Listen to Me Marlon Page #3

to achieve the truth.

This is the most modern technique.

Everything that you do,

make it real as you can.

Make it alive, make it tangible,

find the truth of that moment.

Mr Stanislavsky understood that.

And the style of acting

changed completely.

The first movie I ever did

was called The Men.

I played a paraplegic

and lived in a hospital

with paraplegics for three weeks.

Physicality is a tough thing.

I spent a lot of time just studying

everything they do.

I wanted to see how

they got in and out of their chairs.

The manner in which you crawled

from one place to another.

Paraplegics,

they do the most amazing things.

Races without their chairs,

I've seen guys walk on their hands.

They can do one-armed pull-ups,

they can do everything.

You have to know your subject,

you have to know your character.

Putting yourself

in a different state of mind.

What they felt like,

what their frustrations were

knowing that they couldn't have sex.

What am I gonna do, where am I gonna go?

I can't go out there anymore.

He just sits there

and he marinates his mind.

In the intellect; that's all he's got.

Put your heart into it.

Get yourself up emotionally.

At night I think about it,

dream about it

and I wake up being absorbed by it.

People have routines:

acting routines, dancing routines,

painting routines.

The same thing over and over again.

Everything is a clich.

When an actor takes a little too long

as he's walking to the door,

you know he's going to stop

and turn around and say...

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Jersey Joe Walcott, terrific fighter.

He'd be boxing, he'd be throwing

some punches and bing!

He'd have his fist in somebody's face.

You'd think it was coming out

of the southwest

and there it comes out of the northeast.

He would never let you know

where he was going to hit you.

You.

Never let the audience know

how it's gonna come out.

What is your name?

Get them on your time.

Emiliano Zapata.

And when that time comes

and everything is right,

you just f***, let fly.

O judgment, thou art fled

to brutish beasts,

and men have lost their reason.

Hit them, knock them over.

With an attitude,

with a word, with a look.

I don't like cops.

Be surprising.

Figure out a way to do it

that has never been done before.

You gotta put something down,

you gotta make some jive.

Don't you know what I'm talking about?

You want to stop that movement

from the popcorn to the mouth.

Cry "Havoc,"

and let slip the dogs of war.

Get people to stop chewing.

That this foul deed

shall smell above the earth.

The truth will do that.

Damn, damn, damn, damn.

When it's right, it's right.

You can feel it in your bones.

Then you feel whole,

then you feel good.

It was pre-sixties.

People were looking for rebellion,

and I happened to be at the right place

at the right time

with the right state of mind.

In a sense, it was my own story.

Rebelling for the sake of rebelling.

Hello, Mr Brando.

I hope you don't think

I'm too crazy for making this recording.

I wrote you a fan letter once,

but I don't know if you received it.

Once I saw a picture of you

with a white cat. Was it yours?

I'll bet you're one of the kindest,

most interesting fellows in Hollywood.

I suppose I'm judging the book

by the cover,

but perhaps I'm not too far wrong.

Mr Brando?

I hope this isn't too personal,

but I always say what I think,

so I won't stop now.

I admire you very much,

both as an actor and a person.

Many, many other people

feel the same way.

I think one of the main reasons

that I admire you

is because you aren't afraid

to be yourself,

instead of being a carbon copy

of everyone else.

It would be a pretty dull world

if everyone behaved in the same way,

so three cheers for you, Mr Brando.

I didn't intend to have

that extraordinary effect.

I became, very quickly, a cult hero.

And now I know that you're as anxious

as I am to find out what actor

has won the Oscar

for the best performance of this year.

The winner is

Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront.

Marlon Brando,

an actor of very considerable talent.

The youngest actor

ever honoured in this way.

When I saw the picture finally,

I was so embarrassed,

so disappointed in my performance.

It's much heavier than I imagined.

It's like carrying a monkey around

on your back.

They're asking me to put the finger

on my own brother.

It's a very strange thing

this business of storytelling.

You don't always know when you're good.

You wanna hear my philosophy of life?

Do it to him before he does it to you.

People will mythologize you

no matter what you do.

There's something absurd about it,

that people go with hard-earned cash

into a darkened room

where they sit

and they look at a crystalline screen

upon which images move around

and speak.

And the reason they don't have light

in the theater

is because you are there

with your fantasy.

The person up on the screen

is doing all the things

that you want to do,

they're kissing the woman

you want to kiss,

hitting the people you want to hit,

being brave in a way

that you want to be brave.

The audience will lend themselves

to the subject.

They will create things

that are not there.

Listen to me, Terry, take the job.

Just take it. No questions, take it.

There are times I know

I did much better acting

than in that scene

from On the Waterfront.

You don't understand.

I coulda had class.

I coulda been a contender.

I coulda been somebody.

Instead of a bum.

Which is what I am, let's face it.

It had nothing to do with me.

The audience does the work,

they are doing the acting.

Everybody feels like they're a failure,

everybody feels

they could've been a contender.

Inferiority.

I've been very close to it all my life.

Marlon,

I know your dad is in town tonight.

Is he hiding out somewhere?

No, I'll get him in here. Pop?

Come on out.

We'll ask Mr Brando

some questions about his son

and I'm sure we'll get

the blunt and direct answers.

Good evening, Mr Brando.

I imagine you're just a bit proud

of your son right now, aren't you?

Well, as an actor not too proud,

but as a man, why, quite proud.

Mr Brando, tell me this.

Was he hard to handle as a child?

I think he had the usual...

childhood traits.

I think he had probably a little more

trouble with his parents

than most children do.

Marlon, in the interests

of justice and fairness,

would you like 30 seconds

to defend yourself?

Well, I don't feel

I need to defend myself.

I can lick this guy with one hand, so...

Let it go.

We had an act

we put on for each other.

I played the loving son

and they played the adoring parents.

There was a lot of hypocrisy.

When what you are as a child

is unwanted, it's unwelcome,

then you look for an identity

that will be acceptable.

So I had a wide variety

of performances in me.

I'm very anxious for you.

I know you haven't seen

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