Maureen Stapleton: Knowing Without Feeling
"I think we can try to know too much about some things, and I don’t see too many examples of people feeling too much about anything that doesn’t concern them."
INTERVIEWER: Why do you act?
MAUREEN STAPLETON: If I new the answer to that! I really don’t know, it’s like something you want, and you plan on, and you save for, and you go to school, and knock around, and you eventually get a job, and you never … I’m beginning to ask myself that now, and I’m thirty-four and gray-haired. It’s a lot harder than I thought. I don’t know why. Once you start, it’s your craft, and you don’t—there’s nothing else. But, anyway, acting is what I know how to do. And I guess it doesn’t matter why, does it? —From Actors Talk About Acting by Lewis Funke and John E. Booth.
In 1990, thirty years after the above interview took place, I asked Maureen Stapleton if she felt the same way.
MAUREEN: Read it to me. (I do). Yes, I feel the same way. That is not a sentiment that has an expiration date on it. I’m not going to change on that. I’ve changed my mind on a lot of things, but not that. I don’t know what chemical reactions or responses made me want to act. I think what drove me to the movies and to what later became known to me as acting was a desire to escape. It’s like what Tennessee [Williams] says about people escaping reality—”What has reality ever done for us?” I think that’s why I went into acting, but I don’t know, and I do not care. At all. What was so great about working with Mike Nichols was that he would leave me alone to feel whatever I chose in the situation, using Neil’s words [Neil Simon in Plaza Suite], and his concern was to make sure I was in the right place to do whatever it was I felt was right. For me. What was right for Neil through me. We didn’t talk a lot, thank God. It wasn’t like that awful conversation after sex—”What are you thinking?” It was either good acting or it was good sex. You knew it when it happened. Why ask about it? Just do it again. As only you can.
JAMES GRISSOM: What about when others talk about their theories on acting?
MAUREEN: I’m polite. I listen. But I don’t care. I don’t mean that cruelly. Please point that out. I just don’t care. I just want the work. I want to enjoy the work. I don’t want to go to someone’s house for dinner, and all they talk about is how each dish was planned for, prepared for, fretted over. And I have been to those dinner parties! I don’t see the point. Let’s eat! The same with acting. Let’s act! Or, if I’m watching, let’s enjoy the acting.
JAMES GRISSOM: Do you think this discussion of acting—all its efforts—was more common among those at the Actors Studio?
MAUREEN: No. Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, I was at the Studio, so I did witness a lot of it, but actors of all stripes tend to talk—and way too much—about acting. I mean the process of acting. I love to talk about acting I’ve seen and loved. I love to sit and marvel at movies and what actors did in them. That I enjoy. But once an actress told me that she was thinking of the pain of childbirth to get a certain effect, and I can’t watch that movie anymore. She ruined that movie for me.
JAMES GRISSOM: Was that Shelley Winters?
MAUREEN: Yes! Who told you that? [It was Zoe Caldwell.] Well, it’s true. I don’t want to beat up on Shelley, but she goes on and on about her work, her journals, her diaries, what she asked her analyst, books she’s read, research she’s done, and it’s always just Shelley. I always see Shelley in every single thing. And I like Shelley. I think Shelley in a good part is terrific. But I don’t want to hear about her episiotomy. I don’t want to hear about anyone’s surgeries to play a part.
I also want to say that when we talk—when we go from Claude Rains to Katharine Hepburn to Joanne Woodward—I love that. I love to talk about acting and movies and plays. I like telling you about things you didn’t get to see. But I don’t like trivia. I don’t like this competition to show what is known. I’m much more interested in what is felt. That’s how I am. I’m a sop, and I admit it. How did it make you feel? What did it do to you? What did it remind you of? I would rather hear about how a performance changed a viewer than how an actor got to a performance. And this craving to top everyone else! I was at an event, taking questions, and if I would say something nice about Van Heflin, which is easy, because I adored him and working with him, I have to hear three people interrupt and say, ‘Well don’t forget to mention that he won an Oscar for Johnny Eager.” I know that. I fucking know that. I knew it before they were born. But what does Johnny Eager have to do with my experience of working with Van in Airport? Then someone else will pipe in with Patterns, and then the credit roll. By now nobody is interested in what I have to say. The thread has been lost. This showing off of one’s knowledge annoys me. I don’t even think it proves that a person cares about the work. I think it proves that they want to show off. I think they feel that their knowledge makes them superior, even to someone who was in the film they want to ask you about.
I don’t like that. I’m tired of all the knowing without any of the feeling. I think we can try to know too much about some things, and I don’t see too many examples of people feeling too much about anything that doesn’t concern them. I don’t think what I’m saying to you today will age. I think I’ll stick by it thirty years from now.
Interview in 1990
Lenox, Massachusetts