Mark Rydell: On Acting, Directing and Woody

Mark Rydell believes that all good film directors should act in a movie from time to time. “I think directors need to stay in touch with the agony of narcissism,” he said with a laugh.

“Actors are extremely brave,” Rydell said. “If they are really good, they are willing to expose all of their personal secrets.... I think directors need to know what it feels like so they can best nurture actors to productive performances.”

While directing such acclaimed films as “On Golden Pond,” “The Reivers” and “The Rose,” Rydell has managed to emerge from behind the camera to act in several films, most notably as the brutal villain in Robert Altman’s 1973 film noir “The Long Goodbye.” And now Rydell is in the ensemble of Woody Allen’s comedy “Hollywood Ending,” which will open Friday.

Rydell calls Allen “a comedic legend” and compares him to Charlie Chaplin. But when Allen called him about the part he told Rydell: “I’m not a very good director. I am a good caster. I know how to pick my actors and trust them.”

In “Hollywood Ending,” Rydell turns in a sparkling comedic performance as Al Hack, the longtime agent of Val Waxman (Allen), a neurotic, nervous film director whose career is on the skids. When Waxman suffers from hysterical blindness before starting production on his big-budget comeback film, Al must shield the fact from the cast and crew.

Though not close friends, Rydell and Allen had known each other over the years. Allen, he said, had asked him on occasion to act in his films, but Rydell was busy directing his own projects. But when “Hollywood Ending” came around, Rydell was available. “He called and said, ‘I have a great part for you.’ I said, ‘Send me the script.’”

Allen, who rarely gives out complete scripts to his actors, paused when he heard Rydell’s request. “Then he said, ‘OK.’” The next day a script arrived at his Marina del Rey home with a messenger whose duty it was not to leave Rydell’s side until he had read the script.

The 68-year-old Rydell, who also is West Coast co-artistic director of the Actors Studio, likes to rehearse his actors before he begins directing a film. “I come from the school of sitting around the table for two weeks examining every detail of the material, working out relationships with the actors, so they know what they are doing, bringing them to locations, so they can get comfortable.”

Working with Allen was a totally different experience. “He doesn’t rehearse,” Rydell said. “He will have a four- or five-page scene and he says, ‘Learn the dialogue.’ Of course I learned it. You come on the set and he’ll say, ‘Walk me in. You go over there and then you go into the kitchen and get this. OK. Roll.’ So you’re thrust into the stormy scene of uncertainty which does mobilize a kind of electrifying vitality and energy because it is very improvisational.”

Rydell would wait for Allen, whom he described as friendly but withdrawn, to comment on what he had done in any given scene. “It’s natural to turn to the director for that moment of approval” after the scene, Rydell said.

“It’s something I learned from Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda,” he said of his “On Golden Pond” experience. “I was somewhat intimidated by having to tell these legends when they were wrong. So after the first scene they turned to me with the innocent eyes of a 19-year-old with a hunger of approval. It made me feel, ‘Oh I see, if you are a really good actor you don’t know what you have done. You get lost in the moment.’”

As Rydell recalls, after his scene, “Woody never said a word to me.”

Rydell clearly gets a kick out of acting. His blue eyes dance as he talks affectionately about his “Hollywood Ending” experience, as well as about the satisfaction he receives teaching playwrights, directors and actors every week at the Actors Studio.

In fact, Rydell is among a handful of film directors who seem to enjoy acting as much as directing. Sydney Pollack, the Oscar-winning director of “Out of Africa,” is currently in “Changing Lanes” and has a recurring role on “Will & Grace.” He also has worked with Allen before, in “Husbands and Wives.” Martin Scorsese was in “Round Midnight” (1986) and “Quiz Show” (1994). Sir Richard Attenborough, an Oscar-winning director for “Gandhi,” returned to acting in the ‘90s, appearing in the first two “Jurassic Park” blockbusters and playing Kris Kringle in the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street.” And Quentin Tarantino acted on Broadway in “Wait Until Dark.”

‘Directing Is a Very Paternal Occupation’

Born and raised in the Bronx, Rydell trained to be a pianist at the Juilliard School of Music and began his career in the early ‘50s as a jazz pianist in New York and Chicago. He left that world behind because of the proliferation of drugs among the musicians. “Heroin was the drug of choice,” he said. “Knowing that I have an addict’s personality in that a little is good but a lot is better, I knew I was in danger. So I went back to college and went to the Neighborhood Playhouse” in New York.

The minute he started acting classes he knew he wanted to be a director.

“I enjoy leading,” he said. “I am a good father. I have three children. Directing is a very paternal occupation. You have to have a healthy environment for our children to grow in. You have to lead them in a way that they don’t resent or rebel against.”

James Lipton, host of the Bravo series “Inside the Actors Studio” and dean of the studio’s drama school at New School University in New York, has known Rydell for more than 40 years. “We were both actors in soap operas together,” he said. “He is a wonderful actor. He is one of those four or five directors along with Sidney Lumet who are known as ‘actors’ directors....”

“There are few directors who really understand and who can encourage the actor and when the actor needs guidance can give it to the actor in terms other than ‘just stand up now and walk two paces’--all of those dumb directions.”

His directing methods have paid off handsomely. Rydell’s films have garnered 26 Academy Award nominations and 31 Golden Globe nominations. Both Hepburn and Fonda won Oscars for “On Golden Pond” (1981). Bette Midler received her two Oscar nominations--for “The Rose” (1979) and “For the Boys” (1991)--working with Rydell. And earlier this year, James Franco received the Golden Globe for his performance playing the title role in the TNT movie “James Dean.” Rydell received an Oscar nomination for directing “On Golden Pond” and was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for “James Dean.”

Rydell cut his directing teeth in the ‘60s doing such episodic TV series as “Ben Casey,” “Gunsmoke” and “I Spy.” He made the transition to feature films with “The Fox” (1968), an erotic drama based on D.H. Lawrence’s novella. “The wise producers at the time would seek out hot television directors because you didn’t have to pay them very much,” said Rydell. “I was a very successful TV director. I had a lot of awards. I was sent this script because they couldn’t afford a major director.”

His next film, “The Reivers” (1969), starred Steve McQueen and Rupert Crosse, who received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor. Both of the actors died at a young age. “I was thinking recently Steve and Rupert and I, we put $100 in the pot every week,” Rydell recalled. “If you smoked you didn’t get the money. I won every week. They both smoked, and they both died of cancer.”

Rydell says McQueen was the toughest actor he’s ever directed. “I was in school with him at the Neighborhood Playhouse,” said Rydell. “He was paranoid. He thought everybody was out to do him in. It was very difficult to deal with him, but he was the most extraordinary screen personality.”

In dealing with Allen, the gregarious Rydell said he “forced himself” on the director. “I faced this problem, he’s so withdrawn. I thought how am I going to make it seem like [our characters] are like brothers--in the picture we were so close. So I grabbed him, I hugged him. I saw the crew over his shoulder alarmed that anyone had the audacity to touch him.”