Olympia (2018) Movie Script
- I thought because
they made such a thing
about boys when I was growing
up in the Greek community
especially, I thought it
was because I was less.
And what happened was
when I understood history,
I realized it wasn't me.
[door thuds]
[sniffs]
[sighs]
[door thuds]
Goodbye now.
Okay, what is this?
This is the second one,
two scripts and this.
[door thuds]
They wanna pay,
classical stage is paying
a whopping $542 a week,
plus pension and health.
You wonder why actors
flee to Hollywood.
[phone ringing]
Hello.
He did what?
Oh, the Lysistrata, the
Greek thing at The Getty.
Yeah, see I remember
plays and theaters
it's just people I don't
remember their name. [laughs]
I look okay right?
It's fun.
I figure I should have fun here.
It's not supposed to be serious
or glamorous or blah, blah.
This is too big for
this outfit right?
- [Director] Yeah.
- I wonder what it is in people
that makes it possible
for them to tolerate,
such disorder around themselves.
I always think maybe they
got something I don't have.
Maybe their minds
are so orderly.
See my mind is like chaotic
so I have to have
order around me.
It can't be disorder
out and disorder in.
Diane Ladd is going
to speak and Ed Asner.
He's so funny he
keeps telling me
that he's taking Viagra and
that we should go away together.
[laughs] He's a lot of fun.
[crowd cheering]
Let me get over here.
- You dyed your hair.
[Olympia laughs]
I think it looks beautiful.
I think I'll try it.
[crowd laughs]
I find her to be a
magnificent actress
and to have this magnificent
actress placed in concrete,
on these streets,
shaming the lack of talent
among so many other actresses
on this street.
I think it's a great tribute
to the quality of the
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce,
I commend them highly.
This is talent up the wazoo.
[crowd applauding]
- [Director] What does
the star mean to you?
- I'm so loathed to
answer that question.
Because it doesn't
mean anything to me,
and I feel like I'm ungrateful
and shouldn't be that way.
I don't mean that
I feel [murmurs]
It just doesn't.
- [Director] It just
doesn't do anything for you?
- No it doesn't.
Am I glad I'm getting it?
Of course I'm glad
I'm getting it.
Anytime your work is
acknowledged you're glad.
- Oh, there it is.
- And of course the big thing
is all my kids are together.
- [Director] If the star
doesn't do it for you,
what do you think
would get you excited?
- The Academy Award
meant a great deal to me.
That was significant to me,
because that was a
specific piece of work.
You know what song I love?
Misirlou.
[sings in foreign language]
- There she is.
Miss America.
Miss New Jersey.
How are you darling?
- I have to say this.
That bastard at the
Toronto Film Festival
rejected Cloudburst.
- What did we do?
As I step to the plate.
Did we do something bad?
- Yes.
- What did we do?
- I think you turned down
Thom Fitzgerald's latest film.
- Oh, we did, did we?
- Yes, it's called Cloudburst.
- And you're in it?
- I am in it.
- And Brenda Fricker's in it.
- And we were told
it was because
our performances weren't good
enough and the film meandered.
- Wow.
- Geez they could
have just said no.
- Yes exactly.
[all laugh]
- Why didn't he just say no?
- That wasn't me.
- I was instructed by Thom
not to mention this at all,
so now I'm blaring it out!
You stupid cock-sucking
pig, you little dick,
you piss-faced monkey, you are
a shitty little short stump
but I stood by you.
I'm gonna kick your ass.
- Do not threaten
a police officer
- Fuck, you!
Do you have anything
to do with this?
- Nothing actually,
nothing Olympia.
- Alright.
- I haven't seen the film.
- Just say she had a
couple of tequila's.
Somebody said that, fight
ye devils, I hate peace
and that has always.
- [Woman] What a great line.
- Oh, it is, since I was like
14, 15 fighting the Irish
on the street
with a knife in my pocket.
- [Woman] What a girl.
- Well, what a street.
- I bet you were a
tough Greek girl.
- No I wasn't, yes maybe I was,
but that phrase has always.
Fight ye devils, I hate peace.
[crowd applauds]
- I saw Olympia in
New York in a play.
I think it was a
Mike Nichols play.
- Andrew Bergman's.
- Social Security.
- Social Security.
- I was just blown
away with her timing.
I just felt that
here was an actress
that had some of the best
comedic timing I had ever seen
and I just saw her
as Cher's mother.
- [Piers] So this is the lead-in
to this very complex scene
that ends the film that Norman
was talking about earlier.
We're all kind of
fascinated in how a director
works with an actor.
- You've got a love
bite on your neck.
He's coming back this morning.
What's the matter with you?
Your life is going
down the toilet.
Cover up that damn thing.
Come on put some make up on.
- Yeah, alright.
[audience applauds]
- Well, I think we
did an improvisation,
and that line, your life
is going down the toilet
was part of the improvisation.
I have to say what I did
was I channeled my mother,
with the pinching,
[crowd laughs]
with the finger pointing
and that line of course.
I looked at it
again and I thought
wow, my mother was my
first acting teacher.
[upbeat music]
My mother was a disciplinarian,
my mother had a little
arsenal in the corner.
She had belts, she had sticks.
Her job was to keep
shame from the family.
That was her job.
And she saw what I was like.
I was rebellious.
I was independent.
I was all these different
things and that scared her.
And she tried to do all
these different things to me.
She tried to teach me
shame, can you imagine?
She would stand there in
front of me and slap me,
She says, "Cry you
have no shame."
She wanted me to feel shame.
I was like [grimaces],
I wouldn't feel any shame.
I'd go to the bathroom and
cry so she didn't see me.
Listen I was 19 years old,
I'd gone out on a
date or something.
She found my pants
in the laundry.
I'm sure she checked
my pants all the time.
Now though when I
look back I realize,
what was she doing
with my pants?
She takes my pants and she
confronts me with them.
What is the meaning of this?
- [Maggie] Oh, my god.
- Her eyes are like blazing.
- [Director] But why?
I must have creamed in
my pants or something,
who knows what?
She comes after me with
my pants, shaking them,
and I'm standing
there and I tell you,
you know what I said to her?
I said look, I am
bigger than you are now.
You hit me, I'm
hitting you back.
I had to tell her
and she backed off.
- She fought the
battles in the family.
And I watched her,
she was much more upfront
with what she wanted.
My parents had
certain ideas of her
behaving in certain ways
and she would have
to fight her battles.
I watched that and there was
a lot of emotional turmoil
in the house because of the
differences of what she wanted
and the way my parents
wanted her to be.
- She was not a conventional
kid in many ways.
I mean junior New
England Fencing Champion.
I mean how many Greek kids
were fencing champions
or even fenced?
- You know the interesting thing
about that New England
fencing championship?
Did I ever tell you this?
I got on the mat, I had
been working with a master.
I went from French fencing
which was very detailed
and not aggressive and then
I saw these Hungarian women
come to the Boston Fencing Club
and they had Italian foils
and they were, "Hey Ha",
all these sounds were
coming out of them.
I go on the mat and
that person comes at me
and I start "Hey Ha", and I
drive that person off the mat.
I won, that match by
driving, you can get points
if you drove people off the
mat two times, three times
or whatever, you got a point.
Drove her off the mat.
And he comes up to me and says,
"Okay Olympia I don't
want you to do this now,
I want you to fence."
And I say, "Okay."
I get on the mat, and it
comes out of me again.
Then I do it the second
time and I win the match.
He says, "I'm gonna
pull you from the match.
Stop this, right now."
So I realized that he's
really serious, so I stopped.
These women were all Anglo Saxon
from the sister
colleges of New England.
I was from BU that didn't
even have a fencing team
and here were these privileged,
entitled Anglo Saxons
and I was 18, 19 years old
screaming and yelling "Hey Ha".
- We were surrounded by
many Brahmin types of girls.
And both of us had
strong ethnic roots
so I think we banded together
as a way of protection.
We were both miss-matched
at the school.
We really didn't belong there.
The messages we received
in the 50's were
that you assumed very
traditional roles.
But she moved beyond
the acculturation,
she moved beyond the
messages of the time.
And I've often pondered.
What is it that makes
people go beyond the pack?
To strive where other people
kind of stop and yield
to the pressures of society,
the traditional roles,
what is it, what
is the motivation?
Anyway she had it, she had it.
[gentle music]
- I've never felt
that I was a part
of the theatrical
community in New York.
I was too identified ethnically
which was a very old theme
that started when I was young
and Greek and fighting
in the streets.
It's very difficult
to talk about because
I suppose in the end it's
simple, I just didn't belong.
And who in America doesn't
have an outsider feeling?
I mean there are so
many immigrant groups.
At first I tried to get
away and then I realized
what I have to do is go into
it, just the opposite of that.
I have to do the opposite.
Because that not belonging has
been very much a part of me,
not just in my work,
but also as a woman.
But it never goes away,
that thing of being outside,
that thing of being different,
and of course what
happens is you think
there's something wrong with you
and that what you
need to do is fix it.
You know fix it, do
this, do that, fix it.
Finding a way to live
with who you are,
and not insist on fixing
at a certain point
becomes the name of the game.
Wanna see my three figures?
My crones?
It's a virgin, she's
had a tough time.
Virgin, Mother, Crone.
Three phases of a woman's life.
This is where I'm at.
- Good morning,
my entree into the
world of documentaries.
- Thank you so much Bon.
You know who I have to
call? Brenda Fricker called.
What is it in Ireland right now?
- Five hours.
- They are ahead of us?
- Five o'clock now.
- You want her?
- Yeah, lets do it quickly.
She got a job.
She's so happy.
She spoke to Lou Lou.
Are you on two Bonnie?
- Yeah.
[phone beeps]
I think it cut out.
- I'll send her an email.
- What do you want to say?
- Brendie.
How great, I was happy, so
happy to hear you're working.
I know how much it means to you.
In Manchester!
What's the part?
What's the movie?
How's weight watchers?
And what are you
doing with your dog?
New paragraph, Brendie,
today is my 80th Birthday,
can you believe it?
[playful music]
Some people don't know
who the fuck I am.
[playful music]
Oh, my arms are getting tired
I never thought of that.
- The thing about
"Tales of the City"
was that most of us who
participated in it knew
that we were committing
a revolutionary act.
Olympia knew that she was
part of something historic.
And she knew that what she was
saying through that character
had not been said before.
Not with such
affection and clarity.
Olympia was really the only
one I got excited about
to play Anna Madrigal.
There were other name actresses
but nobody I felt could
really nail all of the things
that are required to
play a transgender,
flamboyant, mother hen.
- It was a fearless and
groundbreaking portrayal
at a time when that
kind of imagery
in entertainment media
simply did not exist.
When we did the original
Tales of the City,
it was a kind of
brave new world.
Not just in the depiction of
a transgender leading lady,
but also just in terms of
the depiction of same sex
attraction, same sex romance,
same sex relationships
and the whole idea of
an LGBT based family.
- As for me, my favorite
year hasn't happened yet.
- Right on.
It's going to be 90 or 80 so.
I'll be 65 or so.
I can collect social security
stash some away, buy
a small Greek island.
- Right on.
- Actually I'll settle
for a small Greek.
[all laugh]
- [Announcer] Please
welcome, Olympia Dukakis.
[crowd applauds]
- When I had to play this
character, Anna Madrigal,
I said to Alan
Poul, the producer
I said I've got to meet someone,
I've got to talk to someone
who's gone through this.
I have to understand
what this is.
And so they actually
found a woman,
who was now a sex therapist,
and we sat and
talked one morning,
and the first question
I said to her,
"What was it that you
wanted, that you needed?"
Because I knew by that time
how incredibly difficult
the operations were
and all of this psychological
journey that had to be taken.
And I said what was it
that you needed so much?
And she said,
"All my life I yearned for
the friendship of women."
It really knocked me
out and from then on,
I understood that, you know
I've had that in myself.
I keep trying to find within
myself aspects of who I am
as a woman and to somehow
share that with other women
and I understood immediately.
Not the particulars
of her journey
but really the heart of it.
I think it's great
that you're all here,
I'm looking forward
to a wonderful weekend
and I hope you have
the same, thanks a lot.
[crowd cheers]
I don't know what I
thought she was gonna say.
I thought she was
gonna talk about sex.
And she didn't, she
talked about a human need
she had that instantly
as an actress
made it possible for me to
connect with the character.
- [Reporter] Do you know if
she's still in San Francisco?
- She what?
- Do you know if
she's still here?
- She was in LA actually.
- Look who's just
accosted her in the lobby.
- Oh, my god.
Oh, you came!
- We just realized we crossed.
We're not leaving
until the morning
so I called Bonnie just
to say goodbye to you
and she said you're gonna be,
I'm so happy about
this I can't tell you.
- I'm gonna run upstairs,
you're gonna go to
your dinner now?
- No, we don't have
to go till 8:30.
- Oh, let's sit down
and have a drink.
- Yeah.
