Alfred Molina Breaks Down His Career, from 'Boogie Nights' to 'Spider-Man'

Vanity Fair

Alfred Molina walks us through his legendary career, discussing his roles in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' 'Boogie Nights,' 'Chocolat,' 'Frida,' 'Spider-Man 2,' 'Love Is Strange,' 'Spider-Man: No Way Home,' 'Uncle Vanya' and more.  Director: Adam Lance Garcia Director of Photography: Mar Alfonso Editor: Louis Lalire Talent: Alfred Molina Producer: Madison Coffey Line Producer: Romeeka Powell Associate Producer: Lyla Neely Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes Talent Booker: Mica Medoff Camera Operator: Chris Eustache Gaffer: Vincent Cota Audio Engineer: Rachel Suffian Production Assistant: Ashley Vidal Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Additional Editor: JC Scruggs Assistant Editor: Lyla Neely

Transcript

00:00 The first eight minutes or whatever it is that sequence at the beginning of the film that sets up the whole story

00:05 So they use that for all the trailers. So I'm getting phone calls from friends of mine kind of going

00:09 Oh, you know Fred you're all over the trailer. Are you playing a starring part?

00:13 I said if you go to the bathroom after the credits, you're gonna miss me

00:16 Hello, I'm Alfred Molina and this is the timeline of my career

00:25 I

00:27 Family legend goes that I was about nine years old when I said I want to be an actor

00:43 And I can't imagine that the age of nine. I actually knew what the heck I was talking about

00:47 I had a teacher in Martin Corbett

00:49 He had been an actor and he was a huge influence

00:53 And a bit of a father figure as well and he was also the first person who took me seriously

00:57 When I said I wanted to be an actor I remember him saying quite clearly I'll do everything I can to help you

01:02 But the minute you drop the ball, I'm washing my hands of you and I can remember at the time feeling rather

01:08 Rather shocked by the kind of the abruptness of that

01:11 But in fact, he did me a huge favor because he really made me focus on it

01:15 And he gave me books to read he gave me a whole list of plays to read and he took a real interest many many

01:21 Years later when I did my first play on Broadway, he came over to see it

01:26 He happened to be there the same night that a friend of mine had come over to see the play also and my friend Andy

01:32 Said to Martin so Martin when friends at school was he was he a good actor and Martin said no no

01:39 No, he was a terrible actor, but he was a marvelous show-off and very enthusiastic

01:44 No time to argue. Throw me the idol. I throw you the whip

01:48 Give me the whip

01:50 I

01:52 When I first got the call to come and meet

01:55 Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall in in London for a casting session for Raiders

02:01 I was on tour with a production of Oklahoma

02:05 I dashed back to London to do the interview and can imagine I mean Steven Spielberg was already a huge big star director

02:12 I'd be working with Harrison Ford who was also a big star by that time and I went in there very very nervous

02:18 Very excited we kind of got on well

02:20 He was describing the part and saying like, you know, it's not a huge part

02:23 But you're right in the beginning of the movie and it sets up the whole thing and he just made it sound like a great

02:28 Gig, which of course it was he then said so this character is kind of like, you know Latin American

02:33 How do you feel about that? And I said, oh, that's good. You know, you know, my dad's Spanish

02:37 I was trying to make him feel like I was the only person who could play this part

02:39 Then it was like oh well, thanks for coming in handshakes. And as I was leaving

02:44 Steven just said Oh Alfred by the way, you don't have a thing about spiders

02:48 Do you and I I imagined he meant like those little we call them daddy longlegs in England

02:53 There are those little spindly spiders that come up through the drains in the summertime

02:56 So I just kind of went um, no, I didn't think for a minute. He meant great big tarantulas

03:01 The first day of filming my very first day in front of a camera on a movie

03:12 You can imagine that suddenly this guy turns up with this perspex

03:16 suitcase with all these little tufts of straw in these little compartments and

03:21 Underneath each tuft of straw was a tarantula. They started putting them on me

03:25 And I'm thinking what the and Stephen's saying look scared Alfred look scared. I'm gonna go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

03:32 I'm not scared and they but they weren't moving. So

03:35 Stephen said no, they're not moving. They look fake

03:38 We've got to get them to move and the Wrangler the guy who was looking after they said well, they're all males

03:42 You've got to put a female in there and they'll start to move so he did that and then suddenly I mean

