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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back to Part 2 of You Can't Say That!. I'm Tonya Pinkins, and you are listening to my conversation with Larry Moss.

[0:07] Larry Moss: I'm always doing things that scare me. It's like, I don't want to do anything that I can't fail at. If the potential is for me to fail, I'm like, that's the one I got to do. You know what you just said, Tonya, so amazing. You know what I have on my wall? I have a photograph of something that one of the most brilliant things I ever heard by Samuel Beckett. And it says, no matter, try again, fail again, fail better. I read fail better. My whole being went, that's right. You keep growing.

[1:12] Yes.

[1:13] Larry Moss: That's our joy in life is that, you know, we get so caught up in am I successful? What did that person think of me and all that crap? Did you get nominated for an Oscar? You know, and everyone that I've been lucky enough to work with in my life. Many Oscar winners after working with you.

[1:33] Well, they had the talent. I did whatever I did. But we got to the humanity of those people. And they worked with joy. And sometimes they were scared and we kept going and kept going. And sometimes they were scared and we kept going and kept going. And, and, you know, I, I was very fortunate, wrote written about this in my book, to work with the dearly departed and beautiful soul of Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile. And Michael didn't want to work. He was scared. He had never done a big part. And basically, he basically said, I, I don't know what I'm doing. And he said, I said, tell me about yourself, Michael. And he said, I don't know you. I don't, I don't. Why should I trust you? I said, because I'm the guy you got to get through to get to the screen test. Sit down, and let's talk.

[2:33] And we started talking for an hour. And he told me about his childhood in Chicago, growing up without a father, with a mother that he had to protect, with a sister he had attacked. And there had been attacks, and there had been protection. And he started to weep. We'd known each other 45 minutes. And he grabbed my hand. And I said, we're going to do this, Michael. We're going to do this part. And the character was John Coffey, which is basically Jesus Christ. The first day of shooting, when I was preparing Michael for a scene with Tom Hanks, it was both up on Michael in the jail cell. And all the camera was on Michael, and I prepared him. And Frank Darabont, the wonderful director, said, okay, let's get ready. And Michael's cheek began to tremble. And Frank said, action. And Michael finished his first take. And Tom Hanks walked away and said, Jesus H. Christ. I never forgot that moment.

[3:58] Larry Moss: Michael said to me, when he got his Oscar nomination, I said, how do you feel, Michael? He said, you know what? When I used to get in an elevator, people would back away, because I was so big. And I scared them. And I was black. And now they shake my hand. That's what art can do. We started to trust each other. And Tom Hanks was so wonderful and trusting, and Frank Darabont, and Michael, and so many wonderful actors in that film. It was a love fest. And work can be that. It can be a love fest. And for me, I say, at best, when we're really acting well with good people, it's like sex. It is. It is like sex. There is nothing as good as that. No, it's pure joy, and it's pure intimacy. And there's nothing like it when you get good enough to take the hands of a good writer and bring them to life. And I think that's what it's all about. You get good enough to take the hands of a good writer and bring that to life.

[5:14] And I'll tell you one thing. If I had one thing to say before I die, what I would say to actors, read the great writers and never stop. They're your best friends. When you go, I don't like to read. Well, learn. Pick up a play. Read a play a week. Then read two plays a week. Then read three plays a week. At the end of a year, you've read 600 plays, and they're all in your brain. Your brain is a sponge. It wants food. I need to shut up. I get so fired up.

[5:58] Tonya Pinkins: No, but that passion, it comes through. It comes through your voice, that energy. People are starving for that. They've been isolated in their homes. They need that life. It's like water for a dying plant.

[6:14] Larry Moss: Yes, my friend, Tonya. That's true. It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and somebody sent me a beautiful orchid. And they said in the orchid, make sure you do not over water. And don't water it until it's dry. So I took that at face value, and a couple of weeks later, I put my hand on the earth of the orchid, and it was completely dry, and I put just a little water in it. In about two hours, the orchid sprung up as though it was on fire with life.

[6:52] Wow.

[6:54] Larry Moss: It was so excited. It was so happy for that water.

[6:58] Wow.