- Okay sit down so
what are we having?
A couple of pizzas
and champagne?
Sound good to you?
- Champagne is good for us.
- Okay
What is this?
It looks like scrambled eggs.
- It does, doesn't it?
- Chris and I,
I was asked to ride in the
Palm Springs Gay Pride parade
- Oh, yeah.
- And they put us in this
vintage, this sort of kit car,
you know a kind of vintage
Duesenberg or something
that was the pride and joy of
the man who was driving it.
And no sign.
- They forgot to make a sign.
- They didn't make a sign.
- So no one knew who you were?
So it was like, "Who are you?"
[all laugh]
I don't know.
The only real fun we
had was we past a corner
where there was some
nut-bag Christians,
you know screaming and
yelling about god hates fags,
and so we kissed for
like three minutes.
- Good for you!
- And they were just like, they
were just uttering nonsense.
They said "fags fucking
fags" and I thought,
who else do you want us to fuck?
[all laugh]
Generally I try to
pick another fag.
- Who else do you
want us to fuck?
- We do need to run.
- Okay.
- I hate that but we do
have somebody waiting.
- Can the Reverend Jim
Brown what's his name?
- Gene Robinson.
- I tell you what
were missing out,
now what we should do
is smoke a little pot.
- You know we could invite
him if you plan to stay here.
[all laugh]
It will be like a play.
The bishop is arriving.
[all laugh]
- Alright my dears, be well.
- I'm an octogenarian you know,
so watch it.
- She's an octogenarian
motherfucker!
- Can I quote you?
I'm an octogenarian
motherfucker!
That's what I am.
You know I had a lot
of different reasons
to go on stage.
I first got a hold that there
was something else going on
when I realized that if I could
become a good craftsperson
I had a reason to feel
good about myself.
Then, I realized that
if I can go on stage
and do it better
than other people,
I could get parts,
I could get noticed,
I could get more money,
I could get better parts.
Then, that kind of
played itself out.
I realized what I lost was
the feeling of playing
with other people.
'Cause when you're trying
to win, you don't play.
You try to win, you
try to be better.
I didn't mind being competitive.
Growing up I've been that way.
So it was like, "Okay,
let's go, I know this one.
I'll do this."
Except one day I didn't
want to go to stage anymore
I've got my hand on a door knob
and I didn't want
to go on stage.
And that was really something,
I had to deal with that.
[soft music]
I realized that in New York,
I was going to play
very specific parts.
They would not give
me those parts.
I couldn't even get auditions
because my name was
Olympia Dukakis.
They said, "Oh,
she's too ethnic"
They didn't even know me,
see me, hear me, the name!
What you do is, you
say to yourself,
"Oh, it's not gonna happen.
That's the structure.
That's what it is,
what are my options?"
My option was to
start my own theater.
I could do the parts I want.
I could select the plays I want.
I could work with
the people I want.
I could feel like I
was in the theater.
If you do it
yourself, its harder.
But that's what it is
If they don't give it to you,
for whatever reason, you have
to then make it yourself,
you have to like
build it yourself
and for that you need patience.
- We began the theater in 1973
in what was the
old Baptist church.
We raised money
any way we could,
and it was extraordinary
because we didn't succumb
to being a commercial entity.
- Olympia had such
high standards.
I mean she was, her feeling
is that only the best.
And she, actually
that whole group
worked to make sure it was the
best and they took chances.
I mean it was a very exciting
theater company to see
because of that and because
it sort of was enthused
with her spirit which
is nothing but the best.
- She did a performance
of The Rose Tattoo
at her theater in
Montclair, New Jersey.
And she was an inspiration to me
in that world, I knew very
few Greeks in that world
And so her success and
her integrity as an actor
moved me and inspired me.
- [Carey] And her theater,
The whole theater,
I don't know if you
knew her at that time,
but I went very often to
Montclair, New Jersey.
That was an amazing thing
because they did all
kinds of crazy stuff.
Sometimes people were ready,
sometimes they weren't
and then they would
talk to the audience,
really talk to the audience.
And other people pretend
to talk to the audience,
but she really talks to them.
She really wants to
know, what did you get?
Where was your mind?
What did you feel?
What did you listen for?
Did you hear that argument?
- Stop ruining the girls
at the high school.
- Stop Serafina.
Let's go home.
- No no no, I ain't through
talking to this here teacher.
- Serafina look at yourself
you're not dressed.
- I'm dressed okay,
I'm not naked.
- This last summer I saw
her do Mother Courage
with Shakespeare and Company.
And at the end of the play
when she pulls that cart around
I turned to my husband and
I said, you know that's it.
You don't have to see
more theatre, that's it
It's never gonna get
any better than this.
And her generosity on a stage,
being with her is the most
generous thing that
can happen on a stage
and that doesn't always
happen with somebody,
who has her qualifications
or her status.
And she's totally open and crazy
give me craziness every time.
- There were film actors,
there were television actors,
there were stage actors
and it was very verboten to
move from world to world.
So she was one of the
first people to do that.
Very brave of her
because it was.
at the time, you know
sort off looked down on.
But she was sort of
the gateway of I think
the Hollywood community going,
"Oh, there are theater
actors out there,
oh, they're really good."
- I watched her
in the last piece
she did in LA, where
she didn't speak.
Oh, my god it was stunning.
To watch a woman on stage for
two hours, not say a word.
And present a whole
life, a whole history.
I could cry thinking
about it because she just,
she's extraordinary.
- [Diane] She's a
total professional,
she does not play diva
or mamselle or goddess,
she doesn't pull any rank.
She's all heart,
she's very professional
and she's a perfectionist
and I like that.
But she gives to you
what she expects totally.
She doesn't pull any games.
- he's like a summer
storm you know.
Sometimes it's really blue skies
and then it starts to get
a little dark and then,
you know it gets really dark
and then it's light again
and then it rains.
She's everything you
want her to be and more.
Her range is frightening
and wonderful to watch,
it's what every actor wants.
I want it.
- Whenever your name came up
it was always about the work.
And the great parts she played
and how she brought her
uniqueness to the part.
If somebody says on my deathbed
what do you remember
about Olympia,
it's those two or three
incredible, incredible parts
that no-one in this fucking
country ever touched her.
I have seen people
do Mother Courage
and they didn't know what
the fuck they were doing
at the very end but
when she got to the end
and she picked up that wagon.
Like she's going to
endure through anything,
and I used to stand
in the wings weeping,
weeping every night.
- I met Olympia at the
Williamstown Theater Festival,
her first summer up there when
she and Louis were up there
was in 1961 when I wasn't there.
But I came back in the
fall and asked around
from people who had been
there so what was it like
and they kept talking about
'Olympia' or Olympia and Louie.
They kept talking
about these people.
It's about one of my
favorite relationships
that I've ever known.
They embrace each other in
every sense of the word.
They recognize each other
on such a deep level.
They recognize the value of
each other in a very profound,
intuitive and sometimes
even funny way.
Whatever was going
on between them
would flow right into the scene.
It came in the door with
them every day of rehearsal,
like a dog.
I mean it just came in.
- She and Louie her husband,
were just always working and
that was the life that we saw.
That we were exposed to.
It was not that over
blown sort of Hollywood.
It was working class
and it was professional.
- They work so well together
and that includes
fighting and laughing.
They share their work
and they share each other
as two actors.
Olympia thinks Louie is the
best actor in the world.
She has boundless respect for
him and he makes her laugh
and he calms her down.
He's home base for her.
And she's a thrilling
pain in the ass for him.
- Emily, wake up, come on.
- For god sakes, what is it now?
- Sit up I want
you to look at me.
- You always do this to me.
- I have the most amazing idea.
- You're crazy.
- Not just me, the two of us.
- The breathing will
improve, it's just a phase.
- No it's not just the breathing
you idiot it's everything.
No golf, no sex life,
no friends left,
no one to illustrate my books.
- What about Leverson?
- Leverson died last
November for Christ sake.
- There are lots
of young artists
who would love to work with you.
- Nobody wants to
work with an old man.
- What about my headaches?
Do you hear me complain?
If life doesn't give you
exactly what you want
you want to take
your ball and go home
and what's worse you
want to take me with you?
- Only if you want.
- Well I don't.
- [Rocco] Time for a cocktail.
- Let's get a drink after this.
- Yeah.
Yeah, let's have a drink.
- Yeah.
- Definitely.
Your hands are cold.
- I know it.
- You're freezing in here right?
- Yeah, but warm heart.
[laughs]
This tonight my spirit
shall give thee cramps.
Pinch thee til thou bloodeth,
give side stitches
to pen thy breath up.
- A south west blow on ye
and blister you all over.
- Each pinch, more stinging
than bees that made em.
- [Director] I
must eat my dinner.
- [Rocco] I must eat my dinner.
- Then I've got it,
I've got it, Okay.
Is that it? Maybe
it's done then?
That was good!
I got it now
There's more work
for thee, no there's.
No I can just walk
away from you,
no, there's, I can
just take it now.
I've got it now,
there's more work for,
there, there's
more work for hmm.
- I must eat my dinner!
- I love watching
you winding it up,
Okay, I'm having an impulse,
I'm not sure what it is.
- Yeah, right I'm
having four of them!
- I'm having an impulse.
I'm having four of them
that's the problem I
have four impulses.
- Where is it gonna go?
- You made much of me,
you made what he said,
you made much of me.
- You think he gets to me?
- A little bit.
You made much of me,
you've given me water
with berries in it.
You did that, you treated me
really well, you taught me.
You did all that
and I loved you.
And I think the audience
needs to hear that.
Not only as part of the
relationship to understand it,
but I think as now
you as a woman.
- [Rocco] I'm reasoning now.
- You know, I have taught you.
- Yes, he's learnt
something, right?
And the thing about is.
- And you should
love me, this is true
- Right, right,
that's true, and that.
- I just heard it,
imagine you've been
saying it all this time
and I just dropped in.
- Teaching really
became, what acting was,
it was a way of my reaching
for my own identity,
my own humanity, my
own contradictions,
my own darkness, my own shit.
What are you afraid of doing?
Something wrong?
You're in a basement
on Clinton Street.
What the fuck are
you gonna do wrong?
I came in with
very, strong issues.
I didn't know I
had strong issues.
I didn't know this.
Greek was a big one.
First generation was a big one.
Sexual bias was a big one.
- [Harry] What do
you mean sexual bias?
- Growing up.
Yeah, I saw it.
I saw it in the Greek community.
In very strong ethnic
communities around me,
they were that way.
I saw those things.
I came in with those things.
I didn't understand
how much anger I had.
Of course I don't
have any more anger.
- [Harry] No you
completely calmed down.
- Olympia is trying to get me
to deal with who I am
and I'm telling her about
a breakthrough that I had
in the scene and she's
like, "Get out of here."
I'm like, "What?"
"Get out of here, get out of
here and don't come back until
you figure out why I'm throwing
you out of this class."
And I'm trying to understand,
you know, what happened.
I asked for a meeting
for us to get together.
And she says to me,
"Tony, what do you think I am?
Do you think I'm a book
that you can pull
down off the shelf,
take the information out,
close it and put it back?
I'm invested in you.
I'm not just your teacher."
You know and I'm like, "Wow."
I mean it struck
me in such a way,
no-one had ever cared
for me that way.
- What else you got inside?
Remember I talked about
an actor being a prism?
Having all these different faces
which are all
different characters.
What else have you got in there?
- [Rocco] Having a woman as
a teacher is very interesting
because Olympia probably
invented the feminist movement.
She was one of the
first ones there.
She's very honest and she
doesn't like it when women
do that subservient
feminine thing
to get what they want with men.
I mean I could just see the
hackles raise on her neck
and she always called
them out on it.
I was watching this
actress work with Olympia.
And she was, you know
more and more frustrated
with this actress because
this actress was like,
"Oh, oh, I don't know."
She was feeling and
very sort of very oh
and Olympia you know
was like looking at her
and just getting
angrier and angrier
and trying to evoke some,
basic, emotive aspects,
something that was going
to be pure and real.
And I'm thinking wow this
is interesting you know.
This woman really going
after another woman
and calling her out on
this feminine, you know,
these games and, "Oh,
oh, I don't know, oh."
And Olympia finally,
she had a cigarette
and she leans forward, and
she looks at her and she goes.
"Cut the shit bitch your
cunt drips just like mine."
- I had an acting
class I was teaching
and there was an
African American girl
and a very beautiful girl.
But she came to class
everyday with her wig on,
her make up on, so I said
to her listen, I said,
"I wish you would come
someday without make up
and without your wig."
So she's working one
day and I just went up
and I took that wig and
fucking yanked it off.
She went after my throat.
- Oh, she did?
- Oh, she did and we were
on the floor, the two of us.
[laughs]
We were on the floor
and at a certain
point we both stopped.
We realized whatever
had been spent was spent
and we sat there.
The class was horrified.
