[music]
---Well, time has come guys. Our very last episode of What's the Dill. Parting is
such sweet sorrow. We have a very special episode today. Well, they're all special
aren't they? This one's extra special. We get to talk
to LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Aaron Sorkin, two people I've admired so much
throughout this entire process. And we're gonna talk process. So, let's go.
--Here we are. We're going to LaTanya's room to see
her process.
[knocks] --LaTanya, can I come in?
--Uhh,
yes!
--Okay. Hi.
Hi. --Hi...
--Are you waking up your process?
--Hi, yes. I'm just getting through the
English Channel.
--Interesting --I'm on my way to the mediterranean.
--Okay.
Different kind of...
--Hello, darling. --Hi.
--This is how I
start. It all begins here. I like to start in the water you know get myself in my
process. I've studied so long, you know, Stanislovsky and Chekov
--Did you study with Uta Hagen and
Stella Adler?
--Both at the same time. And you know
most people don't know what good friends they were. And we all used to hang out in
the bars, and then we talk process. There
weren't a lot of women then who were recognized with such, you know, owning the
process. Everyone wanted to talk about Strasbourg and you know they were just the
an ultimate of penultimate of knowing the Stanislavski
system. So, I've done Meisner, like I
said, and them in Nicholas and Alexandria as well.
--[laughs]
--I'm just curious...
This water technique. --Uh huh
--Who you learn this from? --So, I found it in my
creative process. You know the creative process is whatever you will,
whatever you can, whatever you can see.
The imagination is it's like this!
It's in and it's wet and it's... What do you want to do? It's it's what
does the body want to flow through today? And I I like flowing through water.
I like flowing through water, but darling in the dressing room, you know, it's not
always easy to put the water in. And then you gotta draw if you only have 30
minutes. --That's true
--Thirty minute process.
--So do you feel like you found
Calpurnia in this water?
--Calpurnia crossed the water
the Atlantic seas
to come to these shores to work, to find herself an indentured servitude. But she
ended up with got good families though you know so she just stayed with them
through three generations. She just stayed with them. But Calpurnia is in
every lap. I'm taking a lap!
--Wow, Wow.
--And I see her she's she's coming up.
She is coming up. She loves to swim though. A lot of people say that black
people don't can't swim, but we can swim.
You know, I do a lot of accents when I'm
in the water. I like to practice different
kinds because the water carried ourselves from those far Shores in
Africa across the Diaspora up to America, to the American soil. Along the way we
learned languages, and all the languages sort of run together. Like um my southern
accent is really tinged with a lot of the Haitian patois and British
the thing that the Brits --So, it's a combo
--It's an homogenized goulash of
language that melds. It's not so combining. Each one sits separately. They
don't melt into each other like that myth that they tell you about the
melting pot. There's no melting pot. Each one is in the goulash, and they're
separate so they go, it's like
[noises]
See the Irish? Scottish? And then there
was a little of the South Africa
[noises]
Coming out. So, she asked to travel across all of that to get this
And her speech hear all that? Ha haaa, the speech. And that's what she does. I did! I did!
I said, I did when you asked me!
--Wow. Oh my god.
I feel like I I've been doing a show with you for like for almost a year
now and I never knew that this was behind
all of it.
--Behind these doors lies the weight of Calpurnia's life, and I cannot
tell you how grateful I am to be able to bring her to life this way.
What does Jeff Daniels' dressing room look like?
--Umm --You know I have a... What does his look like?
-- I know I'm
just curious like it doesn't um doesn't have all of this.
--I didn't think so, but
that's okay because he has two rooms. I only have one.
--Wow. I didn't realize you uh I didn't know you had a balcony
--Oh yes. You know, I have a
tub and I have a balcony. Does Jeff Daniels have a balcony?
--I don't think so.
--I know Celia Keenan-Bolger has the entire suite floor,
so I was wondering. But I figured that you know Jeff and I should take a little
less than what Celia has. --She doesn't have a balcony either!
I think
you're the only one in the theater that has a balcony --Are you kidding?
--No. --She's the star of the show!
-- I know, I know. It's crazy. It's crazy. She
doesn't even, I don't think she even has an ensuite bathroom.
--Don't tell her I have one --I won't
--because I you know I can't give it up.
--So what do you do out here? -- I come out
here and I do this.
--Okay, interesting. And you do this before every every show?
--Yes.
--Wow. --These are cleansing breaths!
--Wait, LaTanya, we only have 15 minutes to get ready, so I think we should get dressed.
--Let's go. Did he call 15? He's always calling 15
and then they try to write me up and say I'm late ! I'm not—
--All right Broadway.com, I have a
very special guest here. We have the writer of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mr.
Aaron Sorkin.
--It's been a—Hi. It's been a dream of mine to be a guest on What's
the Dill for months.
--For months, --Yeah
--It can only be months because
it's only been on for months. --Yeah, so
this is really exciting. Thanks for having me. -- Thank you
fulfilling my dream as well. So here we are. My What's the Dill for you is first
of all, what's the dill with To Kill a Mockingbird and how did you feel about
it growing up?
