Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Oscar-winning actor, writer, and director known for films including The Shawshank Redemption, Dead Man Walking, and Mystic River.
On the island
Eight records
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?
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 … Wow, I think I've done something right here raising this kid'cause he's got really good taste in music.
Well, this whole album, A Meeting Across the River, I use on many occasions with the actors' gang. 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.
It's a song called In Your Mind that Johnny Cash wrote for the Dead Man Walking album.
Well, uh, appropriately enough, the name of this song is Nothing Without You. It's by Nujrat Fatehali Khan.
A Case of YouFavourite
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.
For me it's kind of like a a prayer. Called Don't Let Us Get Sick.
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 … 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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:06Can you unpack [the quote about having emotional truth at your fingertips] a little bit for us?
Well, it has to do with the specific training I got from … George Bigot, who is an actor from the Théâtre de Soleiles … in Paris and uh … 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.
Presenter asks
2:01How tricky is that given that the nature of movie making is that you stop and you start?
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.
Presenter asks
10:29How wistful are you for that period of New York's history?
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. 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.
The keepsakes
The luxury
I've taken a couple lessons. I really love it. 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.
Presenter asks
13:45You have on some pretty big stages literally decided to make your feelings known about human rights issues, political issues. That's quite a risk for a Hollywood name.
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.
Presenter asks
18:17Why did you choose the subject of a man on death row [for Dead Man Walking]?
Well, actually Susan found the book and she brought it to me to read. Uh it's a book by Sister Helen Prajean. And I read it and I thought, yeah, that would be a great movie. I wrote it pretty quick.
“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.”
“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? … 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.”
“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.”