03:48 I don't know how many there were 20 of them

03:50 They went bananas and they're running all over my chest and my back up the back of my head and at one point one of them

03:56 even kind of got like near near my mouth like this and

03:59 It was this is like my first day

04:02 Poisonous still fresh three days

04:06 They're following us

04:08 The week in Hawaii was like my last chunk on the film and towards the end of that week

04:13 Stephen and Harrison and I we ended up having lunch and at one point I can remember

04:18 Stephen saying I don't know what we've got here. You know, there wasn't that feeling of I think we've got a real winner here

04:25 There was no he really was genuinely thinking who knows, you know, and so there was a sense of well

04:30 Yeah, it could be this it could be that

04:32 but I learned very quickly that the level of fun you have on a movie isn't always commensurate with the level of success and

04:39 I came away from that experience having the time of my life on that film not for not just

04:45 Creatively and and working with wonderful people, but also practically I mean my daughter was about to be born

04:51 We were broke this movie kind of paid me like a big chunk of money

04:56 It was like in certainly in my terms and it meant we could have our daughter in a modicum of comfort and security

05:02 so that movie

05:04 Saved my ass

05:07 John Lyons who was one of the producers on the film. He called me and said look, you know

05:17 We've got a bit of a situation

05:18 We're wondering if you might help us out and I said sure I'm not I'm not working

05:23 I'd be happy to do it and he said I'll I'll get you in touch with the director and he can explain Paul Thomas Anderson

05:28 Said I said so what's the character and he said he's a coked-up

05:31 Drug dealer on a shotgun rampage now who's gonna say no to that?

05:36 PT Anderson wanted that scene to be full of nervous

05:44 Tension and the way he created it was that he had the young actor who was playing like my kid

05:51 Letting off these firecrackers and they were full bore. They were very loud and he told that young actor just like them whenever you want

05:58 Don't worry about sound or continuity

06:02 Just do it whenever you want because he wanted John C. Reilly and Tom and Mark to genuinely feel that they didn't know what it was

06:09 Coming but it would have meant I would be kind of reacting to them as well. So he came up with this brilliant idea

06:14 I had earplugs

06:16 So all I heard was the kind of very dull sort of muffled

06:19 But I also had the dialogue coming into my ear so I could hear the dialogue

06:23 So I was able to just wander through this noise without reacting to it at all

06:28 and then the three of them on the sofa genuinely kind of getting freaked out because it was

06:31 in loud

06:34 Now the one line that I improvised that you know stayed in the movie the young actor he lit one of them

06:40 It went really loud and I just turned around and went that's Cosmo

06:44 He's Chinese. I think I said it because I actually forgot the line that I was supposed to say but they kept it

06:50 So I was right over all the proud of that bells are not intended as entertainment madam. They are a solemn call to worship

06:57 Bigger button

07:00 Man was Ella. I've never been married, but if you're free to call me Vianne, we're always

07:05 Keeping things under a lid somehow, you know, otherwise there would be chaos, you know

07:11 So I think that feeling is very human and then if you add to that a character who is

07:15 socially

07:18 Morally repressed dealing with a very negative situation. His wife has just left him

07:24 there's tension in his life and

07:26 Somehow it boils over and has to come out somewhere and it comes out in this almost kind of quasi racist

07:35 Attitude towards Juliette bin Osh's character because she represents freedom. She represents sensuality and joy of life

07:42 which he has

07:44 Denied himself. It was just a feeling of what would it be like to just say no all the time to yourself?

07:51 The London fast Madame Riviere

07:53 Are you not supposed to eat something?

07:55 How would that make you feel?

07:57 I just kept thinking about that and then of course, you know the big the big scene at the end when he finally explodes

08:03 I

08:05 Last house from our director very wisely realized that we're gonna do a few takes of this because we want to recover it

08:15 You're gonna be eating a lot of chocolate

08:17 So I'm gonna shoot this on the last day because there's a chance you may not feel very well

08:22 And he was right eating that amount of chocolate

08:26 I woke up the next morning with a hangover because all the sugar as you know

08:30 The sugar in alcohol is what gives you the hangover

08:32 So I felt like I'd been like on the binge all night long at the end of the day

08:36 I asked the prop master. I said how much chocolate did we eat? He said you had about four pounds. I

