Tim Robbins

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:33

My castaway this week is the Oscar winning actor, writer, and director Tim Robbins. His film credits include the Shawshank Redemption, Dead Man Walking, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Mystic River. Brought up in an artistic and creative household in New York's Greenwich village,

Presenter0:50

He was always encouraged to sing and perform, and after talking politics around the dinner table as a teenager, he would on occasion spend his evenings working the lights for the local drag act. Indeed, it was on stage rather than in front of the camera that Tim Robbins developed his own acting style.

Speaker 21:00

In d

Presenter1:06

It gave me a discipline to still the anarchic energy I had, he says. A rigid discipline to an emotional truth, and the ability to have that at my fingertips. What a very interesting quote that is, Tim Robbins. Can you unpack it a little bit for us? To have it at your fingertips. You can sort of call it up, can you, when you wish, on camera, this emotional truth.

Tim Robbins1:28

Well, it has to do with the specific training I got from

Tim Robbins1:31

A man named George Bigot, who is an actor from the Théâtre de Soleiles.

Tim Robbins1:36

in Paris and uh

Tim Robbins1:38

I took a workshop with him in 1984 and

Tim Robbins1:41

I uh

Tim Robbins1:42

I was already a working actor at that time and um

Tim Robbins1:45

I couldn't get on stage. He he would throw me off stage every time I tried to enter, and he would not suffer any kind of insincerity.

Presenter1:52

What were you doing then that that encouraged him to throw you off stage?

Tim Robbins1:56

Well, I would be entering without a full image and a full commitment to an emotion.

Presenter2:01

How tricky is that in given that, as I understand it, the nature of movie making is that you stop and you start and the light's right and then the director of photography tells the director that something else is wrong, and then somebody else comes in and then you have to wait a few hours and then you reset the shot and

Presenter2:15

It seems terrifically demanding, the idea that given all of those stumbles along the way, you then have to pick up and give a performance that same sincerity and truth and

Tim Robbins2:26

You have to have an immense amount of concentration and you also have to be able to be as loose as you can possibly be because you have to roll with it. You can't let things upset you. If there's a plane that comes by and the best take you had ever done as an actor, it's not going to be used. So you have to just let it go and come back to it when there's silence.

Presenter2:29

Yeah.

Presenter2:49

Can we get the Oscar thing out of the way, as it were? I introduced you as the Oscar winning. Is that a nice feeling when somebody does that, or do you think, oh, here we go again, that's always nice.

Tim Robbins2:57

I think it sounds a lot better than Oscar nominated.

Presenter3:02

And what about does it does it give you the power afterwards? Are you able to to knock on the doors or have the doors open for you that weren't before? Or Hollywood being the viscerally uh vicious city that it is, are people are you only ever as good as your last your last Oscar?

Tim Robbins3:20

Uh you're only ever as good as your last box office receipt. Right. Um in fact you might have a really great Friday where the the movie does very well.

Presenter3:25

Right.

Tim Robbins3:34

So you better go out Friday and Saturday nights because by Monday you're you're yesterday's news. I get it.

Presenter3:40

I get it. Okay. Um let's talk music for just a moment. Music is is bound up with uh not just who you are, but with your family too. Can you tell me why you've chosen the first track that we're going to hear today, disc number one?

Tim Robbins3:52

Well, uh this one reaches way back. I heard this uh a couple of years ago when Bruce Springsteen put his Seeker Sessions album out.

Tim Robbins4:01

When this track came on it immediately made me remember my childhood.

Tim Robbins4:05

And I remember sitting on my mom's lap,

Tim Robbins4:08

At a hootinani

Tim Robbins4:09

In Greenwich Village. My mom's name is Mary and I remember her her singing that song.

Speaker 24:15

Well if I could, I sure would staying on the rock where most you stood. The barrels on the cotton drowned. Whoa, Mary, don't you weep?

Speaker 24:29

Oh Mary, don't you eat on the morning Oh Mary, don't you weep on the morning got the drive Oh Mary, don't you weep?

Presenter4:43

That was Bruce Springsteen and Oh, Mary, don't you weep and you say, Tim Robbins, that that reminds you very much of those early family days. Your parents were both did they make their living at music?

