Actors Roundtable: Adam Driver, Shia LaBeouf, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx | Close Up

nervous, you know, we get nervous because well, what is it? people are going to say about me, but then if we don't have someone to say something, but if there's no one to say, it's like it's not positive, they're human beings, it's like I know I've looked. Could you share this story. I did a gig for Jerry Jones, who I'm a cowboy, he was a cowboy show and I had to perform for UH for the owners and the NFL and Jerry Jones' son-in-law said what are you going to do here? I have to perform for You don't know there are no good guys and I said don't worry I'm fine I'm from Texas I think I'll be good so the first thing I sang was George Strait no the next thing you'll know at the end of the night .

I made everyone sing their gold-digging and blaming and I got cold feet about stopping it, but I got a chance to talk to George Bush. I'm that

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and I thought we had talked and of course we all had our differences but I asked him something. I hope you don't mind me sharing this story. I said, would you ever say something discouraging about President Obama? You know, he said no. He wouldn't do it. It is a very difficult job. I learned so much that he would never break her legs. him because I know what he is and I saw him and his kids play with Obama's kids, that's what it's about, you know, if we're taking it, that's it, it's a matter of everyone having something they want. say it, but we shouldn't be afraid to say it, you won't, we should just say, hey man, that's a clear saying, so when Ellen DeGeneres went to the game with George W.

Bush, do you think that's okay? Listen, it's bigger than that. when I've seen it, I've been to football games where Jesse Jackson, George Bush, we're all still human, but what happens is something interesting, well you see, what media always separates it and makes it into something bigger with Ellen are you sitting? George Bush, who he's known for years, no big deal, it still doesn't mean he's going to compromise what he believes in and you don't have to do it right. I think it's always been his way, just now. it's just different because you come out, wow, that's not right, even if you felt that way, that part is cool, you know what I'm saying, so it's like we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be afraid to look like us and like people.

I say, as always, a snobbish actor's elitism. I come from Terrell Texas, no money, nothing, there's nothing snobbish about that. I'm happy to be doing my best, but to get to the position I'm in now and Don't say anything like what you know, so I said I'm not running for office, but damn, we should be able to say whatever we want to say. When we want to say it, does it make sense? Yes, tell me you're fourteen. The handcuffs were there, you know where that came from. I was a police agreement, everyone. I'll give you three more.

Not everyone should be a politician, but everyone should have principles and carry exactly our principles with us 24 hours a day. part of the countenance is part of why we do what we do in the first place and it's in our choices and I have to say one of the things that I learned early on as an actor in a repertory company the people you worked with didn't have to like you. those people and you didn't have to agree with those people you didn't have to relate to those people but you had to respect those people you had to respect their process and you had to respect their opinions and the default settings.

I think a lot of it is conflict and what the word is. I'm looking for cynicism, that's the first place to think that everyone can go, so if Ellen is at a football game. with George W. Bush, what's the cynical view of what it is, as opposed to what's the respectful view, you know, I'm not going to assume that anyone automatically agrees with each other because they're on the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders. . football game and I think it's a different kind of politics, political opinions are a dime a dozen, you know, they're absolutely all of them, you just played the least cynical guy who makes history, aha, she called him to play someone nice enough to play a villain, they are the exact same beast that you know was granted to you by mr.

Rogers is no Iago, but they have their principles and their mission statement, the story and the movie is actually about the journalist who is very cynical about who Mr. Rogers is and finds out that he was wrong and that there is no a nefarious motivation between what Fred Rogers did for a living, he saw it as his ministry and that's like looking at a combination of Mother Teresa or someone who is hell-bent on doing. just good and in the sphere in which they operate and the cynic comes into that and says: what do you see? A scandal here, what are you trying to do here? and if it's really just what we're trying to do is feed the homeless people some soup then give them a hot meal once a day no there has to be something more than there isn't and fred rogers was a minister ordered and his principle was such that everything that guided him through his daily behavior and his creative production was based on making people feel safe and part of something bigger than they really were, in this case children of two and three years, but he never said the word God, not even in hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of hours of television when you explored that that character was there. a darker side to him than the one that actually pushed him in the other direction there was the same dark side to him that is any Veselin crack in humanity there are doubts there was a sense of failure there was always a degree of self-hatred, there was always one question: Am I doing enough for the people I love?

