Alan Alda: The Man Behind the Most Watched TV Episode EVER [106 Million Viewers] | Guy Raz

Key Takeaway

Practice “deep listening” in your next conversation: set aside your next question, listen for what the other person actually means, and respond to the detail that surprises or confuses you. If you do not understand, say so and ask them to explain it another way. Alda’s improvisation-based approach shows that better collaboration, communication, and creativity emerge when you stop performing a prepared script and genuinely respond to the person in front of you.

Episode Overview

Alan Alda reflects on his path from a turbulent childhood and years of odd jobs to becoming Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H, an acclaimed actor, writer, director, and science communicator. He explains how improvisation, ensemble trust, curiosity, and a willingness to keep learning shaped both his creative work and his approach to Parkinson’s disease and aging.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Alan Alda: The Man Behind the Most Watched TV Episode EVER [106 Million Viewers] | Guy Raz from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I hear silence on the set, scene one, take one, and I think it's going to happen in a second. I still don't see how I'm the right person for this. I was just going over these thoughts when the director said, "Action!" I walk out the door and there's the great Alan Alda. He received an Oscar nomination, and is an icon of theater and screen. Alan Alda. Alan Alda. Alan. We couldn't live on what I earned as an actor for about eight or nine years. I was a goalkeeper.

I was a clown. When do you remember thinking, "I've got this under control"? Hardly ever. Actors often say, "If you wear the shoes, it helps you get into character." I looked at my boots and they weren't helping. There was tension on the show. We were a desperate group, which made the job difficult. And we would sit down and you would tell him to his face. Oh, yes. Yes. Wow. That's pretty intense. You were very famous during the MASH era. When that program ended, I don't know if you were worried that that was it.

When you've been working 12, 14 hours a day for 11 years with the same people on the same project and suddenly it stops. It was like getting off a train at full speed. And I got a little depressed. You know, there are challenges surrounding Woody Allen. Do you think you would work with him today if the opportunity arose? Alan, you, um, grew up as the son of an actor. Your father, I mean, from your earliest memories you were probably watching your dad perform, I think. Yes of course.

I was two and a half, maybe three, but more like two and a half, standing backstage watching burlesque. So my earliest memories are of comics. Yes. The chorus girls, the dancers. The choir girls were very kind to me. They were very maternal. Yes. They would take me to their dressing room and treat me like a kind of pet. Your dad, your dad adopted the name Alda, right? Yes. He created it; his birth name was Alfonso D'Abruzzo, and he took "Al" from Alfonso and "Da" from D'Abruzzo and formed Alda.

And, and you were, I mean, you were born, I think in the mid-30s in the Bronx and, um... No, not in the Bronx. In Manhattan. In Manhattan. I understand. Yes. The Bronx thing is one of those internet myths. I understand you now. Okay. Well, that's good to know. And, uh, I wonder, I mean, back then, you know, you still had Italian immigrants coming to New York. I mean, still, I mean, this: Were you immersed in the culture of Italian immigrants, the Catholic Church, or any of those things when you were a child?

What do you remember? My mother was Irish and my father was Italian. And that added to the fact that I considered myself primarily Italian because I was more exposed to Italians and I loved the food, and uh, and the camaraderie. It was... I don't know exactly why, but I... and my last name was Italian. Yes. So I leaned more towards that. Tell me what you remember from what I understand and from what you have written about your father in your memoirs. He was a very kind man, wasn't he?

It was a huge amount. Yes. So there was no real reason for me to compete with him, but I did, I don't know why. I remember helping him learn his lines for a movie once, and uh, I was holding the script and he was saying his line, then I'd give him the next one, then he'd say his and then there would be a long pause and he'd say, "What? What's up?" He said, "Maybe if you try to read that line differently." I was 10 years old when I was running it.

Wow, that's unbearable. Did you already know as a child that you wanted to act, that you wanted to do the same as your father? He took it for granted that the entertainment world was the real world. Oh. I thought that all those people I'd been with since I was a baby were lucky to have this life. And, in fact, I thought most people did. I knew no other world . When I started to realize that there were people who were civilians, I felt sorry for them because they didn't get on a train to go to the next city every week, sleep in the seats, wake up in a new place, be backstage , and they were fun people.

So I always knew I wanted to be a part of that. But he wanted to be a writer before he wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be a writer since I was about eight years old. Your dad was, um, you know, a pretty successful theater actor, but also, um, from what I've read about you and what you 've written, I mean, your childhood was, um, I mean, you had polio as a child. Your mother, um, suffered from, from, from mental illness. Um, tell me a little bit about life at home.

Um, first of all, your childhood illness. How much of that do you remember? I remember a lot. It was, I remember very, it is very interesting. I have memories that go back to my early days. Uh-huh . And they are very vivid. They're like complete stories. I remember that I had polio. The symptoms first appeared while we were at the Warner Brothers movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard watching a movie and. It was crowded, and I couldn't sit in the same row as my parents, but I had what seemed like a cold, and I kept trying to blow my nose, and I was making noise a couple of rows in front of them.