[6:59] Larry Moss: And that's us. That is us. And the water is other actors and actresses, the world, writers, breath, food, love, the history of man, and the understanding of the vulnerability of being alive. Do you think that your struggle is what gives you the, because I feel like it, for me, the capacity to be with other people in the midst of their own personal struggle and allow them to be vulnerable and risk that and then take that into their art?

[7:42] Tonya Pinkins: I'm sorry, say that one more time, Larry, one more time.

[7:46] Larry Moss: Oh, you mean?

[7:46] Tonya Pinkins: I feel like that my struggle lets me be with people in their struggle and not move to fix it.

[7:55] Yes.

[7:55] Larry Moss: I can be with you in it. And then you get to know that you're not ugly and not lovable because of it and that you can survive it and be present. Is that what you do?

[8:07] Larry Moss: Yes. I know that some people are brought up to not cry. Some people are brought up to not be angry. Some people are brought up to never be silly. Some people are brought up to never be sexy or intellectual or whatever the fear of being judged and rejected. I can only show you this part of me. I can't show you all of me. What we learn in our craft is everything about you is usable. There's only one rule, don't hurt yourself and don't hurt anybody else. All your feelings, all your feelings are fantastic. It's what you do with them.

[8:55] I know rage. I know envy. I know joy. I know love. I know gratitude. I know loneliness. I know terror. I know desperation. I know poverty. And I know well-being. And I know how beautiful animals are and how vulnerable children are. And no matter how corny it sounds, Tonya, love is everything. Love for ourselves and love for others. And that's why I say let's not be divisive.

[9:39] What you just said, you said it so beautifully. Be yourself. No matter how angry you are, let me have it. Just don't hurt yourself and don't hurt me. But say it. Write it. You know, I always quote the great quote by Eugene O'Neill on the great play Long Day's Journey Into Night. Written in tears and blood by Eugene O'Neill. He wrote that to his wife. Written

[10:24] Larry Moss: I was working with Warren Robertson and he was very much into getting people to be fully emotional. And we did exercises where we would sob our guts out and scream our guts out and yell. Everybody thought he was insane. But what he did for actors is he freed you to not be ashamed of your feelings and your body and then apply that to a writer. And I worked with him for a couple of years. I worked really hard and he called me one day and said, I'd like to have a meeting with you. I was very scared and shy and he was kind of like a hero to me. And he said, Larry, whenever you do a scene and you tell me how you did, you're able to clarify verbally in a way that I find very rare. And I think you could be a teacher.

And I said, you're kidding me. And I went home and I went into my bedroom and I started to cry. I was married at the time. I went out to talk to my wife, Susan, and I couldn't speak. And I just put my hand out and she grabbed it and I cried for 20 minutes because my father figure had said yes to me. I respect you. You're valuable. And he said, I'm gonna give you four students, see how you like it. Oh, wow. And the first scene that I critiqued was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the scene with Big Daddy and Brick. That was my four students, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 48 years ago and I've never stopped.

[13:13] Larry Moss: Wow, you loved it. I sat my ass down on that chair and I cried for 20 minutes and then went, I'm home. And the minute I did that, I started working on Broadway as an actor nonstop. Isn't that always the way you let it go and it comes back to you? Completely. I said, well, if I can teach it, I guess I know how to do it without being so goddamn scared. And I mean, I worked with Jerome Robbins and I worked with Neil Simon. I worked with Michael Bennett and I worked with the best actors and actresses. And I was on Broadway all the time and I went, I'm teaching and I'm on Broadway. And I went, I need to take a break. I was getting a divorce. I was sad. I was lost. And I went, I'm gonna stop acting for a year and just teach.

And then I went, I'm a teacher. My acting has helped me to be a teacher, but who I am and where I live and maybe where I can do some good is in teaching. And I am never, and I'm talking to you, I am never not feeling like I just took a vitamin B12 shot.