Now there is a dark side. Don't know. It has a dark appearance. Not everyone says I'm getting tired of this game. Mr. It comes together like an art installation before we turn you over to the Sharks, it was never there, I mean, I think it's a dynamic that comes up and that's what you know, Shakespeare wrote that kind of stuff left and right, but the journalists who came and spoke. Sir. Rogers was paying that no, no, there's something in the past and you're doing this for some reason in the future and that's an artificial accounting that requires someone other than the person himself, but when you play a guy who killed people like just made and it's real based on real life mmm man is it good for you personally to find the goodness in him or is it a dangerous proposition?

I don't think I mean he was a guy who had seen a lot of combat in World War II, so he was a bit of a nerd, he also killed more people than anyone else and he found himself in this world that wasn't the one he came from and He was not in shape and he was loyal to the people who gave him He received love and support from him and he respected him and that's how it was and then he had a big conflict that he didn't tell him about later, but that was it, but I think the whole store, the story is very simple, you can find it. that kind of situation in any culture loyalty betrayal love all those things are there the price in this world is a little bit harder but you know that and maybe it's not like that in certain parts of the world I mean this is what happens so we you have it in this country and in the United States and that half of the year that culture is what is your loyalty in the movie a year to your job it was very interesting to see how it affected your home life and your daughter yes yes what It was very interesting and different to the fact that you know a person would love you for what you do and how much you believed in doing the right thing for the people you worked for, but at home it was affecting the family and it's heartbreaking.

Heartbreak, your movie does the same thing, oh yes, right there, really thank you, you have with your two children and your wife, the man who is completely done with you, yes, and real life is a dominatrix that the actress played in the movie with which you interpret. you get from knowing someone just told me post that's what you want to get a lot of time, of course, it was you about that, well, I'll tell you like Shia said when you're doing it, when you do the research and you go in. a project and you know everything and what mr.

De Niro tells you when you see you walk onto a set and you know you've done your homework and you're not afraid to say oh, if this comes up and I'm going to

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, it's just great. Tonight, Ted, of course, I spent a lot of time on 47th Street. I bet a lot on film, so I spent a lot of time with a lot of players who had been in trouble and lost a lot of things and lost their lives because of it. and the game where who-who surprised you the most will be, well, the security brothers, the guys who made the movie, did the research and met a lot of guys who were willing to sit with me and talk and there was nothing you did , it's just their lives are wasted and their family lives are wasted and it's about where they are now and they discuss what the ups and downs were and why they couldn't stop and that kind of feeling that all these guys on the block left I walked into their stores and I sat with them and watched them and they taught me about jewelry and about selling and I watched it all day and it was so much fun, it felt like a lot.

I need to learn this new thing, it wasn't boring well, no, not at all, it's good to learn something. I walked away thinking I know everything right now. It's a year later. I forgot so many things. I wish I had done it right. You played a real life character, how when you play that role, how much you have to be faithful to it and how you know that you think differently in the process of playing someone real, you have to not do the impersonation because I'm like you came from the colored background alive and you learned not to do the impersonation and then not do it either.

I didn't get a chance to really see him alive, but I had to piece things together. through what people would say and then the first thing that helped me was aesthetically we are part of the same tribe innocence our cheekbones are a diamond shaped head that haircut he had I had that in the 80s too so aesthetically we were we were Before the game I didn't get a chance to really see him alive, but I had to piece things together through what people would say and then talk to Brian Stevenson and listen to him talk about who real life Italians are in real life . but his show was based on someone you know, he goes and meets this guy on death row and finds out all these incredible things, these horrible things, that he's on death row without trial, they say he killed a white woman in the city, They never did. been there like I couldn't believe this existed but he told me what Walter was like it felt like you already know I'm in this situation I might as well do whatever I can to help so when you see in the movies talking to everyone the prisoners and all that trying to keep morale up, these guys on death row, so I figured that was the spirit and then it was a matter of the vernacular in Alabama and the way they talk like that. the way they say things and you know, and so that's not a caricature, I remember Michael B Jordan, listen, I don't do that because it started to sound like something to do that we couldn't really figure out, so we did it.