And at the end of the movie my mother said, "Was that you?" I was so annoyed with whoever was doing that. I got home and had to vomit. My knees buckled while I was on the toilet. They had to help me get to bed. And it was at that moment that my mother said to my father, "I think he has polio." She had read in magazines what the symptoms were. And my father said, "No, it's just a cold." No. But she said, "No, let's find a doctor." So the next morning a doctor came and they took me to the hospital.

And I remember very well my mother making a failed attempt to be happy about going to the hospital. Let's sing a song. She, she was a terrible actress. She couldn't , she had no ambitions to be an actress. But when she tried to lighten a situation, you could tell she would n't have been a good actress. Yes. So you, I mean, so you were, uh, six years old. This was in the 1940s, specifically in 1947. Diagnosed with polio. Um, you, I mean , obviously you survived and but it was debilitating, it was often debilitating for the children and would leave lasting...um, challenges.

Did you have any challenges? I mean, did you have, did you, I mean, something, I mean , did you fully recover from it? Apparently, yes. I did not experience any residual effects or late onset. Yes. Some people have. I believe my life, my life, my life could have been saved by the treatment from Sister Kenny, the nurse from Australia. She had just arrived in the United States to give lectures a year before I became ill, and her method was different from what was considered normal practice.

A lot of very strenuous massage to stretch the muscles and help them regain their shape because they contract. Yes. During polio, and also extremely hot pieces of blankets. Yes. Woolen blankets that were cooked in a water bath until they were almost boiling . They wrapped them around each limb every hour in a double layer quickly. And they were so hot that my parents had to drop them on my back. They couldn't, they couldn't hold them. Oh. So really, even at that moment, I felt sympathy for them because, in order to heal me, they were torturing their son.

They had to, and they had to do it themselves. They couldn't afford, you know, a nurse. And it was especially difficult for my father because he had just gotten a contract with Warner Brothers. And the first film he was cast in was playing George Gershwin in the biopic, the George Gershwin biopic. Oh. And the week I got sick was the week he started the movie. Oh. So it must have been a really difficult time for him, for both of them . Yes. And, from what I understand, your mother also suffered from depression and may even have been diagnosed with schizophrenia at some point.

Yes, she was schizophrenic and paranoid, and I don't know if she self-medicated, but she was also an alcoholic. So it was very, she had a very troubled life. Tell me, Alan, as a child and as a young man, that is, seeing your father , you obviously had this incredible role model in acting, theater and film. What , what, what did you observe about your father? What do you remember about how he approached the craft of acting that you would later assimilate and adopt in what you do?

You see, that's part of the competitive nature of our relationship. Yes. I think that instead of adopting things from him, I saw what he didn't want to do. He, he learned to perform on the burlesque stage. So it was more like acting in sketches than what I admired in acting. And he was, uh, full of energy, but he was always looking straight ahead, capturing the audience's attention. No, no, there was no internal process, which appealed to me more. Yes. So essentially you saw it, you observed it, and, you know, essentially, uh, you know, you looked at it thinking, this isn't what I want.

This is not what I want to do. Yes. But not all the time. No. Yes. Not consciously. When he was in Guys and Dolls, he did it for two years on Broadway. He was the first to play the role of Sky Masterson. Yes. And I stayed backstage every Saturday to watch both shows . And he had a particular gesture he made when he paid for a drink. Mhm. In one of the scenes, he would leave a tip and then place his glass of whiskey on top of the money to hold it in place .

And I noticed that in my 50s and 60s I was still doing the same thing by leaving a tip on the table. So there were things that I incorporated not only into acting, but into my life. Yes. And when I was on MASH, he came on the show to play a character. He came on the show. Yes. You acted on the show with him. Yes. And I decided to bring it back to the show and wrote another episode for both of them and for my half-brother, who was also an actor.

And I, I was curious when he...it was interesting when he said, "I have an idea for the end of the show." The program was about how they went to a first aid station and had to operate even though there were bombings. He said, "What if a bomb falls and your left arm is injured and my right arm is injured, and the only way to operate is for you to be the right hand and me the left hand?" And I thought, "This is the worst idea I've ever heard." It's his Tin Pan Alley writer persona in action.

It's brilliant. It's great. Well, I said, the next thing I said to myself was, "Give it a chance." Give this idea a try. It could be fun to do it." So I wrote it that way. Not only did it work in the story, but it was a father-son moment . Yeah. Where we were literally doing the same thing together. I love it. And it closed a...closed a gap for me. Yeah. That...that was really important. Alan, did your father encourage you to go into show business? I mean, it's...

you clearly showed an aptitude for it. I know we'll be talking about high school because it was a pivotal time for you. You put on a play in high school that was funded by one of the priests, but did he encourage you to do it? Did your parents say, " Go for it"? He... I think he almost always discouraged me . Uh-huh . And at the same time, he always encouraged me. Well, you... I think he was pleased. He was proud that I wanted to do what he did, but he knew how difficult it was.

He knew what the hurdles would be, and he didn't want to put me through that. But when I wrote the musical comedy in high school with a couple of friends and the English teacher, He was a priest, and he financed it with his own money. My father brought the entire cast of "Guys and Dolls" to the high school to see the dress rehearsal and the opening night performance of the play. So he was immensely proud of me, and as my career progressed, he was, you know, more and more proud with every step I took.