Today I would've been fired,
it would have been
like abuse you know,
you couldn't do the things
we did at NYU at the time
and get away with them today.
- Here, hit this, go
ahead M'Lynn slap her.
- Are you crazy?
- Hit her!
- Are you high Clairee?
- Clarisse have
you lost your mind?
- We'll sell T-shirts saying
I slapped Ouiser Boudreaux.
Hit her!
- Miss Clairee enough.
- Ouiser, this is your
chance to do something
for your fellow man.
Knock her lights out M'Lynn!
- Let go of me.
[soft music]
- Woah, this looks like
major shopping here.
Should I get the little
one or the bigger one?
- Yeah, let's get the big one.
- Is that's more
interesting shooting?
- No, I'm just hungry.
- Look at the place there's
too many people here.
Well of course it's
Saturday isn't it?
- [Man] Hello.
- Hello.
- [Man] How are you?
- Fine.
- It's good to see a
famous actor so close.
- Well it's nice to see you.
- You having a good time here?
- Yes, a very good time.
- Have a good stay.
- Thank you very much.
You want a piece of cheese?
Want some beer?
- [Woman] I must
be the only person
who recognizes you in here.
- Hello.
- I'm so happy to see you.
- Well, thank you.
- I'm Sarina, this
is Alice, my mother.
- How do you do?
So nice to meet you.
Can I give you a hug?
- Oh, sure.
Okay.
- Can I have a picture with you?
I'm sorry.
- Can you tell me where the
bottled green tea might be?
- The bottled
beverages are here, so.
- Yeah, okay, I'll try that one.
- Yeah.
- She got it?
- Yeah, thank you so much.
- Alright.
- It's not every day that
I bump into Olympia Dukakis
at the grocery store.
- Nice to talk to you, bye now.
- Bye.
- Let's go in here then, oh,
this is not gonna be good here,
they're all going to start.
[upbeat music]
- My kids will have my
head on a platter for this
you understand?
- [Harry] We will
censor this scene.
- No this is not Olympia, I'm
impersonating Olympia Dukakis.
I'm in disguise in costume.
It's really made of vegetables.
It's plant life.
[soft music]
Hand me a cigarette, will you?
- [Harry] No, not in the car.
- I'll open the window.
- Oh, come on.
- Look look, you've
got your window open,
I've got my window open.
- What's was the choice
of drugs for you?
- For me?
- Pot?
- What?
- Pot?
- Ah, yeah, but that wasn't,
well I got addicted about,
for two years to uppers.
- Uppers?
- Upper and lowers, I had a
whole scheme during the day.
I wouldn't get out of bed, I'd
have it right next to my bed.
It was pitiful.
- Why did you stop it?
- Well, it was interesting,
one day I don't know,
I got up and I was
doing something
and I went to the bathroom,
to take some, I don't know,
I was washing my face.
I looked at myself
and it was like literally a
voice in my head that said.
"You're trying to
kill yourself."
And I was like, "That
is what I'm doing
I'm trying to do kill myself."
I had a couple of
episodes of those,
trying to kill myself,
not just with drugs.
I was standing on the sidewalk
and a truck was coming,
and I thought it
would be so easy.
I just go and stand
in front of the truck.
And I did that and a woman
pushed me out of the way.
So a lot of these
drugs were about
trying to run ahead of
everything, trying to.
My management control system.
But then I realized
that if I continued
I was gonna kill myself
with these drugs.
I stopped right there.
When I was in graduate
school in Boston,
I was seeing a therapist.
That first week in
that apartment, I
had an hallucination.
But I had learned about
them by that time.
- This is without drugs?
- Oh, yeah, this
is without drugs.
The last hallucination
I had, I manipulated it.
I thought to myself,
instead of being scared
or instead of being passive
I had learned to become
active with them.
I saw the head of a woman
coming at me like this,
the back of her head,
and I said I'm gonna
see who this is.
And I forced the head to turn
around and it was my mother.
With a Grand Guignol
expression on her face.
Which was a lot of terror.
[sings in foreign language]
I think that song is a
silly thing to remember.
On the other hand.
[Harry laughs]
Woah, well,
how are you cuing this?
- [Harry] Well, Olympia
I'm trying the figure out
the house light as well to
fade the house lights up
because they're so quick.
- Well, what's wrong with that?
If they're quick
take them out last.
- Well I'll take them out
with the cue I was trying,
yeah, I just have
to work on stuff
it's the first
time I've done it.
- Okay.
- But I think we'll
make them work,
I'm gonna try it again
I just need to reset.
- On the other hand.
I heard the go.
Okay
- I thought that
one was too quick.
- You thought it was too quick?
- Yeah, I thought
in was too quick.
- On the other hand.
It's a little late.
- Is it also the house lights
also going out at that time?
- Yeah, well you're asking me
I'm telling you it's a little.
The go has to come
sooner and the fade
needs to be gentle, not abrupt.
On the other hand,
beat, beat, fade.
On the other hand.
Good.
That's it!
Look at the cat with its tail
up, you know what that means?
You wanna fuck or
you wanna fight?
- Alright, I'm not
sure I'll be able
to use that information,
but thank you.
- Why are you alone
for Christ sake?
- Oh, god.
- I mean who's gonna dial 911
when you're laid out
and gasping for air?
- I'm teaching the dog
how to do it actually.
- No one is laughing.
You want to fuck or
you want to fight?
- I want to do neither really.
That's a problem.
First of all let me tell you.
The people of New York
continue to be wonderful.
I was with Louie
once when he fell.
I mean there were ten
men there in two minutes.
Okay buddy, we got you buddy,
don't worry about anything.
I mean I was crying and there,
there was all these
people came to me.
I was like.
And it wasn't for
another 10-15 minutes
that people
understood who I was.
They didn't know.
That wasn't what brought them.
What brought them was
that this white haired old lady
had fallen down on the street
and nearly been killed by a
car and they were fabulous.
- [Harry] What is
your philosophy?
- On what?
- On death, on dying.
- On death?
So what time is it now?
Five after one, there's
certainly no escaping it.
- Does it scare you?
- Yeah, sure.
Sure, not all the time.
There are moments when it kind
of hits me and I get scared.
- What's the thing that scares
you when you get scared?
- Having no consciousness.
It's the loss of,
what little part of myself
is separate from
everything else.
You know holding onto that.
But my fears about
this happen at night
or sometimes in the day
something will happen.
I'll walk down the street and
they'll be a wonderful wind,
I love wind, and they'll
be a wonderful wind
and I'll feel isn't
this great, the wind
especially in New York when
the wind comes off the river.
And then I think about
not having this anymore
not having that wind and
I have this flash of fear.
[pensive music]
- [Harry] Any regrets?
- Of course.
I regret that I wasn't able
to handle my children better.
I had not good parenting skills,
I don't know what you
want to call that.
I mean not that I didn't
do the best I could.
I did, I know that.
I didn't create boundaries
and disciplines.
Once I'll never forget this.
I left Stefan waiting on
the steps of the High School
with all his hockey equipment.
Just this little kid, everybody
had picked up their kids
and there's Stefan,
it was like 45 minutes
that kid sat there.
Things like that you know
they come back to haunt you.
How could I have
forgotten Stefan,
how could I have forgotten him?
- I was the third,
the third child
the youngest of three.
When I was sophomore
in High School
I was going on a ski trip
where we went to Quebec.
I remember the night
before the trip.
I think it was the first time
I was going out of the country
and I had a list of
things to go through
and it said that one of the
things was a birth certificate.
And so I pick it up
and I'm looking at it.
I just wanted to make sure
I have everything in order
and I'm glancing through
and I see for birthday
it says February 4th.
And I said that's weird, my
birthday is February 5th.
I looked at the time, there
was the time of the birth.
And I was like did
they get it wrong?
Was it maybe at
night, so they didn't,
I was just like this
doesn't make any sense.
So I specifically remember
walking into my parents bedroom
and I said to them, "Mom,
dad this is kinda weird."
My birth certificate
says February 4th,
we always celebrate my
birthday February 5th.
And I remember my Dad going,
"That's right, That's right,
my brother's birthday is
February 5th you are the 4th."
- At the time I kind of wished
my parents were more normal.
You know I looked at
some of my friends
and felt like I wished I
had like the stay home mom
and the Wall Street father
that comes home everyday
but that just wasn't
the way things were.
And there weren't
really any gender roles
in their marriage and we
didn't really as kids.
I was a young, 8 years
old doing my own laundry
because they just decided like
you know they're old enough,
do your own laundry.
I was like, "Crap, I
don't want to do this."
- I think also
because when I grew up
I wanted less boundaries
so I think I gave boundaries
when I shouldn't have.
I should have defined
and delineated and stuff.
Fortunately for my
sons they had sports.
But my daughter didn't.
[pensive music]
Would you hand me that?
I just noticed it.
Oh, it's a drunk
Italian Grandmother.
I have given my definitive
Italian performance I think.
- [Woman] Yeah, that's better.
- Say, how are we
doing with the Duo?
- [Louis] The Duo?
- Ask if there's another
actress here, it doesn't matter.
- I hear that Faye
Dunaway is here.
- She's got eyelash glue.
She does.
- Okay we'll ask.
We'll call up Faye Dunaway.
We'll ask the concierge
to call Faye Dunaway
and ask if she's got any
duo surgical adhesive.
- [Louis] Either
that or Elton John.
- He's got it.
- Someone said well possibly
there might be some other
actresses here staying
in the hotel.
Do you think we could borrow
some adhesive from some.
Who's staying at the
hotel do you think?
- Faye Dunaway
- Someone said Faye
Dunaway is here.
Yeah, call Faye Dunaway
and see if she can
lend Olympia Dukakis
some of her adhesive
for her eyeliner.
I don't know what
they use it for?
Okay whichever comes first,
the drug store or Faye Dunaway.
Okay, goodbye.
This is, it's a comedy.
- What else would it be?
- And Faye Dunaway said I
wouldn't give that bitch
a fucking thing.
[all laugh]
- We actually graduated
from the same college.
- That's right.
- She graduated from
Boston University.
I mean I think I
graduated before she did.
Yeah, I remember that.
- Nice to meet you,
you're so handsome, you
look great together.
- Thank you, thank you so much.
- Goodbye, thank you.
- You're welcome bye.
- Bye.
- Isn't he great?
- You got everything right?
- I've got my glasses.
Now I'm really, now
I'm getting excited.
- Hey, the elevator's waiting,
the elevator's waiting.
Is my hair curly?
How's my hair?
More more, wait wait.
- No no, don't pat in down.
- It's too wild.
[crowd murmurs]
- [Announcer] And now
I'd like to welcome
ladies and gentleman.
- [Announcer] The
nominees for an actress
in a supporting role are.
- Olympia Dukakis
in "Moonstruck".
[crowd cheers]
- Why would a man need
more than one woman?
- I don't know.
Maybe because he fears death?
- That's it, that's the reason.
- I don't know.
- No, that's it, thank you,
thank you for
answering my question.
- [Announcer] And the winner is.
- [Announcer] Olympia
Dukakis in Moonstruck.
[crowd cheers]
- Well, I'm very honored.
I want to thank the
members of the academy.
I want to say yet again,
thank you to Norman,
to Patrick Palmer and to John
Patrick Shanley, to my family,
my husband who has
been my companion
through my career, through
my life, to my friends
and colleagues in New York
and The Whole Theater.
Thank you very much,
okay Michael let's go!
Michael.
- You were fantastic.
- Michael did you watch it?
- Watch it, we watched it
for a second time here.
Oh, you're unbelievable.
- This is like a
Roman spectacle.
This is unbelievable.
- [Michael] What are we
doing here, you and I?
- I don't know, I don't know.
- Just a couple of
street kids, that's all.
- I don't understand
how this all happened.
- You were great
we're proud of you.
- Thank you, bye.
- Okay Olympia, bye, bye,
my best to everybody.
- Right bye.
Oh, it's great.
Do you think I can
call my mother?
- [Interviewer] Did you
ever think that Olympia
would have this kind of success?
- No, never.
- Why not?
- Because it took so long.
I thought she was one of
the ordinary actresses.
This is a surprise to me.
- Listen, when this
thing happened,
with this guy that
was my first love,
very much in love with.
I got a letter from him,
his parents didn't want me.
I just went to the mirror and
looked at myself and I said.
"Now what are you going
to do with your life?"
I mean I just went forward.
I did not want to.
But of course what
happened to me was
that I just closed off.
I closed my heart down.
I mean I'd go out with people
I'd have affairs with them
but, no feelings.
I experienced it as
nothing and no one
is going to take over again.
My life is going to be
what I want it to be.
- [Harry] Were you a
very sexual person?
- Yeah, I mean I
was like in the time
when you could do this, the
queen of one night stands.
Because it was always different,
each man was different.
You never knew what it
was going to be like.
How they were going to kiss.
How they were gonna
feel inside of you,
what they were going
to do to your body,
you didn't know what
was going to happen.
Of course it was then that I
met Louie, at the same time.