08:41 Couldn't believe it, you know, but it was it was delicious. I

08:47 Have something important to discuss with you. I

08:50 Don't have time to chat with schoolgirls. I'm not a schoolgirl Banson

08:59 Salma Hayek who I'd only met once before when she first arrived in Hollywood

09:03 We did a reading and I happened to sit next to her and she saw my name on the cards, you know Molina

09:08 So she thought oh, well, maybe he speaks a bit of Spanish and we got on great few years later

09:13 She says to me I want to do this movie. It's about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Here's the script

09:19 I'd love you to play Diego and then she said but this isn't the finished version over the next year

09:25 Salma was working on the script trying to raise money and so on and she very very nicely and very loyally really

09:32 Kept us all in touch. Here's the latest development. Here's where we are now

09:36 I hope you're still in with this and and I kept writing back saying yeah, I'm still I'm there

09:40 I'm there and she had her dream cast of who she wanted in the movie

09:44 She wanted me and she wanted Jeffrey Rush and she wanted Roger Reese and she wanted Saffron Burroughs

09:48 but then when when Harvey Weinstein got involved he

09:51 wanted bigger names and she

09:54 Dug her heels in and said no. No, these are the people I want. This is my movie in order to

09:59 Stay loyal to us all

10:01 She ended up having to sign some kind of deal where she had to make all these movies for the Weinstein company loyalty

10:08 She showed to us all

10:10 Was really remarkable and so, you know, I won't hear a bad word about her

10:15 And in fact one of the big glossy magazines

10:17 They did a big cover story on her when the movie was about to be released and they interviewed

10:23 You know all the actors that were involved and I said

10:26 that Salma

10:29 Was in a sense a victim of her own beauty because if she was white and male

10:34 Given what she's done in the industry. She'd be bigger than Harvey Weinstein

10:38 That's what I said, and they used that as a quote and the next time Harvey Weinstein saw me

10:43 He blanked me like I had cancer. I mean, I couldn't believe it. So, you know, I pissed him off

10:49 I wear that as a badge of honor, but it was so she was incredible

10:53 She was loyal to the nth degree to it and not just to me to everybody everybody involved in the movie

10:58 What will people say about such a bear

11:03 They'll have never seen a better match I read every book I could find about him about his work

11:11 I went out and looked at every piece of art that was available. I went to look at the murals

11:16 I tried to absorb as much as I could about him. I even read the book that he wrote his own autobiography

11:21 Which is very much a fable in the sense that not a lot of it is accurate

11:26 He bullshitted about himself a lot. And so you had to take it with a pinch of salt

11:30 He was clearly a man of great appetites. Not just food, you know, but sexual appetite

11:35 He was he was very knowledgeable about art. He was a

11:39 Consumer artist in that sense. He knew his history. He knew his place in the world of art

11:45 He understood his responsibility

11:47 But I wanted to look like him as well when Julie Taymor met me

11:52 She said how do you feel about putting on weight? And I said, I'm fine with it

11:55 I can do it, you know

11:56 And I checked with my doctor and I got I got found out how to do it properly

12:00 Without kind of doing yourself too much damage and my doctor has said if you want to bulk up for the movie do it with

12:06 Carbs not protein because it will be easier to lose pasta and rice

12:10 I'm eating loads of risotto and so I'm in this restaurant. I treated myself this gorgeous bowl of pasta really really good

12:17 And I had it was delicious

12:19 The waiter comes and asks me if you know if I wanted some dessert and I said no I'll have another bowl of the pasta

12:24 And he kind of looked at me a little

12:26 Askance and then he kind of went away and then he came back with the second bowl of pasta and as he put it down

12:31 He said there you are. Mr. Molina preparing for a role

12:35 But it was it was fun putting it on

12:40 Took me ten years to lose it, but never mind

12:42 Ladies and gentlemen

12:48 Fasten your seatbelts

12:51 It was a big surprise to me because it's not the kind of movie that I

12:56 imagined myself to be qualified for

12:59 You know you always think of these big action films as being kind of certain actors who are known to be

13:05 You know kind of physical types, and I've definitely never been that the story goes the

13:11 Sam Raimi's wife

13:14 Happened to say to him. There's this actor in Frida. You know he looks interesting and

13:19 Sam being a smart man listened to his wife and as all smart men do and

13:24 He called me in and we had a great meeting and I kept saying look

13:29 I'm up for it, but I I've got to be honest with you

13:32 I've never done anything like this before and I've certainly never worked on a film with all this technology

