After the speech shots below.  If you want to see more, please click on More Pictures.

Bill: I think I will try this speech from a chair. I have been on my feet a lot and I am bit tired. I am looking around, thinking of this as a bellwether group. I am seeing some students and some people from the community. There are mostly students, some who have been in my classes and some who have not. Better not repeat myself. When I was imagining what would happen here and what I would talk about, I discussed with the organizer the possibility of what is going on in film and television from my perspective and the possibility of exploring the kind of activities going on at Alfred on a general level and also to speak to those students interested in pursuing a career. I really didn’t know how many people would be attending and it is great to see the level of participation of both students and faculty at Alfred.

 I thought I would speak about a little of the feeling I had when I was trying to decide what to do with my life. I remember how painful it was. I think about my three children, ages 9, 12 and 13 ½, and wonder how they will find their way and decide what they will become. They have role models and there is a precedent there that we do some kind of work. There is me, and my wife gives the female perspective. They see me having fun and interesting times and meeting interesting people and sometimes there are hard times. I am so passionate about what I do that I can short circuit and become cranky, but basically I am happy about what I do, I am satisfied. So this kind of work may have an appeal. They may choose to go into something in this field but how will they know for sure.

 I went through a dial period where I thought about urban planning and then switched the dial to English professor. It made me think about how you look back when you travel and you see a person who has gone past the part where you find yourself and your career and you have made a commitment to something and your passions are engaged. If you are lucky enough to get to that point, it is a great gift. 

You can look back and say that you didn’t really plan it but you went from point A to B to C and back to B and on to skip to G and so on. You could watch it all happen in a way that makes sense. You could never have predicted how it would happen. Then you think about intuition, that kind of way of facing one thing while you are planning something else. It is not always rational and your intuition is heightened when you are open to the world and you are not always closed in. A lot of that happens when you are at college and university. There are all kinds of learning going on in the classroom but there is also a lot of learning going on about who you are and what you want and those things that you feel strongly about. There was every reason why I should not have gone into an acting career. I was never extroverted and never spent a lot of time with people. I came from a large family where my father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse and many of my brothers and sisters went into the medical profession. I can’t remember exactly what it was that made me decide that I wanted to do it. No one told me that this was what I had to do. I never thought of becoming an actor or having the honor of becoming an actor. There almost was an intuition about seeking out that thing that gave me the greatest health and satisfaction mentally. I realized that I had discovered something I could be obsessed by, to the point I could not think of doing it. I had been driven to do it intuitively. I wanted to go further. I actually trained as a director, it was all kind of following the actor’s pursuit, and then I went to NY city at a time when it was scary to make a choice like that, when you don’t have a job and you don’t know many people. But somehow it was healthier for me if I went there. I was going to feel better about choosing to do that. If I had continued to do something safer, I would not have been satisfied. It is important to find those things that guide you, that kind of intuition. 

Note: Bill now takes questions and they are often difficult to make out on the tape. 

A young woman asks if he remembers her mom at the State College of Oneonta.  Bill obviously did not know her but politely fielded the question saying that she was probably in another area of the college and said to say hi to her mom.  

Question:  My grandfather was your driver-ed instructor and he wanted to know if you were a better driver now? (Lots of laughter) 

Bill:  You think you pick a kid and you are safe. This one is digging up the bones. My gosh, first of all, it is his grandfather! Isn’t that wild. The truth is I have a terrible driver’s record. It wasn’t his fault, because he did a good job and I learned a lot.  It wasn’t well applied. It’s a weird thing but I had three years in a row in the month of November where I had accidents. Now that is weird it kept happening in November but I knew that by the time it was October, I better wake up because the month of November was a bad month for me.  I haven’t had an accident since I realized that this was a bad month for me. I think I have corrected my problem. 

Question: In the aftermath of Sept 1, would there be a change in the way violence is portrayed on TV and in films? 

Bill: I think there have been other times of conflict in the world and movies have been made such as Vietnam, and it was a very creative time. In WWII, there was a lot of war movies made that you could say were violent. Sometimes we use movies like we use our dreaming life. We have nightmares and they help you work through things. I don’t know if not having violence in movies is an answer to what we are trying to deal with. It is part of a larger responsibility to why stories that have violence also have meaning, and in the resolution of the story, there is some kind of journey beyond the violence as an end in itself or a way to see violence in the context of being human and what we must be very vigilant about. I guess I am hoping that there will be less senseless violence. There have been some movies I haven’t been interested in watching because there is an anti-social message in the center and it kinds of aggrandizes violence and I think that is kind of destructive .to go in that kind of direction. It is not making an intelligent statement. I hope there will be some better movies made, but I wouldn’t take out an insurance policy on that. They are very hard to make well. I have been signed up for movies that I thought would be fantastic and they haven’t turned out so well….  we can only hope. 