- [Harry] Was that
like a one night stand?
- No, no I knew, I knew.
I knew almost immediately
with Louie that first night.
And the next morning
I wouldn't leave.
I thought I was
in a French movie.
I had a black slip on
and I was sitting around.
I remember thinking he can
kick me out, that's it,
but I am not leaving.
- I remember her eyes.
They were kind of heavy lidded
and they were very sexy.
And I said, "Oh,
my god this woman."
And then she wasn't a shrinking
violent, she never was.
And at one point I realized
I was in love with her
and I was never that
committed to a woman ever.
I would have one night
stands here there, you know,
and finally one
day I said to her,
"Will you [murmurs] me?"
I could not say it!
And she realized how
fucking screwed up I was.
I couldn't even say "Would
you marry me, I love you"
I couldn't say it.
I was beginning to feel
feelings I'd never felt before.
Then I realized
there's something here
something was going on and
it was my love for her.
- I remember when I got
pregnant with Christina,
he was in Stock.
He was having a thing with
somebody not an actress.
I wasn't at all sure I wanted
to have children at that time.
I couldn't get him on the phone.
So finally I got
him on the phone
and I told him he had to
come back, we had to talk,
we had to make this decision,
about whether or not
to have the baby.
He said I can't I
only have one day off.
And I said well,
I said, "You better
get back here
or there won't be any
back here to get back to."
I remember I was like very.
And he came back,
and we talked, and he
told me about this woman.
I mean it was the
least of my concerns.
I met her eventually, I liked
her, she thought we were odd.
I'm tired, I'm
gonna go to sleep.
- I'll tell you what I'm
gonna have one of your apples
then I'll go home.
- Okay.
- [Harry] How do
you spell Edremit?
- I think it's 'E',
yeah, it's 'Edre' Edremit.
Wait, I'm gonna do this one.
Don't talk.
[phone beeps]
- Do it again.
- I don't know which one to.
- [Harry] That sounds
means you can say it.
- Oh, Okay.
[phone beeps]
- [Harry] Do it
again, press it again.
- [Siri] Christina,
Christina or Ken Macdonald
- Can I talk now?
I'm trying to enter
the 21st century,
but you can't say a
dammed word, that bitch,
she picks it up and she's.
You got to be
absolutely focused.
Siri, her name is right?
- [Harry] Where is it?
- No you gotta do it like
this, gotta hold it down.
The town of 'Edremit' in Turkey.
- [Siri] When is your meeting?
- No, I'm talking
about a town in Turkey
and the name is 'Edremit'.
- [Siri] Sorry I
don't understand,
no I'm talking about
a towel in Turkey
and the name is
Ederemit okay, when?
- Let me try again, I'm talking
about a town, not a towel.
In the country of Turkey.
Now can you help me?
- [Siri] I don't know
what you mean by,
"Let me try again I'm talking
about a town not towels
in the country Turkey now
can you help me okay, when?"
- Edremit, Turkey.
- [Siri] Sorry I missed that.
- What the fuck good is she?
This Siri, 400 bucks.
Okay, so what's happening
tomorrow Lou Lou bell?
At two o'clock Lou Lou?
- What?
- Do you want to do something?
- At two o'clock?
- Yeah, what do you wanna?
- I'll have to
check my schedule.
[crowd applauds]
- My name is Rocco
Sisto and I am damaged.
I am damaged because
of these two people.
So I'm walking up
Broadway two days ago,
and it's raining, and I'm
coming from an audition
I have a suit on and I see
this man, on the street.
And he's walking down
Broadway and so I walk over
and he looks at me and he
goes, "I didn't recognize you."
And then he said, "I'm
going to therapy."
And I thought this
guy is 115 years old.
He's going to therapy,
and then I realized
he's married to her.
Of course he's going to therapy.
Wouldn't you?
- Louie would never,
never walk away.
I would say those things, well
maybe this well maybe that.
Louie was like rock solid.
He said I've never loved
anyone in my life like you.
He was absolutely convinced
and he was not gonna
walk away from it.
It was the other day
we were talking about,
I don't know, somebody was
saying someone was beautiful,
I said to him, "You never
say that I'm beautiful."
I said, "Don't you
think I'm beautiful?"
And he started to laugh, I
said, "Well when we first met
did you think I was beautiful?"
He said honestly, he
said, "No I didn't."
I said, "What did you think?"
He said I've never known anyone
with a spirit like yours.
I said you can't tell
me you fell in love me
because of my spirit.
He said, "Yes that's why
I fell in love with you.
Because of your
spirit not because
you're the most beautiful
woman I've even been with."
It was really interesting,
I pouted for a day or so.
- [Harry] Was Louie very sexual?
- Yes, he was, yeah.
- As sexual as you or?
- Differently, differently.
I was more let's try
this, let's do that
let try this, lets go
there, lets do this.
He was the one that
had more feelings.
He was the one that
helped me get my feelings
because I could make love
but I didn't have feelings.
Louie cried, I was like.
- Does that ever stop?
- What?
- Being sexual?
- You know what?
It doesn't, it doesn't,
it's really interesting.
To continue to think,
that you're going to have
the kinds of experiences
and interaction that you
have when you're younger
of course is to lie
about what's the truth.
I was talking to a couple of
women when we were together
and I said, "You
know it's interesting
how you always take a
hard prick for granted."
That you think there's
always gonna be a hard prick.
You never think that, you know.
You dance with somebody,
bang, their prick is hard.
You know, you rub against
somebody, the prick is hard.
But then the day comes
when you can't take for
granted a hard prick.
- Yeah, that's the
one, cute little thing.
Beautiful eyes.
- [Zach] That's what I
thought, I love his eyes.
- Reminds me of my Nat
that's why I wanted him.
- Nat was your dog?
- No my husband.
He died at the deli last year.
Went for some half and half
for my coffee never came back.
I should've just drank it black.
- I'm sorry.
- You kind of have
his build you know.
That's what I liked when I was
young, feel a man's weight.
Helps you forget your troubles.
We were doing "The
Trojan Women", my
brother was directing.
We had spent the summer
adapting it ourselves.
We get into rehearsal
and coincidentally
I happened to be
across the street
looking for opening night
presents for the set designer
and I saw a book called
"Perseus and the Gorgon".
And I remembered Perseus, my
father talked about Perseus.
This great Greek hero
who united Greece.
It talked about Perseus,
but not like my father.
She said Perseus
went around Greece.
Razed the temples.
Killed the priests
and priestesses,
buried all their artifacts
and this was the phrase that
got me and still gets me.
Buried in oblivion and
covered in silence,
the teachings of
the Great Mother.
And I'm like, what?
First what Great Mother and
what are these teachings?
So I started to look for it,
and it wasn't until I was
in a Buddhist bookshop
and I was pushing books around
trying to see what was there
and a book fell off the shelf.
And it was, cover down, and
I reached, looked at it,
picked it up and it said,
"When God was a Woman"
by Merlin Stone.
I took it home and it
totally blew my mind.
I would come running out
of my room to Louie saying
listen to this, then
I'd go back inside.
I couldn't believe
what I was reading.
History, I was reading history,
Herstory, H-E-R-S and
what had happened.
How life had been
matrifocal and matrilineal.
At the time when it was
matrifocal and matrilineal,
society was egalitarian.
I began to find the
research and those people,
the historians who had actually
written about this period.
And so it began to ground
me I began to feel,
I could lend myself to this,
I could permit myself to open
my imagination and
my feelings to it.
So I'm having this massage
and I hear this voice
saying to me, "Celebrate her."
And then I feel an androgynous
presence in the room
and I really got scared and
started to cry and I said,
"I don't know how to celebrate.
I know how to suffer,
but I don't know
how to celebrate."
And she said to me, "You do.
You are of her and you know."
For 25,000, God was
a woman, not a man.
And it was simple why
that was the case.
The woman carried the child.
The woman then actually
birthed the child.
And then the woman
actually fed the child.
All from her body, like
the body of the planet.
So what was sacred?
Sacred was imminent.
It was within the form.
The tree, the sacredness of
the tree as it bore fruit.
The sacredness of the river
as it gave water and
nurtured the plants.
They saw what was
sacred as imminent
within the world around.
How could man compete
with woman with this?
He couldn't.
So that had to be diminished.
That had to be lessened.
Perseus destroyed the
temples of the Great Mother.
And killed all the priests
and priestesses
that were involved.
And buried in oblivion
and covered in silence,
it was against the
law to talk about it.
Buried in oblivion
and covered in silence
the teachings of
the Great Mother.
So of course my thing was
what are these teachings
that had to be hush-hush.
The basis of life
is transformation.
Just as the seasons
change and just as we age
and everything else is
happening constantly to us.
And that's what it is. We
die and we fall to the earth
and we are part of the earth
that nurtures new life
and comes forward.
I began to understand that
the issues I was having
that I thought were mine alone
and that I was so fucked up
and that my family was this
and that had an
historical basis.
It is a bigger issue
than me, Olympia.
You know, I began
to understand that
I began to separate.
Now this is my shit and this
is our species shit over here.
[soft music]
It was my idea this thing of
going to my mother's village
as you recall.
It was something
matrilineal, for my daughter
and my granddaughters to
come to my mother's village.
And see, and feel
a presence of my
mother and her mother.
I have to say even
when I was young
I had this connection
or something.
Connection is almost too strong
and too practical somehow.
It was more a kind of
a memory or a dream.
And then I said to myself
I wish I knew my
great grand parents
and my great great
grand parents.
And I thought, they
are in me some place.
What if I just call them forth,
what if I imagine
them what if I,
assumed they're part
of my Soma, my DNA.
I made them real to me.
I saw their faces.
I don't know why that
was so important to me.
Because it stops, it
stops with my grand mother
and you've got to know that
these people have been here
for centuries,
millennia who knows.
There's just something,
and I may never know it
or understand it but
that doesn't matter.
I feel like I said look.
Here's this lineage.
Here's this long
red line you know.
It's the menstruating red line.
Here it is, this is part
of it. We're part of it,
you're part of it.
[soft pensive music]
[speaks in foreign language]
- Eleni.
- Constanina
Mine is Olympia.
[man speaks in foreign language]
- Carrot, oh, it's delicious.
[speaks in foreign language]
- I think I'd like to sit back,
I just feel like crying
They reminded me of my mother,
they reminded me of my Yaya.
You know what it was.
I mean their hair
is all pulled back,
they don't have a
lick of make up,
half their teeth are gone
but they're beautiful.
And they have such life
in them and such energy.
Under different circumstances
we were similar ages
we would have been filenadas.
We would have been friends, we
would have grown up together.
- [Harry] Where
are we going now?
- You want to just see
what happens to my face
when I say the turtle.
We're going to the turtle.
Now recovered after having been
in the care of
nurses and doctors.
It seems to have recovered
and is now ready to join
it's fellow turtles
out in the Aegean.
This is so beautiful.
- [Announcer] So, about Lola
the turtle we are
going to release today.
- That's the name
of the turtle, Lola.
Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.
- [Announcer] So we
are about to start.
Thank you very much
for being here.
Please try not to be
loud in order to avoid
stressing the animal.
- I think we'll be
able to see from here.
Oh, no all of the people
are going down there.
I think we have to go down.
It's enormous, it's enormous.
[pensive music]
What is happening right now?
Are we looking?
Are we sensing?
It's evocative.
Then you get that and you go on,
then you keep going and then
continue to reach another point
just like that turtle
trying to get to the ocean.
Or being compelled
to go to the ocean.
It wasn't trying to do
anything that turtle.
And you get another
hit, you stop.
I realize I do the same
thing as that turtle does.
And I do that when I work.
I move and then I stop and
then my system seems to
absorb in a
non-intellectual level.
A non-emotional level.
Is it my body?
It is but it's not.
I mean maybe it's a
non literal level.
There she goes, there she goes.
[somber music]
Well it's about time.
It's about time.
I'm freaking exhausted,
but I am free.
Survived another piece of caca.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- They didn't kill me.
[soft music]
- Remember mother would get up
and start doing these songs?
I wanna get you on a
slow boat to China.
Remember that one?
And she would act it out.
She said she was five
feet tall, she wasn't.
She was 4'11.
All right, we'll give it to her.
Running around playing
all these parts.
Well you don't know because
you were too young to remember.
But I had to play the
spirit of young Greece
in one of those things that
she and daddy put together.
- She was in that dance group.
- Right, the dance group and
all these 4'11 Greek ladies
weighing 200 pounds
running round a diagonal.
- I remember that.
- Even at those ages
we knew it was funny
and then I had to go over
and take these two doves
out of a crate and release them
as I was the spirit of hope
of the future for Greece.
- And it turned out you
were the hope of Greece.
- Then I took it
and I released them
and the damn things
crapped all over me.
I'll never forget that.
- Oh, my god
- Mom always said
I should've known
what show business was like.
That was the cue.
The gods were
telling me something.
"You are gonna get crapped on."
