Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Laila Robins: With Clint Eastwood he casts off of tape. So I met him in the makeup trailer getting ready to do the scene. And we ran lines and he was directing as well as being in the scene. And he has this crew that he works with all the time. So he literally just waves his finger and they start the cameras. And I would say, you know, can I do this or that? And you go, well, let’s just do it again. He was like so relaxed about everything. 

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us, as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden:

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Laila Robins, was recently seen in Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Horror Stories. She also has a recurring role as Colonel Grace Mallory on the hugely popular Amazon series the Boys. Laila starred opposite Amanda Seifri in the Apple plus Limited series the Crowded Room and opposite Joshua Jackson and Alec Baldwin in the Hulu limited series Dr. Death. She also recurred memorably as Kataaterina Rostova on the hit NBC series the Blacklist. And she had a major arc playing Pamela Milton on the final season of AMC’s the Walking Dead. Among Laila’s many film appearances are Eye in the sky, side Effects, Blumenthal, Concussion, the Good Shepherd, An Innocent man, welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, True Crime and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. You may have also seen her in such TV series as the Handmaid’s Tale, Homeland, Deception, 30 Rock, so help Me, Todd Bull, Person of Interest, Blue Bloods, Damages in Treatment, the Sopranos, Law and Order, and the series lead in Gabriel’s Fire opposite the late legendary James Earl Jones. Laila’s work on Broadway includes Heartbreak House, the Tony nominated play Frozen and the Real Thing, as well as Off Broadway in the quartet of Richard Nelson’s Apple Family plays. She’s also appeared around the US in numerous stage performances in shows such as the lady from Dubuque, Antony and Cleopatra, A ah, Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Sore throats, Tiny Alice, Mrs. Klein, the merchant of Venice and many productions at the Guthrie in her hometown of St. Paul, Minneapolis, including Hedda Gobbler and the lion in Winter. Over the years, I have enjoyed thoroughly quite a few of Laila’s on screen performances in shows of which I’m a big fan, including everything she did in the Walking Dead, Homeland, the Blacklist and the Boys, Laila never hits a false note, even when the stories in which she’s acting brilliantly defy reality of note. Laila also happens to be married to a favorite StoryBeat guest and someone to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude. The phenomenal actor and singer Robert Cuccioli, who originated the roles of Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde in the musical I created with Frank Wildhorn, Jekyll and Hyde. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s a truly terrific privilege for me to welcome the extraordinarily talented actress Laila Robins. The story of Be Today. Laila, welcome to the show.

Laila Robins: Thank you. Oh, my God, I’m exhausted after that. I didn’t realize I’d worked so hard.

Steve Cuden: That was only skimming the tip of the surface there. You’ve done a lot of stuff. But let’s go back in time just a little bit. At what age was it when you first thought to yourself, wow, I want to be on the stage or I want toa act? When did this start for you?

Laila Robins: Well, I kind of dated back to a birthday I had, and we went to see a friend of mine. His birthday was like, March 13th, mine’s the 14th. And we would always celebrate our birthdays together. And we went to see 101 Dalmatians, the animated version. And I took one look at Cruella de Vile and I thought, I must play that role. I was probably about eight at that time. So I went home and started writing a play about her so I could put it on in my basement.

Steve Cuden: So you started as a writer, not an actor?

Laila Robins: No. I made my debut actually in Know the Christmas Nativity. I played Mother Mary. I believe that was my debut at my Lutheran church, my Latvian Lutheran Church in St. Paul in Minneapolis, actually. So that was probably the first thing. And then I do remember distinctly, like, a trailer with a stage that would open up that came to our park near the elementary school, and they opened up this stage and it was a Shakespearean group. And I remember just being fascinated with those people and had a little autograph book and went backstage and wanted all their signatures and everything.

Steve Cuden: Did you then start to act in grade school?

Laila Robins: No, no, no, no. I mean, no, no. I mean, I think I really started doing plays probably in high school, high school musicals. also we did like, the Diary of Annan Frank. I played Mrs. Frank. And, mostly like that. It wasn’t like I was a child actress or anything like that. I mean, this is in the Basement of my very own home, trying to drag kids in to watch me. but then my dream kind of changed to music. For a while, I wanted to. To be Joni Mitchell, so I kind of pursued that idea for a while.

