RY: Well, I could tell you a wild experience--[INT: Go. Working with Writers.]--that I had working with a Writer. Anyway, in New York, I was editing ALAMBRISTA! when I get--when all of a sudden I get a call from two friends of mine, Peter Sova, a dynamite Cameraman, and Michael Barrow, who's a, was a Gaffer at that point. Anyway, they were shooting SHORT EYES, written by Miguel Pinero. And they were shooting it in the tombs and a lot of the Actors had been in the--in Sing Sing [Sing Sing Correctional Facility], so it was a really fantastic cast. And what had happened was, the Actors had just told the Director--they'd shot for five days--and they told the Director if he came back on Monday, they'd kill him. And they meant it. They meant it. He didn't come back on Monday. That was very smart of him not to, 'cause he would have gotten pushed off a gallery or something like that. These guys wouldn't fool around. A number of them were in for murder and, you know, they were all on her--not all, but a lot of them were on heroin. And they still were. They were junkies. Anyway, so I got called in and Miguel Pinero saw a piece of ALAMBRISTA! and he said, "This is the guy who's gonna direct the movie. Nobody else." So I come in and I find out that there's no script. Well, there's really like a bullshit script, which is the play with some scenes added that a lawyer had added in a courtroom and the film starts like M, a boy in the park bouncing a ball. I mean it was just terrible. And the cast recognized that and after five days, they, you know, told this guy, "Get lost." So, but there was no script. And so I came in and I looked and I saw there's no script and I said, "Look, guys, I'd love to do this. This is a fantastic project, a great play, but it's a play. It's not a movie and some of this--" and we looked at the footage and none of it was any good; it was terrible. And what I found out that it was all an attempted music deal. The guy who'd gotten the rights from Miguel because he needed a fix, got him the fix, some money, and then, 'cause Miguel was a fantastic guy, actually. A very, in my opinion, a tremendous guy. And they thought they could do another SUPER FLY and Curtis Mayfield's music, they'd make millions of dollars and they'd shoot it in four weeks, and that was what they thought. And it didn't work out that way.

RY: So, but there, here I've been in the situation, there's no script. So I say, "Well, wait two months, let's write a script, and then we'll do it. I'd love to do it." And they said, "No. We can't wait because we'll lose the money. We can't sort of say that we're in trouble." So, god I didn't know what to do. I took Miguel Pinero in a hotel room for one week, and a lot of cherry brandy because, so he wouldn't go and get fixes. And we worked for a week just to sort of, not everyday, actually. It was very difficult. But to sort of basically start to cut the film, 'cause it was the--they sent the play to studio duplicating and then added these terrible scenes. And I wanted to bring it down to the essence of what the play had been. But it had to be changed because the play had been staged on an open stage where you play the day room and a lot of scenes are played in the day room should be played in cells, and scenes that were here and there should be combined and pieces and a lot of things had to be changed. So I saw to that and I'm not bad on structure, so they said--but I had to start shooting, so I delayed them for one week and then I started shooting. And I shot what I thought worked. And every night, constructed what I was gonna be doing. And I would maybe be a day or two ahead, you know? And weekends, I got locked into the tombs. I stayed there. I stayed in every single cell on our floor, the ninth floor, the drug floor. Anyway, I found it to be a heady, exciting experience and Miguel would come and join me, but I could never keep him for more than a couple of days because he'd go off and get fixes and once he came in with a broken rib and another time he was slashed and I saw him, he was stitching his own finger. He was an incredible person. But he was tremendously good to me and we had a very warm, very--

INT: Did you work into a situ--have you worked in a situation where the script has been in shape? 'Cause it sounds like these two experiences, you were excited by what the material was, but the scripts themselves were not right.