I know there was— I think it's fair to call it a pretty pivotal moment in your life— when, in high school, you had a priest who seemed to be quite liberal and encouraging, and he encouraged you and your friends to go ahead with your comedy writing and your writing, and you had written a play that impressed this priest so much that he financed it. He said, "We're going to put on this play called 'Loves the Ticket.'" Loves the Ticket." Yes. Yes. Yes. He was very supportive of creativity.

He once told me, "If you write the Thanksgiving play, we'll have an assembly, and the whole school can go on Thanksgiving break after seeing a short play." " If you write that, you won't have to do the reading report." Yes. So I knew what would appeal to me, and it was very, very encouraging. Were you drawn to comedy from a young age ? I've read about how even in elementary school, in high school, and even before, you liked to exaggerate a little and make people laugh.

But of course, early in your career, certainly in theater, you played dramatic roles. But , but, did you see yourself as someone who wanted to pursue dramatic characters, comedic characters, or both? I enjoyed being funny, and I enjoyed making people laugh. I came from that world. Yes. And actually, when I didn't go, I didn't go to school for the first six grades, except for first grade; then I got polio, and then it was easier for my parents to tutor me , and that helped make traveling easier for them.

Yes. And things like that. So I didn't go back to school until seventh grade. And I remember walking onto the school playground and seeing all those kids there and saying, "Wow, look at the size of that audience." I really thought they wanted me to entertain them. I climbed up on a picnic table and was dancing at one point, and that did n't really make me the school's favorite kid. You, um, I know you went, you studied English at Fordham? That's where you met your wife , whom you're still married to.

Um, did you go to college intending to start your career in theater, or in film and television, right out of college? Is that it? What do you remember about thinking about your future? I think I just thought it was the next step. Yes. Trying to get a job, which I did. It took a long time. We couldn't, we could n't live on what I was making as an actor. Um, for about eight or nine years. I was a taxi driver. Arlene was a teacher. She taught at a girls' school in Harlem, gave music and clarinet lessons to private students.

I was a doorman. Yes, I was a street clown at a gas station opening, and once , in A store that sold chicken pieces. I don't think they cooked them. I think they just had them laid out on a tray, and you could buy raw chicken pieces. And for some reason, the people at the store's grand opening thought they needed a clown to hand out balloons. Hmm. So I got attacked by the town kids. More than once, the kids thought seeing a clown on the street was a good target.

You know, I know this was, this was required. You served in the military a few years after college and were stationed in Korea, and this was after... No, it wasn't like that. That's another one, weren't you stationed in Korea? You never actually got to serve there . No, I didn't actually serve anywhere. I was in the ROC. And while I was in the ROC, I was taught how to be a second lieutenant, and then I had to do six months of active duty. And where were you stationed?

At...at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Fort Bragg. So I spent those six months learning how to be a second lieutenant... Once. Wow. So now I really know how to be a second lieutenant. But you were never deployed overseas during that time. No. No. Wow. But clearly, I imagine that experience would serve you well later in life when you had to draw on some of those things you saw in the military, obviously when you later wrote and starred in M*A*S*H. Well , one thing I gained that helped me as a director was a sense of organization, how to organize a group of people into a unit that can accomplish something.

Yes. So, that was useful. I didn't like being given the job of explaining to young military men how they could kill the most people with one mortar shell. Yes. That gave me a backache. Yes. Tell me about... I mean, you grew up watching your father act, and you clearly had a natural talent, but you would develop it over time, and I think one of the ways you developed it was through improvisation, joining an improv group after you finished your time in the service. Tell me how the Improvisation, how did you begin to find yourself as a character actor in improvisation?

Well, improvisation is very important to me. It changed me as an actor and it also changed me to some extent as a person. The thing about improvisation is that most people think improvisation is about making things up. Yes. But the kind of improvisation I admire was invented by a woman named Viola Spolin, I think in the 1930s in Chicago. And she worked a lot with children. And the goal of her kind of improvisation was to achieve such good contact with the people you're working with that things emerge from you that you didn't expect to emerge.

Yes. So, it's not a question of making things up. It's a question of letting things emerge because you're not thinking about what you're going to do or say next. You're thinking about something else. Each of her games or exercises sets you to consciously work on some problem that you have to solve, and your unconscious is free to wander, and that's how the creative stuff comes about. I mean, in improvisation, And I know you've talked about this a bit in your books and other writings—you really have to interact with others, don't you?

The success of an improv group is the success of exchanging ideas, words, and moments with each other, which I imagine served you well because you went on to be in two very important casts: MASH and The West Wing. And I wonder if there was some, or perhaps a lot, of that improvisational sensibility that carried over to those roles and experiences . I think so. The notion of two things about improvisation that are very useful in a performance, in the act of acting. One is that you relate to the other person.

You let the other person in and respond to what the other person does or says, not just as an idea, but to what's actually happening, what they're really giving you, what they mean beneath the surface. So that's very important. The other thing that 's very important—I just forgot it while I was telling you the first one. Well, just exchanging ideas and responding to something somebody else says, and oh, yes, the other thing, the other thing is What's really important is that it gives you spontaneity. Yes.