Steve Cuden: You know, I was going to ask this down the road, but you’ve brought it up. So in. I’m curious, do you want to do musicals? I mean, you’re not known for musicals.

Laila Robins: Oh, gosh. Well, I’ve done one. I studied opera, but I don’t have a Broadway belt kind of voice.

Steve Cuden: Not like your husband does.

Laila Robins: No, no. Boy, he’s got the lungs.

Steve Cuden: He does.

Laila Robins: I have done one musical at the Pasadena Playhouse called dangerous beauty. Amanda Mcbroo.

Steve Cuden: Seriously? Michelle Browerman and Amanda McBroomanda McBroom.

Laila Robins: Yeah. And Cheryl Coller directed. And the song had a more of a folky thing. It was more of, like, an Aldanza type of feel to it. Had this kind of Spanish kick to it. And I got away with it. You know, they didn’t boom me off the stage, so I did sing one song in a professional musical.

Steve Cuden: So as a total weird sidebar, I mean, that’s really weird because I grew up with Michelle Browman. I’ve known her my whole life.

Laila Robins: Oh, my God, you did. Oh, my God. talented. She.

Steve Cuden: And she’s been on the show twice, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, do you think that when you finally found acting as something that you really were going to do, did it feel like it was a calling to you, or was there a conscious effort to go into it as a profession?

Laila Robins: I mean, I think it was a call. You know, it was an interesting thing. My parents are immigrants from Latvia, and my dad was a super positive guy, but my mom struggled with depression, and as a child, I saw that the only thing that really lit up her face was when she would go to the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. They’d come home from the play, and I could see that something had invigorated her or made her happy or excited her. So I think as a child, it kind of went, oh, what’s that? You know, what makes mom smile? And, of course, we all want to please our parents. So I think I sort of thought, well, that could be a fun thing to do. Sort of gravitated towards that. But God only knew if I was going to be able to have a profession. And I had. I was a music major, undergraduate, classical piano and opera, but did all the plays and all the musicals and summer stock and all that, and then went to grad School, which then sort of changed my path.

Steve Cuden: And that was at Yale?

Laila Robins: Yes, the Yale Drama School. Yeah, from my mfa.

Steve Cuden: Just the Yale Drama School.

Laila Robins: That was quite something. Oh, my God. I remember going to the audition in Chicago because, you know, they do these regional auditions and I went there and I was wearing little, like, purple corduroy pants, a little Peter Pan blouse with a little red bow, and all the girls were in Danskin leotards and smoking and whipping their hair around. And I looked at my mother and I said, mom, I’m not an actress. And she said, you just go in there and do your pieces. And, I was very lucky to get in because they only took 10 men and. And seven women.

Steve Cuden: Well, clearly your mother was correct.

Laila Robins: I don’t know. She had faith somehow.

Steve Cuden: Is that back in the Robert Brewstein days or was he Harvard?

Laila Robins: no, Brucestein had left. It was Lloyd Richards got it.

Steve Cuden: Lloyd Richards, Yeah.

Laila Robins: But Brucestin had left pretty. You know, just before that, I think.

Steve Cuden: So how long were you at it after school? How long were you at it before you started to catch fire? We started to get work.

Laila Robins: Well, I had a very fortunate beginning after my second year of three years of Yale. After my second year, I went to Williamstown and I got to do a bunch of plays there and kind of got my foot in the door, started to meet some of the people that are already working. And after I got out of the spring of my senior year there at mfa, I auditioned to replace Christine Barnky in the Real Thing on Broadway. Okay. But I didn’t get that role. But the following year, Mike Nichols remembered me from that and wanted me to come in and replace Glenn Close. So I auditioned for that. I met Manny Aisenberg, the producer, and Mike Nichols was there again. And Jeremy Irons came in to read with me, and I got the role to replace Glenn. I literally came to New York. That was my first show. I didn’t even have a place to live. I lived at the Penta Hotel across from the Port Authority or whatever. Is it Port Authority? Yeahah. And, then I had to find a place to live. And that was my first show in New York, was a Broadway show.

Steve Cuden: And that was what you were, 22, 23 somewhere in there?

Laila Robins: I was 23. I think I was 23. I was just fresh out of school.

Steve Cuden: So did you think at that time, I always ask this question of actors. Did you know then or did it take a while before you thought to yourself, I really am pretty good at this?