RY: No. I've never been in a situation completely--on CAUGHT, that we had a fantastic script and I have a fabulous relationship with the Writer, Eddie Pomerantz [Edward Pomerantz]. And I'm always, I always have a good relationship, actually, with the Writers. I mean I respect the Writer because it--and I'm trying to find out where he came from, to understand better why I'm attracted to it and to come together at that place. Because--but I honor them. I won't write anything without speaking to them, lines. But on the set, sometimes I have to make changes and things. But I very much honor the Writer. And on CAUGHT, we did, I shot it sequentially. And sometimes when I felt things were not right, I made changes. The whole ending got changed. But I told Eddie about it and we talked about it and we made the changes. One night, in the middle of the night, I had to make some very considerable changes and I just did it because I believe that at that point, I'm really in touch. And he agreed with everything that I did. But I--and on my newest movie, HUMAN ERROR, I didn't, I mean, I never wrote a word of dialogue. Richard Dresser is a brilliant Writer and I added things and I changed things, but I never--I wouldn’t never, I never wrote a line of dialogue.

INT: Was DOMINICK AND EUGENE, did that come in as a good script?

RY: DOMINICK AND EUGENE came in as a very interesting script but very flawed in terms that it was very sentimental. The fantastic thing about the script was the guy--gosh I should remember. I've looked at the names of people. Danny-something [Danny Porfirio]. A wonderful, non-professional Writer had created the character of Nicky. And he had done a fantastic job and that was what was really great. And then another--Corey Blechman, I think his name is, a very good Writer, had dramatically constructed the basic story. The problems with it were, for me, it was tremendously sentimental. And therefore, there could be no growth in it. I mean, for example, at the end of the story, in DOMINICK AND EUGENE, when Nick--when Gino had to drive off, he gave Nicky a dog to replace the dog that had been lost, to please the audience, I guess. And then drove around the block and came back to pick up Nicky because he couldn't live without him. Well, that was completely a betrayal of the chance for Nicky to grow up and be a man. And I, you know, so those were things… And then one of the things that was missing in the script, which… Now, I worked with Alvin Sargent, who's a great Writer. [INT: True.] I love Alvin. And Alvin said to me, "That was the best--" I mean, that was a couple of years ago, a number of years ago. He said it was the best experience he'd ever had, as a Writer. I hope I'm not doing something wrong saying something like that, but that's what Alvin told me. One of the things that I felt very strongly was, that was missing in the script, was the presence of the father because Nicky, I knew, had been injured by his father and that was not--there was no way of having that in the script. And so I realized that it had to be through the brother. And that was not in the script. That was not in the script at all, the kind of anger that the brother had. So that's what we did. We did that, and made the--and the irony of it was that Nicky, who'd been injured by the father, escapes the legacy of becoming the kind of replication of the father. And in one very powerful scene where Gino shakes him, say, "You fucking idiot," you know, he recognizes, in a sense, the father. And begins on his journey to recognize--[INT: Who he was becoming]--what had really happened to him. And that's one of the things that I was…

RY: Look, you bring who you are to every script experience. One of the things that I brought to DOMINICK AND EUGENE, which I think was important, was the fact that I’ve lived with, and love, primitive--I hate to use the word, but pre-literate, you know, so-called primitive people in New Guinea, in Africa, and India. Places where I've spent real time with people who--Eskimos--who were so-called, you know, primitive kind of cultures. One of the things that I found was, well, of course, that it depends on ritual, which is one thing, but also that there are other ways of intuiting the world. And one of the things that attracted me to the story was that we, in our society, put such emphasis on the conceptual part of the brain, on the fact that, you know, people are bright, intelligent, and conceptual, and not enough on the artistic side, the sensate side. And that you can intuit things, also, and find out things by putting things together in a different way. And I thought that people who have different kinds of brain damages are often, you know, sundered aside and some of their real gifts are, go unrecognized when actually, in primitive cultures, where they don't put the same kind of emphasis on conceptual kind of things but they believe in certain kind of behavior, that I could approach the story that way. And Nicky, after all, worked on a garbage truck and could see the beauty in fragments of things, that he could intuit something that was beautiful. And he gets misinformation from Larry, the guy who's like a snake, like in the Bible, who tells him misinformation. And out of the misinformation, like the things that he finds on the garbage truck, he puts together, builds a world of misunderstandings, but in that, finds the truth. And that's what I really believe is the struggle, the course in life is through these misunderstandings and mistakes that you make, that you gradually kind of like find your way. And you find you're on some kind of a quest and… But it's not by knowing and doing the right thing and all of that. It's experiential, as from a conceptual approach. And that was sort of what I brought to that story and I said, "This is the way I need to tell this story.” You know, it took me time to conceptualize that for myself. But that's what I did with the Writer and with Alvin and we had a fantastic relationship because he understood this. And so there were things that I did that worked out with Alvin that were fantastic. Like, I wanted him to be taking a shower with Gino because I wanted to take the camera by the faucet head and use a wide angle lens and be looking down at the two soapy heads because I wanted to remind the audience that they had been--that they were twins. They were not identical, but they were twins. And I have them looking up into the thing and the two heads and they’re, so they're distorted in a sense and not many people think of it that way, but some actually did. But then Alvin wrote the line, "Nicky, tomorrow's our birthday." And so, you know, just made it--'cause that's when this was taking place. So that was my visual way, directorial way of making a scene that experientially put the audience in the position of that's how close these two guys were.