Question: What have been your greatest delight and your greatest disappointment in dealing with the Hollywood set? 

Bill: Well some people think it is glamorous being a movie actor or being in movies. The actual process of making a movie is an interesting thing, largely because it is a contained unit.  You get a cast and crew together and they shoot from anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks. In that time you have a lot to accomplish and you have highly skilled people, each member of the crew has their own special thing to do. There is kind of joy being around people who like doing their job. It sounds kind of simple. There is nothing like it, in a way it is like a military operation or a safari. You plan and plan and plan in the pre–production and then you wage the campaign and bad behavior is not conducive to the good as a whole. I am inspired by the way people work in the film community. It is kind of a beautiful thing that after 12 weeks you don’t see them any more. People get tired of each and other and if you work with someone for 10 years it is a different thing. They are very bright people and they have to work really hard.  You see a prop guy in the morning and someone says to him, “we need an 1870’s kerosene lamp that explodes and we need 10 of them and we need them in 2 hours or 2 hrs 15 minutes! (Bill mimes a person rushing around) Then he comes back and says, “here it is!” It is a little miracle. I have been in situations where there is part of me that is very nationalistic and I am very proud of the American film industry. I have worked in other countries and they are strong in many departments, but there is something that we have developed that makes us particularly good at teamwork and we have strong roots. So that is the good side.  

What are the aspects of the work that are disappointing? I guess I don’t tend to think of those as disappointments. There have been times when a movie hasn’t come through. The hardest time is when you are involved with a movie, usually a studio movie, where how the story being told is being determined by marketing.  They will screen the movie for audiences and give them cards to fill out .The audience will tell you what they think the movie should be like, providing a set of data for the movie executives who then think this is what the movie should be like and in order to please these people we must do this. It never seems to work. It’s so easy to make a subjective judgment and sit in a group of people who are laughing a certain way when they fill out the cards. Then you try to oblige the cards and they stop laughing. It is a most discouraging thing to see a movie come out weak due to that kind of process. Then there are movies that are picked to be produced, that are stupid, especially when giving them what they want isn’t what they really want.  You can also see a mediocre movie with a huge marketing campaign and it makes a lot of money, but it is still a bad movie. I don’t know if those are disappointments.    I think I have gotten used to that. 

Question:  Questioner asked about his directing in films. 

Bill: Yes, I directed a movie, The Virginian, for TNT. Then I directed a project for television called Night Visions. It was summer and I was kind of doing it as an exercise. Then I have a couple of things planned.

(Next section is garbled) I have a friend who fixes propellers on ships at sea.  He is a diver. A lot of these propellers are now fixed at sea. There is a story about a huge natural gas tanker that transports the fuel that we all need. (Supertanker?) But once you get to 40 million or 70 million dollars there are so many films that are worked on that one may get neglected or forgotten. I have a part in trying to push it along. 

Question: Indistinct question but I am guessing it is about working with problem actors. 

Bill: I haven’t been around the naughty boy actors. . I find for the most part I don’t have that (problem) and I have worked with a lot of actors. There are reasons to be self-occupied, but no I haven’t really experienced any problems. I feel lucky that I have some kind of a reputation as an actor and not a prima donna.  Where for some reason they are slightly wary of me, I don’t know why. Frankly, where they feel like Pullman is here so (he claps hands indicating it is time to get down to work). And I think I don’t take myself that seriously. . I feel lucky that way. I tend to feel that I get respect. I am respected and I respect back and we are able to work together. That hasn’t bothered me. 

Question: What are your favorite movies? 