Tim Robbins4:52

Um my father did. Uh he was a folk singer. He was in a group called the Highwaymen. We were always around music, around musicians.

Presenter4:54

Fuh.

Presenter4:59

Did you go and watch your father perform when he was uh on stage?

Tim Robbins5:02

Yes, uh one of my first memories is seeing my dad up on stage and and seeing him up there going, Wow, he's leading all this.

Presenter5:09

Yeah.

Tim Robbins5:10

That's pretty cool.

Presenter5:11

And given that this was Greenwich Village in the in the sixties and seventies, did he say something political too? Was was he talking uh talking politics? Because folk, of course, is is rooted in

Tim Robbins5:17

Politics

Presenter5:20

In politics in the United States,

Tim Robbins5:21

In social struggle, yeah. His group, the High Women, weren't a particularly political group overtly, but it was interesting. I hadn't really thought of them that way. And then I got sent a version of a live concert they did in 1963, October 26th, at MIT University. And they closed the set with Universal Soldier, the Buffy St. Marie song. And they finished the song, and there's a like a three-second pause.

Presenter5:47

Clear.

Tim Robbins5:53

Like people were kind of stunned. And then this eruption of applause from these MIT students. And I realized that was a very early statement against the Vietnam War that my dad and the group were doing.

Presenter6:07

What about your mother? Wha what did she do when you were younger? Was she working?

Tim Robbins6:11

She raised us, uh and then when I went to school she started working in the magazine business. But she also uh kept her singing going. She was in the New York Chrome Society and they would um sing uh a couple of concerts every year at at uh Carnegie Hall.

Presenter6:28

And I mentioned that this was Greenwich Village in the sixties and seventies, particularly the sixties. You know, could there have been a more interesting place to be brought up than Greenwich Village?

Tim Robbins6:37

I'm incredibly lucky.

Presenter6:39

Tell me about it. D describe the wa walking down the street, what would you see in Granchville?

Tim Robbins6:43

Well, first of all, let me preface it by saying that when you grow up somewhere, you have no idea that the whole world isn't like this. I I have an image in my mind of a seven year old kid with a baseball glove in his hand.

Tim Robbins6:58

going down McDougal Street to Washington Square Park to find a patch of grass, which is essentially my childhood. And uh on McDougal Street at the time were all kinds of interesting, iconoclastic

Tim Robbins7:13

genius people from Alan Ginsburg to Bob Dylan to Joan Baez. Um I just imagine bumping into one of those folks when I was seven and not knowing.

Presenter7:25

What kind of a little boy were you? How would you describe yourself?

Tim Robbins7:29

As a normal kid I I was a bit of a show off, you know. It's the youngest of four, so I needed my attention too.

Presenter7:37

Your brother David, who you've gone on to work with, once said of you, Whether it was street theatre or street hockey, he was always very focussed.

Tim Robbins7:44

Is he right?

Presenter7:44

Uh

Tim Robbins7:48

Thought that was the case from birth. He thought I was a very, very serious old man when I was born.

Presenter7:56

More on that in a second. For now let's hear some more music. What's uh what's disc number two, Tim?

Tim Robbins8:00

Uh this is Nina Simone singing Cinnamon. It was a song that my son actually reminded me of. He put it in a little film that he made, I think when he was about fourteen or fifteen years old. And uh I remember thinking

Tim Robbins8:16

Wow, I think I've done something right here raising this kid'cause he's got really good taste in music.

Speaker 28:23

Oh Cinnamon, where you gon' run to?

Speaker 28:27

Cinnamon, where you gonna run to?

Speaker 28:32

We're gonna run to

Speaker 28:34

All on that day.

Speaker 28:37

Will I run to the rock?

Speaker 28:39

Please hack me and run the ride

Speaker 28:42

Please have me run the ride

Speaker 28:46

Peace hath the Lord.

Speaker 28:48

All on Monday, Buddhura cried out.

Presenter8:52

Nina Simone and Sinnerman. I said, Tim Robbins, that you used to, as a teenager, do the lighting for a drag act. I I read that in the cuttings. I can only hope that it's true.

