Interview

MR: I was in a hotel room in Miami. The next night I get a call, and it's Howard Bingham, and he's got the champ on the line. Ali didn't remember me from being a kid, but he was going, "Yeah, you're in bed, and you want your mama with you . . ." It really helped so much. He spent 15 or 20 minutes on the phone with me. That's a memory that I'll always cherish.

CW: I met Ali once, and you could feel that about him. He's a very, very big spirit.

MR: I remember back in the day they called him the Louisville Whip. You'd hear him all through the gym, just running his mouth all day long. He'd yell at anybody who came into the gym.

CW: You wrote Homeboy, right?

MR: Yeah, I wrote Homeboy.

CW: Are you still writing?

MR: Well, I've been working on a script called Wild Horses for about 18 years now.

CW: I've heard about that. What's it about?

MR: It's about two brothers who haven't seen each other for years, and they reunite for one last motorcycle ride.

CW: Actors like to direct sometimes. You ever think about that?

MR: No, I couldn't direct traffic. [laughs]

CW: Exactly. People ask me about that all the time. They say, "Did you ever think of directing?" And I say, "It's completely out of the question."

MR: I'm on your side with that. It's hard enough just acting.

CW: If I were directing and anybody asked me, "What do you think we should do?" I'd say, "Do whatever you want." That's not a good thing for a director.

MR: No, no, no. By the way, I saw an old mutual favorite director of ours recently. You know who I'm talking about, don't you? It was great seeing him.

CW: I see him sometimes, too, and I miss him.

MR: I miss him working. Aronofsky reminds me a lot of Michael Cimino.

CW: It's actually a mystery to me why he's not making movies.

MR: I don't know. Because, man, I'm telling you, on the floor he's like a general. He brings the best out of you.

CW: Obviously, it's his decision, because he's perfectly capable of directing a film anytime he wants. Which brings me to Heaven's Gate [1980]. That's something we did together.

MR: I was so nervous working with you. I think you had already won your Academy Award for The Deer Hunter [1978].

CW: Just, like, a month before we started shooting. I was probably really obnoxious at the time.

MR: Well, you were actors' royalty, brother. I mean, you were someone we all looked up to.

CW: No, I was probably a pain in the ass.

MR: Well, you were always, like, this strange being from another place.

CW: You know, we did that movie, Heaven's Gate, and at the time nobody knew it was going to become this problem. Everybody was just having a terrific time. You and I have a scene in the movie. It's at night. We go from the stable to Isabelle Huppert's character's house. We're walking in the dark, and we pass some strange antiques stores. And I remember during the take, you said to me, "What's that?" And I said, "It's a flying saucer." If you see the movie, and you listen very carefully, they forgot to take that out.

MR: There was something about outer space with you. You and I had dinner one night at the  Outlaw Inn in Kalispell, Montana, and you said to me, "What do you think happened to all the dinosaurs?" I said, "I don't know." And you said, "I think they grew wings and flew away to another planet." I always remind you of that, and you never fess up to it-that that's the conversation we had.

CW: But you did remind me of it. There is a scene like that in Homeboy.

MR: That's why I wrote it. Because I thought, Wow, here I'm having this one chance to have dinner with one of my favorite actors in the world, and he's talking about dinosaurs in outer space.

CW: There was this story that I heard, something about me teaching you to put on makeup. It rings a bell, but . . .

MR: When I was really young and I got into the Actors Studio, I used to see [Robert] De Niro and [Al] Pacino and [Harvey] Keitel and you, and you were the one who was most available, believe it or not. You spent a lot of time with the other actors. I think you really liked it there. So I remember you and I had a conversation one time, and you said to me at the theater that you always did your own eyes. So after you told me that I went out and bought some fucking makeup kit, and I did my eyes. Then, five years later, I finally got a job-I think I went out on 78 auditions before I ever got a fucking job. I think the job was Diner [1982], actually. And I insisted on doing my own eyes. The DP actually pulled me aside one day and said, "Listen, we're not doing Dracula."

CW: That's because I grew up in Broadway musicals, in the chorus, and in that world we did a lot of our own eyes. I carried that into movies, and it was a huge mistake. It took me decades to get over it.

MR: Yes, I often looked at your eyes in movies. You have very heavy-lidded eyes anyway.

CW: The eye advice was not good.

MR: Yeah. If you look closely at some scenes in Diner, my eyes look like Dracula's. But the DP got me to stop that, and I was a little pissed off because I'm thinking, My God, if Christopher Walken tells you to do your own eyes, then you'd better fucking do your own eyes.

CW: This was my mistake. I'm sorry. So you're living back in New York now?

MR: I lived in London and in Paris for a while. In London, I've been staying at the same hotel for,  you know, 20 years. In the same room.

CW: I'm always looking the wrong way there when I cross the street. But you like it back in New York?

MR: I love it. This is where you and I met. This is where it all started. It kind of all started for me in the West Village, and it's probably where it will all end for me.

CW: I spent so much time there that I like being out of it.

MR: Are you living out in Connecticut still?

CW: Yeah. If you're ever taking a drive, come see me.

MR: I remember many, many years ago, I was at your house. We were with that guy, Lenny, and he was looking for a bottle of wine or something, and he looked in your cabinet, and he found your Academy Award mixed in with the booze.

CW: Well, I've got this little room now where I keep all sorts of those things. But I remember, yes, I had just had all this gravel put down, and we were -standing outside, and you said to me, "Good gravel."

MR: You did have an awful lot of gravel in the front yard. Have you been back to the Actors Studio at all?

CW: Hardly. Though about a week or two ago I was in the neighborhood, and I just dropped in. It's good, because it's sort of the same, except it's got fresh paint on it. It was on an off day, and there was nobody there. The place was clean and painted. But it still looks the same.

MR: We had some characters there back in the day.

CW: We did. It was funkier.

MR: It was like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

CW: A little bit. Remember the director sessions, where they used to attack each other?

MR: Yes. It depended on who was moderating. When Shelley Winters moderated, I usually went out and smoked a cigarette. She had that screechy, kind of nails-on-the-chalkboard voice.

CW: Listen, it was a great place to meet girls.

MR: Yeah, well, I never saw you with any.

CW: Well, I used to follow them out.

MR: I just used to follow Al Pacino and you out. And Harvey Keitel. I didn't give a fuck about the girls. I just wanted to see which way you guys were going.

CW: So you're going to be busy for the next while.

MR: Yeah. You went through this, right?

CW: Well, it's a wonderful thing. You made something really beautiful, and maybe that's even more important than awards. Thirty years later, you're one of the top actors doing important work, and that's very powerful. You know, there's an old saying: "Nothing happens 'til it must." I like that.

MR: Let me ask you one question.

CW: Yeah.

MR: Where did the dinosaurs go?

CW: They're sitting in the tree outside.