Interview

SCHREIBER: [both laugh] All of the above. As an actor, emotional truth is the safety net. You wanna give a great performance, but at the end of the day, when you get lost, you fall back on the emotional currency.

LEE: At times I can’t help going for visual comfort. Sometimes a picture fills up your head, and you try to move the actors around to make that visual statement. But it’s tricky if an actor like you asks a difficult question. That would make me work too hard to answer. [laughs]

SCHREIBER: But I found that even with visual statements like that scene that we shot at the lake, with all of the skinnydippers, even that you approached emotionally. I watched you set up that shot that basically moved from us to the naked swimmers. You kept trying to pick up the wind in the trees. It felt heroic. So whatever questions I had about playing it were sort of being answered by the environment.

LEE: You can see how you fit into the visual because you’re talented and experienced. Most actors can’t see that. They are challenged by their feelings. It’s very hard. Sometimes you have to use all of your authority just to say, “Trust me.”

SCHREIBER: What was it like working with someone like Demitri [Martin] who didn’t have a tremendous amount of acting experience and really put himself in your hands for this role?

LEE: There really isn’t an answer for that except to say that it is like religion. Once you commit to it, you see life in movie theaters. You choose a certain path that you think is the way to make the movie you want. You go on that adventure. Once you commit, you just have to have faith.

SCHREIBER: That’s it.

LEE: You have to find the movie somehow with him, or on him, or from him, or on top of him . . . whatever. In the process I think he became quite a good actor.

SCHREIBER: It’s amazing, the parallels between faith and theater. It’s funny because when you read a script as an actor, sometimes you think, Oh, that’s not gonna work. But the truth of the matter is, if you believe in anything strongly enough, it all works! It’s all relevant! [laughs]

LEE: Well, to be honest with you, sometimes good acting is an obstacle to the truth. Like when you said that when you’re tired, you tend to be honest. The better you are, the harder it is for me to break you down, to make you honest. Because you know how to act, but sometimes you forget to react. New actors don’t have that problem. They have a problem with sophistication, of delivering dramatic layers. And they can be tense. Faith helps relieve the tension. My main objective was to intensely relax him, so to speak.

SCHREIBER: That’s why we were doing all that tai chi in the first couple of weeks. [both laugh]

LEE: Anything I could think of . . . You’re called an actor for a good reason. It’s the action, it’s not the result that we’re after. It’s just enjoying the action for no purpose, which is a very hard thing to do. And I think that was what was great about the bands playing at the original Woodstock. The stage was hastily put together, the logistics were horrible, and it was dirty. Musicians complained. But the heart of just being there, that’s what made Woodstock so precious.

SCHREIBER: Being available to something, opening your heart to something.

LEE: Yeah, you wanna be there and get together with everybody and share the experience, just act without knowing the result.

SCHREIBER: It is amazing that it happened on such a grand scale in this country.

LEE: I don’t know that it would happen again. [laughs]

SCHREIBER: What do you think about Obama?

LEE: I hope it works out. These days, people are inspired not without skepticism and there’s not the same type of innocence as there was back in 1969. It’s different. I think people are more sober now.

SCHREIBER: It’s true. But I have to say that, at least for me, and perhaps for my generation, it’s the first time, honestly, I think that I’ve felt sincerely patriotic in a long time.

LEE: My son skipped the first day of the second semester to go to the inauguration. He called us: “I’m there!” [both laugh] “How did you get there?” “Oh it’s a long story.” He said his friend talked him into it. His friend said, “It’s like going to Woodstock.” You have to participate in a historical moment.

SCHREIBER: You have to be in the moment.

LEE: Whether you see the stage or not, you have to be there. As a parent, and as a citizen of the world, I just hope this Obama thing works. If we screw up again, what’s gonna happen to the world? Like, please make this thing work!                 

Liev Schreiber is a Tony awardwinning actorwho lives in New York.