Alec Baldwin looks like a movie star, but he's actually more of an actor than a star. Then again, he's not all that sure about being an actor, either.
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When Alec Baldwin was 18 and first attending college, he had holes in his shoes, so he swapped them for bowling shoes at a local bowling alley. At least they kept his feet warm as he walked around New York City. Baldwin grew up on Long Island with his two sisters (neither of whom is an actress) and three brothers (all of whom are now acting) in a working-class family. He worked as a waiter, a driver and a shirt salesman, and he did voice-overs for women's makeup. He dreamed of becoming a prosecuting attorney, going into politics, making the world a better place. He didn't give acting a shot until he was 21, but within a year he got hired on a TV soap opera, 'The Doctors," which led to the short-lived series "Cutter to Houston" and then "Knots Landing," on which he played the evangelist Joshua Rush. Then came the movies: Forever Lulu, She's Having a Baby, Beetlejuice, Married to the Mob, Talk Radio, Working Girl and Great Balls of Fire! When he co-starred opposite Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October, it looked like he was on his way to following in Connery's illustrious footsteps. But what followed were the well-received but little-seen films Alice and Miami Blues, and the trouble-plagued The Marrying Man with his future wife Kim Basinger. Next came Prelude to a Kiss, a cameo in Glengarry Glen Ross, a showy turn in last fall's Malice, and a re-teaming with Basinger in The Getaway. Now Baldwin is poised for another crack at major stardom with one of the big summer hopefuls, The Shadow.
But Baldwin, like Al Pacino, would rather be on the stage, where an actor can act, than on a movie set, where an actor is lucky to shoot one or two minutes a day. In 1986 he appeared in Joe Orton's Loot, then over the next six years he was on the New York stage in Serious Money, Prelude to a Kiss and A Streetcar Named Desire, which he passed on the sequel to The Hunt for Red October to do. Where Baldwin differs from Pacino (whom he interviewed for his recently completed NYU thesis) is that he doesn't see himself as only an actor. In fact, at 36, he doesn't expect to be working in front of the camera five years from now. He'll probably produce, he feels, or maybe, if the right opportunities present themselves, go into politics. But for now, it's the movies and his rediscovered appreciation for acting.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: The Shadow seems a departure from the kinds of films you've made before. What attracted you to it?
ALEC BALDWIN: It was a good film for a young audience, and there are some very funny moments in the movie for me. The two reasons I did the movie were because I read the script and laughed my ass off, and I could see it as a movie. Also, what I do is usually a reaction to what I did before.
Q: Which was a remake of The Getaway. How'd you choose that?
A: Walter Hill is a friend of mine and he had written the screenplay for Peckinpah's original movie, but Peckinpah deviated from that quite a bit and Walter always held on to his original screenplay and wanted to direct a version of his own. I was going to do the movie with Walter. Then they got into a hassle about the budget and Walter split to go do Geronimo, and he gave everybody his blessing to go do it without him, so I did it with Roger Donaldson. I always wanted to do a movie that required what I consider to be movie acting, which is that it's not what you do, but what you don't do. It's all about small, and less and less. An action film is a perfect opportunity for that. There's always a steady flow of action films--it's the most mined material--but what distinguishes an action movie is the acting.
Q: With the beating you took in the media from The Marrying Man, were you concerned how the press would treat you guys for The Getaway?
A: I never thought about it.
Q: Kim said she was scared to death before you made it.
A: I think she was scared because what we'd done the last time The Marrying Man didn't work, which was not fun. I have a perspective on that situation now. That is, there are 20 movies a year that are made in this town that have difficulties and problems that make what I went through pale by comparison, but you never hear about those, because it's not in their interest. So when you hear about it, it's a vendetta--somebody wants to get you. Somebody from that company is feeding information, or misinformation, as the case may be. I was always surprised that people made a big deal of it, because what it boiled down to was, I worked for somebody I didn't like and I told him to kiss my ass. So what? How many people don't want to tell somebody they work for sometimes to kiss their ass? That happens. I worked for a bunch of people who didn't have any idea what they were doing...
Q: You're talking here about Jeffrey Katzenberg and the Disney executives?
A: I don't want to name names.
Q: The problems are on record.
A: Right.
Q: They're powerful people. Was it a mistake for you to be so outspoken against such powerful people?