Tim Robbins9:02

Ah, yes, it was a group called the Angels of Light.

Tim Robbins9:05

It was more than drag acting. It was kind of a big spectacle, staged with an awful lot of glitter and outrageous costumes. The Angels of Light started in San Francisco by a guy named George Harris, who changed his name to Hibiscus. There's a very famous photo of a blonde-haired kid putting a flower in the end of a rifle at the Pentagon at a protest in the 60s. And that's George Harris. And George Harris was also the brother of my first girlfriend. That's how I came to be running Spotlight for the Angels of Light.

Presenter9:09

Wow.

Presenter9:42

Yeah.

Presenter9:46

And as you say, w you know, when you're a kid it's just your life. I mean, that's that's the way it is. Looking back on it now, and and certainly to any of us reading it who weren't brought up in such circumstances, it sounds very exotic, very creative, a little bit louche. Was it? Was it all of those things?

Tim Robbins10:02

It was. It was also a little scary, too. I mean, I didn't realize that until you're outside of it. But, you know, something I hadn't realized at the time, which explained a lot of the behavior, is these guys were hardcore enthusiasts of hallucinogens. And so part of the odd behavior I was dealing with was drug-fueled. And I didn't even know it because I was 12 years old at the time or something like that. I was just like, wow, this is a really weird and strange world. Yeah, and they're behaving really weird and interestingly.

Presenter10:17

Uh

Speaker 210:17

Pro

Presenter10:29

Yeah, and they're behaving really weird and interestingly. How wistful are you for that period of New York's history? Because you've brought up your own family in New York, and of course it's a very different New York. Yes, it does have the artists if they can afford the three million buck studio in Soho, but you know, it's ruled by Wall Street. It's a very different sort of New York city.

Tim Robbins10:49

It is, and I I'm sad about that. The New York I grew up in was much more dangerous, but a lot more alive.

Tim Robbins10:57

I think a city starts to lose its vitality when it outprices itself. When an artist can't afford to live in a city, the city loses a lot.

Presenter11:09

But did you ever talk to your parents about about wanting to to act, or was it just naturally understood that this this boy's life was going to be on the stage and in front of the camera?

Tim Robbins11:18

Well, I was again emulating my dad. He was an actor at this point. He started acting in Broadway and off Broadway shows. I did want to go to a performing arts high school. My dad wouldn't allow that. He uh he said you have to get an education first.

Presenter11:35

And why did you want to do that when you were the age you were in your teenage years? Was it kind of the attention? Was it.

Tim Robbins11:40

Yeah, it's precociousness. It's a desperate need to get women's attention.

Presenter11:46

Did it work?

Tim Robbins11:47

Oh yeah.

Tim Robbins11:49

It's a time-honored tradition.

Tim Robbins11:52

Uh and that's also a reason why people pick up guitars.

Presenter11:57

Let's have some music then. What are we going to hear next?

Tim Robbins11:59

Raikuter and Viambat Isale.

Presenter12:03

And why have you chosen this?

Tim Robbins12:04

Well, this whole album, A Meeting Across the River, I use on many occasions with the actors' gang.

Tim Robbins12:12

It evokes so much emotion. There is a certain wistfulness and joy in this one. Rykouder came and helped us with the uh score of Dead Man Walking, and I used this track, Isale, in the score of Dead Man Walking.

Presenter12:59

That was Roy Kuder and VM Bhatt and Issa Leh. You said going into that, Tim Robbins, that that is a piece of music that you use with uh the Actors Gang. The Actors' Gang is is uh this group of actors that you and some friends formed uh is it as long as thirty years ago, just about twenty eight years ago. Okay, and what sort of audiences do you get? I mean do you do you find it dispiriting that that to do the high-minded stuff you're gonna appeal to a very niche audience and you're maybe only gonna get a few more

Tim Robbins13:13

Uh about twenty-eight years ago.

Speaker 213:16

Uh

Tim Robbins13:26

We don't do the high-minded stuff.

Presenter13:28

Oh, good, okay, what do you do?