--I loved it growing up. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in seventh or
eighth or ninth grade. I can't remember when, but where where we
usually read it. And watched the movie like a million times, and watched it a lot
with my father. And we both choked up at the same spots and teared up at the same
spots. --But what was it about the book
when you were young that affected you?
--I
grew up in a almost all white, upper-middle-class neighborhood. In it
there were 1,200 people in my high school I was a senior and four of them
were black. Two sets of siblings. So, two black families. So, To Kill a Mockingbird
was really my introduction to racial injustice. And that's my biggest memory
from, that and how much Atticus reminded me of my father.
--Did you ever talk about that with your father?
--No. I don't think I did. And I
wish I had. I remember— but many years later, I did talk about it. He passed
away three years ago now. So, I was just beginning to write this
play before he died, and I remember telling him— because Jeff Daniels also
says that Atticus is his father. And if you talk to a lot of people, they'll tell
you that Atticus is their father, no matter what their background is, no
matter what. You know, Jeff's father owned a lumber mill in in
Michigan. He's a Midwestern, blue-collar guy.
My father was an intellectual property lawyer. Two different backgrounds. We both
think our father is Atticus. And I think a lot of people feel that way. So I
remember talking to my father about that, but you know among the zillion things
you regret, I wish you know, I wish I'd remembered to say, would have been that
you know he was Atticus for me.
--So, after high school, you went to college.
--Mm-hmm --And I think Broadway.com would
be excited to know that you majored in
musical theater. -- I have a BFA in musical
theater. I couldn't be more proud. --So, I
read that you learned how to write from listening to an LP or a record of Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Is that true?
--Mmhmm. Yeah. Listen I, you know, like a lot
of kids who went in this direction, I listened to original cast albums in my
room and sang and danced along with them and everything. But my local library had
an original cast album of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a recording of those
four actors, Uta Hagen and and the other three doing Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf. It was a double album and I listened to that in my room all the time.
And you know I never at that age I didn't understand what the play was
about, but I just love the sound of the dialogue. And that was like music to me
and I just grew up wanting to imitate that sound. --Well that's what I find so
interesting about you because as someone who has
been a fan of yours for a very long time, --Thanks
--And now some who's living in your text, I find it like sheet music.
So I find it really remarkable that you majored in musical theater and
that you learned how to write almost aurally—not almost, aurally.
--That's exactly
right. You talked about a-u-r aurally. And
that's exactly right. what the words sound like is as
important to me as as what they mean. The spoken word, anytime it's being used for
the sake of performance as opposed to two people just talking, whether it's a
commencement speech or accepting the presidential nomination or doing the
play every night, the spoken word has the exact same properties that music does.
Right? It's got tone and it's got tambor, pitch, rhythm, all of those things. And
you'll find —I mean, the actors don't need to be told in rehearsal if they have
inadvertently substituted a one syllable word where a two syllable word was
supposed to be, they'll know that something felt off in that line.
--I just figured out I've been saying— I've been putting an
all... --Son of a ...
-- I know. I've been
putting it all in there in one sentence, and I just— please don't hurt me— I just took it
out two weeks ago. And now the sentence lands so beautifully.
And that's your
gift, and that's what I find so remarkable! And these are my favorite
writers is that it's in the writing. You just read it
--I really appreciate that.
I really do. Now tell me what the line is.
--What does this have to do with Bob Ewell
falling on his knife? And I said What does all this have to do with Bob Ewell
falling on his knife? And the all it was a game-changer, but I stumbled on it three
times in a row trying to get it out of my head cuz I've been doing it like
that for five months. But now, I'm clean and perfect.
--What I'm troubled by is that
I didn't correct you.
--Um, yeah why didn't you?
--If you could write any musical what
would it be?
--Do you mean if I could write any musical
that has already been written, if I could have been the writer?
--No. It has to be something that doesn't exist yet.
--Oh. --Is there a subject that you've been
like, That should be a musical!
--Yeah. It's an easy one, and it's one that gets
talked about all the time, but the Princess Bride.
It should be a musical. --It's
happening right now. I think it's in development isn't it?
--It's been in development for a while with Adam Guettel,
who is perfect for it.
The problem is
that William Goldman, who wrote the novel, who wrote the screenplay for the movie,
who was writing the book for Adam's musical passed away about six months ago.
--So they need... --They need a book writer and
I... Bill Goldman took me under his wing
shortly after I got out of college and really had a lot to do with my
development as a writer. And I think if there was a person who could pay respect
to his novel, I should be considered among that group.
--This is a hot tip. --[laughs]
--Would you write the lyrics as well?
--No, no, no, Adam would. That's a whole
different, writing lyrics is uh just a whole different ball of wax.
I don't know how lyricists do it, the really good lyricists. I don't know how
they do it. --I think you could do it.
--That's nice of you. --I believe in you, Aaron.
--Do you? --Yeah.
--I believe in you, Gideon. --Thank you.
-- I thank you.
I am crazy about you on and off stage.
--Ditto. Thanks for coming by.
--It's been a pleasure being on What's the Dill.
--That's it! It's over!
[cries]
I'll miss you guys. It's been a great eight weeks. Thanks for for following me
around. As the great Patti LuPone once said, I love you and hope you love me.
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