A: Was it a mistake? I don't view it in terms of a mistake. "Mistake" means would I not do it again if I had it to do over, and I can't say that I wouldn't. Was it something that represented a problem for me? Yes. But it provided me with two tremendous gifts. One is, I met my wife, which is the most important of all. And number two, now I go into everything that I do and I want to have a positive experience. I had very, very cancer-causing, corrosive feelings for a long, long time. But you know something? That was a great preparation for what I then had to go get involved in with my wife with this Boxing Helena trial.
Q: You were also brave to have spoken out against Neil Simon, one of the icons in your business.
A: What quote did you read about Simon?
Q: That you said he was as deep as a bottle cap.
A: Someone said he was the Salieri of American theater. Which would make John Guare the Mozart. But understand, making that crack about Salieri--that's then. I ran into Neil Simon in an airport and he walked up to me, stuck his hand out. I wished him good luck on Laughter on the 23rd Floor. He's a gentleman.
Q: Let's finish the point about your outspokenness. Given the repercussions, is it something you regret?
A: No, I don't have any regrets about anything. Let's face facts, these people [at Disney] are not making great films. You cleave off the animation department of that company, and you look at the body of work these guys make--we're not talking about people who have the answer. Lots of people have difficulty there. I feel uncomfortable now, because you'll probably print my assessments of them rather than have the balls to make a statement about how this business really works.
Q: Which is?
A: A studio talks to any entertainment magazine, and who is that magazine beholden to? That magazine is dependent upon them for access to feature stories and advertising revenue. Premiere is beholden to those people. These executives say, "You print this, you put a spin on this," and I go and say, "Don't do that." Who are they beholden to? Whose story is going to get printed? What I learned is, that's the way it is across the board, everywhere. I know personally of three stories about movies that were made by that company which make my movie look like it was a picnic, but you never read about them.
Q: So it's all behind you now?
A: I learned to live with it. The only thing I think about that experience now is that it's sad. All those people, all that energy. God, it could have been better spent somewhere else. But I found myself among people where it was their avocation to make you feel small and reduced. I certainly don't want my ass kissed when I work, but I don't want people to treat me in a real reductive way either. You're making movies, man. What can be more meaningless than making movies in the 1990s? The world is becoming unraveled and we're making movies. Let's everybody relax.
Q: After you made The Hunt for Red October you were supposed to do the sequel, Patriot Games, but it wound up conflicting with the opportunity for you to do A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, Were you sorry not to have continued the character?
A: What I loved about that character [Jack Ryan] and why I was so sad that I didn't get to play him in the other movie was that it was a chance to have a real development. To start here and end up there.
Q: Do you think The Shadow might offer you that kind of sequel potential?
A: It's interesting that you say that because I've never thought about this movie that way, but I would hope so. After I did Red October, I really wanted to do Patriot Games because I liked the idea of a guy who didn't want to be a spy. But I always felt that the chance to play that kind of a part will come again. The opportunity to do Tennessee Williams on Broadway will never come again.
Q: Is the theater where you go to replenish yourself as an actor?
A: I go to the theater as often as I can, for medicinal purposes. I get so down about doing movies because all the politics of it can be enormously draining. I go to the theater to see actors--Victor Garber, one of the greatest stage actors in America, Amanda Plummer, Joe Maher, Frank Langella, John Lithgow, Nathan Lane--who's more entertaining than Nathan Lane? Virtuoso acting is so rare. It gets me high. I want to be a part of that. More than the movies.
Q: Is that what you felt you did in Streetcar?
A: No. I've never done it. I've never actually achieved it. Streetcar was an opportunity to do it, but I don't think I reached it. I didn't have the experience I wanted to.
Q: Why not?
A: Because it didn't turn out the way people hoped. Some people who will remain nameless went in thinking if they just threw up the names of the people involved in this on a Broadway theater in the climate of that time, that we only had to say the name of the play, the playwright, the director, the actors, that we could just stomp the universe and become the biggest show in New York. The producers were very cavalier.
Q: What about your own performance?
A: I'm getting back to taking acting very seriously, which I didn't for a long time. I really hated it and was fed up with it--15 years out of the 35 of my life is quite a bit of time. You have actors who begin at a certain young age and there's very little change in their technique and the depth of their performances; they're the same 30 years later. And then there are those who show gradations of change in their acting, and that's a great thing to witness. And then there are the rarest and the greatest actors who knocked you on your ass from a very early age--the level of self-awareness, the level of emotional complexity and understanding, of self-control and presence. Great acting can be almost a psychotic mix of self-consciousness and unself-consciousness. And that's the terrible conflict. You have to be free to jump off into that volcano and you have to be pathologically self-conscious.