Tim Robbins13:29

Uh

Presenter13:31

Yeah.

Tim Robbins13:31

How many

Presenter13:31

So dolly?

Tim Robbins13:31

I'm thinking? No, no, no, no. I mean that I've always viewed theater as a popular art form. Okay. So we approach our material with the idea that we we would like to appeal to people that have never seen theater before.

Presenter13:37

Okay.

Presenter13:45

Um people of course do um they lose their idealism. It gets chipped away from them as they go on, especially people who work in very sort of brassy upfront industries like the entertainment industry. You have on some pretty big uh stages literally decided to make your feelings uh known ab about uh human rights issues, political issues. That's quite a risk for somebody in your position. That's quite a risk for a Hollywood name.

Tim Robbins14:12

Well

Tim Robbins14:13

That's unfortunate. It didn't used to be that way.

Presenter14:16

Hmm.

Tim Robbins14:16

I don't believe you are free if you are measured and careful in what you say because you feel that will make you richer or more famous. I think there's a slavery in that.

Presenter14:28

I wonder about that. I wonder how much nerve that takes if you're going to get up on a stage at the Golden Globes or the Oscars and use that moment. And you know what it's meant to be for. It's meant to be for you to pay your dues to all of the professional people who've put you there. It's for you to look glamorous. It's for everybody to smile. And there you are, really, you know.

Presenter14:49

Misusing what your community wants you to do with the time. They get angry about it. Does it take a lot of nerve?

Tim Robbins14:55

Well, it's interesting. I've only done it once.

Tim Robbins14:59

And it it has reverberated through the ages. This was at the Oscars. Yeah, I did it in 93, I believe it was.

Presenter15:02

This was at the Oskirts.

Tim Robbins15:07

It was the first few months of Clinton's Presidency. He had promised during the campaign to close down an internment camp for HIV positive Haitians.

Presenter15:20

Yeah.

Tim Robbins15:20

And in the spirit of all the red ribbons that were being worn on those tuxedos that night, we mentioned it. Within a week the internment camp was closed down. It was an embarrassment to the Clintons. The anger, I think, was that, you know, hey, this is a Democrat. You know, it's the Republicans that are the baddies. And, you know, I think that's more where that c came from.

Presenter15:43

Okay. And and you say we, this is you and Susan Sarandon standing on the stage. How much nerve does it take personally? Do you have to really gird yourself to do something like that?

Tim Robbins15:52

Um

Tim Robbins15:54

I think she was a little more nervous than I was. I I just you know, if you decide to do it, just do it.

Presenter15:58

And as you say, it got terrific attention, and and this camp was closed down a week later. But I I'm wondering.

Presenter16:04

When you walk backstage, when you've done something like that.

Presenter16:07

What do they do? Do they escort you forcibly from the building? Do people look you in the eye? Do they tell you off? Do they take your goody basket away? What do they do?

Speaker 216:11

Uh

Tim Robbins16:11

Do they tell you off?

Tim Robbins16:16

I did notice an awful lot of averted eyes. Right. I didn't want to look at you, kind of thing.

Presenter16:22

And they banned you for a year. They said you're not coming back next year.

Tim Robbins16:25

No, they banned us, uh, they thought for a long time and then within two years we were back because we were nominated.

Presenter16:34

I don't get the feeling you're a vengeful person, but that must have been quite sweet.

Presenter16:38

I just I think it's

Tim Robbins16:39

A little sanctimonious but it's a big hoop lot. We didn't go on and on. We we just pointed out an issue in the sea of red ribbons.

Presenter16:50

Let's have some music. What are we going to hear now?

Tim Robbins16:53

It's a song called In Your Mind that Johnny Cash wrote for the Dead Man Walking album.

Presenter17:00

How did how did that conversation begin? How did you

Tim Robbins17:00

Yeah.

Tim Robbins17:02

It it began with uh me picking up the phone and him saying, Hello, this is Johnny Cash.

Tim Robbins17:08

And I was a hero of mine who I've loved for many years. And I don't know where it came from inside me. I I don't know where I got the guts to do this, but I said, um, Mr Cash, I I

Tim Robbins17:26

I'd really appreciate it if you think about writing a new song.

