get pigeonholed so easily as an actor, even more the more successful you are. And you had sort of such a straight launch. You jumped into movies in the deep end

[00:20:20] and were like really hitting.

[00:20:22] And then yeah, it sounds like got frustrated

[00:20:24] with the limitations, the repetition, whatever it is.

[00:20:27] So if you're just reading it on paper, with Judaism at all. I just played famous Jewish characters. Here are two things. JJ, our researcher for this show, brought up that we talked about on the main episode that I want to ask you about. One is, and I know very often, actors aren't necessarily super aware of who else was discussed for the role at some other point in time. I only ask you

[00:21:43] about this one because I know she's one of your like adoration for Streisand and how that like translated on camera. That she really kind of doted on you. She doted on me?

[00:23:00] Yes.

[00:23:01] You said, I was like her little doll

[00:23:03] that she could dress up.

[00:23:04] Yeah, I don't think that was so much doting.

[00:23:06] It was just that it was a doll that she could like the same way she usually did a lot of that transferred on to you. Is that fair to say? The skill she had learned in her career of like how to make Barbra Streisand look incredible on camera. And one of these movie stars we've talked about that even when she was acting like knew her lighting. New which side worked for her. New her lenses, knew how other people, not only how she needed to perform,

[00:24:22] but how the entire crew needed to work with her in her apartment, you're in, right? You agree to do the movie from that point on? I did. She asked me to cut my salary in half. Okay. Because the movie needed to be cheap?

[00:25:41] Like what's the pitch there?

[00:25:42] I think they only had a certain amount in the budget.

[00:25:45] And that's what she said,

[00:25:46] would you do it for half your salary in the, But I wasn't frustrated about that. I can tell you Mandy was frustrated about that. And I understand Mandy's got the most beautiful voice. So what was your outside of crocheting? What was your prep process from the moment? Crocheting doilies. Crocheting doilies. Yeah, it's a very specific art. You're not making this tiny intricate little pointless thing.

[00:27:00] It's like you got stringed clay with it.

[00:27:01] Yeah, it's very delicate work.

[00:27:03] From the moment Strausanne sells you on it

[00:27:05] to when the film starts filming,

[00:27:06] how long do you think that was? It was thrilling. I saw it all in one night. Not all one day. I should say okay To see it. Yes, it was so cool. I was a teenager. I was I didn't understand half of the history of Russian intellectuals Obviously, but I was like what I've never seen anything like this before I Can't find your run right replacements here. We go a mirror thing

[00:28:23] Doesn't give me your run dates. I'm sorry. I'm sorry What else you remember it does say that Jane Seymour got pregnant and that's one reason she left I think I think

[00:29:21] Yes, that's right. Yeah.

[00:29:21] And incredible.

[00:29:22] I'm sitting there with the head.

[00:29:23] It's like the table read, right?

[00:29:25] Yeah.

[00:29:25] The table read.

[00:29:26] And me and my a person was fantastic.

[00:29:29] He came in and took over.

[00:29:31] But that was kind of a tough beginning.

[00:29:35] I was going to cast a ball over.

[00:29:37] Right.

[00:29:38] We had heard that story, and we're like,

[00:29:40] what an incredible story.

[00:29:42] But then to hear you describe it, you're like,

[00:29:43] well, now I'm thinking about the moment after that happens

[00:29:46] where you were just in a room that did post it.

[00:29:48] We're in a room at a certain time. We talked about this, but he was so kosher that it killed his career for decades.

[00:31:02] You think?

[00:31:03] Yeah, did he?

[00:31:04] Did he like, I'm law and order for?

[00:31:05] He did law and order for design.

[00:31:06] Post-combat, but he surrounded herself with amazing people. I mean, the script supervisor was a filmmaker. Oh, wow. Zelda Baron. She's a brilliant woman who made her own films as well, but she had, you know, rightfully so when you're starring in a film, you need an outside eye and and Zelda was very good for that.

[00:33:23] He had a heart attack on the stage. And literally he's Jack O'Brien's best friend.

[00:33:27] So Jack and I are holding hands while the paramedics are there doing the, the, the,

[00:33:33] what do you call the paddles, the different legs going and everything.

[00:33:37] And we literally, Ethan Hawke was, you know, is there a doctor in the house?