Q: Who are the actors you respect and admire today?
A: I like Holly Hunter a lot, she's a really good actress. I like Sean Penn, Eric Roberts. When I spoke to Pacino about Brando I said the great thing about him was how much of an ass he really made of himself. When you watch Mutiny on the Bounty and you see Brando's supercilious speech pattern, very irritating [doing Brando], it's kind of like William Shatner meets Quentin Crisp. You don't know what it is. He drives you nuts for 30 minutes. And Al's great line was: "Yeah, you're watching it and you're going, 'No, no, he's going to go over there, no, don't do it.' Like he's going to go off a cliff." And then he grabs you by the throat.
Q: You interviewed Pacino for your NYU thesis paper, right?
A: Yes. I basically discovered a kindred spirit on some levels, in terms of making assessments of what works and what doesn't. I'm not saying that my experiences mirror his, but Al talked about being at work and wanting to maintain an emotional neutrality. I was fascinated when he said this. Because the winds of your emotions can take you this way and then you have to get back on course, so I'd rather be on a neutral course. If I have to do an emotionally fraught scene, I don't necessarily want to go there and idle in that locale all day. Like to do Raging Bull--what kind of a place did De Niro have to stay in? I don't even want to know the answer.
Q: Do you agree with the critics who say Raging Bull was the best film of the'80s?
A: Totally. And Schindler's List is the best American movie since. And they're both in black-and-white. I thought Liam Neeson was so unselfish, that he's not doing that movie thing where you step up and grab the audience by the collar, like what Nicholson does in spades, or like that "I am God" thing I did in Malice. He was just right on how arrogant Schindler should have been. I watched his performance and thought, That's it, that's what I want to do.
Q: Why did you do Malice?
A: [Director] Harold Becker. I have tremendous respect for him. He's a man with a point of view. We went to dinner and we just vomited up our opinions of the world. I love him, and I'd love to work with him again.
Q: Did you like the film in the end?
A: I don't dislike it. It just kind of goes by. Who gives a shit about any of those people?
Q: At George Washington University, you ran for president of the student body and lost by two votes. Was that when you decided to leave the law and a political life for acting?
A: What drove me out the door of that school was my girlfriend broke up with me. It was a combination of those two: I lost my girlfriend and I lost the election. It was one of the first existential moments I had. I was 21 and asked myself, What am I doing? Why don't I go do something I want to do? Why don't I have faith in myself, God, life, the world? Go to NYU, do the double degree, political science and drama. I thought I would go a fifth year and do that, which I didn't. I didn't think acting was going to work out because I didn't understand it. But I didn't go back that fifth year because that summer I got booked in a gig. I did the soap opera.
Q: That soap was "The Doctors," which you did for two-and-a-half years. What motivated you in the beginning?
A: Fear. Then I did other television things, but I discount all of that because I was just trying to fit in out here and get a gig. I sometimes have a fantasy of going back and doing a soap opera for a week. For inspiration. Work is work. People who are in films and talk about returning to TV often have a slumming connotation to it--that's so inappropriate, because the only advantage of film over television is scheduling. The acting is just as good.
Q: The stories can be more timely. The Lorena Bobbitt story belongs on TV. What's your opinion of that, by the way? Will this now make all men think twice before they abuse their women?
A: You say "all men." I would be surprised to learn that a significant percentage of men commit acts of violence against women they're with. I've never hit a woman in my life. I had a wrestling match with a woman once. I shoved her, but I never hit her.
Q: What about your sisters, ever hit them?
A: I don't think I ever did. I beat the shit out of my brothers and they beat the shit out of me. I never hit my sisters, because I didn't have to.
Q: Your brother Daniel recently said, "We constantly fought each other when we were kids. I got used to kicking their asses. It always pissed Alec off that I was bigger than he was."
A: I guess I'm flattered that it's important for Daniel that that perception be out there. He's a couple of years younger than me. I was very competitive with my brothers when I was younger. Now we are all in completely different worlds. I'm not in direct competition with my brothers for anything, ever. Stephen and I and Billy and I are better at staying in touch with each other. Danny is married, he has a new baby and he is very peripatetic, he goes to golfing tournaments and charity things. He really travels a lot.
Q: What about brotherly advice? Ever give it?