Bill: Well, they are all kind of like children.  You can’t forget about some because they have a weird leg or something. Because the odds are so stacked against you, I think it is the ones that were least like to succeed and then succeed are the ones I would choose. That would be one called The Last Seduction that was a noir movie and nobody would buy it or distribute it. Then somebody thought it was a better movie and they re-released it and it got great attention. And in a way While You were Sleeping was like that. It was not thought to be a very special movie because they didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it and Sandra Bullock had the bus movie (laughs) coming out, Speed, and they thought she would be good in this movie. The director was John Turtletaub and the first script was a bit mediocre, and I remember thinking, terrible script. Turtletaub was a great director and I loved working with him and Sandra was great to work with and so much fun. She is a real live wire. I remember finishing the movie and doing the last scene and we were in a car at a crossroads. I don’t think it even made the movie. Then someone called cut and Jon thanked everyone who had been in the movie. Then Jon said to Sandra and me, ‘come and walk with me” and we walked into this cornfield and he said “I don’t have any idea if this will be a good movie.” We were kind of laughing and crying, we didn’t care. He said (Jon) “ I had so much fun working with the two you that all we have to do is remember this moment standing in this cornfield saying we had fun. They can’t take that away from us.” Fortunately, it turned out and was what it was meant to be. Sandra’s gone on to other things but she has a fond place for this movie. There is a way where the movies become special children. It is great they turned out so well because you had so much fun doing them. 

Question: Do you plan to do any more animated voice over like Titan A.E.? Is it as enjoyable for an actor to do a voice over, as it is to do a regular part? 

Bill: I don’t like it very much and find it harder to do. I had never done it before and maybe it was the way it was made. It was really hard work. You think of it as the easiest job possible, you just use your voice, but that movie took four years to make. They get you in to record some of the dialogue but they are still writing the script and certain things get animated without you doing the line. Someone has interpreted the line for you and the character has been animated saying the line in a certain way and you must perform the line with the reading they have. Yeech! (Bill has a look of distaste on his face). You find yourself saying things in a certain way and you hate people when they say things like that. I don’t think it hurt the movie when you see it all together but it was painful and I felt like I was like a prostitute or something (laughter). I can’t believe this but I am doing it for the money (he shows great disbelief) 

Question: I hear you are a collector of Japanese tools and swords. Is this true?

Bill: I don’t think so but I would like to have a collection of Japanese tools, but I never thought about having that. There might be a version of that because I end up travelling a lot when promoting a movie. I usually travel a lot in Europe, South America and Asia. You have a certain amount of time on your hands and I have always liked hardware stores. I find it very interesting; it must have come from being in Hornell where there is a hardware store on Main Street that was my favorite place to go. In those days they had everything and they could help you.  You could buy one screw and today you have to buy 300 of them. Each country I would go to I would ask them to take me to a hardware store. So I went to Italy, England, France, and there are different things in each country. But in Japan there is a store that has knives and sword-like things and I remember a store called Tokyo Hans, Tokyo Hands (Bill motions with hands) and that is a hardware store. I remember I went crazy. One thing they had was a knife for pruning shrubs and bells that attach to doors. It is like going to an anthropology museum when you go to a hardware store. You realize that people live differently from us and they have different things for their homes. They hang the most beautiful bells on the doors so you hear when people come in and each one has a different tone. You could hear very specific qualities of sound. It wasn’t like we have one of those. They have so many different ones to choose from. That is probably where the sword thing came from.

Question: Question impossible to make out but it was something about the process of making a movie.

Bill: When you invite someone to a set they usually comment that is was boring. It is surprisingly unglamorous. It is long with lots of periods between action when you watch. Then really dense periods of time where you are working to get things exactly right that are based on not how you deliver the line but how you are positioned (for example) lying down. Bill then says, “I am a very strong Man” from this prone position. You say, “ I don’t think anyone is going to believe this!” (Much laughter) There is all that sort of thing and it is very unglamorous. There are lots of little things that take up time - lipstick powder and paint and lots of things like that.

Questions: What are some funny things that happened while making a movie!

Bill: (Bill makes a comment about pranks and says something to the effect that they really aren’t his thing)

It is harder to respond to the prank, forget the prank itself. Have there been funny things that have happened? Yes, Usually embarrassing, stupid things. But pranks… Sandra Bullock is a big one for pranks. You know that is a side of her I find tedious. (Bill laughs) They are always doing them (pranks) and I am always saying standing on the set “my room is filled with toilet paper.” And they are all standing around laughing. I just can’t get in the mood for that stuff.

Question:  What do prefer acting in, comedies or dramas? 

Bill: You know I keep flipping back and forth and you are really lucky when you can keep alternating them. I really enjoy comedy a lot and I like doing something where you explore some of the more difficult aspects of what it is like to be human. I think about Sept 11 and it is part of what it is to be human, it is not all fun. You find out what it is to be human when you are tested. You have to confront where your belief system lays, who and what you rely on in trying times, and how valuable you find things when trying times happen. I do not think of myself as a standard comedy guy and people who do comedy (as opposed to drama?)  are very different, but I do like comedy. 