You know, if acting is just a series of you say your lines and then I say mine, and then you say your line, right? That doesn't feel like life. No. Spontaneity comes when I actually respond in a millisecond to what I get from you and you do the same with what you get from me, and then it comes alive. I mean, I have to assume that, because you have this lineage in acting, there was natural talent, but natural talent isn't always enough. It's almost never enough.

You have to start honing the craft. And I wonder, when do you remember starting to feel really secure as an actor, in the craft of assimilating, becoming another human being and embodying that being? When do you remember thinking, "I 've got this"? Um, practically never. I think I invent a new system, a new method, every time I act. It's really interesting. I had a confidence that, in a way, was unfounded. I always had the confidence to go on stage and perform. But I never thought I knew how to do it or that I had it down.

Mmm. It was always improvisation. It was always figuring things out as I went along, how do you do this thing? And to some extent, that's still true for me . Yes. It's interesting because I've read about some of the actors you were on stage with when you were young; you were with great actors, but of course, you would go on to become a great actor yourself. And I'm wondering if throughout your career you've had that experience of acting with someone else and thinking, "This person is so much better than me, I'll never be as good as them." No.

No. Okay. I do n't recall anything like that. What I do remember many times, whether they were famous actors or not, yes, is receiving something authentic from them and being very grateful to be talking to the character. I wasn't talking to someone who was just reciting the character's lines. I just remember being very grateful to have a person of such quality to work with, whether I had the same quality or not. I mean, it certainly must be true that I learned a lot as I went along , because Sometimes I see early examples of my work by accident, when they appear on screen, and I, I, I ...

I see that I wouldn't have done it that way if I'd had the experience I have now. Yes. When you got your first opportunity on Broadway. I think it was in 1959. I think it was your Broadway debut. I think it was "Only in America, " and you had the role of the Telephone Man. What do you remember about that time? Did it feel like a big breakthrough? You had done theater in Cleveland, you had done improv, and you had been on other stages, but this was Broadway.

This was the greatest stage in the world. Did you feel like you had finally made it? I mean, you were still young. You were 24, 25. I smile as you describe it like that. You had seven lines as the Telephone Man. Yes. And I said most of them from the top of a telephone pole at the side of the stage. And I auditioned for the play while I was working as a doorman on 48th Street. And I didn't have time to change into normal clothes. So I went to the audition with the Doorman's work pants, with the stripe down the side.

Uh-huh . I auditioned, said the seven lines, and then I found out I was in the show. But what that meant to me wasn't, " I'm finally on Broadway." What it meant to me was that we'd have a couple of weeks of work because of this. Yeah. That's not standing on the sidewalk, you know, hailing cabs, which was pretty cool, by the way. I always learned something from those less-than-romantic, non- acting jobs, you know, in those early years of your professional career, when you were looking for any role you could get, because you would get another role, I think a couple of years later on Broadway, and then you'd even get a part in a movie in 1963.

But I wonder, what do you remember about working in the acting trade and trying to figure out these different characters and how to be them? Would you ... I don't know. Would you... what kind of things did you do to get better at it, you know, at...? I was just making it up as I went along. Yes. I'm glad to see that it's now common for actors to receive formal training. Yes. I never had any formal training, except for the improvisation workshops I attended. And I once took a mime class from the guy who taught Marcel Marceau— his name was Decroux— and that was great.

I loved the mime class, except for one of the exercises, which involved falling forward on your face and stopping just before your nose hit the floor with your hands on the floor, which I didn't really understand the value of doing, because I came very close to breaking my nose a couple of times. I mean, you make your debut in 1959, six lines in this play, and I know it probably felt like an eternity, but actually, six and a half years later, you got a Tony nomination for a role in a Mike Nichols play.

Um, first of all, what... do you remember how... how did your dad react to that? I mean, he was the son of a stage actor, at Thirty years old at that time, he's...he's a Tony nominee. My father won the Tony for Guys and Dolls. Okay. I've only been nominated. I've been nominated three times, but he won. Yes. And he was perfect in that role. Yes. There was nobody who could play that character like him. It was tailor-made for him. And he was never as good at anything else as he was at that, so he deserved to win the Tony.

And I remember him showing me the little statuette and I...I could see that he knew I didn't really know what it meant. He said, "You know, this is a really big deal," helping me understand what he had accomplished. And do you remember how he reacted when you were nominated? No, I don't remember. I'm sure he was happy for me. Yes, I'm sure. I want to talk to you about how you become a character that's so different from you and ...You're obviously best known, or one of your best-known characters is Hawkeye in M*A*S*H, and you really were him, he was You.

I mean, from the viewer's perspective, that show couldn't have existed without Hawkeye. And his lines... I mean, I'm thinking, for example, of one of the most famous moments when Houlihan says, "He's a commander," and you called him an idiot. She said, "You're talking to a commander," and then he says, " Well, he's an idiot commander." Amazing lines in that show, and that character you played, and you've said he was completely different from you. He was a womanizer, a flirt. He was... He drank too much. I mean, he was nothing like you.