A: I stopped giving it. I see them all going through phases that I went through, like Danny making that comment. I think Danny's going to learn.
Q: Which of your brothers are you closest with?
A: Billy and I have a lot in common away from acting. Steve and I have nothing in common except acting. I feel I'm two people: I have my interest in acting and I have a lot of other political interests I'd like to pursue. Steven is not interested in any of that stuff. Billy is fiercely interested in politics and activism.
Q: What is your ambition as an actor?
A: If I had a dream you mean? To originate a dramatic role on Broadway. And then to stop acting and maybe produce films. Documentary films are a tremendous interest to me.
Q: Pretty women are often asked about being pretty, as Kim so often is. What about handsome men?
A: You don't take it seriously. Let's face facts, this is a visual medium, there's a very high premium put on people who are good-looking. But the minute you rely on that you get yourself in trouble. You certainly don't make a career out of that anymore as an actor.
Q: Have you always been conscious of your looks?
A: [Laughs] No. I wake up in the morning and all I see is what's wrong with me.
Q: You went through a period where you labeled yourself a "womanizing jerk."
A: Yeah, I wasn't straight with a lot of people. I was a guy who grew up with no money and no special qualities. When you become successful in this business and you've got a lot of money, it's a very potent blend. You meet beautiful women, you've got a lot of time on your hands, people pay attention to you a lot more than you deserve--I acted out on that as much as most young guys do who come to that place.
Q: When did you wake up to not being that?
A: About a year before I met my wife. All of 1989, when I shot The Hunt for Red October, I really got tired of wasting all that energy. I had just turned 30 the year before. I filmed Talk Radio, Miami Blues, and I came out of 1988 fed up with the crap I'd been through. What I wanted to do was just face it: I'm 30 and I'm going to be 35 and then 40 and if you want to get married and have a family what are you going to do? How are you going to live your life? What kind of a life are you going to have? Do you want to be one of these guys who's 55 and still trying to bag some 25-year-old actress? There are these guys who just don't want to let it go. I wanted to settle down.
Q: How did you know you were ready to let it go with Kim?
A: I met a woman who just wouldn't put up with that. A relationship with her had to be the way I now realize it has to be. My wife and I are very interconnected, very aware of each other. Our lives are very intermingled. My wife's the number one priority.
Q: Full time.
A: Oh man, you've got that right. Oh, baby.
Q: Have you ever met anyone like her?
A: Never. My favorite line among my friends: I called my friend Ronnie Dobson, a playwright, and said, "I don't know what to get Kim for Christmas. What do you think Kim wants most as a gift?" And he paused and said, "To return to her native planet."
Q: What do you find so endearing about her?
A: There's a naivete about her. She just doesn't get it. And that's what I love about her, that she doesn't get it. I look at Kim and I see somebody who could have had a lot more of the riches of this earth if she was more out for herself, if she was more selfish. She certainly would have all of the millions of dollars that her plaintiff in the case against her assumed she had. They couldn't believe she wasn't as avaricious as they imagined her to be.
Q: Did that lawsuit over Boxing Helena bring you closer together?
A: Oh yeah.
Q: Did you feel it was the two of you against everyone else?
A: No, the business is what it is. The real essence of this case is, there's a certain kind of politics among creative people. I don't say to you, "You know, Larry, everybody says you're a really good shooter as a director, but they really think you know dick about a screenplay or how to direct actors. So when we work together, I'm going to be a little uptight and will be keeping my eye on you, because I'm not sure you can cut it." No one goes into a room and says that. The opposite is true. You say the most reassuring, positive things, knowing that all the material terms and conditions of the contract are being worked out by legal representatives outside of the room. If you're the director and I'm the actor, you and I have a very vital relationship to protect, and some of it is protected by a lot of blind reinforcement and approbation, none of which should be taken very seriously. And this was a case in which somebody, for the first time in history, went into a courtroom and said, "Did you say such-and-such?" And Kim said, "Yes, I did." And [that person] turned to a jury at the end of the case and said, basically, "Shouldn't these rich movie stars be held to the same standard that we're held to? That they should mean what they say and say what they mean?" And the jury went, "You're goddamn right they should! Jesus Christ, I'm a postal worker making six bucks an hour..." And they felt they could really drill it to her. And they did. They did.
Q: What do you want for the two of you?