[00:33:40] It was that kind of moment.

[00:33:42] Yeah.

[00:33:42] So that he's, he survived.

[00:33:44] So that was good.

[00:33:45] The audience are like, this is interesting. an actor giving you notes essentially, because they're also the filmmaker. Well, you know, that's what it was. So I guess I didn't feel it was weird at all. Do you have, because I feel, it's very different for actors. Like there's not a universal acting language, right? It's such a bizarre profession. And it's such a bizarre art form, and it gets more bizarre when it's made into a profession,

[00:35:02] and there's money and pressure on it, right?

[00:35:05] And it's so internalized, and it's using your own body, Are you I specific film you try to remember of just the most famous wonderful director that ever lived whose house I lived in You know, that's good. Thank you. You like because he would be sure he directed anybody He'd you know take you out and and and and talk to you and find out your deepest pain and and tap into that You know get there

[00:36:22] When I was working with the pama

[00:36:25] he didn't he knew how to help me and hold my hand. Is there a preferred language for you? Like what is the thing that is most helpful for a director to do? To say to me? Yeah. You're perfect. You want to go in. No, actually, I do not, I don't want to be shut down. So I need to have an atmosphere that's relaxed,

[00:37:42] which everybody needs.

[00:37:44] Blake Edwards, when we know you're doing right, then you take it to the next step. You go further, if you're keeping told what you're doing wrong, you're just trying to correct. You get in your head and I shut down. So me personally, just keep patting me on the back and pushing me forward.

[00:39:00] Just tell me I'm doing fine and I'll give you more.

[00:39:03] So Stray Sand, unsurprisingly, seems to keep that is her very canily knowing that's actually what she needs to do to get what she wants out of a tank and knowing how much tension there maybe was in the relationship between the two of them in the movie. That there's something strategic about her maybe doing something that's pushing his buttons. Really she wants to piss Mandy off more. This is my thought.

[00:40:21] Every story about this movie though is that right he was already such an exposed sort of nerve like mean, he's very young, right? I mean, he's probably in his late 20s or something. Before or after he drops out of Harper. I don't have that chronological. This is Harper's after. But he didn't drop out, he was fired from Harper. Right, yes, I'm sorry.

[00:41:40] But that was a similar-

[00:41:41] That's 86.

[00:41:42] Too difficult.

[00:41:43] Before this, he'd done like he's in ragtime

[00:41:46] and he's in, you know, I found her so moving. I found her infuriating when every time she said she was late, because I realized I could never be friends with someone who was late as often as she is. Well, yeah.

[00:43:00] Sorry, Chris.

[00:43:01] Yeah, for your right, Griffin, we were talking about lateness, that's all with reference to

[00:43:06] who?

[00:43:07] I don't know.

[00:43:08] Okay. I think I like acting without lines. Less to learn. But she was really kind of guiding you through that with specific feelings. Very, very. She knew exactly what she wanted. She conveyed it beautifully and the clarity was there. The clarity and the joy, you know. Do you remember there being a significant amount of takes?

[00:44:22] It does sound like in the reading we've done

[00:44:25] that she was persistent.

[00:44:27] We'll do it till we get it whenever. Saturday I did a boss and over film that gave my son Gabriel's father directed and I said to mom, you know, you gotta she keeps wanting to Come up with she keeps coming up with films that I just don't think this group is gonna like but We just decided the next one might be young tool. So I might watch it In a few weeks. I mean that sounds great. So it's her hand coming out of the rocks. And Brian is, you have to walk very beautifully across these stones barefoot. And I'm like, but it really hurts. And he goes, oh, but you need to glide. It's a dream, you know. And we had so much fun on that. And then I walked and watched the movie by myself.

[00:47:02] And I knew the hand was coming out and stuff.

[00:47:05] So I wasn't scared.

[00:47:06] And I just thought.

[00:48:03] the first one. Okay, but that would have been before this before Yantl. Yes. Yes. Okay. 82. The first one comes out 81. Yeah, it

[00:48:09] was in the period where you were treading the boards. Am I

[00:48:12] wrong about this? Yeah, no, you're not wrong about this. I

[00:48:15] was going to do it. I ended up falling for another man. And

[00:48:23] that just put a damper on How's she doing without me? Do I miss her? And you're just getting 35 millimeter dailies from yet.

