Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012) s01e04 Episode Script
Just a Lazy Shiftless Bastard
This is a 1970 Mercedes 280 SL in signal red.
It has a 170-horsepower, straight-six engine, 2.
8 liters.
This was a car for guys that want a sports car but don't really want to be inconvenienced.
It's an "I get what the young people are doing and I'm part of it but I will not be putting my mattress on the floor.
" - Hello? Jerry.
- Alec? Hey, how are you? What's going on? - You wanna grab a coffee? - Right now? - I'll pick you up.
- I'll be downstairs in 30 minutes? Great.
I'm Jerry Seinfeld and this is Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Today, my guest is Alec Baldwin.
Brilliant actor, movie star and one of my all-time favorite funny people.
You look good.
Are you surprised? Look at that Häagen-Dazs just sitting there.
- That's a whole rack of Häagen-Dazs.
- That looks good.
- I gave up ice cream.
- I know.
You've never been fat a day in your life, have you? Have you? Your life has been one unbroken boulevard of green lights, hasn't it? You're from my hometown.
We're from the same town.
That's right, Massapequa.
Who do you think has worked harder to get where they are? You or me? I think I've worked harder than you and not gotten as far, quite frankly.
- That's how it works.
- What do you consider work? Not walking into a room and everybody just falls down and worships you.
Really? "Really? That?" - Do you eat there? - Not anymore.
I have.
Oh, I'm gonna steal that.
Burt Lancaster I don't remember whose story it is.
They came up to his house and he came to the door, and his first line was, "Muffin, Bob?" My favorite Burt Lancaster story was when they went to his trailer on the movieTough Guys with Kirk Douglas.
They had glossies to sign.
Kid knocks on the door.
Lancaster says, "Come in.
" And they come in with a pen and Burt Lancaster's gonna sign them and goes, "Never mind.
I got my own pen.
" And he takes out a big, thick Sharpie and signs "Burt Lancaster" on the picture.
He signs a stack of them and he leaves.
They go to Kirk Douglas' trailer.
They knock on the door.
He says, "Come in.
" They open the door, he comes in with a stack, hand him the pen.
And he writes and it seems so puny next to it, he goes: "Can't you give me the pen that he had?" They go back to Burt's trailer and they knock on the door and Burt Lancaster comes with the pen in his hand and goes: "I suppose you're looking for this.
" The two of them just with each other on every level.
"I suppose you're looking for this.
" Do you run the garage? Do you guys have a coffee shop here? No? - I'll have a coffee.
- I think I'll have a cappuccino.
I'd like a tuna-salad sandwich on some rye toast.
I have seven-grain, is that okay? That's the only kind of bread you have? You only have seven-grain? For that sandwich, yeah.
We're not gonna get into a Jack Nicholson Five Easy Pieceskind of thing, are we? Let's start all over again.
What do you have? - Seven-grain - That sounds perfect.
- Do you want it toasted? - "I want chicken salad " What do you want? We'll give you what we have.
"What do you want? We'll give you what we have.
" That's brilliant.
I'm gonna be 54 years old in about three weeks.
And I literally now wake up every day and say to myself: "What do I wanna do with the time I have?" - Yeah.
- That list of "I have to do this and I have to do this in my life" is getting shorter.
But the stuff that's on that list, I have to do those things.
Right.
We were sitting on my back patio one time and you said: "If I had a joint like this, I would set up a phone and just go " "No.
No.
" When was the first time you got up in front of an audience? - I was 21 years old.
- What place? Catch a Rising Star, First Avenue and 78th.
You must've gone there a lot.
There was nothing more amazing to me.
There was nothing.
I was transfixed by open mike comedy night at Good Times.
You never wanted to be a straight actor? Just let you act? Were you tempted during your career, did you go, "I wanna try.
" - Well, I did act.
- That was a good reading, by the way.
- What? - Good reading.
"Well, I did act.
" - I mean, wow.
- I have five different awards.
They're not from organizations you'll recognize, but I have them.
The American Association of Retailers.
Well, I've said this to you before, your great gift is the rapier-like comic skill - What was that word? - Rapier-like.
R-A-P-I-E-R-hyphen-L-I - Rapier.
- Rapier.
I say "rapier.
" - No? - That's really pretentious or wrong.
Rapier can get you in trouble.
It can be misconstrued.
- Rapier-like skills.
- Rapier is two rapists talking.
- Yeah, exactly.
- You think you're rapier than me? Right, exactly.
You don't know rapier.
My cell mate at Rahway, he was the rapiest guy.