A: For us to have great memories. I'm looking at a woman who is an international beauty, who's in the movie business. She's been wealthy, she's dated men, traveled, been everywhere in the world except for Australia and Ireland. I'd say to her, let's go to Hawaii. Been there. Africa? Been there. Tokyo? Been there. Europe? Been there. One time I said to her, "I hope you and I get a stockpile of great memories." And our wedding was one. I wanted it to be sincere. Christie Brinkley said she had gone to a wedding that was more like a coronation it was so unreal, but that ours was really pretty.
Q: Were you actively seeking a wife?
A: No. I wasn't anxious to get married. But I was fascinated by the idea of who I would marry. I know I'll never get married again.
Q: How can you say that?
A: Because I know I'll never get out of this marriage. Never. If my wife and I didn't split up by now with the shit we've been through... [Laughs]
Q: How much time do you spend with Kim?
A: A lot. Five times more than anybody that I've ever known before.
Q: Do you get hassled much in public together?
A: I had a guy come up to us at a sushi restaurant recently, sat down at our table and said, "Hey you guys." I thought: problem. I'm very protective of my wife and the first thing I thought of was how far away is this guy's face from my right hand? I felt myself sit back and torque my body so that I could rotate and send my fist right into his face. For a moment my wife was really uptight--the guy was drank and had an eerie glow to him. He finally was asked to leave and he left. But what do you do? I tend to overdo it at times. Years ago, I was in New York and my girlfriend at the time was bent over on First Avenue tying her shoes and a man bumped into her and her head cracked into the corner of a building. I was in a bad mood and grabbed this guy and spun him around. He was a gnarly-looking older guy, maybe 50, and he had an accent. He said, "Vat, vat? I do nothing!" Then I saw him put his hand in his coat and I punched him in the face as hard as I could. His feet went out from under him and he landed on his back. Then two Tony Danza-type Italian guys came flying out of this garage and they wanted to kill me: "What are ya doin' punchin' him? He's an old man. You like if we fuckin' punch you, hah?" They were all over me and I thought, here we go. Everybody's looking for a place to put that energy, everybody's got a lot of anger.
Q: Do you carry a gun?
A: Kim asked me if I wanted to buy a gun. I said no, because if you buy a gun you have to be ready to use it. But after the L.A. riots I thought about getting a gun. I'm married, I've got to protect my wife--what do you do? So I was talking to these prop guys as I held this pistol. One said, "Yeah, that's a good gun." The second guy said, "Yeah, but that's not your house gun, this here's a small caliber, it's not a stopping gun. You don't want a clip gun that can get jammed, you want a Colt." The third guy said, "That's not your house gun, a shotgun's your house gun. That way you don't have to be a good shot, you just aim in a direction and you'll get a piece of him." I went home and said to Kim, "A shotgun is your house gun." Like it's all my wisdom now. Kim's going, "Aha, I see, all right darlin'."
Q: Can you usually recognize who will be a problem?
A: Your ordinary people are generous. The people who are not forthcoming with my wife, who are not polite or positive, tend to be the wives of directors. People in the business.
Q: How do people respond to you?
A: I get a very respectful and low-key reaction. I'm not Tom Cruise where they're lining up outside my hotel room picketing. And I've crossed the line age-wise, too. I'm not a young leading man featured in Tiger Beat magazine. More than I care to, I have young, attractive girls, not women, batting their eyes and saying, "Hi, how are you? Could you give my phone number to your brother Billy?"
Q: Are there any talented people out there today who you would like to work with?
A: Oh yeah. I'll tell you somebody who I always wished I could work with, because she's the most missed performer in the film business today: Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda is beautiful, she was funny, she was extraordinarily sympathetic, she was powerful, she could act, she had an intellectual credential that could make you believe her in roles a lot of actors can't play, like a psychiatrist. She had it all. A lot of actresses today, they're so serious, you can see their veins popping in their forehead they want that Oscar so bad. They're white-knuckling every frame on film. Where's the next Jane Fonda? Somebody having a good time who's sexy and funny and alive.
Q: Besides Patriot Games, Harrison Ford replaced you in The Fugitive. What did you think of that film?
A: It wasn't at all the kind of movie I would have made. I can see now where that's why they didn't want to make the movie with me. Walter Hill was going to direct the movie, and we sat down with people from Warner Bros, and Walter started talking about Dostoevsky and the mytho-poetic iconoclasm of the character Kimble and the guys from Warner Bros. blinked a couple of times and their eyes glazed over and it was like, Get these people out of here.
Q: Ford's films are big box office. Does it irk you at all when you see films he's in which you wanted?