[soft music]
they made such a thing
about boys when I was growing
up in the Greek community
especially, I thought it
was because I was less.
And what happened was
when I understood history,
I realized it wasn't me.
[door thuds]
[sniffs]
[sighs]
[door thuds]
Goodbye now.
Okay, what is this?
This is the second one,
two scripts and this.
[door thuds]
They wanna pay,
classical stage is paying
a whopping $542 a week,
plus pension and health.
You wonder why actors
flee to Hollywood.
[phone ringing]
Hello.
He did what?
Oh, the Lysistrata, the
Greek thing at The Getty.
Yeah, see I remember
plays and theaters
it's just people I don't
remember their name. [laughs]
I look okay right?
It's fun.
I figure I should have fun here.
It's not supposed to be serious
or glamorous or blah, blah.
This is too big for
this outfit right?
- [Director] Yeah.
- I wonder what it is in people
that makes it possible
for them to tolerate,
such disorder around themselves.
I always think maybe they
got something I don't have.
Maybe their minds
are so orderly.
See my mind is like chaotic
so I have to have
order around me.
It can't be disorder
out and disorder in.
Diane Ladd is going
to speak and Ed Asner.
He's so funny he
keeps telling me
that he's taking Viagra and
that we should go away together.
[laughs] He's a lot of fun.
[crowd cheering]
Let me get over here.
- You dyed your hair.
[Olympia laughs]
I think it looks beautiful.
I think I'll try it.
[crowd laughs]
I find her to be a
magnificent actress
and to have this magnificent
actress placed in concrete,
on these streets,
shaming the lack of talent
among so many other actresses
on this street.
I think it's a great tribute
to the quality of the
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce,
I commend them highly.
This is talent up the wazoo.
[crowd applauding]
- [Director] What does
the star mean to you?
- I'm so loathed to
answer that question.
Because it doesn't
mean anything to me,
and I feel like I'm ungrateful
and shouldn't be that way.
I don't mean that
I feel [murmurs]
It just doesn't.
- [Director] It just
doesn't do anything for you?
- No it doesn't.
Am I glad I'm getting it?
Of course I'm glad
I'm getting it.
Anytime your work is
acknowledged you're glad.
- Oh, there it is.
- And of course the big thing
is all my kids are together.
- [Director] If the star
doesn't do it for you,
what do you think
would get you excited?
- The Academy Award
meant a great deal to me.
That was significant to me,
because that was a
specific piece of work.
You know what song I love?
Misirlou.
[sings in foreign language]
- There she is.
Miss America.
Miss New Jersey.
How are you darling?
- I have to say this.
That bastard at the
Toronto Film Festival
rejected Cloudburst.
- What did we do?
As I step to the plate.
Did we do something bad?
- Yes.
- What did we do?
- I think you turned down
Thom Fitzgerald's latest film.
- Oh, we did, did we?
- Yes, it's called Cloudburst.
- And you're in it?
- I am in it.
- And Brenda Fricker's in it.
- And we were told
it was because
our performances weren't good
enough and the film meandered.
- Wow.
- Geez they could
have just said no.
- Yes exactly.
[all laugh]
- Why didn't he just say no?
- That wasn't me.
- I was instructed by Thom
not to mention this at all,
so now I'm blaring it out!
You stupid cock-sucking
pig, you little dick,
you piss-faced monkey, you are
a shitty little short stump
but I stood by you.
I'm gonna kick your ass.
- Do not threaten
a police officer
- Fuck, you!
Do you have anything
to do with this?
- Nothing actually,
nothing Olympia.
- Alright.
- I haven't seen the film.
- Just say she had a
couple of tequila's.
Somebody said that, fight
ye devils, I hate peace
and that has always.
- [Woman] What a great line.
- Oh, it is, since I was like
14, 15 fighting the Irish
on the street
with a knife in my pocket.
- [Woman] What a girl.
- Well, what a street.
- I bet you were a
tough Greek girl.
- No I wasn't, yes maybe I was,
but that phrase has always.
Fight ye devils, I hate peace.
[crowd applauds]
- I saw Olympia in
New York in a play.
I think it was a
Mike Nichols play.
- Andrew Bergman's.
- Social Security.
- Social Security.
- I was just blown
away with her timing.
I just felt that
here was an actress
that had some of the best
comedic timing I had ever seen
and I just saw her
as Cher's mother.
- [Piers] So this is the lead-in
to this very complex scene
that ends the film that Norman
was talking about earlier.
We're all kind of
fascinated in how a director
works with an actor.
- You've got a love
bite on your neck.
He's coming back this morning.
What's the matter with you?
Your life is going
down the toilet.
Cover up that damn thing.
Come on put some make up on.
- Yeah, alright.
[audience applauds]
- Well, I think we
did an improvisation,
and that line, your life
is going down the toilet
was part of the improvisation.
I have to say what I did
was I channeled my mother,
with the pinching,
[crowd laughs]
with the finger pointing
and that line of course.
I looked at it
again and I thought
wow, my mother was my
first acting teacher.
[upbeat music]
My mother was a disciplinarian,
my mother had a little
arsenal in the corner.
She had belts, she had sticks.
Her job was to keep
shame from the family.
That was her job.
And she saw what I was like.
I was rebellious.
I was independent.
I was all these different
things and that scared her.
And she tried to do all
these different things to me.
She tried to teach me
shame, can you imagine?
She would stand there in
front of me and slap me,
She says, "Cry you
have no shame."
She wanted me to feel shame.
I was like [grimaces],
I wouldn't feel any shame.
I'd go to the bathroom and
cry so she didn't see me.
Listen I was 19 years old,
I'd gone out on a
date or something.
She found my pants
in the laundry.
I'm sure she checked
my pants all the time.
Now though when I
look back I realize,
what was she doing
with my pants?
She takes my pants and she
confronts me with them.
What is the meaning of this?
- [Maggie] Oh, my god.
- Her eyes are like blazing.
- [Director] But why?
I must have creamed in
my pants or something,
who knows what?
She comes after me with
my pants, shaking them,
and I'm standing
there and I tell you,
you know what I said to her?
I said look, I am
bigger than you are now.
You hit me, I'm
hitting you back.
I had to tell her
and she backed off.
- She fought the
battles in the family.
And I watched her,
she was much more upfront
with what she wanted.
My parents had
certain ideas of her
behaving in certain ways
and she would have
to fight her battles.
I watched that and there was
a lot of emotional turmoil
in the house because of the
differences of what she wanted
and the way my parents
wanted her to be.
- She was not a conventional
kid in many ways.
I mean junior New
England Fencing Champion.
I mean how many Greek kids
were fencing champions
or even fenced?
- You know the interesting thing
about that New England
fencing championship?
Did I ever tell you this?
I got on the mat, I had
been working with a master.
I went from French fencing
which was very detailed
and not aggressive and then
I saw these Hungarian women
come to the Boston Fencing Club
and they had Italian foils
and they were, "Hey Ha",
all these sounds were
coming out of them.
I go on the mat and
that person comes at me
and I start "Hey Ha", and I
drive that person off the mat.
I won, that match by
driving, you can get points
if you drove people off the
mat two times, three times
or whatever, you got a point.
Drove her off the mat.
And he comes up to me and says,
"Okay Olympia I don't
want you to do this now,
I want you to fence."
And I say, "Okay."
I get on the mat, and it
comes out of me again.
Then I do it the second
time and I win the match.
He says, "I'm gonna
pull you from the match.
Stop this, right now."
So I realized that he's
really serious, so I stopped.
These women were all Anglo Saxon
from the sister
colleges of New England.
I was from BU that didn't
even have a fencing team
and here were these privileged,
entitled Anglo Saxons
and I was 18, 19 years old
screaming and yelling "Hey Ha".
- We were surrounded by
many Brahmin types of girls.
And both of us had
strong ethnic roots
so I think we banded together
as a way of protection.
We were both miss-matched
at the school.
We really didn't belong there.
The messages we received
in the 50's were
that you assumed very
traditional roles.
But she moved beyond
the acculturation,
she moved beyond the
messages of the time.
And I've often pondered.
What is it that makes
people go beyond the pack?
To strive where other people
kind of stop and yield
to the pressures of society,
the traditional roles,
what is it, what
is the motivation?
Anyway she had it, she had it.
[gentle music]
- I've never felt
that I was a part
of the theatrical
community in New York.
I was too identified ethnically
which was a very old theme
that started when I was young
and Greek and fighting
in the streets.
It's very difficult
to talk about because
I suppose in the end it's
simple, I just didn't belong.
And who in America doesn't
have an outsider feeling?
I mean there are so
many immigrant groups.
At first I tried to get
away and then I realized
what I have to do is go into
it, just the opposite of that.
I have to do the opposite.
Because that not belonging has
been very much a part of me,
not just in my work,
but also as a woman.
But it never goes away,
that thing of being outside,
that thing of being different,
and of course what
happens is you think
there's something wrong with you
and that what you
need to do is fix it.
You know fix it, do
this, do that, fix it.
Finding a way to live
with who you are,
and not insist on fixing
at a certain point
becomes the name of the game.
Wanna see my three figures?
My crones?
It's a virgin, she's
had a tough time.
Virgin, Mother, Crone.
Three phases of a woman's life.
This is where I'm at.
- Good morning,
my entree into the
world of documentaries.
- Thank you so much Bon.
You know who I have to
call? Brenda Fricker called.
What is it in Ireland right now?
- Five hours.
- They are ahead of us?
- Five o'clock now.
- You want her?
- Yeah, lets do it quickly.
She got a job.
She's so happy.
She spoke to Lou Lou.
Are you on two Bonnie?
- Yeah.
[phone beeps]
I think it cut out.
- I'll send her an email.
- What do you want to say?
- Brendie.
How great, I was happy, so
happy to hear you're working.
I know how much it means to you.
In Manchester!
What's the part?
What's the movie?
How's weight watchers?
And what are you
doing with your dog?
New paragraph, Brendie,
today is my 80th Birthday,
can you believe it?
[playful music]
Some people don't know
who the fuck I am.
[playful music]
Oh, my arms are getting tired
I never thought of that.
- The thing about
"Tales of the City"
was that most of us who
participated in it knew
that we were committing
a revolutionary act.
Olympia knew that she was
part of something historic.
And she knew that what she was
saying through that character
had not been said before.
Not with such
affection and clarity.
Olympia was really the only
one I got excited about
to play Anna Madrigal.
There were other name actresses
but nobody I felt could
really nail all of the things
that are required to
play a transgender,
flamboyant, mother hen.
- It was a fearless and
groundbreaking portrayal
at a time when that
kind of imagery
in entertainment media
simply did not exist.
When we did the original
Tales of the City,
it was a kind of
brave new world.
Not just in the depiction of
a transgender leading lady,
but also just in terms of
the depiction of same sex
attraction, same sex romance,
same sex relationships
and the whole idea of
an LGBT based family.
- As for me, my favorite
year hasn't happened yet.
- Right on.
It's going to be 90 or 80 so.
I'll be 65 or so.
I can collect social security
stash some away, buy
a small Greek island.
- Right on.
- Actually I'll settle
for a small Greek.
[all laugh]
- [Announcer] Please
welcome, Olympia Dukakis.
[crowd applauds]
- When I had to play this
character, Anna Madrigal,
I said to Alan
Poul, the producer
I said I've got to meet someone,
I've got to talk to someone
who's gone through this.
I have to understand
what this is.
And so they actually
found a woman,
who was now a sex therapist,
and we sat and
talked one morning,
and the first question
I said to her,
"What was it that you
wanted, that you needed?"
Because I knew by that time
how incredibly difficult
the operations were
and all of this psychological
journey that had to be taken.
And I said what was it
that you needed so much?
And she said,
"All my life I yearned for
the friendship of women."
It really knocked me
out and from then on,
I understood that, you know
I've had that in myself.
I keep trying to find within
myself aspects of who I am
as a woman and to somehow
share that with other women
and I understood immediately.
Not the particulars
of her journey
but really the heart of it.
I think it's great
that you're all here,
I'm looking forward
to a wonderful weekend
and I hope you have
the same, thanks a lot.
[crowd cheers]
I don't know what I
thought she was gonna say.
I thought she was
gonna talk about sex.
And she didn't, she
talked about a human need
she had that instantly
as an actress
made it possible for me to
connect with the character.
- [Reporter] Do you know if
she's still in San Francisco?
- She what?
- Do you know if
she's still here?
- She was in LA actually.
- Look who's just
accosted her in the lobby.
- Oh, my god.
Oh, you came!
- We just realized we crossed.
We're not leaving
until the morning
so I called Bonnie just
to say goodbye to you
and she said you're gonna be,
I'm so happy about
this I can't tell you.
- I'm gonna run upstairs,
you're gonna go to
your dinner now?
- No, we don't have
to go till 8:30.
- Oh, let's sit down
and have a drink.
- Yeah.
- Okay sit down so
what are we having?