13:36 You know I've never done much green screen or anything like that, but what swung it was we did a screen test

13:43 Where they gave me an approximation of the costume the big leather thing with the big trench coat

13:49 You know I'm doing all the usual things that you do at screen test

13:52 You know giving them different angles, and then Avi Arad who at the time was head of

13:56 Marvel takes off his sunglasses and goes put these on

14:01 and

14:02 So I put the sunglasses on and the whole room just sort of went oh

14:06 This could be the image, and I think that's what swung it

14:10 The beautiful thing about a lot of the Marvel villains and in fact a lot of the Marvel heroes

14:21 Is that they're all they all become so reluctantly Otto Octavius has this terrible tragedy in his life

14:27 Which changes things and so they become these monsters these villains almost against their will

14:33 And what that does it gives those characters a real level of humanity it gives them kind of moral dilemmas

14:41 To deal with and there's always a moment when they're struggling with that dilemma should I carry on doing this should I pull back?

14:48 Am I being a bad person he's?

14:50 Monstrous thing should be at the bottom of the river

14:56 and that was all in the script and

14:58 Sam wanted to

15:00 Develop that it gave the character a kind of depth and and something that we that the audience can hang on to because it's no

15:07 Longer a two-dimensional character. He's not just the bad guy. He's actually the bad guy with a kind of

15:13 Emotional life and that just I think makes them just so much more interesting

15:23 People were asked me at the time, you know, what was it like doing a gay love story? I said, well, no, it's a love story

15:27 It's very human just happens to be two guys

15:31 But it's it's not there's nothing that they're going through that doesn't happen to anybody in any kind of relationship

15:38 That's close losing the job looking for health insurance

15:41 We need a breather. Yeah, believe me moving out of here's the last thing we want to do loss bereavement

15:47 financial pressure the pain of separation all of those things everybody

15:53 In any kind of relationship could very easily go through the same thing

15:57 Good night, Georgie

15:59 At the time my late wife was

16:06 going into the throes of her Alzheimer's and so there was a lot of

16:11 Kind of a lot of pain involved in in that period and like a lot of actors you kind of

16:22 Part of you wants to kind of use it and so I kind of lent into that a little bit, you know

16:28 I and I and I didn't feel guilty about it because I think my late wife was an actor and I think

16:33 She would have approved and also John had had some experience of loss. And so we knew what we were talking about

16:40 In a sort of very kind of personal way

16:43 Hello Peter

16:51 Coming back 17 years later to play the character again

16:54 No one was more surprised than me and when they asked me I said you realize I'm quite a bit older

17:01 I've got crow's feet. I've got a wattle, you know double chin

17:04 I've got bad knees and John Watson and Amy Pascal. They said no. No, it's your role

17:09 We want you back and we can fix all that, you know, it will de-age you. Yeah, they all that

17:14 We've got the technology we can change everything. So I was delighted obviously

17:17 I mean apart from the fact that it's great fun to play playing that part in all honesty completely changed my life

17:23 I mean it did just took everything to what not just to a different level but also to a whole other group of

17:29 cinema fans

17:30 there's a fan group that loved all the movies like Chocolat and

17:35 Enchanted April and freed and all those movies and now suddenly the children of those people

17:41 Are kind of digging Fred Molina because he's playing Doc Ogg. I'm grateful

17:46 Dear boy, truly. Yeah, you're welcome

17:48 How can I help?

17:51 the original deal I was signed up for it with an option for two more movies and

17:55 When he dies in spider-man 2 I kind of went well, I guess that options

18:01 No longer relevant and it was actually RV who said oh no one dies in this universe, which was intriguing at the time

18:08 But by the time 17 years had passed I'd completely forgotten all about it

18:12 But when it came back, it was a very pleasant shock getting a chance to work with Andrew Garfield and Toby again

18:18 And the Tom was a very intriguing idea

18:21 And then when we were told that there was going to be this thing when these universes all come together

18:27 I thought this is brilliant, but also it was actually quite emotional just you know, they're in their costumes

18:33 I'm in mine and we're just like standing around in between shots just chatting and I remember thinking this is kind of magical

18:39 You know this this kind of thing doesn't happen to people and I think we were all feeling the same thing