A: He's a brand name.
Q: Do you know him?
A: No.
Q: Would you want to know him?
A: No. But that's nothing personal. I have no desire to know most actors.
Q: Part of that must be the frustration an actor like yourself must feel when competing for certain parts. You've been up for some big ones, haven't you?
A: I went to audition for GoodFellas. I went to Scorsese's apartment in midtown. If he told me to jump out the window I would have done it to get the part. I was aching. But it was like I was in a blackout. What the fuck am I doing there? What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to say something now to make you do something for me? WHAT IS THAT? HOW CAN I FIND OUT? I wanted to rip the plaster off his walls to find the fortune-cookie-size piece of paper that has the answer for what I'm supposed to say to make this man give me this job. I'll drill through the walls with my fingernails, my teeth. But there is no answer. The hour goes by and Scorsese says, "Okay, thank you very much." I leave and I don't get the job. Ray Liotta got it and he was great in it, nobody could have done it better. There are so many movies I've wanted to do, that I've begged to do. I wanted to do The Godfather, Part III, everybody knows that. One of the most paralyzing moments of my life was getting the FedEx'd script. I went numb. I took the script with me to Central Park and when I opened it I started to hear the music. It could have been an episode of "Laverne and Shirley" and I would have gone, "Hey man, I'm in." I remember one real black-belt-genius studio executive was offering me one more bogus romantic comedy after another and I kept trying to explain why I didn't want to do them. I'll never forget this moment. I'm having lunch with this guy and he looks at me and goes, "Aha. Aha. I get it. I see what you want now. You want the good stuff."
Q: How are things now for you as far as getting the "good stuff?
A: Tough. I would have loved to have done Lestat in Interview With the Vampire. I would love to be in an absurd costume drama like that, that's ripe for visual imagery. To be in this business and have tremendous integrity and only make distinguished choices is very tough. Denzel Washington's career is an enormous luxury. Compare him to Wesley Snipes. Do you think that they set out for it to be that way? All actors set out for the same thing: to make both entertaining films and important films.
Q: When you decided to become an actor, what misconceptions did you have about the business?
A: I didn't think that it ate its young the way it does. I thought it was more in the interest of the powers-that-be to cultivate and bring along people that they had faith in. But it's very adversarial. People are driven by fear. One wrong decision can ruin your life or derail you for a significant time. There's a lot of money at stake. Paul Newman is a friend and I asked him how the business has changed and he said, "Failure is much more expensive now than it was."
Q: Writer Richard Corliss wrote in Time: "Hollywood doesn't quite know what to do with Alec Baldwin. He keeps disappearing into his roles."
A: I'm not convinced of this, but I'm beginning to think that that's a hindrance to a successful career in films at this time. The times demand people other people can identify with and be comfortable with.
Q: How lonely is acting?
A: It's lonely. You have to have other people there. Acting demands these peculiar forums to have something special. The curse of the actor is that you're always boring everybody around you because you're trying to make them into an audience.
Q: Are you a complex person?
A: On the simplest level.
Q: Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
A: I'm very optimistic about everything when I'm away from the movies [laughs].
Q: How'd you survive the earthquake?
A: A lot of things broke. I wasn't scared but I was upset days later. I never had such a profound delayed reaction to something. The inevitability of it. It let a lot of people know there is a God. Los Angeles is a fairly godless place.
Q: What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you?
A: When I was a kid, we always had secondhand cars and in the winter time we'd have to push-start my father's car. It was like a scene from a John Hughes movie where all the dads would be in their suits and get in their new cars and drive out of their driveways and here I was pushing my father's car down the street.
Q: Weren't you in a serious car accident in 1983?
A: An old lady in a big Cadillac made an illegal left turn right in front of my Karmann Ghia Volkswagen in a rainstorm. My car was crushed into an accordion and I hurt my neck and my back. Her car didn't have a scratch on it. Which changed my mind about transportation in L.A. forever. I will never have a convertible and I will never have a small car again.
Q: Last question: You've complained about studio executives being petrified to make any decisions. If you were in their shoes would you know what to do?
A: I don't have a fucking clue. I've got to get up in the morning and get through the day. I don't have any answers. I've got to go with my instincts. I'm another animal in the jungle, man. And in the background in my head I hear OOOOO aaaaa whaaaa--all day long I hear those jungle sounds. I'm trying to figure it out.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Kim Basinger for the Jan./Feb. Movieline.