A couple of pizzas
and champagne?
Sound good to you?
- Champagne is good for us.
- Okay
What is this?
It looks like scrambled eggs.
- It does, doesn't it?
- Chris and I,
I was asked to ride in the
Palm Springs Gay Pride parade
- Oh, yeah.
- And they put us in this
vintage, this sort of kit car,
you know a kind of vintage
Duesenberg or something
that was the pride and joy of
the man who was driving it.
And no sign.
- They forgot to make a sign.
- They didn't make a sign.
- So no one knew who you were?
So it was like, "Who are you?"
[all laugh]
I don't know.
The only real fun we
had was we past a corner
where there was some
nut-bag Christians,
you know screaming and
yelling about god hates fags,
and so we kissed for
like three minutes.
- Good for you!
- And they were just like, they
were just uttering nonsense.
They said "fags fucking
fags" and I thought,
who else do you want us to fuck?
[all laugh]
Generally I try to
pick another fag.
- Who else do you
want us to fuck?
- We do need to run.
- Okay.
- I hate that but we do
have somebody waiting.
- Can the Reverend Jim
Brown what's his name?
- Gene Robinson.
- I tell you what
were missing out,
now what we should do
is smoke a little pot.
- You know we could invite
him if you plan to stay here.
[all laugh]
It will be like a play.
The bishop is arriving.
[all laugh]
- Alright my dears, be well.
- I'm an octogenarian you know,
so watch it.
- She's an octogenarian
motherfucker!
- Can I quote you?
I'm an octogenarian
motherfucker!
That's what I am.
You know I had a lot
of different reasons
to go on stage.
I first got a hold that there
was something else going on
when I realized that if I could
become a good craftsperson
I had a reason to feel
good about myself.
Then, I realized that
if I can go on stage
and do it better
than other people,
I could get parts,
I could get noticed,
I could get more money,
I could get better parts.
Then, that kind of
played itself out.
I realized what I lost was
the feeling of playing
with other people.
'Cause when you're trying
to win, you don't play.
You try to win, you
try to be better.
I didn't mind being competitive.
Growing up I've been that way.
So it was like, "Okay,
let's go, I know this one.
I'll do this."
Except one day I didn't
want to go to stage anymore
I've got my hand on a door knob
and I didn't want
to go on stage.
And that was really something,
I had to deal with that.
[soft music]
I realized that in New York,
I was going to play
very specific parts.
They would not give
me those parts.
I couldn't even get auditions
because my name was
Olympia Dukakis.
They said, "Oh,
she's too ethnic"
They didn't even know me,
see me, hear me, the name!
What you do is, you
say to yourself,
"Oh, it's not gonna happen.
That's the structure.
That's what it is,
what are my options?"
My option was to
start my own theater.
I could do the parts I want.
I could select the plays I want.
I could work with
the people I want.
I could feel like I
was in the theater.
If you do it
yourself, its harder.
But that's what it is
If they don't give it to you,
for whatever reason, you have
to then make it yourself,
you have to like
build it yourself
and for that you need patience.
- We began the theater in 1973
in what was the
old Baptist church.
We raised money
any way we could,
and it was extraordinary
because we didn't succumb
to being a commercial entity.
- Olympia had such
high standards.
I mean she was, her feeling
is that only the best.
And she, actually
that whole group
worked to make sure it was the
best and they took chances.
I mean it was a very exciting
theater company to see
because of that and because
it sort of was enthused
with her spirit which
is nothing but the best.
- She did a performance
of The Rose Tattoo
at her theater in
Montclair, New Jersey.
And she was an inspiration to me
in that world, I knew very
few Greeks in that world
And so her success and
her integrity as an actor
moved me and inspired me.
- [Carey] And her theater,
The whole theater,
I don't know if you
knew her at that time,
but I went very often to
Montclair, New Jersey.
That was an amazing thing
because they did all
kinds of crazy stuff.
Sometimes people were ready,
sometimes they weren't
and then they would
talk to the audience,
really talk to the audience.
And other people pretend
to talk to the audience,
but she really talks to them.
She really wants to
know, what did you get?
Where was your mind?
What did you feel?
What did you listen for?
Did you hear that argument?
- Stop ruining the girls
at the high school.
- Stop Serafina.
Let's go home.
- No no no, I ain't through
talking to this here teacher.
- Serafina look at yourself
you're not dressed.
- I'm dressed okay,
I'm not naked.
- This last summer I saw
her do Mother Courage
with Shakespeare and Company.
And at the end of the play
when she pulls that cart around
I turned to my husband and
I said, you know that's it.
You don't have to see
more theatre, that's it
It's never gonna get
any better than this.
And her generosity on a stage,
being with her is the most
generous thing that
can happen on a stage
and that doesn't always
happen with somebody,
who has her qualifications
or her status.
And she's totally open and crazy
give me craziness every time.
- There were film actors,
there were television actors,
there were stage actors
and it was very verboten to
move from world to world.
So she was one of the
first people to do that.
Very brave of her
because it was.
at the time, you know
sort off looked down on.
But she was sort of
the gateway of I think
the Hollywood community going,
"Oh, there are theater
actors out there,
oh, they're really good."
- I watched her
in the last piece
she did in LA, where
she didn't speak.
Oh, my god it was stunning.
To watch a woman on stage for
two hours, not say a word.
And present a whole
life, a whole history.
I could cry thinking
about it because she just,
she's extraordinary.
- [Diane] She's a
total professional,
she does not play diva
or mamselle or goddess,
she doesn't pull any rank.
She's all heart,
she's very professional
and she's a perfectionist
and I like that.
But she gives to you
what she expects totally.
She doesn't pull any games.
- he's like a summer
storm you know.
Sometimes it's really blue skies
and then it starts to get
a little dark and then,
you know it gets really dark
and then it's light again
and then it rains.
She's everything you
want her to be and more.
Her range is frightening
and wonderful to watch,
it's what every actor wants.
I want it.
- Whenever your name came up
it was always about the work.
And the great parts she played
and how she brought her
uniqueness to the part.
If somebody says on my deathbed
what do you remember
about Olympia,
it's those two or three
incredible, incredible parts
that no-one in this fucking
country ever touched her.
I have seen people
do Mother Courage
and they didn't know what
the fuck they were doing
at the very end but
when she got to the end
and she picked up that wagon.
Like she's going to
endure through anything,
and I used to stand
in the wings weeping,
weeping every night.
- I met Olympia at the
Williamstown Theater Festival,
her first summer up there when
she and Louis were up there
was in 1961 when I wasn't there.
But I came back in the
fall and asked around
from people who had been
there so what was it like
and they kept talking about
'Olympia' or Olympia and Louie.
They kept talking
about these people.
It's about one of my
favorite relationships
that I've ever known.
They embrace each other in
every sense of the word.
They recognize each other
on such a deep level.
They recognize the value of
each other in a very profound,
intuitive and sometimes
even funny way.
Whatever was going
on between them
would flow right into the scene.
It came in the door with
them every day of rehearsal,
like a dog.
I mean it just came in.
- She and Louie her husband,
were just always working and
that was the life that we saw.
That we were exposed to.
It was not that over
blown sort of Hollywood.
It was working class
and it was professional.
- They work so well together
and that includes
fighting and laughing.
They share their work
and they share each other
as two actors.
Olympia thinks Louie is the
best actor in the world.
She has boundless respect for
him and he makes her laugh
and he calms her down.
He's home base for her.
And she's a thrilling
pain in the ass for him.
- Emily, wake up, come on.
- For god sakes, what is it now?
- Sit up I want
you to look at me.
- You always do this to me.
- I have the most amazing idea.
- You're crazy.
- Not just me, the two of us.
- The breathing will
improve, it's just a phase.
- No it's not just the breathing
you idiot it's everything.
No golf, no sex life,
no friends left,
no one to illustrate my books.
- What about Leverson?
- Leverson died last
November for Christ sake.
- There are lots
of young artists
who would love to work with you.
- Nobody wants to
work with an old man.
- What about my headaches?
Do you hear me complain?
If life doesn't give you
exactly what you want
you want to take
your ball and go home
and what's worse you
want to take me with you?
- Only if you want.
- Well I don't.
- [Rocco] Time for a cocktail.
- Let's get a drink after this.
- Yeah.
Yeah, let's have a drink.
- Yeah.
- Definitely.
Your hands are cold.
- I know it.
- You're freezing in here right?
- Yeah, but warm heart.
[laughs]
This tonight my spirit
shall give thee cramps.
Pinch thee til thou bloodeth,
give side stitches
to pen thy breath up.
- A south west blow on ye
and blister you all over.
- Each pinch, more stinging
than bees that made em.
- [Director] I
must eat my dinner.
- [Rocco] I must eat my dinner.
- Then I've got it,
I've got it, Okay.
Is that it? Maybe
it's done then?
That was good!
I got it now
There's more work
for thee, no there's.
No I can just walk
away from you,
no, there's, I can
just take it now.
I've got it now,
there's more work for,
there, there's
more work for hmm.
- I must eat my dinner!
- I love watching
you winding it up,
Okay, I'm having an impulse,
I'm not sure what it is.
- Yeah, right I'm
having four of them!
- I'm having an impulse.
I'm having four of them
that's the problem I
have four impulses.
- Where is it gonna go?
- You made much of me,
you made what he said,
you made much of me.
- You think he gets to me?
- A little bit.
You made much of me,
you've given me water
with berries in it.
You did that, you treated me
really well, you taught me.
You did all that
and I loved you.
And I think the audience
needs to hear that.
Not only as part of the
relationship to understand it,
but I think as now
you as a woman.
- [Rocco] I'm reasoning now.
- You know, I have taught you.
- Yes, he's learnt
something, right?
And the thing about is.
- And you should
love me, this is true
- Right, right,
that's true, and that.
- I just heard it,
imagine you've been
saying it all this time
and I just dropped in.
- Teaching really
became, what acting was,
it was a way of my reaching
for my own identity,
my own humanity, my
own contradictions,
my own darkness, my own shit.
What are you afraid of doing?
Something wrong?
You're in a basement
on Clinton Street.
What the fuck are
you gonna do wrong?
I came in with
very, strong issues.
I didn't know I
had strong issues.
I didn't know this.
Greek was a big one.
First generation was a big one.
Sexual bias was a big one.
- [Harry] What do
you mean sexual bias?
- Growing up.
Yeah, I saw it.
I saw it in the Greek community.
In very strong ethnic
communities around me,
they were that way.
I saw those things.
I came in with those things.
I didn't understand
how much anger I had.
Of course I don't
have any more anger.
- [Harry] No you
completely calmed down.
- Olympia is trying to get me
to deal with who I am
and I'm telling her about
a breakthrough that I had
in the scene and she's
like, "Get out of here."
I'm like, "What?"
"Get out of here, get out of
here and don't come back until
you figure out why I'm throwing
you out of this class."
And I'm trying to understand,
you know, what happened.
I asked for a meeting
for us to get together.
And she says to me,
"Tony, what do you think I am?
Do you think I'm a book
that you can pull
down off the shelf,
take the information out,
close it and put it back?
I'm invested in you.
I'm not just your teacher."
You know and I'm like, "Wow."
I mean it struck
me in such a way,
no-one had ever cared
for me that way.
- What else you got inside?
Remember I talked about
an actor being a prism?
Having all these different faces
which are all
different characters.
What else have you got in there?
- [Rocco] Having a woman as
a teacher is very interesting
because Olympia probably
invented the feminist movement.
She was one of the
first ones there.
She's very honest and she
doesn't like it when women
do that subservient
feminine thing
to get what they want with men.
I mean I could just see the
hackles raise on her neck
and she always called
them out on it.
I was watching this
actress work with Olympia.
And she was, you know
more and more frustrated
with this actress because
this actress was like,
"Oh, oh, I don't know."
She was feeling and
very sort of very oh
and Olympia you know
was like looking at her
and just getting
angrier and angrier
and trying to evoke some,
basic, emotive aspects,
something that was going
to be pure and real.
And I'm thinking wow this
is interesting you know.
This woman really going
after another woman
and calling her out on
this feminine, you know,
these games and, "Oh,
oh, I don't know, oh."
And Olympia finally,
she had a cigarette
and she leans forward, and
she looks at her and she goes.
"Cut the shit bitch your
cunt drips just like mine."
- I had an acting
class I was teaching
and there was an
African American girl
and a very beautiful girl.
But she came to class
everyday with her wig on,
her make up on, so I said
to her listen, I said,
"I wish you would come
someday without make up
and without your wig."
So she's working one
day and I just went up
and I took that wig and
fucking yanked it off.
She went after my throat.
- Oh, she did?
- Oh, she did and we were
on the floor, the two of us.
[laughs]
We were on the floor
and at a certain
point we both stopped.
We realized whatever
had been spent was spent
and we sat there.
The class was horrified.
Today I would've been fired,
it would have been
like abuse you know,
you couldn't do the things
we did at NYU at the time
and get away with them today.