Laila Robins: I think, I had a weird sort of monitoring system in my psyche where I just kind of kept everything kind of calm. It was like, oh, yeah, that’s good, that’s good. But I didn’t, I wouldn’t get too excited about things because I didn’t want to have hubris take over or if I never got a job after that, not to be too depressed about it. You know, I tried to keep it all kind of like equanimous. I don’t know if that’s. That’s the right word, but that’s a good to keep an even keel, let’s put it that way. And so I thought, well, I must know something because I got this Broadway show.

Steve Cuden: Exactly. But you could have gotten it and then failed at it, which you didn’t.

Laila Robins: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: You know what I’m saying? And then you would have, really had to question yourself.

Laila Robins: Yeah. And it was kind of interesting because there were some movies early on that I probably should have said yes to, but I think I was a little insecure about that because I didn’t even think my career was going to go in that direction in any way.

Steve Cuden: Well, now your career is much on.

Laila Robins: Camera, but it’s been, you know, there’s been the occasional thing along the way, but really it’s kicked in in the last 15 years of my career.

Steve Cuden: Do you still wind up doing stage shows or is that pretty much over now?

Laila Robins: I’d love to be back on the stage. I haven’t done a play, I think, in five years, partly because I’ve been, looking after my mom in Minnesota. there’s four girls and we were tag teaming to keep my mom in the family house where I grew up and not put her in a nursing home. So, I didn’t want to take a play because you get stuck and then you got, are you gonna have an understudy or not? And I just didn’t want to inconvenience people. So I was happy to do the television stuff over the last, you know.

Steve Cuden: Years, because that’s a little more in and out, isn’t it?

Laila Robins: It’s more in and out. You can kind of plan it like, oh, go in, boom, hit it, you know, and then, and then you’ll have more time. So I kind of focused on that.

Steve Cuden: I guess you have a preference between the on camera work or stage ors at all of a piece to you.

Laila Robins: I think, oh, gosh, I think I’m more of a theater animal. I mean, it’s kind of in my DNA from having grown up watching the theater and there’s something about the theater process that I understand and love. Being in the rehearsal for four weeks, you know, really being able to do it all the wrong ways before you do it the wrong. You maybe perhaps a good way. You know, with TV and film, I’ve had to learn how to prepare so much more on my own and really be ready to hit the ground running when you get on the set. And especially if it’s a TV show, you get one or two takes, boom, you’re moving on. So I think, initially that part of it was, challenging for me. And also the length of the day in TV and film, I mean, the days are long and there’s a lot of hurry up and wait. And energetically, you sort of have to monitor, you know, how to deal with your energy. Because when you’re on, you’re on. And when you’re sitting in your trailer waiting for four hours, your energy can dip. Whereas I think there’s a part of me that enjoys going to the theater, going in, boom, do it two and a half hours. I control the performance. There’s something about that that I really like.

Steve Cuden: And you can more deeply explore doing it on stage.

Laila Robins: Well, you get to do it over and over again. So you do get to more deeply explore. I remember doing a play with Utah Haagen, Mrs. Klein, and we did it for nine months. And she was so amazing. She taught me how to keep it fresh and to keep it alive. And then we toured for three months. And I do. I like living with it for a while so that it can deepen. And one of my favorite dreams was to do something on stage and then film it. And to some extent we did that with Richard Nelson’s the Apple Family Plays. We did a new one, every year for four years. And then we did them all in repertory the final year. And then we filmed them for pbs. Now, it wasn’t a national release or anything, but it was a tri state release. And I just loved it because I felt like I knew the part so well. It was so deep. I didn’t feel nervous at all. It was so grounded. It was just in me. And to have that recorded just felt really great.

Steve Cuden: I’ve not seen that. I’d like to see that. Is it available somewhere?

Laila Robins: I don’t know that it is. I mean, it was pbs. I’m not sure that one can just get a hold of it.

Steve Cuden: And then when you played it in rep, that must have really sunk it in deep for you.

Laila Robins: Yes. Doing all four. We had to revive the Ones from three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, and then do all of them at two, one night to another night, or if you do a matinee two shows and evening two shows. And I mean, we were just living in of these plays. They were so beautiful. I just love doing it.

Steve Cuden: I’d like to go back a half a step in about UTA Hagen. What did she tell you that, you know, you said she actually helped you to understand how it worked over a long haul. What did she tell you?