INT: Let me look at this, then. [RY: Sure.] Conceptual idea about the way you wanted the story to emerge [in DOMINICK AND EUGENE]. [RY: Yeah.] You have a visualization of a particular scene, you communicated that visualization to Alvin [Alvin Sargent]. Alvin, then, wrote you some dialogue.

RY: Alvin wrote the line, "Nicky, tomorrow's our birthday." [INT: But just in terms of--] Yeah, but that's how it happened. [INT: Got it.] For example, just like, Nicky lose--his dog gets killed. I cut right from the shock of the dog being killed to Jesus's feet with the spike through them. And he's there at the foot of the cross and the priest comes to say--try to comfort him and say, "Well dogs go to heaven, too." And he's, you know, he's not buying that. And he walks away and he looks up at Jesus and I told Alvin that I wanted, in the scene, I wanted Nicky at the level that he was at, I want him to look at Jesus and recognize that God was a child abuser. That god didn't protect his own kid. [INT: Right.] And Nicky felt so bad about the dog, which is his, and to be protected and it got killed, and the priest trying to make nice. And so he walks away and then Alvin wrote the line. I mean, you know, I said, "That's what I wanted to express." And he said, "If I were God, I wouldn't let them do that to my boy." And I thought that was a very powerful line. [INT: Now again--] And that expressed--but that's the relationship between Alvin and me. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Now, these are fabulous illustrations of the dialogue between the Director and Writer [on DOMINICK AND EUGENE]. When you just--[RY: Yeah, that came out of my--] When you just said the interesting thing. When he goes and takes the dog--the dog's hit and he sees the dog and you cut to the feet. In the script, the dog did get killed.

RY: Oh yes. [INT: But did--] You know the dog is killed. You never see the dog. You know what happened in the distance, a car comes, the dog is running, he runs after the dog and there's the sound of screeching breaks, a crash. And he's running past--I used trees to give that kind of strobe thing, emotionally. And he comes up into the camera and he looks and he sees and you know he knows what happened. [INT: Now, but what existed in the original script?] What? [INT: In the original script.] Oh, nothing like that. [INT: That's what I'm asking.] Oh, nothing like that. [INT: So for you, as you're looking at a script and it is evolving, you are visualizing scenes.] Oh yeah. Nobody said--no, no, nothing--there was nothing written. I mean the dog gets killed, you know? [INT: Got it. But so it's interesting to me, though, that what you just described in this particular sequence with Alvin when you wrote that.] Yeah. [INT: That's also in the script by your--'cause we're not talking about, you thought this the day before shooting, like you may have done TRIUMPH [TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT]. This is an example--] No, no, nobody--in other words, the script didn't say, "Cut to the feet with the--" No, "With the nail in it." [INT: But the script inevitably said it when you got finished with the script. Or did it not?] Yeah, well, I don't remember whether we went back and did that, you know? [INT: No, I ask that in the sense that in your working process with the Writer, was this, like that particular sequence, was this something that happened befo--] Well Alvin [Alvin Sargent] was only--came once to the location or maybe twice. [INT: But had you--] But these are things that I would do myself. [INT: Had you already worked out the scenes with Alvin, for example, before you were shooting? That, I guess, is what I'm really asking.] Aha. Not all of them, because we didn't have the time. And some of it was being changed while I was shooting. [INT: Now interesting--] 'Cause I find that I get deeper and deeper into it and it never seems to stop.