[00:49:41] Anyway, it worked. It worked.

[00:49:41] Yeah.

[00:49:42] And so she also thinks that I got pregnant

[00:49:44] because I had confessed to person. I don't pay attention enough, I guess. I'm not my Bradley Cooper, I'm not learning it. But we went to Czechoslovakia and the hotel there, the Intercontinental, had a spa. Right. And the night before my first day of shooting there,

[00:51:00] I decided to go have a massage.

[00:51:02] Sure.

[00:51:03] And I was really high.

[00:51:07] Mm-hmm, congrats.

[00:51:08] Thank you. And I said, I can't go there with you, honey. Sure. And that morning, first day shooting with Barbara, I'm standing around the camera and I'm telling her and the crew, this story. Uh-huh. Barbara booked that man every night for the rest of the shoot. God bless. This is a woman who knows what she wants.

[00:52:21] She knows what she wants.

[00:52:22] She hears that and she's like, sounds good.

[00:52:24] I, I, I, wanting to talk to her. And I was like, she's not only the star, but the director and the producer. She's not asleep. You know, really. Yeah. Peter is. How long do you stay? Like, are you still in touch with Barbara or like, how do you stay in touch with her much after the movie? Like, does, is there a long, long lasting friendship?

[00:53:43] I don't know.

[00:53:43] You know, we, we kind of had a little falling out.

[00:53:47] She knows why we had, you know, this. And I know what I'm doing. Yeah. Yes. That's what they both really know what they're doing. Yeah know, it's funny. When I was nominated, I knew I wasn't gonna win, and I sat down next to Jim Brooks, who, he was up in terms of history. That was his big career, right? Yeah, right. And he turned to me, and he said, Nick the Greeks, I just read that you're two to one.

[00:56:21] And I was like, so I was sweating bullets.

[00:56:23] That you might have to give a speech.

[00:56:24] Yeah, so I'm the only it just I don't I don't I never felt comfortable getting up and talking as myself unbelievably stressful to me like going to an award ceremony where

[00:57:40] I'm not nominated or whatever sure fine

[00:57:42] It's a party

[00:57:43] But no the idea that I might have to get up there's only, there's just that one second of everyone's faces. Yes. Before you cut to, okay, now she's taking this stage. But that must be like, to me, that seems like the most nerve-wracking part is there's now a camera guy like three inches away from you in the aisle waiting for you.

[00:59:03] Very happy in your clapping.

[00:59:05] You guys.

[00:59:06] Oh, you got it?

[00:59:07] Oh, yeah.

[00:59:08] Dang internet. Well, they had a not the full stage. They had a well, they had a circular circle. You pulled a Kelsey grammar. Well, you fell in the gap. No, it started to move and I started to fall. And actually, I think was Pierce Brosnan saved me. God, you know what?

[01:00:20] Pierce Brosnan.

[01:00:21] We've been talking about Pierce a lot.

[01:00:22] He is so charming.

[01:00:24] This is what we keep saying.

[01:00:25] His wife is so lovely. Yeah. Nah. I can't do that. I know. You don't threaten to blow anyone up with your money. I'll cast the bet he's the hell out of you. Um, I mean, do you want to talk about slow Christmas, your experience working on that problem? Oh, yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh we're gonna be covering my strow, we're gonna actually be promoting the release of the album. So if anything, people have already heard. It'll be available now, right? This is early January.

[01:03:00] It'll already be available,

[01:03:01] but if they haven't checked it out,

[01:03:03] they should listen on wherever they get music

[01:03:06] to slow Christmas three.

[01:03:08] And your album is... have, we'll be able to do a little bit longer concert because I only had 10 songs. But no, but what I love about the album, the show you did is as you said, it's like a bit of an autobiography and you're sort of tracking your career through the songs of the projects. And some of them are things that you sung in those movies and some of them aren't. And some of them are songs that affect your life, you know. No Yantl songs, but you did talk about Yantl on stage.

[01:04:21] Well, yes, I didn't think I should follow that act.

[01:04:23] Right, right.

[01:04:25] Leave the singing to Barbara.

[01:04:27] Right, sure.