[14:38] Larry Moss: Yes. That's what talking to you does. It does stop vibrating. Yes. And yesterday I taught for four and a half hours and we were on fire. And one day, a few weeks ago, I taught, this is embarrassing, but we were so into it, I taught for seven hours. We just couldn't stop. They say never retire from the work you love and that's the secret to a long life. You know what? And I was in LA teaching we were so on fire. I taught for 10 hours and it was, we started at nine in the morning and it was like, I think nine at night. We had taken a dinner break and it was nine. So I taught for over 10 hours and there were like 40 people still there. And I said, what are you all doing here? And what am I doing here? And we started laughing at how much we loved working on plays.

[15:36] Larry Moss: Mm-hmm. And I believe love is, it creates infinite energy. If you are doing what you love, there is no end to the amount of energy that is available to you. Right. Right. And, you know, I keep thinking of, they were working on Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. The Glass Menagerie. And Tom says at the end of the play, I didn't go to the moon. I went much further. What time is the longest distance between two places? And I went, well, that's pure poetry. I mean, a man wrote that. The mother says to him screaming, go to the moon then you dreamer. She says to a man who wants to be a poet who works in a shoe factory and feels like he's dying and has to leave his mother and his sister and his sister will never recover. And finally he says, I didn't go to the moon. I went much further. Time is the longest distance between two places.

[17:01] Larry Moss: And finally he remembers his sister and he says, I tried to leave you behind but I was more faithful than I intended to be. Nowadays the world is lit by lightning. World War II was about to happen. And he says, blow out your candles, Laura. And so goodbye. Language, language. Language. To be or not to be, that is the question. Mm. Our writers and our fellow actors and actresses are our family. And they are the soul of the planet, of the civilization of human beings.

[17:49] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. They are the soul of that. And you are.

[17:53] Larry Moss: No, well, you are as well. It's so lovely to talk to you. We're going to have to talk more now that I know you're here in New York and sitting there. We just have to talk and talk books and talk plays because I'm quite the reader myself as well.

[18:06] Tonya Pinkins: Well, that would be one of the great joys of my life, Tonya. I want to tell you that I'm very honored to be asked to talk to you.

[18:14] Larry Moss: Oh, well, it's my pleasure and honor that you would agree because you are, you know, you're a national treasure. You have a gift. You know, it was your birthday a few weeks ago. And normally on birthdays I say, may you live long enough to know why you were born. And I think you know why you were born and you are living in it and in the love and the joy of it and giving that away. And so it keeps returning to you. I'm reading Sand Talk right now, which is this First Nation Aboriginal man's story about how it's all about continuing to give and circulating everything. And it's reminding me of how all my life, I just want to give things away. I coach other actors at the audition that I was there for. It just felt like that's what I'm supposed to do. And whoever's supposed to get the job is gonna get the job.

[19:10] Larry Moss: I love that. I love that. You're a treasure. You're the national treasure. That's so brilliant. I've never heard any actor say that before. That's just genius. Let me help you get the job.

[19:21] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, I don't know. There's something I love about helping. Like helping gives me great joy. Giving gives me great joy. And I know that it's the same for you. And the way you described that relationship between in Glass Menagerie, you spoke it with this beauty, even though what you were talking about was very painful and cruel and some might judge it as a betrayal, but he was not betraying himself. And so some people, because of the rules and stories they have in their mind, they wouldn't even be able to see the truth of that relationship because they aren't able to see reality.

[20:02] Larry Moss: Right. Compassion and empathy is the answer. Compassion for yourself and empathy for all others, patience for everyone, and finally, love. Now, before we go, we must talk about it because it is still singularly my favorite one person show I've ever seen. And you know what it is, but because I've never seen anything like it before or since, I'd go see it again right now, The Serengeti. That's an actor in your class who wrote something and then you directed it. And it was, I saw everything.

[21:50] Larry Moss: Now, there's something that happened to you in your life. Don't pick it, let it pick you. Just let it come to you. And don't edit the first memory that comes back. Within five minutes, people were laughing, crying, looking terrified. I said, don't edit it! Don't edit it! That's your memory. Now see everything, smell everything, taste everything, hear everything, touch everything. And that went on for about 40 minutes and people were clutching their chairs and the emotion of those 40 people as they remembered this memory that came to them. Now I said, turn to the person next to you and tell them your story in sensory detail. And then I said, now have the other person tell you their story. The entire exercise, which I had never done before, lasted for three hours.