You had kids at home. You'd fly back to New Jersey to be with your wife and kids on the weekends. What was it like becoming that character? How did you do it? How do you remember it? Well, I didn't know how I was going to do it. Yeah. We had 10 days of rehearsal, and during all those days I did my best to see how I could play the character. And then came the first take, and I'm standing in his boots. And wearing his uniform. And actors usually say that if you wear the shoes, it helps you get into character.

Hmm. I looked at my boots, and they weren't helping. And all I had to do in that take, there wasn't even any dialogue. All I had to do was open the door and walk through the camp. We were outdoors. Then I hear silence on the set. Then the clapperboard guy said, you know, scene one, take one. And I'm thinking, what's going to happen in a second? I still don't see how I'm the guy here. I was actually going through these thoughts, and the director says, "Action!" I walk out the door, and there are people walking around the compound, and a nurse comes up to me.

So, no, it's not in the script. There's no script. I'm just supposed to walk across the compound. I take her by the waist and give her a hug, and she gives me a little nudge, like, to push me away, you know. But I'm like, "Well, that sounds like I 'm Hawkeye." That wasn't so difficult." Yes. And I mean, you also wrote for him. I mean, did you see any part of yourself in him, or was he a completely alien person, someone you, Alan Alda, would never, I don't know, want to spend time with, or would you?

I'm curious, because it almost sounds like you didn't really like who he was. I do n't know if I'd love to be in the company of someone like that in real life. Yes. But this is different. And the thing is, you can't play a character and be convincing unless you find things in yourself that are like the character. I mean, if I were to play Hitler, I would really want to rule the world. And I wouldn't just want these things that the character wants, I would feel entitled to them.

Of course, you know, of course I want Poland. I have a right to Poland. I'm doing something good here. And I'm getting all this power, which I love. We all have it inside us, some more than others. But if I were to be a guy who drank too much, what would that guy be like? What is What is it about me that would make me fit into that Lego piece? I mean, this was a guy who, by your own admission, wasn't someone you'd base your life on, but he was a beloved character, one of the most beloved characters in television history.

And back then, you know, back in the '70s and early ' 80s, you were mobbed by fans who thought they were seeing and meeting Hawkeye. And I'm wondering how you responded to that. What did you think about it? Well, it sounds like you imagine I was saying to myself every day, "I 'm not this person." Which is almost the opposite of what you do when you're acting. When you're acting, you are the character. You are the character. And you allow yourself to be everything he is.

Even if he's a villain, in playing him you can do things that in real life you wouldn't be allowed to. I mean, it wouldn't be socially acceptable for me to hang someone and torture them , but I've done it as a villain. Yeah. And it's all, it's all a game. It's not, it's not , it's not It's so hard to do if you give yourself permission to do it. But what's terrible is getting caught in a vicious cycle where you end up saying to yourself, "I'm not really this, but I'm going to pretend to be." And if you put on a performance where you say, "This is what this guy would be like," instead of, " This is me." I'm the guy.

"I am this version of that man." And you use everything you have, everything that makes you you, just tuned a little bit into the character's frequency. Then, people will respond to you as someone they want to keep watching. Uh, that character, Hawkeye, wasn't initially meant to be the lead. There were going to be other main characters, but you really developed that character into this favorite that became the lead. Were you surprised by how popular he became? How central he became as an icon of American television ?

I do n't think anyone on the show realized how popular it was. The whole show, we all felt that we used to be, in fact, we weren't that popular at first. So, right. Right. For the first year, we were at the bottom of the list. And, well, while other shows could boast about being in the top 10, I would say we were in the top 78. So there wasn't, uh, any sense for a long time that we had the success that we had. And in fact, even at the end, when we were 100, we were n't I know how many millions of people were watching the final episode.

We were, we were really shocked. I remember that. I was a little kid. I remember that. My parents, everyone would gather around the TV. I mean , I was seven years old, but I remember it. I remember watching that. I was in Canada a year or two ago, and someone told me they watched the final episode in a basketball arena, and there were 20,000 or 25,000 people watching that episode at the same time. It was a national event. Yeah. Yeah. That was incredible. I mean, if you think about that show, right?

I mean, we're talking about, you know, the best sitcoms , Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, M*A*S*H. I mean, we're talking about these historic shows. I wonder... I know it's no secret. It's an open secret that there was something, and this is normal. There was some tension on the show, and certainly in the early days, there was Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson, who left after two or three seasons. But then the show really, and I don't know if it's because they left Or not, but the show really thrived and grew.

But what do you remember about any tension on set? I do n't think there was that kind of tension that some people seem to understand. When we started, we were a disparate group, and we knew we had to learn how to be a coordinated group, working together toward the same purpose. So, at the end of every week, every Friday night, we'd eat pizza on set after we'd wrapped shooting, and we'd sit and complain to each other about what each other was doing that we didn't like.

That made the work difficult. It was almost like a group therapy session. They'd tell each other straight . Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'd just sit there and say, "I didn't like the way you did that." Like, not the acting, but kind of the demeanor. Oh, how interesting. Wow, that's pretty intense. Yeah. So, it wasn't a question of a tense set. It was a question of finding each other as people. Yeah. And Wayne was my closest friend. Some people think he left because he didn't like it. that I had more to do on the show.

