| Alan Alda And His Many Careers |
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 Alan Alda stars as newspaper editor Metz in "Resurrecting the Champ"  "Resurrecting The Champ" is being released nationwide on August 24th, 2007  Alan Alda's second book, "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself" comes out on September 4th  Josh Hartnett as news reporter Erik and Alda as his boss, Metz, in "Resurrecting The Champ" Without seeming to do so, Alda has played many a critical role throughout his career because his delivery is both subtle and distinct. When he did his Hawkeye, he made the character his own through an on-the-money balance between sarcasm and empathy. Whether the part he's playing is pivotal or otherwise, Alda always adds that balance between hard and soft, dark and light--by exploring the grey areas in between. In his upcoming book, "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself," due out this Fall, Alda describes how to find happiness and humor by peering into those dark and light realms of life. Though Alda's appearance in the new Rod Lurie film "Resurrecting the Champ" is relatively secondary, his character--newspaper editor Metz--occupies an important place in the life of the lead, sportswriter Erik (played by Josh Harnett), who has his ass metaphorically kicked by his boss. Erik has to find a great story or risk being fired, and Harnett's character proceeds to come back with the story of Champ (Samuel L. Jackson), a down-and-out boxer who is believed to be a former near-champion that everyone thought dead for years. In his article "Resurrecting the Champ," Erik gives "Champ" a new lease on life and injects new life into his writing as well. Or so it seems--and without giving away the ending, Erik finds himself in a bind when the truth behind the story proves to be something else. resurrectingthechamp.comQ: You play a character who is one of those pivotal characters in the movies--the crusty newspaper editor. Look at the many great films like "His Girl Friday" and "The Front Page" with such a character. So it's great that you have added this role to your canon. And you have the added asset of being a writer, so that must have been fun. Alan Alda: Yeah, and I also had to talk with writers sometimes. As a producer, I had to try to get writers to write their best. I find that the hardest job to have, because I know how hard it is. Everybody wants to be at their best, but if you don't hook into the thing then you can't write your best, and nobody from the outside could put it in your head. They have to somehow allow it to grow there, hope it will grow there on its own, in your own way. It is the hardest thing to do, because you can't browbeat somebody into being creative. Q: It's a relatively a small, but pivotal part in the film. You're like a father figure [for] Josh Hartnett's character Erik. Certain critical elements evolve around what happens with Erik who has to react to your character's actions. You really drive those scenes. AA: Yeah, and I bawl him out for not writing better and not writing quality. He gets nervous about that. He thinks his job is at stake and goes and writes something a little too quickly that will capture attention. Q: But you have to drive him, which is a key motivation of the film, and you can't overdo it. Did you talk it out or do you have it in your own heads, some history that makes it all come together? How did you guys work that out? AA: It's in the writing, to see if it's any good, and in this case it was. You're not encouraged by the writing to go over the top, but there is some writing that does that. Sometimes it's not written with an ear to how people actually interact. It's more perfunctory, more stereotypical, and so you have a problem when you have that kind of writing. I try to avoid that kind of writing. Q: The boss in this movie has to be tough; he's crusty but sympathetic. You don't seem like the kind of surly character that you sometimes have an opportunity to portray. AA: Yeah, but I like that about him. I like that he is tough but not stereotypically tough. He also gets hurt by this guy who lied to him. Q: You must have found that you couldn't just play the character as a mean bastard, even with Senator Vinick in "The West Wing" or Senator Ralph Owen Brewster in Martin Scorcese's "The Aviator." AA: But that interests me about characters. I don't think people are like that. If you are going to play a person, then you have to find out where the rough ends of the person are, what the person wants that is not socially acceptable, where the person is flawed, in other words, and where the person is decent or wants relatively decent things. Everybody wants to be loved. Most people love puppies and children.. some people are otherwise decent and hate children. But you need to see all sides of a person--that's what's interesting. Otherwise it is like a sketch, a cartoon. Q: The film tells one of those quintessential stories, or at least draws on one of those classic tales, of the boxer coming back--is that what attracted you to it? AA: It's not a boxing story at all. I can't track the story and find a parallel story, because it has some twists in it. When people see the movie, they think it's a boxing movie, but then it turns out not to be one. Q: But boxing draws on the theme of redemption. AA: To me, it's about the truth. It's called "Resurrecting the Champ," I think, partly because that's what the article was called that he finally wrote. Q: I assume that attitude, that you can't really modify or adjust the words when you're working from a really strong script, comes from being in the theater. AA: Well, I'm from the stage, so that's the way I look at it. In fact, I'm overly careful about that. There was a time on "M*A*S*H" when we were out in the mountains, where the outdoor set was, and we had no telephone. We were just on the air for a couple of months, and they didn't want to put the money in for a telephone. So Wayne Rogers and I were doing this scene, and we get to this line and [Wayne] says, "What do you suppose this means?" and I said, "I don't know." We couldn't call Larry Gelbart and ask him. We said, "This really doesn't make sense, does it?" And we thought, what should we do? And we said, "We"ve got to say it, he wrote it"--because we were both stage-trained actors. So the next day I was watching the rushes, and I was next to Larry Gelbart. He said, "Why did you say that?" [I] said, "That's what you wrote" and he said, "That was a typo"! So I do take what they write seriously, and I don't change words in movies. It shocks me how many actors say what they want to say. I sometimes ask for changes, but I don't just change it.
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