And then I turned to the 40 people and I said, now bring it to the stage. They all looked horrified. And Tanya, they literally said, you're insane. In the best way. I said, that may very well be, but one of you is going to come up with something. And six weeks later, Pamela Gein, who had been studying with me for three years, four years, and was superb, got up and did the memory, which was the murder of her grandfather in South Africa, 82 years old, stabbed 22 times by a Rhodesian freedom fighter on his farm. And she played her mother, her father, her grandmother, her grandfather, her African nanny, and herself as a child. At the end of that 20 minute improvisation, everyone in the class had stood.

She ran to the corner and hid. I said, Pamela, get up, come downstage and look at your peers and know that you must write this for the world. And I knew in that moment that was the play I was going to do. And we worked on it for four years. And it ended up being 24 characters. We did four workshops of it, premiered it in Seattle. And at the end of our run in Seattle at the world premiere, the people that owned Starbucks came to see it, and they came backstage and said, this is so moving. What do you want to do with it? And we said, we'd like to bring it to New York. They said, done. And Matt Salinger, our brilliant director, brilliant, was like our director, producer. He directed us to Seattle.

He supported Pamela and I for three years. And he believed in us with all his heart. And we opened in New York in previews. In a 300-seat theater, we had 17 people in the audience. And every night there were three more. And then eight more. And then 100 from word of mouth. And then we opened. The reviews were very good. And finally, you couldn't get a seat for two years. And I never did it for any other reason except that I wanted to tell this story. I wanted to learn about South Africa, about apartheid. And Pamela, as a white woman, wanted to tell the story of her father, who was one of the few white doctors who saw the black people in his town in the same room he saw the whites. And they all rejected him for that reason.

And they moved from Africa to America. It was one of the most profound. And then we were asked to come to South Africa to do it at the Baxter Theater in Cape Town. And Tanya, to walk into a South African theater with 100% black audience, with a white woman playing a black woman, Pamela was shaking. I was shaking. And she finished it. And those 300 black people stood up and cheered. And I said, this is the moment of our life. And then it was we did it for television. It became a novel. It was a play. And we toured the world. And the least important thing was we won every award you could win in New York. And it was beautiful. But it didn't matter because we did the play. Oprah Winfrey came. Mike Nichols came.

All the movie stars came. That wasn't as big as the moment in South Africa when we were accepted by the people that really knew. So that's what art can do. So that's why I go get off your lazy asses and tell stories.

[28:02] Tanya Pinkins: Yes. Yes. Oh, thank you, Larry. Thank you for giving me this hour. You do this every week. You have so many amazing stories. It's got to be like 50 years of working with the best and the best all over the world. I thank you. And I hope I can just call you to just chat with you.

[28:24] Larry Moss: You must.

[28:26] Tanya Pinkins: I will. I love you.

[28:28] Larry Moss: I love you, too. I thank you. And God bless you and stay healthy and give us your gift forever.

[28:36] Tanya Pinkins: You, too. Okay. Thanks for listening to You Can't Say That on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[28:50] Tanya Pinkins: Thanks for listening to You Can't Say That, the show where you can. I'm Tanya Pinkins, and You Can't Say That is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berenstein and Alan Seales, edited by Derek Gunther, with music by Kat Dail. If you like what you hear, don't forget to subscribe and rate this podcast highly wherever you stream. Follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Tanya Pinkins. And to learn more, visit bpn.fm forward slash ycst.

[29:33] Tanya Pinkins: Stay safe. You is kind. You is smart. You is important. You is dead. Tanya Pinkins' horror film, Red Pill, brings African-American perspective to the progressive movement. We are a majority in this country. And we're gonna win the election. Do you know what the red pill is? A red pill is someone who infiltrates a group and then destroys them from the inside. This place is spooky. Some people like to live dangerously. Gas, why are you so jumpy tonight? You know what, guys? I'm gonna go back tomorrow. Did you hear about the creature woman that attacked a father and son hunting down here? I don't see the case. This place creeps me out. I think we should call the sheriff's office. The only people missing or dead are brown people. They're after all of us. What do we do, Amelia? We die. But we take some of them with us.