- Here, hit this, go
ahead M'Lynn slap her.
- Are you crazy?
- Hit her!
- Are you high Clairee?
- Clarisse have
you lost your mind?
- We'll sell T-shirts saying
I slapped Ouiser Boudreaux.
Hit her!
- Miss Clairee enough.
- Ouiser, this is your
chance to do something
for your fellow man.
Knock her lights out M'Lynn!
- Let go of me.
[soft music]
- Woah, this looks like
major shopping here.
Should I get the little
one or the bigger one?
- Yeah, let's get the big one.
- Is that's more
interesting shooting?
- No, I'm just hungry.
- Look at the place there's
too many people here.
Well of course it's
Saturday isn't it?
- [Man] Hello.
- Hello.
- [Man] How are you?
- Fine.
- It's good to see a
famous actor so close.
- Well it's nice to see you.
- You having a good time here?
- Yes, a very good time.
- Have a good stay.
- Thank you very much.
You want a piece of cheese?
Want some beer?
- [Woman] I must
be the only person
who recognizes you in here.
- Hello.
- I'm so happy to see you.
- Well, thank you.
- I'm Sarina, this
is Alice, my mother.
- How do you do?
So nice to meet you.
Can I give you a hug?
- Oh, sure.
Okay.
- Can I have a picture with you?
I'm sorry.
- Can you tell me where the
bottled green tea might be?
- The bottled
beverages are here, so.
- Yeah, okay, I'll try that one.
- Yeah.
- She got it?
- Yeah, thank you so much.
- Alright.
- It's not every day that
I bump into Olympia Dukakis
at the grocery store.
- Nice to talk to you, bye now.
- Bye.
- Let's go in here then, oh,
this is not gonna be good here,
they're all going to start.
[upbeat music]
- My kids will have my
head on a platter for this
you understand?
- [Harry] We will
censor this scene.
- No this is not Olympia, I'm
impersonating Olympia Dukakis.
I'm in disguise in costume.
It's really made of vegetables.
It's plant life.
[soft music]
Hand me a cigarette, will you?
- [Harry] No, not in the car.
- I'll open the window.
- Oh, come on.
- Look look, you've
got your window open,
I've got my window open.
- What's was the choice
of drugs for you?
- For me?
- Pot?
- What?
- Pot?
- Ah, yeah, but that wasn't,
well I got addicted about,
for two years to uppers.
- Uppers?
- Upper and lowers, I had a
whole scheme during the day.
I wouldn't get out of bed, I'd
have it right next to my bed.
It was pitiful.
- Why did you stop it?
- Well, it was interesting,
one day I don't know,
I got up and I was
doing something
and I went to the bathroom,
to take some, I don't know,
I was washing my face.
I looked at myself
and it was like literally a
voice in my head that said.
"You're trying to
kill yourself."
And I was like, "That
is what I'm doing
I'm trying to do kill myself."
I had a couple of
episodes of those,
trying to kill myself,
not just with drugs.
I was standing on the sidewalk
and a truck was coming,
and I thought it
would be so easy.
I just go and stand
in front of the truck.
And I did that and a woman
pushed me out of the way.
So a lot of these
drugs were about
trying to run ahead of
everything, trying to.
My management control system.
But then I realized
that if I continued
I was gonna kill myself
with these drugs.
I stopped right there.
When I was in graduate
school in Boston,
I was seeing a therapist.
That first week in
that apartment, I
had an hallucination.
But I had learned about
them by that time.
- This is without drugs?
- Oh, yeah, this
is without drugs.
The last hallucination
I had, I manipulated it.
I thought to myself,
instead of being scared
or instead of being passive
I had learned to become
active with them.
I saw the head of a woman
coming at me like this,
the back of her head,
and I said I'm gonna
see who this is.
And I forced the head to turn
around and it was my mother.
With a Grand Guignol
expression on her face.
Which was a lot of terror.
[sings in foreign language]
I think that song is a
silly thing to remember.
On the other hand.
[Harry laughs]
Woah, well,
how are you cuing this?
- [Harry] Well, Olympia
I'm trying the figure out
the house light as well to
fade the house lights up
because they're so quick.
- Well, what's wrong with that?
If they're quick
take them out last.
- Well I'll take them out
with the cue I was trying,
yeah, I just have
to work on stuff
it's the first
time I've done it.
- Okay.
- But I think we'll
make them work,
I'm gonna try it again
I just need to reset.
- On the other hand.
I heard the go.
Okay
- I thought that
one was too quick.
- You thought it was too quick?
- Yeah, I thought
in was too quick.
- On the other hand.
It's a little late.
- Is it also the house lights
also going out at that time?
- Yeah, well you're asking me
I'm telling you it's a little.
The go has to come
sooner and the fade
needs to be gentle, not abrupt.
On the other hand,
beat, beat, fade.
On the other hand.
Good.
That's it!
Look at the cat with its tail
up, you know what that means?
You wanna fuck or
you wanna fight?
- Alright, I'm not
sure I'll be able
to use that information,
but thank you.
- Why are you alone
for Christ sake?
- Oh, god.
- I mean who's gonna dial 911
when you're laid out
and gasping for air?
- I'm teaching the dog
how to do it actually.
- No one is laughing.
You want to fuck or
you want to fight?
- I want to do neither really.
That's a problem.
First of all let me tell you.
The people of New York
continue to be wonderful.
I was with Louie
once when he fell.
I mean there were ten
men there in two minutes.
Okay buddy, we got you buddy,
don't worry about anything.
I mean I was crying and there,
there was all these
people came to me.
I was like.
And it wasn't for
another 10-15 minutes
that people
understood who I was.
They didn't know.
That wasn't what brought them.
What brought them was
that this white haired old lady
had fallen down on the street
and nearly been killed by a
car and they were fabulous.
- [Harry] What is
your philosophy?
- On what?
- On death, on dying.
- On death?
So what time is it now?
Five after one, there's
certainly no escaping it.
- Does it scare you?
- Yeah, sure.
Sure, not all the time.
There are moments when it kind
of hits me and I get scared.
- What's the thing that scares
you when you get scared?
- Having no consciousness.
It's the loss of,
what little part of myself
is separate from
everything else.
You know holding onto that.
But my fears about
this happen at night
or sometimes in the day
something will happen.
I'll walk down the street and
they'll be a wonderful wind,
I love wind, and they'll
be a wonderful wind
and I'll feel isn't
this great, the wind
especially in New York when
the wind comes off the river.
And then I think about
not having this anymore
not having that wind and
I have this flash of fear.
[pensive music]
- [Harry] Any regrets?
- Of course.
I regret that I wasn't able
to handle my children better.
I had not good parenting skills,
I don't know what you
want to call that.
I mean not that I didn't
do the best I could.
I did, I know that.
I didn't create boundaries
and disciplines.
Once I'll never forget this.
I left Stefan waiting on
the steps of the High School
with all his hockey equipment.
Just this little kid, everybody
had picked up their kids
and there's Stefan,
it was like 45 minutes
that kid sat there.
Things like that you know
they come back to haunt you.
How could I have
forgotten Stefan,
how could I have forgotten him?
- I was the third,
the third child
the youngest of three.
When I was sophomore
in High School
I was going on a ski trip
where we went to Quebec.
I remember the night
before the trip.
I think it was the first time
I was going out of the country
and I had a list of
things to go through
and it said that one of the
things was a birth certificate.
And so I pick it up
and I'm looking at it.
I just wanted to make sure
I have everything in order
and I'm glancing through
and I see for birthday
it says February 4th.
And I said that's weird, my
birthday is February 5th.
I looked at the time, there
was the time of the birth.
And I was like did
they get it wrong?
Was it maybe at
night, so they didn't,
I was just like this
doesn't make any sense.
So I specifically remember
walking into my parents bedroom
and I said to them, "Mom,
dad this is kinda weird."
My birth certificate
says February 4th,
we always celebrate my
birthday February 5th.
And I remember my Dad going,
"That's right, That's right,
my brother's birthday is
February 5th you are the 4th."
- At the time I kind of wished
my parents were more normal.
You know I looked at
some of my friends
and felt like I wished I
had like the stay home mom
and the Wall Street father
that comes home everyday
but that just wasn't
the way things were.
And there weren't
really any gender roles
in their marriage and we
didn't really as kids.
I was a young, 8 years
old doing my own laundry
because they just decided like
you know they're old enough,
do your own laundry.
I was like, "Crap, I
don't want to do this."
- I think also
because when I grew up
I wanted less boundaries
so I think I gave boundaries
when I shouldn't have.
I should have defined
and delineated and stuff.
Fortunately for my
sons they had sports.
But my daughter didn't.
[pensive music]
Would you hand me that?
I just noticed it.
Oh, it's a drunk
Italian Grandmother.
I have given my definitive
Italian performance I think.
- [Woman] Yeah, that's better.
- Say, how are we
doing with the Duo?
- [Louis] The Duo?
- Ask if there's another
actress here, it doesn't matter.
- I hear that Faye
Dunaway is here.
- She's got eyelash glue.
She does.
- Okay we'll ask.
We'll call up Faye Dunaway.
We'll ask the concierge
to call Faye Dunaway
and ask if she's got any
duo surgical adhesive.
- [Louis] Either
that or Elton John.
- He's got it.
- Someone said well possibly
there might be some other
actresses here staying
in the hotel.
Do you think we could borrow
some adhesive from some.
Who's staying at the
hotel do you think?
- Faye Dunaway
- Someone said Faye
Dunaway is here.
Yeah, call Faye Dunaway
and see if she can
lend Olympia Dukakis
some of her adhesive
for her eyeliner.
I don't know what
they use it for?
Okay whichever comes first,
the drug store or Faye Dunaway.
Okay, goodbye.
This is, it's a comedy.
- What else would it be?
- And Faye Dunaway said I
wouldn't give that bitch
a fucking thing.
[all laugh]
- We actually graduated
from the same college.
- That's right.
- She graduated from
Boston University.
I mean I think I
graduated before she did.
Yeah, I remember that.
- Nice to meet you,
you're so handsome, you
look great together.
- Thank you, thank you so much.
- Goodbye, thank you.
- You're welcome bye.
- Bye.
- Isn't he great?
- You got everything right?
- I've got my glasses.
Now I'm really, now
I'm getting excited.
- Hey, the elevator's waiting,
the elevator's waiting.
Is my hair curly?
How's my hair?
More more, wait wait.
- No no, don't pat in down.
- It's too wild.
[crowd murmurs]
- [Announcer] And now
I'd like to welcome
ladies and gentleman.
- [Announcer] The
nominees for an actress
in a supporting role are.
- Olympia Dukakis
in "Moonstruck".
[crowd cheers]
- Why would a man need
more than one woman?
- I don't know.
Maybe because he fears death?
- That's it, that's the reason.
- I don't know.
- No, that's it, thank you,
thank you for
answering my question.
- [Announcer] And the winner is.
- [Announcer] Olympia
Dukakis in Moonstruck.
[crowd cheers]
- Well, I'm very honored.
I want to thank the
members of the academy.
I want to say yet again,
thank you to Norman,
to Patrick Palmer and to John
Patrick Shanley, to my family,
my husband who has
been my companion
through my career, through
my life, to my friends
and colleagues in New York
and The Whole Theater.
Thank you very much,
okay Michael let's go!
Michael.
- You were fantastic.
- Michael did you watch it?
- Watch it, we watched it
for a second time here.
Oh, you're unbelievable.
- This is like a
Roman spectacle.
This is unbelievable.
- [Michael] What are we
doing here, you and I?
- I don't know, I don't know.
- Just a couple of
street kids, that's all.
- I don't understand
how this all happened.
- You were great
we're proud of you.
- Thank you, bye.
- Okay Olympia, bye, bye,
my best to everybody.
- Right bye.
Oh, it's great.
Do you think I can
call my mother?
- [Interviewer] Did you
ever think that Olympia
would have this kind of success?
- No, never.
- Why not?
- Because it took so long.
I thought she was one of
the ordinary actresses.
This is a surprise to me.
- Listen, when this
thing happened,
with this guy that
was my first love,
very much in love with.
I got a letter from him,
his parents didn't want me.
I just went to the mirror and
looked at myself and I said.
"Now what are you going
to do with your life?"
I mean I just went forward.
I did not want to.
But of course what
happened to me was
that I just closed off.
I closed my heart down.
I mean I'd go out with people
I'd have affairs with them
but, no feelings.
I experienced it as
nothing and no one
is going to take over again.
My life is going to be
what I want it to be.
- [Harry] Were you a
very sexual person?
- Yeah, I mean I
was like in the time
when you could do this, the
queen of one night stands.
Because it was always different,
each man was different.
You never knew what it
was going to be like.
How they were going to kiss.
How they were gonna
feel inside of you,
what they were going
to do to your body,
you didn't know what
was going to happen.
Of course it was then that I
met Louie, at the same time.
