HACKMAN: No. I still, when I'm getting ready to do a scene, I have a kind of opening night jitters or whatever, but I like that. That's part of the reason that I'm still in the business. There's something at stake; you're not just showing up, you're not a day player, [and] you're not just trying to make a living. The thrill of that is that there's nothing like it, absolutely nothing like it.
Do you work because you have to or do you work because you love it so much?
HACKMAN: It's both. It's still kind of a narcotic. You show up on a set and there are 80 people there waiting for you to do something fun. As I've said before, the pressure of that is fun for me. I don't know, do you like that?
HOFFMAN: Yes, there is something about coming from the stage. It's a different way of acting because you certainly don't have to reach the last person in the audience. I mean, everyone in the movie is sitting in the first row.
Aside from that, we knew we were going to be unsuccessful; that was the beauty of it. It frees you. We were out of the Kerouac generation and Ginsberg and the Beat generation. We were going to spend a lifetime being anti-establishment. That was the pretense. “On The Road,” that's the generation that we'd come from. I've always said, as I'm sure that Gene has, “If you become an actor to make it, you're crazy.” 10% work when we started and it's still true now. 90% of the Screen Actors Guild makes what, $7,000, $8,000 a year. And yet, there is a whole difference between actors that just go into film; they want to be stars and all of that. I mean, we f**king love it.
Do younger actors ask either of you for career advice?
HACKMAN: No actor has ever asked me for advice (laughing).
HOFFMAN: When we started out, we wanted to do good work. We used to have arguments and we were passionate, Duvall and Gene and myself, because each of us had a different acting teacher who taught us a different technique or approach. We'd argue whose was the best and we argued about who did better work. There was passion about that. I have found that, I don't know, but they might come up to you and say, “How can I make it?” We never talked in those terms. “How do we make it?”
HACKMAN: Yeah, a lot of young actors will come up to you and say, “How do I get started?” I always tell them the same thing. I say, “Go to New York, find a good acting teacher.” “Yeah, but I really want to go to California and do commercials.” I'm like, “Do that then!” (laughing)
Does putting your name on a script guarantee a movie will get made?
HOFFMAN: No, it meant more in the old days. There are only a handful of people that get a movie made today. Of course, it's based on what the budget is.
I heard a rumor the other day, and I don't know if it's true or not, but Michael Douglas who's been very, very successful, some studio didn't want him because the last movie he was in didn't do well. I said to my agent, “It's like it never was before.” It's literally your last time at bat. It's like pitching a no-hitter and the next time, they took him out in the first inning and then suddenly they don't start him again. It all comes down to it's a terrible business today because it's so expensive from a studio perspective. It's a terrible business.
HACKMAN: In a lot of ways, it has nothing to do with how good of an actor you are. It really is a bottom-line kind of decision.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
John Cusack and Rachel Weisz Interview
"Runaway Jury" Credits, Photos, and Trailer
