But if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’
ALAN ALDABut if you consider how abnormal their behavior is, then you are led to the hypothesis that almost all men are suffering from ‘testosterone poisoning.’
ALAN ALDAI try to find out what there is in the character that in a way, you can’t put into words. If I could put it into words, then it wouldn’t be a performance. And if I do put it into words, as I play it, I start to get boxed in by those words.
ALAN ALDAI would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn’t know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
ALAN ALDAI’m very interested in the improvisation because one of the things I do is to help train scientists to communicate in a better way and more personal way when they’re making a presentation, and I use improvisation to do that.
ALAN ALDAI’ve been nominated twice before as actor in a leading part. Now I’m nominated as actor in a supporting part.
ALAN ALDAIt makes it fun. When an actor plays a character, you want what that character wants. Otherwise it doesn’t look authentic. So I really want to defeat Jimmy – I mean Jimmy as the character.
ALAN ALDAI found I wasn’t asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something.
ALAN ALDADuring the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me.
ALAN ALDAThis gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people’s holding beliefs other than their own?
ALAN ALDAThat last note, “in the same respect,” says a lot. As soon as you change the frame of reference, you’ve changed the truthiness of a once immutable fact.
ALAN ALDANothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah.
ALAN ALDAInsanity is just a state of mind.
ALAN ALDAThe one hour live debate in the West Wing that we did was one of the most exciting times for me on stage or on camera, because anything could go wrong.
ALAN ALDABe brave enough to live creatively.
ALAN ALDAIn 2003, I almost died of an intestinal blockage when I was on a mountain in Chile, filming a segment for ‘Scientific American Frontiers.’
ALAN ALDAMy relationship with science is as someone who’s curious and hungry to know, hungry to understand. So all I have to offer is my ignorance and my curiosity, which is a good combination, as long as they come together.
ALAN ALDA