Tim Robbins17:30

And he said, All right, well, I'll think about it.

Tim Robbins17:33

So, uh two weeks later we got this uh recording in the mail. And I got to be friends with him after that and he and his wife and it was really sad when he passed. It was uh a a big loss.

Speaker 317:49

Mm.

Speaker 317:51

Bone for bone and skin for skin, Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, Heart for heart and soul for soul, Somebody said, what is true?

Speaker 318:04

Lock it up and close it down, sound the morning like a dove, High beyond the rattling roar, look into the face of love.

Presenter18:17

That was Johnny Cash and In Your Mind. Let's talk a bit then about Dead Man Walking. It was your interesting, it was your first Oscar nomination was for uh directing this. And you've you've worked with an incredible list of directors so far, Robert Altman, the Cohen Brothers, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg. This was a film that uh was not an easy subject to choose. Why did you choose the subject of a man on death row? And in many ways a highly unsympathetic character.

Tim Robbins18:47

Well, actually Susan found the book and she brought it to me to read. Uh it's a book by Sister Helen Prajean.

Tim Robbins18:56

And I read it and I thought, yeah, that would be a great movie. I wrote it pretty quick. It came.

Tim Robbins19:02

In a couple of months I I had it done.

Presenter19:04

Just to remind people, Helen Prajean was the nun herself that Susan Sarandon played. Again, she won the Oscar for her performance. Sean Penn was Oscar nominated but didn't win. I know that Helen Préjan, the the woman who had written the book and who was the nun herself, was on occasion on set. D was how how did that go? That must be very difficult of somebody.

Tim Robbins19:11

Perhaps

Speaker 219:11

Yeah.

Tim Robbins19:25

Well, it's it's interesting. Uh I would show her every draft w before we started shooting I would show her every draft. You know, she used to teach

Presenter19:33

That's it.

Tim Robbins19:35

in school. So I would get my drafts back with uh spelling corrections and gr grammatical corrections and but also um m mainly uh my portrayal of a nun, that's something I needed help with.

Presenter19:50

Okay.

Tim Robbins19:50

Kingdom.

Presenter19:50

And how

Tim Robbins19:50

That was on set,'cause I that was fine. I liked I liked having her there.

Speaker 219:54

Right.

Tim Robbins19:54

You know, it's a little strange when you're playing somebody if they're there. Uh, so I I don't know how Susan felt about it, but uh

Tim Robbins20:00

I liked her. She's a friend of mine. I saw saw her last month. Uh she's she's a a real force of nature.

Presenter20:07

And is it true that you also had in the cast your father, your mother, one of your sisters, and one of your sons?

Tim Robbins20:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter20:16

A family of fear.

Tim Robbins20:17

Oh, my daughter was in that movie. She played Helen as a young child. Yeah. I I like to use my family.

Presenter20:19

You should put

Presenter20:24

Working with your family for you was stress-free, was it?

Tim Robbins20:28

Oh, no uh there was stress, definitely stress.

Tim Robbins20:32

Directing is for me I become pretty deeply involved, pretty obsessed, and so I don't really have a life when I'm directing. I don't have uh you know any downtime really. So you're not available.

Presenter20:49

No, he's a good American lady.

Tim Robbins20:53

Do you? I'd have a normal day, a nine to five kind of day, and then all of a sudden it'd be six or seven or eight or nine or ten o'clock and I'd still be editing. It's just

Tim Robbins21:03

You want to solve the problems, but it's not good for your family life. And as a matter of fact, I stopped directing because of that. My son, who was seven at the time,

Tim Robbins21:13

said to me, Dad, I like it better when you act.

Tim Robbins21:17

And I knew exactly what he was talking about. I'd I'd check out just so I could

Tim Robbins21:21

Get to know this great kid named Miles.

Presenter21:23

Okay, let's have some music then, Tim Robbins. What are we going to hear next?

Tim Robbins21:27

Well, uh, appropriately enough, the name of this song is Nothing Without You. It's by Nujrat Fatehali Khan.