He left because he didn't have enough to do. Yeah. He had a business he could go to , and we were very close friends until he died. Of course, he played Trapper John McIntyre. Well, you know, the amazing thing, I mean, there are so many amazing things about watching that show, but the chemistry between the, you know, between the actors, you know, uh, your character and Jamie Farr , and Mike Farrell and Loretta Swit, obviously, of course. I mean, just, um, damn, what's his name? Um, the guy who replaced, um, uh, the new, uh...

David. Harry Morgan, excuse me, Harry Morgan, I mean, just the amazing scenes between you and Harry Morgan. I mean, there's a famous one where he orders you to fire a gun and you fire it. You say, "The gun, you're fired," and you throw it on the ground. I mean, just amazing scenes. And I have to imagine there was an intensity of friendship as well, or was there also an intensity of, You know, it was more like a family where sometimes you really hated each other and sometimes you loved each other and you were all close?

I do n't remember it that way. Maybe, maybe it was occasionally, but, but I do remember the affection we all had for each other . Yes. And making space for each other's idiosyncrasies. Everyone had idiosyncrasies and instead of getting annoyed by them, I think we made space for them. Why do you think the show was so successful? Obviously, the script was great and the actors were well cast. Was it, was it because it was collaborative? Because it was almost like this, even though it was scripted, there was almost an improvisational sensibility where you interacted with each other and the energy that the other actors brought.

That thing you're describing is something we discovered that I later used in everything I act in. In fact, it's a common thing on a film set when you finish a scene and you're setting up for the next one, you have to light the set and that takes an hour or two. Yes. Instead of going back to our dressing rooms very often, most of the time we We'd sit in a circle of chairs and make each other laugh a little. We'd go over our lines, but mostly we'd tease each other.

We had a... an... an event that brought us together, just by the impulse of the moment. And we'd take that connection that was happening there in that circle of chairs and carry it with us through the studio to the set and maintain it, but now using the dialogue of the scene. We were together. We forged ourselves into a unit. Yes. And when I've done plays, and whenever I could in films—it's harder in film because you're not always with the same group of actors, but in a play you can do it.

And I just reconnected with two wonderful actors who did that with me in a Broadway play 24 years ago. And we got together on my podcast and reminisced about those days when we'd get together an hour before every show. Yes. And it was the same thing we did in M*A*S*H. And that connection we made in the dressing room would come through during the show. And it was a different show every night. Because it was spontaneous, since we reacted to each other as things happened. And as things varied each night, our response varied as well.

I saw that watching my father and Sam Lavine, a wonderful character actor, while they were doing "Guys and Dolls." I was backstage watching the show. And I learned a lot watching my father because I knew him so well. I knew where he got the character from. So that was instructive. It was amazing to watch Sam Lavine because he was so spontaneous. What amazed me was that he could follow a line of dialogue wherever it led him. He would say the same words every night, standing in the same place.

But the way he said them, the rhythm, the intent would change. He would follow it wherever it went, to the point that sometimes the laughter would come from a different place. The laughter was written and directed to happen in one place, but he would find something funny at the end instead of at the beginning, or he would just let it flow wherever it wanted to go. And that was very instructive. For me. And that comes from being attentive not only to the other actor, but to what comes out of yourself.

I want to jump ahead and ask you about your post- MASH period, when you started experimenting. Well, I know you experimented as a director on MASH in several episodes, and then you continued to do some film roles. And I want to ask about that because you worked, obviously , with legendary people: Mike Nichols and Larry Gelbart, and also Woody Allen. And Woody Allen is, I don't think it's strange to say, one of the greatest directors of the, you know, 20th century, referring to the English language, but obviously, you know, there are challenges surrounding Woody Allen.

First of all, as a director working with him, because you were in Crimes and Misdemeanors, right. Um, what was it like, um, I mean, what was it like working with him? Because I've spoken to actors and heard from them that he has a very, very different approach to directing. He doesn't talk, at least he never talked much, from what I heard. I think I think sometimes directors achieve a style His work style is based on what makes him comfortable in life . He's not comfortable talking to people much.

So he doesn't talk to the actors. He lets the actors sort it out on their own, in a way. And I think my impression was you do the scene, he'd finish the day, watch the takes, call you back to repeat it a week or a month later, but he wouldn't necessarily talk to you about it again. So you do it again, then he calls you a third time, and after that he fires you. But I like to talk. Yes. So at first it was difficult for me, but by the second day I loved it.

I loved working with him. And he likes improvisation. So a lot of what I said in Crimes and Misdemeanors was improvised. Yes. But the big jokes were all his. Do you think, given his track record and what he's done, and of course there are challenges and controversies, do you think you would work with him today if there was an opportunity? I do n't know why not. I don't have a rule of thumb. that I wouldn't work on something. If I didn't like the material, then it would be business as usual.

I'd say thank you. But I do n't think so. But I believe you're innocent until proven guilty . And I believe he was on trial. I believe he was found not guilty. Right. Right. You know, it's interesting because you were in M*A*S*H and most of your colleagues in M*A*S*H, that was it for many of them . I mean, some did some other roles here and there, but you, you've had a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, multiple lives, new facets as an actor. Uh, and "The West Wing" was really that kind of, I mean , at a time when many actors in your, you know, stage of acting would be at the end of their careers.