- [Harry] Was that
like a one night stand?
- No, no I knew, I knew.
I knew almost immediately
with Louie that first night.
And the next morning
I wouldn't leave.
I thought I was
in a French movie.
I had a black slip on
and I was sitting around.
I remember thinking he can
kick me out, that's it,
but I am not leaving.
- I remember her eyes.
They were kind of heavy lidded
and they were very sexy.
And I said, "Oh,
my god this woman."
And then she wasn't a shrinking
violent, she never was.
And at one point I realized
I was in love with her
and I was never that
committed to a woman ever.
I would have one night
stands here there, you know,
and finally one
day I said to her,
"Will you [murmurs] me?"
I could not say it!
And she realized how
fucking screwed up I was.
I couldn't even say "Would
you marry me, I love you"
I couldn't say it.
I was beginning to feel
feelings I'd never felt before.
Then I realized
there's something here
something was going on and
it was my love for her.
- I remember when I got
pregnant with Christina,
he was in Stock.
He was having a thing with
somebody not an actress.
I wasn't at all sure I wanted
to have children at that time.
I couldn't get him on the phone.
So finally I got
him on the phone
and I told him he had to
come back, we had to talk,
we had to make this decision,
about whether or not
to have the baby.
He said I can't I
only have one day off.
And I said well,
I said, "You better
get back here
or there won't be any
back here to get back to."
I remember I was like very.
And he came back,
and we talked, and he
told me about this woman.
I mean it was the
least of my concerns.
I met her eventually, I liked
her, she thought we were odd.
I'm tired, I'm
gonna go to sleep.
- I'll tell you what I'm
gonna have one of your apples
then I'll go home.
- Okay.
- [Harry] How do
you spell Edremit?
- I think it's 'E',
yeah, it's 'Edre' Edremit.
Wait, I'm gonna do this one.
Don't talk.
[phone beeps]
- Do it again.
- I don't know which one to.
- [Harry] That sounds
means you can say it.
- Oh, Okay.
[phone beeps]
- [Harry] Do it
again, press it again.
- [Siri] Christina,
Christina or Ken Macdonald
- Can I talk now?
I'm trying to enter
the 21st century,
but you can't say a
dammed word, that bitch,
she picks it up and she's.
You got to be
absolutely focused.
Siri, her name is right?
- [Harry] Where is it?
- No you gotta do it like
this, gotta hold it down.
The town of 'Edremit' in Turkey.
- [Siri] When is your meeting?
- No, I'm talking
about a town in Turkey
and the name is 'Edremit'.
- [Siri] Sorry I
don't understand,
no I'm talking about
a towel in Turkey
and the name is
Ederemit okay, when?
- Let me try again, I'm talking
about a town, not a towel.
In the country of Turkey.
Now can you help me?
- [Siri] I don't know
what you mean by,
"Let me try again I'm talking
about a town not towels
in the country Turkey now
can you help me okay, when?"
- Edremit, Turkey.
- [Siri] Sorry I missed that.
- What the fuck good is she?
This Siri, 400 bucks.
Okay, so what's happening
tomorrow Lou Lou bell?
At two o'clock Lou Lou?
- What?
- Do you want to do something?
- At two o'clock?
- Yeah, what do you wanna?
- I'll have to
check my schedule.
[crowd applauds]
- My name is Rocco
Sisto and I am damaged.
I am damaged because
of these two people.
So I'm walking up
Broadway two days ago,
and it's raining, and I'm
coming from an audition
I have a suit on and I see
this man, on the street.
And he's walking down
Broadway and so I walk over
and he looks at me and he
goes, "I didn't recognize you."
And then he said, "I'm
going to therapy."
And I thought this
guy is 115 years old.
He's going to therapy,
and then I realized
he's married to her.
Of course he's going to therapy.
Wouldn't you?
- Louie would never,
never walk away.
I would say those things, well
maybe this well maybe that.
Louie was like rock solid.
He said I've never loved
anyone in my life like you.
He was absolutely convinced
and he was not gonna
walk away from it.
It was the other day
we were talking about,
I don't know, somebody was
saying someone was beautiful,
I said to him, "You never
say that I'm beautiful."
I said, "Don't you
think I'm beautiful?"
And he started to laugh, I
said, "Well when we first met
did you think I was beautiful?"
He said honestly, he
said, "No I didn't."
I said, "What did you think?"
He said I've never known anyone
with a spirit like yours.
I said you can't tell
me you fell in love me
because of my spirit.
He said, "Yes that's why
I fell in love with you.
Because of your
spirit not because
you're the most beautiful
woman I've even been with."
It was really interesting,
I pouted for a day or so.
- [Harry] Was Louie very sexual?
- Yes, he was, yeah.
- As sexual as you or?
- Differently, differently.
I was more let's try
this, let's do that
let try this, lets go
there, lets do this.
He was the one that
had more feelings.
He was the one that
helped me get my feelings
because I could make love
but I didn't have feelings.
Louie cried, I was like.
- Does that ever stop?
- What?
- Being sexual?
- You know what?
It doesn't, it doesn't,
it's really interesting.
To continue to think,
that you're going to have
the kinds of experiences
and interaction that you
have when you're younger
of course is to lie
about what's the truth.
I was talking to a couple of
women when we were together
and I said, "You
know it's interesting
how you always take a
hard prick for granted."
That you think there's
always gonna be a hard prick.
You never think that, you know.
You dance with somebody,
bang, their prick is hard.
You know, you rub against
somebody, the prick is hard.
But then the day comes
when you can't take for
granted a hard prick.
- Yeah, that's the
one, cute little thing.
Beautiful eyes.
- [Zach] That's what I
thought, I love his eyes.
- Reminds me of my Nat
that's why I wanted him.
- Nat was your dog?
- No my husband.
He died at the deli last year.
Went for some half and half
for my coffee never came back.
I should've just drank it black.
- I'm sorry.
- You kind of have
his build you know.
That's what I liked when I was
young, feel a man's weight.
Helps you forget your troubles.
We were doing "The
Trojan Women", my
brother was directing.
We had spent the summer
adapting it ourselves.
We get into rehearsal
and coincidentally
I happened to be
across the street
looking for opening night
presents for the set designer
and I saw a book called
"Perseus and the Gorgon".
And I remembered Perseus, my
father talked about Perseus.
This great Greek hero
who united Greece.
It talked about Perseus,
but not like my father.
She said Perseus
went around Greece.
Razed the temples.
Killed the priests
and priestesses,
buried all their artifacts
and this was the phrase that
got me and still gets me.
Buried in oblivion and
covered in silence,
the teachings of
the Great Mother.
And I'm like, what?
First what Great Mother and
what are these teachings?
So I started to look for it,
and it wasn't until I was
in a Buddhist bookshop
and I was pushing books around
trying to see what was there
and a book fell off the shelf.
And it was, cover down, and
I reached, looked at it,
picked it up and it said,
"When God was a Woman"
by Merlin Stone.
I took it home and it
totally blew my mind.
I would come running out
of my room to Louie saying
listen to this, then
I'd go back inside.
I couldn't believe
what I was reading.
History, I was reading history,
Herstory, H-E-R-S and
what had happened.
How life had been
matrifocal and matrilineal.
At the time when it was
matrifocal and matrilineal,
society was egalitarian.
I began to find the
research and those people,
the historians who had actually
written about this period.
And so it began to ground
me I began to feel,
I could lend myself to this,
I could permit myself to open
my imagination and
my feelings to it.
So I'm having this massage
and I hear this voice
saying to me, "Celebrate her."
And then I feel an androgynous
presence in the room
and I really got scared and
started to cry and I said,
"I don't know how to celebrate.
I know how to suffer,
but I don't know
how to celebrate."
And she said to me, "You do.
You are of her and you know."
For 25,000, God was
a woman, not a man.
And it was simple why
that was the case.
The woman carried the child.
The woman then actually
birthed the child.
And then the woman
actually fed the child.
All from her body, like
the body of the planet.
So what was sacred?
Sacred was imminent.
It was within the form.
The tree, the sacredness of
the tree as it bore fruit.
The sacredness of the river
as it gave water and
nurtured the plants.
They saw what was
sacred as imminent
within the world around.
How could man compete
with woman with this?
He couldn't.
So that had to be diminished.
That had to be lessened.
Perseus destroyed the
temples of the Great Mother.
And killed all the priests
and priestesses
that were involved.
And buried in oblivion
and covered in silence,
it was against the
law to talk about it.
Buried in oblivion
and covered in silence
the teachings of
the Great Mother.
So of course my thing was
what are these teachings
that had to be hush-hush.
The basis of life
is transformation.
Just as the seasons
change and just as we age
and everything else is
happening constantly to us.
And that's what it is. We
die and we fall to the earth
and we are part of the earth
that nurtures new life
and comes forward.
I began to understand that
the issues I was having
that I thought were mine alone
and that I was so fucked up
and that my family was this
and that had an
historical basis.
It is a bigger issue
than me, Olympia.
You know, I began
to understand that
I began to separate.
Now this is my shit and this
is our species shit over here.
[soft music]
It was my idea this thing of
going to my mother's village
as you recall.
It was something
matrilineal, for my daughter
and my granddaughters to
come to my mother's village.
And see, and feel
a presence of my
mother and her mother.
I have to say even
when I was young
I had this connection
or something.
Connection is almost too strong
and too practical somehow.
It was more a kind of
a memory or a dream.
And then I said to myself
I wish I knew my
great grand parents
and my great great
grand parents.
And I thought, they
are in me some place.
What if I just call them forth,
what if I imagine
them what if I,
assumed they're part
of my Soma, my DNA.
I made them real to me.
I saw their faces.
I don't know why that
was so important to me.
Because it stops, it
stops with my grand mother
and you've got to know that
these people have been here
for centuries,
millennia who knows.
There's just something,
and I may never know it
or understand it but
that doesn't matter.
I feel like I said look.
Here's this lineage.
Here's this long
red line you know.
It's the menstruating red line.
Here it is, this is part
of it. We're part of it,
you're part of it.
[soft pensive music]
[speaks in foreign language]
- Eleni.
- Constanina
Mine is Olympia.
[man speaks in foreign language]
- Carrot, oh, it's delicious.
[speaks in foreign language]
- I think I'd like to sit back,
I just feel like crying
They reminded me of my mother,
they reminded me of my Yaya.
You know what it was.
I mean their hair
is all pulled back,
they don't have a
lick of make up,
half their teeth are gone
but they're beautiful.
And they have such life
in them and such energy.
Under different circumstances
we were similar ages
we would have been filenadas.
We would have been friends, we
would have grown up together.
- [Harry] Where
are we going now?
- You want to just see
what happens to my face
when I say the turtle.
We're going to the turtle.
Now recovered after having been
in the care of
nurses and doctors.
It seems to have recovered
and is now ready to join
it's fellow turtles
out in the Aegean.
This is so beautiful.
- [Announcer] So, about Lola
the turtle we are
going to release today.
- That's the name
of the turtle, Lola.
Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.
- [Announcer] So we
are about to start.
Thank you very much
for being here.
Please try not to be
loud in order to avoid
stressing the animal.
- I think we'll be
able to see from here.
Oh, no all of the people
are going down there.
I think we have to go down.
It's enormous, it's enormous.
[pensive music]
What is happening right now?
Are we looking?
Are we sensing?
It's evocative.
Then you get that and you go on,
then you keep going and then
continue to reach another point
just like that turtle
trying to get to the ocean.
Or being compelled
to go to the ocean.
It wasn't trying to do
anything that turtle.
And you get another
hit, you stop.
I realize I do the same
thing as that turtle does.
And I do that when I work.
I move and then I stop and
then my system seems to
absorb in a
non-intellectual level.
A non-emotional level.
Is it my body?
It is but it's not.
I mean maybe it's a
non literal level.
There she goes, there she goes.
[somber music]
Well it's about time.
It's about time.
I'm freaking exhausted,
but I am free.
Survived another piece of caca.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- They didn't kill me.
[soft music]
- Remember mother would get up
and start doing these songs?
I wanna get you on a
slow boat to China.
Remember that one?
And she would act it out.
She said she was five
feet tall, she wasn't.
She was 4'11.
All right, we'll give it to her.
Running around playing
all these parts.
Well you don't know because
you were too young to remember.
But I had to play the
spirit of young Greece
in one of those things that
she and daddy put together.
- She was in that dance group.
- Right, the dance group and
all these 4'11 Greek ladies
weighing 200 pounds
running round a diagonal.
- I remember that.
- Even at those ages
we knew it was funny
and then I had to go over
and take these two doves
out of a crate and release them
as I was the spirit of hope
of the future for Greece.
- And it turned out you
were the hope of Greece.
- Then I took it
and I released them
and the damn things
crapped all over me.
I'll never forget that.
- Oh, my god
- Mom always said
I should've known
what show business was like.
That was the cue.
The gods were
telling me something.
"You are gonna get crapped on."
[soft music]