INT: I must--I don't know if I want to be your Assistant Director or your Production Manager [Unit Production Manager], because it sounds like every day, we're not quite sure what we're gonna be shooting until you bring in the material. Is this somewhat true? I mean how do you… Your pre-production, how are you handling when--

RY: Not wildly true. I very much--look, I believe that, to me… Look, I'm not… I was about to say I'm not a professional. I'm not--I never got into this… One of the first things I think I said today was that I didn't do this as a career, you know. I'm not trying to make myself special. Maybe on some level I am. I don't know. I think it's in terms of protecting myself, who I am. I didn't--and that, really, at some point reflects on my relationship with the Guild [DGA], because I did do… When I did SHORT EYES I was in the Guild and I got put on probation for six months because it was not a DGA film and I did it anyway. I got kicked out of--I was made a DP [Director of Photography] in 644 [Local 644]. I was a feature Cameraman when I shot NOTHING BUT A MAN. I got kicked out of the--I got called up by the Guild because, you know, by 644, because I'd made it non-union. And I had gone to them to see if I could make any special deals or anything like that and I couldn't, and we raised the money ourselves and, you know, I got $5,000 over two years and I wasn't supposed to make that film. And I said to them, I'd just been, actually spent my 2,000 bucks, you know, and I was--as a feature Cameraman. And I had all kinds of offers after NOTHING BUT A MAN. But they… I said, "Look. I didn't like violating my Guild oath, that I would only work on union things, but I'm a filmmaker. I have to tell these stories and this is a story that meant a tremendous amount to me. It took me two years with Mike Roemer [Michael Roemer] to write this and do this and we raise the money ourselves. We took no jobs away from anybody else. We created something, and you're telling me I can't make a film about something that I think is the most important thing happening in America? And it's also about my life? You're telling me that I can't do that? Well no, you can't tell me. You can tell me that, but I’m…" You know, I got kicked out. I don't know if anybody actually got kicked out. I got kicked out. And I was not allowed to become a--to do any feature film, you know. I had a whole bunch of offers at that point. But--[INT: So how do--what's--] But that's my problem, in a way. I'm too--I'm focused on what I want to do and I do other things. I mean I just did a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and it was a lot of fun and I made some money, and they loved the show, and they've asked me to come back and do more. Which is great. And I did some SAVING--oh, NOTHING SACRED, with Kevin Anderson and a wonderful cast. I did two of them. And David Manson, Producer, very intelligent, terrific people. And they loved the first one I made, they asked me to do the second one. I did the second one; they loved it. They wanted me to do a third one, but then I had the chance to go to China on a panda, on an IMAX and they said, "Well, go to China and don't do the third one." And then it turns out that I'm just too much trouble. That the Actors threw a party for me after the first one and the second one, and then they asked the Producers if I could do all of them. And the Producers said that I cause anarchy. You know, I breed anarchy. And because it's my whole style. I mean, I'm sending notes. The Actor has a problem with something, I listen. And I try to find out, 'cause it's not his responsibility to find out what's wrong. It's my responsibility as the Director. And, so I'm calling the Writers. I'm saying, "Look, this is not written right." And in television when they're just writing it like, you know, they haven't really thought about it that much, or they love a line that they think is clever. And it's not necessarily coming out of a situation. I'm always going back into the situation, into the story, into the possibilities of where it ought to go. And that's where I go. And, you know, so, you know. [INT: So how do you prepare--] And I haven't--didn't believe in Agents. Another problem I had.