You were once again in this great, you know, this great cast and also playing a character very different from you, I think. Right. You played a conservative Republican senator . Yes. But he was a very decent guy. Wasn't it too difficult? Wanting to be like him, Right? You know, I had one of the happiest moments of my life acting on that show when Jimmy Smits and I were doing the presidential debate. Mhm. Because that was almost like improv in the sense that it was in the script, and we had to say exactly what the script said, but Lawrence O'Donnell was writing it, and he kept thinking of new things to include.

And right up until the last minute, there were changes, rewrites, new material. So to make sure that , you know, we were sticking to the script, Jimmy and I had teleprompters, video screens with the lines. But to be able to use that and not look like you're reading is almost like improv . And that was an exciting moment for me because we did it live. Yes. We did it once for the East Coast and once for the West Coast. And when we did it for the West Coast, we had a different audience in the studio.

And that audience, for some reason, thought it was a Democratic rally. And every time Jimmy Smits said something, they would clap. They would clap and ignore what I had What to say? So, in a moment, I improvised a sentence. I said, "Wait, wait a minute." "I have something better to say ." Something like that. I had to take control and win them back again. How did you go down this completely separate path, right, that wasn't part of the so-called entertainment industry, but not really science either?

I mean, you started hosting science programs in the early '90s. Uh, and you really wanted to do the reporting, the interviews on these programs. Uh, where did that come from? Because it's a huge part of your life, and we'll talk about it a little bit more, but science education is a huge part of your life, and you're not a trained scientist. It's not, it's not your background. So, tell me a little bit, how did it happen, and where did your attraction to science come from? Well, I've always been curious, and I've always been interested in science.

But especially when I was in my twenties, I became really interested in it. I was always curious because it was important for me to be, having a schizophrenic mother. Yes. Because her sense of reality didn't match other people's reality . And I had to constantly figure out what was real out there. Is what she's saying real or not? Are there hidden cameras in the wall taking pictures of us? What was coming out of her paranoia? I remember very clearly overhearing adults talking at the dinner table or at a party.

And I would try to understand why they were saying what they were saying. What did they really mean? What was going on between them? I wonder if kids do that now. They sit around with their iPhones, their iPads, and they miss the opportunity to learn what adults do, both in their mistakes and their successes. They don't get the chance to evaluate the adult they'll one day become. Uh-huh. So I was always curious, and when M*A*S*H ended, I got a letter inviting me to host a show called Scientific American Frontiers.

I was really curious to know what scientists had to say about their work. But I said I didn't want to just be the guy who says, " Here they are," and then walk away and come back and read a narration. Right? I wanted to talk to the scientist myself because I figured I'd learn something. And I really did. The opportunity to spend a whole day with a scientist to get Just six minutes of program time means a lot of interaction. And I used my experience as an improviser.

I didn't come in with a list of questions that would make it sound like a conventional interview . Yes. You know, I understand that this probably influenced what you ended up doing in founding a science communication center, but one of the challenges that many academics have, not just in the physical sciences, but throughout academia, is communicating their ideas to the public, right? Making it accessible, not oversimplifying it, but making it understandable. And particularly when it comes to complex scientific concepts, they're not always experts in them.

And that's not a criticism of scientists. It's just that this isn't how they're trained. But you got pretty good at figuring out how to communicate some of these complex ideas. And I suppose that's what led you to want to collaborate with Stony Brook University in New York and say, "Hey, maybe we should do something about this." Definitely. When I realized how well these conversations with the scientists were going, I came to the conclusion that it was because we were relating to each other in the same way we've talked about how we're How do actors relate to each other, how do improvisers relate to each other?

They would tell me something and I would listen as deeply as I could and say, "Well, where does that lead? Why did you tell me something before that doesn't seem to fit with that?" So how does it fit with that? "And that attracted them. Now they're not giving a lecture anymore. Now they're dealing with someone who doesn't understand, but who is very curious. And at one point, I grabbed a very well-known scientist. I grabbed his cheek and said, 'I don't know what you 're talking about.'" Tell me again.

" Tell me another way." And that gave me the idea of ​​seeing if we could train scientists to have that same connection they had with me, but with the general public, with the audience they're trying to communicate with. So they could try to figure out whether the audience was understanding or not. And if it seemed like they were n't, to change the way they were saying it so that everything comes from the transaction of the relationship. It's not about finding the best way to explain your science.

It's about finding the best way to communicate it to this audience. What do they need to hear to understand it? It's too difficult. Too often something complex is broken down into its parts and it seems like a satisfactory explanation to the person, right? Who's been doing the work their whole life. But it doesn't necessarily resonate with someone in the audience who hasn't been exposed to the same background as you. So you have to get inside their head and you're responsible for them understanding. They're not responsible .

You know, the core—I should mention, I think some people listening will know this—was renamed the Alan Alda Centre at Stony Brook, and it's quite an amazing achievement. I mean, it's incredible because you've been honored with so many awards and achievements in the field of science communication as well as in Hollywood. Um, when it comes to your acting career, which role are you most proud of? Is it the one you think really showcased what you're capable of ? You know, no, I don't see it that way.