Tuna-fish sandwich, not on rye.
"Tuna fish, not on rye.
" You're funny.
You know what I need from you, if it's okay.
- May I have a fork and some napkins? - Absolutely.
- Do you have any pickles? - We have pickles.
Could we get a bowl of pickles? I wanna get a bowl of pickles.
And I wanna have a fork.
I'd like some kind of dinnerware here, flatware.
Is that gonna be a problem? Do you want me to start crying? - You wanna talk about this acting thing? - But I wanna talk about why First, you're looking at me, you know me well enough, you can look in my eyes you can see it's not there.
You're not looking at me and going, "You have something that hasn't been tapped.
" You're looking at me, you're thinking, "Whatever you have has been used.
" - That's not true.
- Okay, fine.
I look at you and I say, "He's a lazy bastard.
He has everything in the world he could possibly want.
And he's just a lazy, shiftless, no-good bastard.
" - That's not true.
- Yeah.
What are you asking me about? Serious stuff? Do I have the urge to do something straight, dramatic? I'm considered one of the most articulate people in the Screen Actors Guild today.
You seem to be having trouble understanding me.
- Why do you think that is? - You're looking at me: - "This is a kid from Massapequa.
" - A kid from Bar Harbor.
- You remember the Slip 'N Slide? - Yes.
The Slip 'N Slide, you run and then you stop running and continue moving forward.
When I was a kid, that blew my mind.
In my neighborhood, we were staring at other people's Slip 'N Slides.
"That Jerry got a Slip 'N Slide! That hard-on.
Look at that Slip 'N Slide.
Can you imagine? Jeez.
" Must be nice.
"Anybody out here using it? Anybody playing on it? He's in the house.
What's he doing? Look through the window.
He's talking into a hairbrush in his bathroom.
" When I was a kid, my brothers would play Wiffle Ball in the driveway.
I worked.
Now, I would leave my house at 10:00 in the morning in the summertime.
Is the picture you're painting that it was tough economically? No, it was gonna lead me to what trash my brothers were.
They would be playing ball in the driveway at 10 a.
m.
When I came back at 4, they were still playing the same game of Wiffle Ball.
They played Wiffle Ball for six hours in the driveway.
- You were the more responsible one.
- I was Abraham Lincoln to them.
Yeah.
And they were all John Wilkes Booth.
What's it like being a dad for you? Being a dad is, you know It's a surfboard on a rainbow.
You're getting all you can handle of life.
What I like about kids is when they're on the toilet and you knock, they go, "Come in.
" Nobody else does that.
Nobody just invites you in while they're on the toilet - defecating.
- Yeah.
I wanna ask you a question.
If I produce the Oscars, would you host it? If you're producing and I can talk to you during the broadcast - and you're off-camera there, yeah.
- Like Freddie De Cordova.
- I'll be your Rip Torn.
- Yeah.
Rip Torn did a part inBee Movie with me.
I love that guy.
He's doing the show and I go, "Where do you live?" He goes, "I live up there in Salisbury.
" I said, "What's it like up where you live?" He said to me: "Some of the people up there are a little strange.
One time I was in a bar up there and these two guys are at the bar, and they gave me the eye.
And I knew something was gonna go down.
" I'm sitting there going, "What? What happened?" He goes, "I started to go out the door and go to the car the one guy makes a move on me, so I crack him in the jaw.
The other guy smashes me with a bottle in the face.
I kick the other guy in the balls.
I stick a fork in " He's describing this Peckinpah-esque melee.
My mouth is on the floor.
I go, "When did this happen?" He went, "Last summer.
" You know, he's like 74.
He is - That's great.
That's great.
- Yeah, he's crazy.
This, by the way, is your curse.
I say this about you all the time.
You're a gifted, gifted actor, who's cursed with the mind of a writer.
I've gotten more into that as a result of being around the people I've been around.
I don't think I'm that funny, but I'm totally comfortable when I say I learned a lot from being around them.
They taught me a lot.
- They taught me a lot.
- What you know cannot be taught.
- In some ways I appreciate that.
- Take the compliment.
You realize we have to leave Rebecca a thousand-dollar tip? This is the situation.
- I moved downtown.
- Tell me how it's going.
It's so strange.
You're in your apartment and at 3:00 in the morning you hear: " you, Steven! Steven! Get back here!" Like a full five minutes go by and then it's: " you, Steven!" She's still at " you, Steven.
" - A pot that's just boiling.
- That's the energy of youth.
- Only youth can give you that.
- Young people keep those flames burning.