RY: So when Mike [Michael Roemer] and I made NOTHING BUT A MAN, we had fantastic offers. GOODBYE, COLUMBUS, all kinds of things. But I, we didn't believe--I thought it was amoral to have an Agent. I thought it was wrong to have somebody coming between me and the things that I believed in, to tell me what I ought to do. And I was so naive and so unsophisticated because actually, there are fantastic projects that are being done that I'd love to be apart of. And everything can't be my narrow part of the human continuum. And when I had the chance to do SHORT EYES, it opened me up to other kinds of people and things, and so I'm, I've been very limited, actually, in my--and I've never been operational. I haven't understood how this business worked. I thought that if you did something good, that daddy would come along and say, "What do you want to do next?" And it doesn't work that way. And I've still, to this day, I mean look, I'm 80-years-old, I'm still working. I still have things I'm trying to do, but I'm very shy about… I don't know how to sell my things. I don't really have an Agent now. I had Sam Cohn. I mean my Agents have been… I know that that's one of the things… My first agent was David Begelman. I was working--I’d made a film--I mean I had just done a film for CBS called J.T. It got the Peabody [Peabody Award]. It was--I did it for a Saturday program at 12 noon, a kid's program. And they loved it so much that they pre-empted their number one program, GUNSMOKE, the following Monday night and put it on in primetime. It was about a little black boy in Harlem. It was a pre-Christmas show done by Jane Wagner, written by Jane Wagner and it was… But it was a very derivative piece. And I insisted on shooting it in Harlem. I had a big fight with the crew. I wouldn't--it had to be done in Harlem. And I did it there. They didn't want to go above 96th Street. But anyway, I shoot this, make this movie, and people love it and then Mike Dann [Michael Dann], who was the head of CBS, and they were at their height then, wanted me to do something else and he saw my Eskimo footage and--'cause I was trying to sell him the idea of making a series of films about primitive cultures and what we're losing if we don't help them, you know, if we don't film them and try to keep, you know, the memories alive on film. And so he was entertaining me by going along with the idea, but not really. But anyway, he let me--he said cut a special of my Eskimo stuff. So I cut a special and it won the Emmy. Best Documentary that year, and my dramatic show won the Peabody [Peabody Award].

RY: So he [Michael Dann] said, "You've gotta have an Agent. You can't be in this business without an Agent." He said, "The best Agent is David Begelman." He was with Freddie Fox [Freddie Fields] and Sam Cohn, I think, at CAM [CMA; Creative Management Associates] or something at that point. So the next day--and he calls him in front of me and he says these fantastic things about me, and the next day I'm sitting in David Begelman's office. And he offers me a cigar, just like Adolph Zukor did when I was 15 years old, and I turned it down. I mean it was a real recall. And then he said, "Bob, tell me what you want to do." And Mike Dann had told him, "You have to handle Bob personally." "Tell me what you want to do." So I start telling him. I said, "Look, I come from documentaries and I want to rub fiction's face in the dirt, but I want to move into fiction more because I, you know, I can't get into the material that I want to get in documentaries. And so I need to move into fiction. And the story that I want--" "Well what do you want to tell?" "Well the story I want to tell--" and I start telling him the story of a farm worker, ALAMBRISTA! You know, a guy who wants to--works in the field, follows the ripening of the crop, but never gets the chance to ripen himself. I mean I'm sure his eyes glazed over. Signed me to a three-year contract. And here, the top guy--actually probably the number one Agent in the United States then, with Mike Dann saying, "Help this guy," you know, "treat him personally,” signed me to a three-year contract and I never talked to him again. I'm sure he never knew what to say to me. And I never called him. I don't call people, you know, I don't know what to say. And I would have--so I headed--and that year I had an Emmy for the documentary, and I had a Peabody [Peabody Award] for the dramatic show. So, you know, where was I look--I mean, but I was no place. And I fell in to--I was asked to do the launching of a big tanker in the Mississippi, the biggest launching in the world of a tanker. And I could only do it with two other people 'cause there were security problems. So I set up automatic cameras and I shoot two and I had two other Cameramen. And I cut a two-minute commercial and it was for Exxon. And they loved it and they wanted me… And they asked me how much I get at the Agency and I said, "100 bucks a day." But nobody could make any money. And I made--that year I did 30-odd commercials and I made over a half a million dollars. [INT: Wow.] And I spent it. You know, I gave it away, a lot of it. But I still had a lot of money. [INT: When you say you gave it away--] And then I quit, because it frightened me. I had never made any money before in my life and I started feeling arrogant. I start thinking, "I make more than the President of the United States." And, I don't know. It made me very uncomfortable and I quit. [INT: What did you learn from--] So I'm strange.

