Lovely, Still's Martin Landau on Acting Style and the Similarities Between Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen

I just read an interview in the LA Times where you said you haven't really received direction in twenty years. Is that because you do so much preparation ahead of time?

Yes. I think, "Why does this author want this character in this?" and then I choose things and I do them. I figure, if the director doesn't like it, he'll stop me and tell me what to do -- and they don't stop me! [Laughs] I mean literally, Hitchcock never said "boo" to me. In fact, I felt left out, because he'd whisper something to Cary Grant, he'd say something to Eva Marie Saint or James Mason, and then he'd pass me by. So I went up to him and said, "Is there anything you want to tell me?" And he said, "Martin, I only tell you if I don't like what you're doing."

I chose to play that character as a gay character, and it wasn't written that way -- it was written as a henchman. Because he wanted to get rid of Eva Marie Saint with such a vengeance, I thought it would be much more interesting [to play him as gay]. It was the fifties, and I'm not gay, and to make a choice like that, people said, "Are you crazy? People will think you're gay!" And I said, "If they think I'm gay, that's fine with me, because I'm not gay and this is not the last thing I'm going to do." It was the right choice for the character, and it brought some mystery and intelligence to a character that was really just sort of a grunter, as written. I've always thought, "How can this be more interesting and how can I embrace what the writer wants to the best of my ability without calling attention to myself in a way that is destructive to the piece itself?"

Like Hitchcock, I've always heard that Woody Allen isn't much for giving direction to actors, either.

Not at all. He wants to talk about the Rangers or the New York Jets -- he doesn't want to talk about acting at all. No! Jon Lovitz came back from working with him and said, "How the heck did you do it? I didn't have nearly as big a part as you did, and he never said a word to me about the role!" I said, "Well, he never said a word to me about the role." I know that if he doesn't like what you're doing, he fires you. [Landau tells a long, off-the-record story about several famous actors who had been let go from an early Woody Allen film.]

Did you know that he was capable of that before you started working with him?

Oh, I did, because [redacted] was fired by him, and I did a movie with her! So I said, "I'm gonna come in with all my guns loaded and do what I do." He liked it, fortunately -- otherwise, I would have gotten the pink slip. His whole attitude is basically that he's hiring you to do what you do, and that's that. He doesn't really know how to talk to an actor. He'd only confuse one! He kept saying that my half of the movie was working and his wasn't, because he kept reshooting everything on his half of the movie and hardly anything on my half. Actually, again, Jerry Orbach was not initially cast as my brother. I worked for three days with another actor -- Jeff Bridges was his first choice, but he was unavailable at the time -- so this other actor, who's a great actor, played my brother for three days. We did all the stuff in the car about the murder, and Woody fired him and brought in Jerry Orbach and I reshot all of it.

That's interesting. You think of him as such a particular, specific director, but he does have those stories -- like how Annie Hall was a completely different movie before he started editing it, and not really even a comedy.

And he doesn't want to talk about it. If you go to ask him about anything, he's evasive. He just wants to go home early and watch a ball game! [Laughs] I used to beg him for another take! The scene on the telephone where my brother tells me the deed is done, I rehearsed it once, shot it once and went into the bathroom spontaneously to wash my face because I felt dirty after the phone call, and then he lit the bathroom and we did it once more. I said, "Let's go again, I'm just warming up," and he said, "No, no, no." I said, "What do you mean, 'No, no, no'? Give me another one, Woody!" He said, "No. Both of those are beyond my expectations. If you do a third one, I'll have a nervous breakdown!"

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