THI Sadler edit 2 [00:00:00] Conal: [00:00:00] Please be advised. Some of the movie dialogue in this episode contains mature language. The Hollywood Interview, William Sadler. [00:00:48]Alex: [00:00:48] Blessed with one of those, "I know that guy!" faces, but whose name you can never quite place. William Sadler has become one of his generaJon's great chameleons, which some would argue is the mark of a true actor. [00:01:00] The Buffalo New York naJve has amassed close to a hundred television and film credits since the late 1970s. [00:01:05] But didn't really arrive as a recognizable face unJl 1990s Diehard 2 playing a Nixonian ex-army officer whose nefarious plans to seize control of DC's Dulles Airport has only Bruce Willis as John McClain standing between him and a giant ransom from their Sadler, delighted gen X fans, and the hilarious sequel Bill and Ted's bogus journey in a very clever hat Jp to Bergman's Seventh Seal. Playing a Swedish accented Grim Reaper, but it was his appearance as the stubering prison lifer Haywood in the Shawshank RedempJon that truly brought Sadler into the internaJonal lexicon of recognizable character actors. [00:01:43] Since then he's brought his stage trained skill set to a wealth of characters from doctors to lawyers, cops, and criminals, saints, and sinners. [00:01:50] In In writer, director, Ryan Bliss' new indie feature. Alice Fades Away. Sadler plays a vengeful father grieving the death of his son and vowing to payback his [00:02:00] daughter-in-law for her involvement in his demise. [00:02:03] William Sadler sat down with us recently via zoom from his east coast living room to muse on his remarkable career. Here's what followed. [00:02:10] So let's start with Alice Fades Away I thought it was a very interesJng film. What drew you to it? Because your part is really preby small, although significant [00:02:19] William Sadler: [00:02:19] What I was abracted to was that character was the idea of a man who's wealthy and powerful and used to geng what he wants. without any quesJons, he's moved through life that way for decades. And all of a sudden he's confronted with something that he can't fix. He can't buy his way out of this. He can't. And, yeah, I just, I found that, interesJng. I found that dichotomy in a character, there's a humanity there that, as evil as, as much of a Dick as he is, I love it when a character has, there's a crack in them and you can see, you know, oh, look at that. There is a heart [00:03:00] there somewhere, So I th I don't know, I felt I could do something with it. [00:03:03] [00:04:00]Alex: [00:04:50] You were born and raised in Buffalo, New York, What did your parents do? And more significantly, was either of them affiliated with the arts at all. [00:04:58] William Sadler: [00:04:58] My dad was a milkman [00:05:00] and my mom was a mom unJl my father got fired. And then she went to work at an egg candling factory and We all pitched in. My dad started a water bobling company and we all worked nights at the water bobling company and a older brother, younger sister and a younger brother. [00:05:19] Alex: [00:05:19] So you were a working class kid. [00:05:21] William Sadler: [00:05:21] Oh yeah. very, we didn't go to restaurants much. We didn't go. We didn't go to the movies. We went to the drive in, remember we all pile in the staJon wagon and go see Liberty Valance, [00:05:32] Alex: [00:05:32] you know, [00:05:32] William Sadler: [00:05:32] or some. big, Ben Hur, there was some must-see movie that my mom would drag us all to. I think my only my dad was much of a was much into the arts. [00:05:44] He liked music, which was great. And I got I got my love of music, I think from my father, but my mother really. Aker they got divorced. And I started showing an interest in acJng. My mom [00:06:00] said, do you want to go see a play up at the Shaw fesJval in Niagara, on the Lake, right across the peace bridge, we would drive up and see plays. [00:06:09] And we would go to the Stramord Ontario and see the Shakespeare uh, When I went away to college undergraduate school at Geneseo, my dad insisted that I study that I get a teaching cerJficate so that I have something to fall back on was it was probably very prudent um, because it's a terrible. It's a terrible business to try to make a living in, he didn't want to spend all spend money on college and then have, Oh, you can't even get a job. which and fortunately I've never had to use my teaching my teaching degree, but my mom was always like, no, he's, I think Billy's got the, got the thing, So she said aker the first, most, the second play that I did was the subject was roses, [00:07:00] Pulitzer prize, winning drama. And I was 17 or 18 years old playing this, kid returning from the army. [00:07:08] Alex: [00:07:08] Ah, so you play the MarJn Sheen role. [00:07:10] William Sadler: [00:07:10] exactly. and it blew me away. It just blew me away. I've I was. all of a sudden everything else I'd been doing was so much less interesJng, because the wriJng was so good, it just, I don't know how to describe it. I was learning things that I needed to learn as a man, as a person, as As a human in this world, the play was teaching me things that I wasn't geng a home and I wasn't geng at school or from my friends who worked on cars. [00:07:41] And, you know, went hunJng for squirrels, it was like, it was , there was this door opened and. and I couldn't get through the door fast enough. I was, I just fell in love with everything about it from then on it was, Shakespeare and Chekov and Moliere and you know, one aker another, [00:07:59] Alex: [00:07:59] Was there [00:08:00] one sort of epiphany moment you had as a kid where you knew you were an actor or was it more of a slow progression? [00:08:05] William Sadler: [00:08:05] I think it dawned on me slowly. I was cast as in 1973, I was cast as Hamlet at the Colorado Shakespeare fesJval. And there are very few rehearsals, like 20 rehearsals or something, and then it goes up and they pay you 500 bucks for the whole summer. And there's no air in Boulder, Colorado by the way. And I smoked. So that was that, And there was one performance where I had felt like I was carrying this play. I was carrying these huge monologues and, you know, soliloquy is out to the audience and it took so much energy and so much work. I felt like I was pushing this thing up a Hill unJl one night. [00:08:49]In the middle of the play within the play, the scene, right aker that with Rosencrantz. And Guildenstern all of a sudden I let go of all of it. [00:09:00] and the language, the language just started coming faster and faster. he was like a, he's like a fencer and he's beber at this than anyone else in the room. [00:09:09]And the language was filling me with this energy and this emoJon that I was in turn abled. I was pung back into the language and the thing just started snowballing. play liked off the page. I was hurdled into the next scene and then into the next scene. And by the, at the end of the play, it was like two minutes had gone by. And I realized what it, I mean, there was sort of this lesson, this lesson learned, you know, no one wants to see work. [00:09:42] Alex: [00:09:42] So you were in the zone, as they say. [00:09:44] William Sadler: [00:09:44] Yeah. It was the first Jme. It was really the first Jme that I was ever, I had given myself over to the words and the words were so good that they will just take you, they will launch you. And it was an [00:10:00] extraordinary ride and it was exciJng for me and it was exciJng for the cast and the audience. so I guess, I don't know if that's the moment that I decided I was an actor. it was one of the moments that stood out as a lesson. [00:10:14] Alex: [00:10:14] Well, I think you've spoken about it very well. The movie, most people I think really took noJce of you in was diehard 2 that was the thing that sort of bumped you up to the next level.