INT: What did you learn from making those commercials? Besides that?

RY: Oh, I did 30-odd--I enjoyed them. I never did anything that wasn't, like, and institutional commercial. I didn't--I mean I did some hair stuff and I did Volvo. I won a bunch of awards. And I was asked to be, sort of be a junior partner, Lee Lacy [N. Lee Lacy and Associates], a big commercial house, and people wanted me and it was very flattering and I never did anything different. I wore the same kind of clothes I always wore and I didn't entertain anybody. And I made a lot of money and it made me... And I did some musical things and I did all kinds of interesting things. I had a lot of fun and I think it's a great way to learn. But it was in the service of small ideas. And it wasn't the direction that I wanted to go, and I was afraid that--I was afraid of myself. I was afraid that I would be so affected by the fact of the money, and the way I was being treated, that I would not be true to myself, I guess. And I quit. Just when I was offered Frank Perdue, all the chicken commercials [Perdue Farms], and the Peace Corps wanted me to do all their commercials. And I had done one political campaign for a governor and I was asked to do the one for Massachusetts. And all kinds of things start coming to me. You know? Which I never even asked for. And it frightened me. I didn't have the maturity.

INT: What did you do when you stopped?

RY: Gosh. [INT: I mean did you regroup or were you busy on another project?] No. Well I then went off and did the documentaries. And I've done a number of things that I paid for myself. You know, when my Sicily film [CORTILE CASCINO] was canceled, when they, you know, I--later, 28 years later, Channel 4 in England and Lasette in France wanted the film on the air. And I went back to Sicily and found the original family, and with my son and daughter-in-law, terrific filmmakers. And then I went off to do a feature film to finance the making of the documentary [CHILDREN OF FATE: LIFE AND DEATH IN A SICILIAN FAMILY]. [INT: Got it.] 'Cause it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

INT: Have you had filmmaking companions along the way? I mean are there other filmmakers that you've sort of would call your friends? Or allies?

RY: Well, you know, one of the things that I feel sad about is that I haven't had... You know, I've not really been part of a community. The first six years of my film life, I was. [INT: This was where?] I was in a--well, after I left Harvard [Harvard University], I formed a cooperative with two other guys named Murray Lerner and Lloyd Ritter. And we made the SECRETS OF THE REEF and a number of other documentaries. And whatever we made, we put in the pot. And whoever needed the most, took it. And it lasted for six years and then I left them. [INT: This was in New York?] That was in--well, lots of times we were in Marineland, Florida, making the marine films. And in New York. And it was a very dialectical process, of course. And I taught them the shooting, 'cause I was a Cameraman. But everybody did everything and we flipped coins about things. And I finally found that not what I wanted. And then I--so I left them, and that's when I wrote the script for, that Merian Cooper [Merian C. Cooper] liked. And then I went off to do television specials. I went off to the South Pacific for Lowell Thomas [HIGH ADVENTURE WITH LOWELL THOMAS]. And I would do things--then I did a film called THE LIVING END. Really, an interesting film. I was actually the Direc--that's, I think, my first DGA film. I directed it and I was the Director of Photography [Cinematographer] as well. I did it--did both roles, completely. Lit it and directed it.

INT: Are there, or have there been, 'cause this was the community for those first six years that you guys were companions making these films and that fell apart. [RY: Yeah, that's six years.] Have there been ever, you know, I mean is there another filmmaker or another Director along the way where, you know, either they've said, "Bob, come look at my work" or you've done the same with them? Or has it really been much more of a private process?

RY: You know, the truth is, until I actually--when I went up to do an episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, I stayed on the set for about 15 minutes and watched another Director. I've never been on a Director's set while he was filming in my life. I mean, I'm sort of an odd... I'm not... I don't mean this like I'm saying something negative to say something positive, you know? There's some of that in it. In other words, I think there's something you learn by doing. On the other hand, there's a tremendous amount you can learn from other people. And I learned photography, because I'm actually a very good DP [Director of Photography], I learned it all on my own. When I shot NOTHING BUT A MAN, which is very well-shot, and lit. I did experiments, lighting experiments and, you know, look, I was brought up in the lab, so I knew the sensitometry, the gamma strips, and I did little films for the lab so that they could learn certain things for themselves. And that’s how--I was self-taught. I went to Pensacola [Pensacola, Florida] so I had four months in the Navy of some basic kind of training, which taught me about circle of confusion and things like that. But then I read Minor White and I was very interested and I read still photographers and I took a lot of pictures. Not so much stills, but I studied photography and I learned lighting zones, I learned the, I guess it's the--I forget the name of the system. The zone system. [INT: Zone system of, what's the name?] But I learned to, you know, do that myself. But I never studied formally anything in this field.