Question: What was it like to work with Mel Brooks? 

Bill:  He was a guy who was pretty special. He was such a sweet, generous guy and very helpful to me. Spaceballs was my second movie. I had a little part in one movie and then boom, Spaceballs. You don’t think of it as important, and I did appear in tights (much laughter). And I had a big wedding scene. For me it was a big deal. It was shot on the MGM studio where the Wizard of Oz was shot. It was shot in the same sound studio as Wizard of Oz and we had a scene that was like the Wizard of Oz. In a lot of ways it was intense for me, to walk into The Commissary where all the actors from all the movies and TV shows go for lunch and breaks. I was walking in behind Mel Brooks who was saying hi to Arnold Schwarzenegger and other famous actors and they would look at me and say hi. And then they would say, I should recognize you. I felt so out of my depth. There were times it was rugged cause Mel can be rugged, as is the process of making the movie and the ‘new guy’ syndrome. There was Rick Moranis and John Candy who were the new comedy generation, and Daphne Zuniga who’s a girl, who Mel could just (makes a motion of pushing some one around) There were moments when I didn’t want to get prickly but I just didn’t like that.  

 John Candy would always be there for me. There would be a way he would stand up for me or look out for me. Sometimes comedy can be a free for all. Sometimes someone would say I am going to hit you and then you are going to stand there and I am going to hit you again. I didn’t like that part. That is like two funnies for you and nothing for me. Because I wasn’t used to that arena they would get 17 (funnies) and I would get one. . John would say, “Bill’s only got one card, here take one of my cards.”  “I don’t need this line Mel, how about if Bill takes it.” He was really generous and that is very rare.  

Question: For someone in the industry I was wondering why you and your family don’t watch a lot of television? (Paraphrased) 

Bill: Well there are a lot of reasons why we have opted out. One, for us it was time. When you are trying to find time for schoolwork and extra-curricular activities, finding time for television is hard. Number two is the commercials. The selling of things and how they are sold, you can’t control it. The thing that kids should be told what they should have and what they should want. And (thirdly) the other thing is you can’t predict what is coming up and what may be appropriate for one family might not be appropriate for our family. It is a really hard journey in this world; the hardest thing parents have to do is to create an environment in which you don’t open all the doors to the assault of the world that is out there. There are stages in your life where you don’t need all that stimulation.  The fourth thing is that there is a sort of crankiness when you come off television where for the next half to an hour they aren’t themselves. It seemed to change their behavior in a negative way. These are the reasons we have chosen to do this. There are times when it is really hard. My daughter might say they all know about this and laugh about it and I am the only one who doesn’t know why it is funny or what they are talking about. Then you have to sit down at the table with her and say, how important really is it that you are aware of the thing that every one is aware of, or is there something you are reading about that is interesting that they are not aware of. Maybe you value what you have as much as you could get watching television.  

It’s a lot of work but now it is so funny, no one wants to turn on the television.  We do watch movies. It is tough to know movies. PG-13 covers a wide range of material. Is there really something that the 12 year old can see as well as the 8 year old?

Question: Would you allow your children to watch the movies you make and how do you explain to them the kind of movies you make? (My best guess at the actual question) 

Bill: No, no, no, no. I wouldn’t want my 8 year old to see Lost Highway. Because I make the movie doesn’t mean I think it is good for everybody. I make a lot of dark adult stories and then I’ll do Casper or Newsies or something like that. It is nice to have something that everyone can watch. I have to be careful with it (explaining what he does to his kids) but fortunately there are certain movies where they don’t ask me questions about it. They don’t even think to ask what is this movie you are making or what is it about. Sometimes when I was making Lost Highway they would ask me what is this movie about or what did you do today? I can’t say I was covered with blood, writhing around on a brick floor while my brain was splitting apart    because I was going to be executed for killing my wife. You find another way to explain it. I was in a really uncomfortable situation and I found a way to get out of it. (Laughter) You kind of filter a little bit. 

Question:  Someone asks a question about plays appropriate for children at a certain age. (I think!) 

Bill: There are resources you can look at. That could be tailored exactly to what you are doing. Samuel French and Drummond Play Services offer plays that are geared specifically for that age group. They are usually plays written to involve the most number of people. They are very clear about whether you want it a half an hour long or an hour long, you can pick what you want to accomplish. The great thing about theater is to create a conducive environment for creativity, to create an environment where they can explore and you give them permission to do that.

Lots of applause!