I think I see it as moments. There were moments in the debate on The West Wing. Hmm. That make me very happy to have experienced those moments. There were moments in M*A*S*H. I was a guest actor on a British two-actor show called "The Play What I Wrote," where a well- known actor would appear for the entire second act. And you had to sing, dance, and wear a crinoline as part of a crazy plan to break someone out of jail. I remember that, which hardly anyone saw, as one of my happiest moments.

It's the same with how I feel about other actors. If you ask me who my favorite actor is, I couldn't tell you, but I could tell you Wonderful moments I've seen. Sometimes actors I'd never heard of, sometimes huge stars. Was there a moment in your career? I mean, you were so famous during the M*A*S*H era, and obviously you're still very well-known, but back then, probably everywhere you went, people were asking for your autograph . And when that show ended, were there moments in your career when you worried, I don't know, that that was it ?

That the work would dry up, that the roles wouldn't come in? I had the advantage that I could write screenplays. Yes. That I could turn into films and that I would direct myself. But nevertheless, when you've been working 12, 14 hours a day for 11 years with the same people on the same project, and suddenly it stops— even though I was instrumental in ending it because I thought we'd reached the end of our creativity—even though I was instrumental in ending it, it was like getting off a moving train.

Yes. And I was a bit depressed for a couple of months. Mhm. While I was writing the next thing I was going to do. Yes. And how did you deal with that? In a way, I waited for it to pass. And it did pass. And it came and went every few years. No. No. Mainly the impact of not having a place to go every day. Yes. In the company of colleagues you trust, that you enjoy being with. That is an impact. When friends retire, I try to warn them all about that impact of getting off a speeding train.

Fortunately, I always had something that interested me and that I could pursue, like Scientific American Frontiers. Yes. And then that became the Center for Science Communication, and that became my podcast. And none of these things were planned . They were all just the next thing . I went with my gut feeling. What interests me? What would be fun to do? What am I qualified to do? Alan, you revealed in 2018 that you were diagnosed with Parkinson's. And what's remarkable is that it's almost as if you approached it as a Science communicator, that you wanted people to know .

That's interesting. Yes, you're right. True. Yes. I wanted people to know because I knew from how people reacted when they found out I had Parkinson's, that they tended to think the worst. Yes. Not that if you get a diagnosis early enough and start a program of exercise and medication, you can delay the worst aspects for a long time. And I wanted people to know that because there's a stigma associated with it. Yes. In part because we only see, mostly we see the worst of Parkinson's when people are really in trouble.

Yes. They ca n't move. They can't speak. They shake uncontrollably . And that's terrifying, and that's why many people don't want to know what their diagnosis might be because they don't want the bad news. The good news is that if you catch it early enough, you can do something about it. You played a character in Ray Donovan and then again in the film Marriage Story as a character with Parkinson's. That was written for those characters. Well, it was written after I shot a scene where I had a Tremor.

Yes. In fact, in Marriage Story, there was no mention of it . I just had a tremor, and it wasn't cut. I mean, it was part of it. It was part of the character. And that's what I mean by the science communicator. Part of it was: it's almost as if you're experiencing this thing that many, many millions of people experience, but you also have the ability to communicate what it's like , what it means, and what it doesn't mean. And yes, I mean, some people hide it; some people get scared or worried about it.

It's just a completely different approach, and it fits with what you 've been doing as a science communicator. Well, yes, I understand the impulse to hide it. I don't try to hide it. I have a tremor. But if I'm going to—I just did a reading at a concert, an early Mozart concert, where I read something I wrote about Mozart based on his letters, written around the same time that the pieces being performed that evening were composed. Yes. But I didn't want the tremor to be the focus of the evening.

So I worked very hard, even taking a A beta-blocker that musicians use to relieve stage fright—what's it called? —anxiety in front of an audience. I worked on my voice to have enough volume to fill the venue, and it worked well, but it wasn't a matter of, "Well, I'll just go in there, shake, and that's it ." I really didn't want it to be a distraction. Yes. And it went well. You know, I think you're 85 now. 86. 86. Still active, still performing. You basically grew up in Hollywood and you 've aged in Hollywood.

People have seen you. You can go back to 1963 and see yourself in movies. And see how you grew up and how you continue to grow up. Um. I mean, are you ever going to retire ? Are you going to keep going? Are you going to keep going if a role comes along? Well , for the moment I can play anyone who shakes. I make a wonderful milkshaker. You should see it. But no...I realize I'm at an age that some people consider old, but I don't see it that way.

I think most of us at this age We don't see age that way. We know we have some frailties. We have some challenges . But inside, we're still kids. Yes. I'm still trying to accomplish things I 'm not sure I can do. And that—that's what made me happy as a kid, discovering I could do it, or almost do it, and then the next time actually succeeding. That—that's the joy of being alive. So I don't see why I should stop doing that. I agree. I agree. Um, Alan Alda, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. That's the great Alan Alda. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Great Creators. Please click the subscribe button so you don't miss any new episodes of the show. And you can also find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Just search for The Great Creators. I'm Guy Roz. Thank you so much. Until next time.