INT: Did you stu--but now, you told me--[RY: Not until Strasberg [Lee Strasberg].] I was gonna say, in terms of studying, you did study acting to some degree.

RY: Yes. I never studied anything about directing or filmmaking, but when, in 19--when I was 42, I had actually registered in a number of acting classes with Stella Adler and with--[INT: Lee…]--oh gosh. [INT: The New School--] Spanish name. [INT: Oh.] Anyway, it'll come to me. But--and I paid my fee and I'd go to the first class and then I would quit because I was embarrassed. And it was only thanks to an Actor named Marty Priest [Martin Priest] who was in NOTHING BUT A MAN and then in THE PLOT AGAINST HARRY. He talked to--he was in Strasberg's special class. And he talked to Strasberg about me. I don't call him Lee because I never had that relationship with him. He spoke to him about me and I was invited into his special class. I don't know how come, but he invited me, personally. And I went. And it was fantastic. And I stopped everything for six months and I just acted. And I kept it up and I went to the class, a year, about. And I found that a lot of things that I had learned in making documentaries were things that he was teaching in his acting. For example, situation was something that was very important to the Actor, that he was teaching. And I had learned that--[INT: Define that a little bit.] Pardon me? [INT: Define it a little bit.] Well like I said, before I sort of gave an example of a guy's flirting with a woman and another woman comes in the room and says, "Honey, it's time to pick up the kids." Right away, there's a situation created in the audience's mind. They know the guy's married and his wife just came into the situation and there's a triangle. Did that woman know he was married? [INT: Right.] You know. But at that moment, by her reaction, you're gonna learn something about who that woman is. By the guy's reaction, you'll learn something about who he is, and the woman as well. And then it might turn around that maybe she was talking to the woman and you'd have to do a flip-flop because it's a gay woman situation.

INT: But would you say that the thing you were learning in terms of the similarity between the documentary and what Lee [Lee Strasberg] was talking about in terms of situation, are we talking about the clarity of relationships? Or are we talking about an event?

RY: No, we're talking about sit--we're talking about situation. Situation--well, there are many levels of situation. There are situations, there are psychological situations, there are physical situations. You know. They impinge on each other, but it seems to me that you try to be aware of these situations as much as you possibly can. And then you bring those into the consciousness of your writing the script. [INT: Got it. But I'm just trying to pursue it a little bit more, so if like if someone is asking you to define situation, you gave an example of situation. But if they were to define it, because I know that one of the things that, for example, in the Strasberg [Lee Strasberg] stuff, they'll use the word "event," which will have in it--there is stuff that is happening at that moment. And I'm curious whether, you know, for you, this is a word that either has a similar definition or--] I hadn’t really… The event didn't mean anything to me. And I read all his stuff a long time ago, but maybe just forgotten it. But situation for me, would be also the physical situation, the temperature, the time of day, the… But, of course, most, I mean, very importantly, the psychological situations. The situation that the guy is in. He has to go to the bathroom, for example. He has to pee, terribly. And yet every time he looks over in the bar, somebody comes out, somebody goes in. Or the time when he has an opportunity, now he could go, but he's in the middle of telling the story that he feels is so important he has to tell, that he tells the story and makes himself more agitated, his, you know, his bladder's getting fuller. I mean those are situations. But the audience, to appreciate them, has to understand them. If the audience understands a situation, it can become hilarious. A guy needing to pee and somebody gives him another beer. And when he looks at the beer, is he gonna drink it again because he sort of drinks it out of habit? Or is he holding off on it because every time he takes a drink he's gonna have to--more need to pee.