Speaker 221:41

For you, it's a turn of play.

Speaker 221:52

Second.

Speaker 221:53

Yeah

Speaker 221:55

Samuel Palaje Mari Santira

Speaker 222:03

So you're not there every month.

Presenter22:06

Musrat Fateh Ali Khan and Nothing Without You. Let's talk a little more about directing, Tim Robbins. You worked with on Mystic River, of course, with Clint Eastwood, and it was a terrifically emotional film, not least because at the centre of it is the murder of a beautiful young teenage girl, and also your story, which is the story of a man who is entirely emotionally contorted by an experience he went through as a child. He he was abducted and raped for days on end by a stranger who comes along in a car. Given what we know about your your process of acting, immersing yourself in the character, are you able to take the character off when it's something like that? Or are you living with the part?

Tim Robbins22:57

Yes, you you kind of strip o it off and but it starts to get in you. If you do it for seven weeks, by the end you're you've got part of that person with you. It's also something that you get rid of. Some people let it affect them more than others. I just feel you have to be v open and vulnerable and naked when you're when you're trying to uh allow emotion in.

Presenter23:23

But

Tim Robbins23:23

People get rid of it in different ways. Some people meditate, some people drink.

Presenter23:28

Um what do you do?

Tim Robbins23:31

Uh on that one I drank.

Presenter23:32

Yeah.

Presenter23:34

Are you a dedicated drinker? Are you good at it?

Tim Robbins23:36

Less and less. I think it's it's something that

Tim Robbins23:41

Y you have to really manage, or else it can really kick your butt. So I I've been drinking less and less. I I find that uh it's so much nicer in the morning when you haven't been

Tim Robbins23:54

Drinking the night before, and I'm enjoying my mornings more and more.

Presenter23:58

Let's have some music then. What are we going to hear now?

Tim Robbins24:00

Ah, one of the best songs ever written. If I could write a love song like this, I'd be a happy man. A case of you, Joni Mitchell.

Speaker 224:12

You're in my blood like holy wine, it tastes so bitter.

Speaker 224:19

And so sweet oh I

Speaker 224:23

Case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet Oh, I would still be on my feet

Presenter24:43

Joni Mitchell and A Case of You, and you said, Tim Robbins, that that was if you could write a song, that would be the song you would want to write.

Tim Robbins24:50

If I could write a love song like that. I do write songs.

Presenter24:51

I do refer to that.

Presenter24:53

Yeah, sorry if you got you do indeed write songs, and we may come to that in just a moment. For a moment, though, on the nature of love, um you of course for many years had a partnership with Susan Saranda and you have uh children together, and you were held up

Tim Robbins24:55

Yeah.

Presenter25:07

As a sort of iconic Hollywood couple, because you did the Hollywood thing without seeming to be the Hollywood thing, um, does it seem odd to you that people feel so uh invested in a relationship that is sort of nothing to do with that?

Tim Robbins25:23

Well, it's always seemed odd to me and it's something that I've never really addressed or acknowledged as part of my life. I've always avo um avoided

Tim Robbins25:36

speaking about how I feel about personal things in the public arena.

Presenter25:41

And you have you are venturing, as you say, into music.

Tim Robbins25:44

Mm-hmm.

Presenter25:45

I read that you've got an album coming out and you've called it your This Is My Maybe This Is My You haven't actually called it My Midlife Crisis. Well, I was thinking of calling it.

Tim Robbins25:51

Well, I was thinking of calling it the Midlife Crisis album. And then I thought, well, that that's not going to sell any copies. Oh, I don't know.

Presenter25:57

Back.

Presenter26:00

Oh, I don't know.

Tim Robbins26:01

Really? Then I thought it songs of how about songs of love and misery? And then no, the misery part, no. I don't know. Um midlife crisis. I I think we all go through something. Uh it's inevitable. It's unavoidable. You're staring some kind of frightening thing down and we call it an existential crisis.

Presenter26:14

Yeah.

Presenter26:24

What is it, the proximity of death, the?

Tim Robbins26:26

It's partly that it's I think it's when you pass forty, actually. Inherently we double our age when we think about life, you know? And at forty you can imagine eighty.