18:45 We all kind of like took it in and out of that

18:47 Came this very nice little improvised scene

18:50 Which is in the movie when they're talking about their various aches and pains and stuff like that. Okay. Oh

18:55 My back it's kind of stiff from all the swinging I guess. Oh, yeah. No, I got a middle back thing, too

19:02 Really? Yeah, Matt came out of a real conversation

19:05 They were all having about the injuries they'd had when they were filming their movies. Those guys work hard

19:10 They work hard for those parts. I wouldn't dream of selling the estate without Sonia's consent

19:14 Besides I'm proposing to sell it for Sonia's benefit. This is insane. It's absurd two things were the main attraction

19:21 one was

19:23 Working with a new director or a direct that was new to me certainly and this idea of this adaptation

19:29 Which was both quite radical and at the same time very very true to the original play

19:34 But this is a completely new take on it felt like a new play and that was very exciting, you know

19:40 And and I think the great thing about these classic plays the ones that are really good and have earned that status

19:46 Is that they stand up to scrutiny and then of course when I found out the cast this wonderful wonderful cast of actors Steve

19:53 Carell as Vanya is the most sensational thing

19:56 I know a lot of people in the business know what a wonderful actor he is

20:00 I think in the public sphere people may imagine it was this wonderful comedy actor

20:05 But he's got depth and he's got passion and he's got emotion

20:09 His performance is absolutely stunning and maybe I'm being naive. Maybe I'm thinking of 13th century feudal law or something

20:16 But it was my understanding that the estate passed from my sister to Sonia

20:20 We worked on the backstory of these characters a great length. Why does this happen? Why is he doing that?

20:26 Why is he here and all the clues are in the script at one point Alexander says I loved success

20:32 I loved being famous and now I'm stuck in this this crypt

20:36 Surrounded by stupid people making worthless conversations

20:40 His world has been completely taken away and he describes his downfall as being suddenly out of the blue and we were kind of thinking

20:47 What kind of circumstance in a in our modern sense would create that and we thought well, you know high-flying

20:55 academic

20:56 Maybe he got cancelled and the fact that his wife is younger than him

21:00 Maybe she was a student of his and the notion that

21:03 Vanya at one point really looked up to my character thought he was a genius

21:08 Loved his work loved his books worked hard to support him now starts to realize what a waste of time

21:14 And that has a huge impact on how you play each scene

21:18 That's like the exciting part of the process and it's constantly changing. It's constantly alive

21:23 When I was very very young my dad got me a job as a as a

21:28 Waiter in the restaurant where he was working and if I say so myself, I was a good waiter to the point where

21:35 The management offered me the chance to do a two-week

21:40 Management training course and I turned it down because I've got I've got an acting job. So my father

21:46 My father says what did this acting job? How much are they paying you? I said, well, I'm getting Union

21:52 You know, it's Union's get 15 pounds a week 15

21:54 So how much you making here about 30 35?

21:57 Wait a minute. Wait a minute

22:00 You make in 30 35 here

22:02 Then you go to do making 15. I

22:05 Said yeah, and he looked at me and he had that look on his face that you reserved for the mad and the lost

22:13 he just like stared at me like like he didn't recognize me and

22:19 The only thing I could say to him was this is what I love dad

22:23 And he never quite got it I

22:27 Did disappoint my dad

22:30 Yeah

22:33 I think if my dad had

22:40 lived a little longer, I

22:44 think he hopefully

22:46 would have realized that I

22:49 Hadn't wasted my time. Oh

22:51 Yeah

23:02 My father and I never really talked about my work

23:06 He wasn't kind of phoning me up and saying things like so what are you up to? What's going on?

23:09 Never had that kind of relationship when he passed away

23:13 I

23:14 Went to Spain for the funeral and I was with his widow my step-mother my step-mom and and she drags out this suitcase

23:21 and it's full of like

23:24 clippings and photos and bits from magazines and

23:28 Letters from people that wrote to him saying oh, I just saw Alfredo in this thing, you know, and he kept all this stuff

23:35 but he never talked about it and

23:39 My step-mom said do you want any of this and I couldn't handle it. I said no

23:45 That's why I always I've always tried with my kids my my daughter and my step-sons

23:51 And now my I have a step-daughter now from with my wife. All you can do is just tell them how brilliant they are

23:58 That's all you need to do

24:03 You

24:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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