Those pots boiling all that time.
" you, Steven! Steven, get back here!"
It has a 170-horsepower, straight-six engine, 2.
8 liters.
This was a car for guys that want a sports car but don't really want to be inconvenienced.
It's an "I get what the young people are doing and I'm part of it but I will not be putting my mattress on the floor.
" - Hello? Jerry.
- Alec? Hey, how are you? What's going on? - You wanna grab a coffee? - Right now? - I'll pick you up.
- I'll be downstairs in 30 minutes? Great.
I'm Jerry Seinfeld and this is Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Today, my guest is Alec Baldwin.
Brilliant actor, movie star and one of my all-time favorite funny people.
You look good.
Are you surprised? Look at that Häagen-Dazs just sitting there.
- That's a whole rack of Häagen-Dazs.
- That looks good.
- I gave up ice cream.
- I know.
You've never been fat a day in your life, have you? Have you? Your life has been one unbroken boulevard of green lights, hasn't it? You're from my hometown.
We're from the same town.
That's right, Massapequa.
Who do you think has worked harder to get where they are? You or me? I think I've worked harder than you and not gotten as far, quite frankly.
- That's how it works.
- What do you consider work? Not walking into a room and everybody just falls down and worships you.
Really? "Really? That?" - Do you eat there? - Not anymore.
I have.
Oh, I'm gonna steal that.
Burt Lancaster I don't remember whose story it is.
They came up to his house and he came to the door, and his first line was, "Muffin, Bob?" My favorite Burt Lancaster story was when they went to his trailer on the movieTough Guys with Kirk Douglas.
They had glossies to sign.
Kid knocks on the door.
Lancaster says, "Come in.
" And they come in with a pen and Burt Lancaster's gonna sign them and goes, "Never mind.
I got my own pen.
" And he takes out a big, thick Sharpie and signs "Burt Lancaster" on the picture.
He signs a stack of them and he leaves.
They go to Kirk Douglas' trailer.
They knock on the door.
He says, "Come in.
" They open the door, he comes in with a stack, hand him the pen.
And he writes and it seems so puny next to it, he goes: "Can't you give me the pen that he had?" They go back to Burt's trailer and they knock on the door and Burt Lancaster comes with the pen in his hand and goes: "I suppose you're looking for this.
" The two of them just with each other on every level.
"I suppose you're looking for this.
" Do you run the garage? Do you guys have a coffee shop here? No? - I'll have a coffee.
- I think I'll have a cappuccino.
I'd like a tuna-salad sandwich on some rye toast.
I have seven-grain, is that okay? That's the only kind of bread you have? You only have seven-grain? For that sandwich, yeah.
We're not gonna get into a Jack Nicholson Five Easy Pieceskind of thing, are we? Let's start all over again.
What do you have? - Seven-grain - That sounds perfect.
- Do you want it toasted? - "I want chicken salad " What do you want? We'll give you what we have.
"What do you want? We'll give you what we have.
" That's brilliant.
I'm gonna be 54 years old in about three weeks.
And I literally now wake up every day and say to myself: "What do I wanna do with the time I have?" - Yeah.
- That list of "I have to do this and I have to do this in my life" is getting shorter.
But the stuff that's on that list, I have to do those things.
Right.
We were sitting on my back patio one time and you said: "If I had a joint like this, I would set up a phone and just go " "No.
No.
" When was the first time you got up in front of an audience? - I was 21 years old.
- What place? Catch a Rising Star, First Avenue and 78th.
You must've gone there a lot.
There was nothing more amazing to me.
There was nothing.
I was transfixed by open mike comedy night at Good Times.
You never wanted to be a straight actor? Just let you act? Were you tempted during your career, did you go, "I wanna try.
" - Well, I did act.
- That was a good reading, by the way.
- What? - Good reading.
"Well, I did act.
" - I mean, wow.
- I have five different awards.
They're not from organizations you'll recognize, but I have them.
The American Association of Retailers.
Well, I've said this to you before, your great gift is the rapier-like comic skill - What was that word? - Rapier-like.
R-A-P-I-E-R-hyphen-L-I - Rapier.
- Rapier.
I say "rapier.
" - No? - That's really pretentious or wrong.
Rapier can get you in trouble.
It can be misconstrued.
- Rapier-like skills.
- Rapier is two rapists talking.
- Yeah, exactly.
- You think you're rapier than me? Right, exactly.
You don't know rapier.
My cell mate at Rahway, he was the rapiest guy.
Tuna-fish sandwich, not on rye.
"Tuna fish, not on rye.