Presenter26:38

Yeah.

Tim Robbins26:39

But at fifty you can't imagine a hundred.

Tim Robbins26:42

And so you go, oh, wow. I just, you know that, you know, that hill? I've already been at the top of the hill.

Presenter26:48

Yeah, I've had more than I'm getting.

Tim Robbins26:50

Yeah. And so you start thinking, well, how many years do I got left? It's at those moments you go.

Tim Robbins26:57

What the hell am I doing here?

Speaker 226:59

Hmm.

Tim Robbins26:59

And for me it was a it was uh a number of things.

Tim Robbins27:02

But w one of the things was I was trying to put this movie together

Tim Robbins27:07

And it just wasn't happening.

Tim Robbins27:09

And I'm my finances aren't coming through.

Tim Robbins27:13

This is a couple of years ago.

Tim Robbins27:14

And uh

Tim Robbins27:15

I'm thinking this isn't going to happen, but I'm spending my own money. And so, in the midst of this,

Tim Robbins27:22

In the salady

Tim Robbins27:24

I ask myself the question: What is it that will make you happy? What is it that you have not done that you would regret not doing?

Speaker 227:31

Right.

Tim Robbins27:32

Right. And it was I have all these songs and nobody knows'em and nobody has ever heard'em and I want I want to see if they're any good.

Presenter27:41

But what about I wonder with you because of course your creative process has always been, as far as we're concerned, you telling other people's stories. But here you are now telling your own story, and that is for somebody who by your own admission ha you know, is a private person and believes that, you know, they have the right to that privacy, which any sensible person wouldn't argue with. You're putting a bit of yourself out there creatively, a bit of your own.

Tim Robbins28:03

Well, I've always put a lot a bit of myself out there. Um I've o i w in every acting role I've ever done there's part of me in there, part of myself in the writing in some way. Um

Presenter28:12

But you're cloaked in a character.

Tim Robbins28:14

I'm cloaked in a character, but what I'm writing, the dialogue I'm writing, comes from me. Most of these songs are also about other people, too. There are some that are reflective of my own path and my own experience, and that's okay because it's not literal. When you write a song, you don't write exactly what happened.

Tim Robbins28:34

You fill it out.

Tim Robbins28:36

And let yourself dream about it, and let yourself

Tim Robbins28:39

I imagine.

Tim Robbins28:40

A perfect love.

Tim Robbins28:42

or a uh a more exciting reality.

Tim Robbins28:46

I think that's where those songs are written from.

Presenter28:50

What would be then, your post midlife crisis, what would be your perfect love?

Tim Robbins28:57

Oh, wow. Well, I don't know. Let's hope let's hope it's out there.

Presenter29:03

Let's hope, let's have some music, what are we gonna hear now?

Tim Robbins29:07

Well, this is a song uh that I've been playing recently. For me it it's uh reflective of where I am in my life. Uh it's written by Warren Zivon.

Tim Robbins29:19

And uh for me it's kind of like a a prayer.

Tim Robbins29:24

Called Don't Let Us Get Sick.

Speaker 229:27

Let us get sick.

Speaker 229:29

Don't let us get old, don't let us get stupid, all right.

Speaker 229:38

Just make us be brave.

Speaker 229:41

Make us play nice

Speaker 229:44

Let us be together tonight.

Presenter29:53

That was Warren Zeevon and Don't Let Us Get Sick. It was sort of Tim Robbins' kind of plea to the future, that song.

Tim Robbins29:58

Hmm.

Tim Robbins29:59

Yes.

Presenter30:00

You look to your future then, what do you see?

Presenter30:04

What would you hope for, at least?

Tim Robbins30:06

Um I would hope for a uh a great amount of joy. I would hope that uh my kids are healthy and uh find their way into a way of life that allows them to support themselves but also gives them joy. And uh I would hope that uh the road ahead is um like it has been for the last fifty-one years. It's always uh a road that I am constantly surprised on. I I can't tell you where I'm going to be next month. And and it's kind of a odd way to live, but it allows for infinite possibilities.