We mark like this. Sometimes you have to trust the people around you to say what makes the most sense in actual experience. I mean, you know I was similar to the one in the projections who you know he was educated for 25 years. the neighborhood in high school and all the time he dedicated his life to saving black kids in the neighborhood, they end up imprisoning him for $25 worth of illegal substances for seven years. Wow, here he is in jail with kids he had taught. Wow. judge that I would bring to school and say, hey, I want you to shake these kids, tell them the repercussions of whatever the judge presided over in his case, he put him in jail, so when you have something like that, the person who taught you to throw a football, the black man who taught you how to play tennis in Texas when we weren't allowed to go to the country club, so I have to learn tennis because you don't know all this, you know how to swim, you tennis all the things they say that We can't do it and that was something huge that I had inside me, I didn't share it with many people because when my dad wrote him a letter because I was telling someone. people in prison I wrote him a letter, you come out, I will save your life he came to live with me when he came in I was not who I was he came out and I had the opportunity to take him to the US Open and have a lot of Venus game, you know and you know, look both of us, you know, so that kind of thing now I was lucky enough to be able to have that moment, but in the Walter McMillian situation, you know it works, but it doesn't work.

It's still an entertaining movie, but you're still left thinking, wow, Walter McMillian didn't get the chance and there are a lot of Walter McMillians that you filmed in real life, yeah, right, because those presence scenes are phenomenal, but they're really incredible. . moment when they were putting handcuffs on me and they had a guy that was part of the prison system, I wasn't part of the movie, yeah, yeah, squeeze it harder mm-hmm oh yeah, squeeze it harder cousin, he's a, he's bigger , no I don't know that he's saying something that's driving me to yes, I'll get out of these handcuffs, yes, but that's their everyday life, aha, so those moments when we went to those prisons that were to be people on our own , I don't know.

I'm not going to jail, you know, it was a couple of times, hey, man, don't tighten them, aren't they tight enough? mm-hmm, you know, so he doesn't know that he's saying something that he's leading me to. II'll remove these handcuffs, but that's your everyday life, aha, we also get so used to it because we're talking to Brian, since Brian Steve is not talking about changing perception because perception kills us, it's like reason. I don't want to go see someone in jail because I don't want to get used to that, but a lot of people are used to seeing their father, their brother, their mother's who in jail and the next thing we know they start rapping about that we should rap about being there because we don't have we don't have anything else this is all we see so it's it's a you know it was a hard thing it's a hard thing you know it's so wonderful In the movie you played your own father and he was.

I don't know, this is fair, but it seems like in your real life he was the pretty filler in the sky. Oh I did not know. It's true. No, he's sweet or he's a teddy bear. just a little crooked, a lot of cracks, yeah, did you have to change the way you saw it to play the role and did playing the role change the way you saw it? Yeah, sure, yeah. I hadn't spoken to my father for seven years before. This started so I didn't really know my dad very well and I didn't have any relationship with him at all and when I got into this industry, you know, my dad wanted to be in this industry.

I separated those, you know, there was a lot of competition, I, my father, they were quite competitive with each other and yeah, I guess, yeah, I guess you always have to empathize with whoever you're playing, but I wouldn't call it. a villainous character by no means, yeah, and I hadn't really looked at it from that side, you know I was young and in a victim kind of way, you know I was using my dad at work, you know what the wrong way to work was. , but also the way, even you think about it, you know I was working with material that wasn't necessarily, you know Bombeck and this material would ask you for things that you couldn't really get in the material, so you're left with and I didn't have any technique and I had read all these stories, you know, easy riders attacking bulls and you know you come up with a combination of a way to do something and for me it was a lot of transposing my pain. from my father and I would work in front of a camera for a long time and I didn't have much more technique than that and I was afraid to clean it up because I thought, well, you know, I don't want to.

I don't want to lose the only thing I had, which was this pain that I felt very real. for me, so, yeah, I had a whole mix of I had a weird way of looking at my pain with my father and I. I also wore it at work so I didn't want to clean it, yeah has it changed the way I think about it or anything else? Yes, and he made me better at my craft and created a relationship, and yes, did you ever think about not playing the role? Did you ever think about directing it, I never thought about directing it because that's not my job, but I definitely didn't think I'd be able to play it.