" You're funny.
You know what I need from you, if it's okay.
- May I have a fork and some napkins? - Absolutely.
- Do you have any pickles? - We have pickles.
Could we get a bowl of pickles? I wanna get a bowl of pickles.
And I wanna have a fork.
I'd like some kind of dinnerware here, flatware.
Is that gonna be a problem? Do you want me to start crying? - You wanna talk about this acting thing? - But I wanna talk about why First, you're looking at me, you know me well enough, you can look in my eyes you can see it's not there.
You're not looking at me and going, "You have something that hasn't been tapped.
" You're looking at me, you're thinking, "Whatever you have has been used.
" - That's not true.
- Okay, fine.
I look at you and I say, "He's a lazy bastard.
He has everything in the world he could possibly want.
And he's just a lazy, shiftless, no-good bastard.
" - That's not true.
- Yeah.
What are you asking me about? Serious stuff? Do I have the urge to do something straight, dramatic? I'm considered one of the most articulate people in the Screen Actors Guild today.
You seem to be having trouble understanding me.
- Why do you think that is? - You're looking at me: - "This is a kid from Massapequa.
" - A kid from Bar Harbor.
- You remember the Slip 'N Slide? - Yes.
The Slip 'N Slide, you run and then you stop running and continue moving forward.
When I was a kid, that blew my mind.
In my neighborhood, we were staring at other people's Slip 'N Slides.
"That Jerry got a Slip 'N Slide! That hard-on.
Look at that Slip 'N Slide.
Can you imagine? Jeez.
" Must be nice.
"Anybody out here using it? Anybody playing on it? He's in the house.
What's he doing? Look through the window.
He's talking into a hairbrush in his bathroom.
" When I was a kid, my brothers would play Wiffle Ball in the driveway.
I worked.
Now, I would leave my house at 10:00 in the morning in the summertime.
Is the picture you're painting that it was tough economically? No, it was gonna lead me to what trash my brothers were.
They would be playing ball in the driveway at 10 a.
m.
When I came back at 4, they were still playing the same game of Wiffle Ball.
They played Wiffle Ball for six hours in the driveway.
- You were the more responsible one.
- I was Abraham Lincoln to them.
Yeah.
And they were all John Wilkes Booth.
What's it like being a dad for you? Being a dad is, you know It's a surfboard on a rainbow.
You're getting all you can handle of life.
What I like about kids is when they're on the toilet and you knock, they go, "Come in.
" Nobody else does that.
Nobody just invites you in while they're on the toilet - defecating.
- Yeah.
I wanna ask you a question.
If I produce the Oscars, would you host it? If you're producing and I can talk to you during the broadcast - and you're off-camera there, yeah.
- Like Freddie De Cordova.
- I'll be your Rip Torn.
- Yeah.
Rip Torn did a part inBee Movie with me.
I love that guy.
He's doing the show and I go, "Where do you live?" He goes, "I live up there in Salisbury.
" I said, "What's it like up where you live?" He said to me: "Some of the people up there are a little strange.
One time I was in a bar up there and these two guys are at the bar, and they gave me the eye.
And I knew something was gonna go down.
" I'm sitting there going, "What? What happened?" He goes, "I started to go out the door and go to the car the one guy makes a move on me, so I crack him in the jaw.
The other guy smashes me with a bottle in the face.
I kick the other guy in the balls.
I stick a fork in " He's describing this Peckinpah-esque melee.
My mouth is on the floor.
I go, "When did this happen?" He went, "Last summer.
" You know, he's like 74.
He is - That's great.
That's great.
- Yeah, he's crazy.
This, by the way, is your curse.
I say this about you all the time.
You're a gifted, gifted actor, who's cursed with the mind of a writer.
I've gotten more into that as a result of being around the people I've been around.
I don't think I'm that funny, but I'm totally comfortable when I say I learned a lot from being around them.
They taught me a lot.
- They taught me a lot.
- What you know cannot be taught.
- In some ways I appreciate that.
- Take the compliment.
You realize we have to leave Rebecca a thousand-dollar tip? This is the situation.
- I moved downtown.
- Tell me how it's going.
It's so strange.
You're in your apartment and at 3:00 in the morning you hear: " you, Steven! Steven! Get back here!" Like a full five minutes go by and then it's: " you, Steven!" She's still at " you, Steven.
" - A pot that's just boiling.
- That's the energy of youth.
- Only youth can give you that.
- Young people keep those flames burning.
Those pots boiling all that time.
" you, Steven! Steven, get back here!"