Presenter30:54

But then there you are, you know, with the finance crashing down and your own money piling into a project that's never going to be made. Not you know, you you know very much the bad as well as the good in Hollywood.

Tim Robbins31:03

Yes. Yes, and I also know that that uh out of that nastiness came uh an album. So

Tim Robbins31:11

When you get through something, what's the expression? If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.

Presenter31:16

Do you look back at at your directorial work or your performances? I mean, literally. Do you go back and and watch them?

Tim Robbins31:23

Oh, no. No. I don't own a television. I I I've gotten rid of my television.

Tim Robbins31:29

I had a great realization last October. I I moved into a um a new place and I

Tim Robbins31:37

I I just say, Well, I'm not gonna buy a television. I d I just don't want it. You don't need the noise. You don't need people to tell you how to feel, who to be angry at.

Tim Robbins31:49

Who to love, who to think is sexy, who to think is nasty. There's so many.

Tim Robbins31:57

Different uh noises coming at you from the television. Uh I'm much more inclined to sit in front of a a computer or a typewriter and write.

Tim Robbins32:08

If I don't have that noise coming in.

Presenter32:11

We are of course, as you'll be aware, and I'm about to cast you away on this island, so you're going to be all alone. How are you going to deal with being all alone?

Tim Robbins32:21

Well, you know, silence is a good thing sometimes, and I've got these great songs with me, and uh I'll get a nice suntune.

Presenter32:29

Okay. Nobody would forgive me if I didn't get you to play your uh your last track. Tell me what it is, Brady.

Tim Robbins32:34

Well, you know, when you're alone on a desert island, there are going to be moments when you need a little romance and a little um you know

Presenter32:40

Okay.

Tim Robbins32:43

I know, you you you gotta find what tree you like the best to dance with.

Tim Robbins32:48

And uh this is

Presenter32:49

You're making me cry now.

Tim Robbins32:51

You know, you can you can move from tree to tree. You can be the kind of guy that goes from tree to tree.

Presenter32:56

You won't be judged.

Tim Robbins32:56

I I I would probably uh take my time before I decided which tree I wanted to settle down with, but when I did decide what tree I liked the best, this is the song I'd put on, and we'd have a nice dance.

Speaker 233:08

Let's get it all.

Speaker 233:15

Let's get

Speaker 233:18

Next love, baby

Speaker 233:21

Let's get it.

Speaker 233:25

Shook her!

Speaker 233:27

Let's get it on.

Speaker 233:34

We're all sensitive people

Speaker 233:38

We've so much to give.

Presenter33:41

Marvin Gaye and Letz get it on and images their Tim Robbins of you and the tree making uh sweet music together.

Tim Robbins33:46

And sweet love.

Presenter33:47

Indeed. Um the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and your book, what book do you think you might take to this island?

Tim Robbins33:55

A match book

Presenter33:58

Really?

Tim Robbins33:58

Yeah.

Presenter33:58

Uh

Tim Robbins33:58

Yeah, I want fire.

Presenter34:00

Okay. Is it within the rules? Will we get letters? Probably.

Tim Robbins34:04

Well, I just don't know how to rub sticks together, so I I need my matchbook. Well, it is a book.

Tim Robbins34:10

Yeah, it's yours.

Presenter34:11

And uh a luxury too. What luxury would you like to take?

Tim Robbins34:14

I would have um a surfboard.

Presenter34:17

Right.

Tim Robbins34:17

Right. I've taken a couple lessons. I really...

Tim Robbins34:21

Love it.

Tim Robbins34:22

However, I'm not very good at it, so I figure I'll have lots of time on my hands and what better way to spend that to to become a world class surfer.

Presenter34:31

Okay, the surfboard is yours. And I'm going to force you. Imagine the waves crashing to the shore and all your music being washed away. Which one would you chase to save?

Tim Robbins34:42

Oh, that's a really hard one. It's between Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell, and um.

Tim Robbins34:48

I guess I'm gonna go with Joni Mitchell.

Presenter34:50

Um

Presenter34:51

Tim Robbins, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Tim Robbins34:54

Thanks for having me on your island.

Presenter35:42

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.