You know, I wasn't in a place where people were like, hey, let's put some money into this. boy's bag and ask him to carry the film, so I thought my acting team was finished. He was going to join the Peace Corps. I wasn't really trying, yeah, I was really out, yeah, and yeah, I sent it to Mel Gibson and yeah, I thought he was the guy. to play my dad and my dad was also thinking along the same lines, it's one thing to want to play your dad and another thing to stand in front of your dad after seven years of not speaking and say, hey man, I'm going to play you.

Hmm. when there was already discord and we weren't on good terms, so I lied to him and said, hey, Mel Gibson is going to play your son right here, so my dad signed the role under the auspices that my Braveheart would play him, well , you. It had the script by Noah Baumbach, but this is an autobiography, so you somehow played Noah in the movie. I mean, like all these things, Noah wrote a script, he did that hat trick that I think people tried to do by writing something that is incredibly. specific but it reaches a broader audience, I mean, like you like anything, he likes Meyerwitz, like he knew the squid on the road when we were young, in a sense, they're all outside of the biographical, but He wrote something that I think we all projected or our story or well, what was the most difficult moment for you in that movie?

It was the one you really struggled with. There's usually like one scene in a movie or maybe two that you're dreading. With this one, every scene is felt. like, oh, it's too early in the schedule, okay, so maybe we can postpone it to next week, but next week was worse, you know, and again, I think it's a testament to good writing, every scene felt that there was a lot at stake. high everyone felt urgent everyone felt necessary there wasn't a part that could be removed where the movie would survive without it and for that to fit I think that was our first sign of all this I felt like it should always be this urgent hopefully the last question for all of you who could go back to your younger self, well you somehow went back to something younger than that, what advice would you give yourselves?

Well, I was saying something to my grandson the other day because I know things just turn out when things are going well, don't think that you're on top of the world in the sense that you always have to be careful because I've seen it, I've I've seen people come, I've seen people leave. I have seen them coming, I have seen them go, you have to be calm, you have to take what is good in your life and move forward cautiously and carefully, and thank God you have that, it is very, very important not to do that. you overdo it when you think you know you have it that's no such thing everyone is expendable I wish I had known that this too will pass you feel bad right now you feel this table you feel angry yes I feel great you feel like you know everything finally has time It's your ally hmm and if nothing else just wait just wait just wait just lost take Tom's yeah being cheaper I think I wish I could be things that I think I need I don't know if it can be acting or you know, life, economic, autistic , financially, emotionally, we could say artistically.

I guess if you think you need certain things, they need to be in place so you can do your job, but actually none of that is true, we were using the example. Before a bull's eye, I had it in mind and then you realize you're walking in there, you have no control over anyone else, you know, or you're doing your homework and doing your research and like you know how to lose weight and gain a lot of weight and then feel you. It's comfortable to let it all go because none of it is useful because your scene partner is drunk, that's not something that happened, but being more economical with you you know, okay, all that time, after you, or I get better with it, I've wasted it or I shouldn't just waste that time and in fact I should prioritize in a different way, so I think that's pretty much the same thing, Adam.

I can say what they could: asking them to put a bull's eye on their experience was relatively common and I didn't do it. do this, had anyone put anyone up to this? No, no, poor thing, you had that extraordinary moment that everyone talked about in the movie where you cry and I remember you said at the lost

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that you had ten minutes to prepare. Because it's not even that we just fell and Adam lost. He was sitting. He was thinking that because I stretched I should have stretched more. I had a very bad time, no, no, it's okay with all those things, but I can't really leave a scar when there is. a loose ball on a basketball court can't catch the ball, everyone else catches it before me because I can't bend, so my coaches always grew up always talking about stretching, I never did it, I never did it, we jump, I jump well in the game did you stretch before you played no no three ball with them yeah thank you that's what used to be good but to all of you thank you so much this was really fantastic round two I really appreciate it , thank you very much, hey, I'm Charla Buff Hi, I'm Jamie Foxx I'm Tom Hi, I'm Adam Sandler.

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