Laila Robins: Well, you know, if it’s good writing, that’s helpful because there’s always more to discover. Right? But I remember, early days in rehearsal, she’d say, Laila, you say the lines the same way every day. And I’m like, yeah, isn’t that I’ve made choices. And I’m thinking, I’m going toa say it that way. She said, no, no, no. If I change a little bit, then you have to change, because then you’re really listening and then you’re really responding to what I’ve just done. And we’re not going off the rails. We’re not changing the play. We’re not, you know, experimenting to the level of really changing the value of the moments. But we’re playing, we are playing with each other. And it has to be more spontaneous because she said the only thing that matters on stage is to be alive. It has to be alive, or people can just see it’s by rote, or people just check out. They don’t even know why they’re checking out. It’s because there’s a sense of spontaneity and aliveness that you need to maintain.

Steve Cuden: The great maxim is to be in the moment.

Laila Robins: Yes, yes, in the moment. Truly.

Steve Cuden: Truly.

Laila Robins: And the only way you can do that is to really listen. And all those Steppenwolf actors say the same thing. They it doesn’t matter so much what you’re saying. It. It’s your level of listening that really makes the difference in an actor.

Steve Cuden: Otherwise, the performance has a tendency, correct me if I’m wrong, to feel baked or rotee rather than natural.

Laila Robins: Yes, yes, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: All right, so let’s look at your stage approach or your performance approach in general. When you book a new role on a TV show or when you’ve worked on stage. Beside reading the script, which is obviously the very first thing you need to do, what do you mainly concentrate on when you’re analyzing or breaking down a script? What’s your approach? What do you do?

Laila Robins: I, Well, it kind of depends if I’m coming in as a character that’s already been talked about a lot, you know, in previous seasons, which can be challenging sometimes there’s a story about that. But generally speaking, I go through the script and see what people say about me in the script. Not that it’s true, but just what do other people say about me, what do I say about myself, how do I view myself, what is my status level? I just read the script over and over. As I’ve gotten older, you know, learning lines is a little more challenging. So I really have to beat those lines into my body. And I do it by either being on a peloton or a running machine. I literally cannot be lying in bed learning my lines. I won’t know them. I need to be physically moving my body so that the time I get to the set, if they throw some new blocking at me or they throw this, this is your child, or this is your prop, or this is this, there’s all these new elements so that those lines are so embedded in me that I have that, that foundation to hang on to. It’s like a dot to dot, because within that I still wanna be free. So if you’ve got a dot to dot kind of picture, you know, where you’re drawing the lines, the lines can be squiggly and do all kinds of crazy thing, but the dots are there. So I’m kind of technical in that I want all my dots sort of in place so I know kind of where I’m going, what I’m doing. I look for moments, of change, you know, peripateaic change in the script where something shifts, where perhaps the character doesn’t get something that they thought they were going to get or wanted to get. I also work on the relationships I have to all the other characters that I’m in the scenes with. What do I feel about that person? How long do I know that person? You know, all the given circumstances that you do when you’re enacting school, whatever the circumstances.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that that has gotten easier for you? That understanding of character has gotten easier for you over time or not?

Laila Robins: Yes, I think maybe there is kind of a. I think I trust whatever that process is.

Laila Robins: Maybe, you know, I kind of go, okay, this is intimidating me. But I know that if I kind of do this process slowly over the time that I have to do it, I’ll get some sort of result. It seems to be working out for me pretty well.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, it’s working out really well for you. I Mean, we’re going to talk more in depth about a couple of the things you’ve actually done, but I’m still covering the surface of this, which is important. What would you say is the most challenging aspect of each time you set out to do a new character? Is there something that always comes to you and you go, oh, I’ve got to get through this again?

Laila Robins: Do you know, it’s really just the flow. I want to be able to. The flow of, of the thoughts and the ideas and how I speak them. There has to be a freedom of flow. I can’t be grasping at a word or kind of going, oh, what? you know, that’s the thing about the short amount of time. I love to get a script at least a week ahead of time so that I can really get that flow, that sense where I’m really breathing, where I could stand on my head, I could run across the street, I could do whatever, but I could still have those words. It’s interesting. It’s kind of a language thing. That’s sort of the challenge for me, like just getting those words in my body.

Steve Cuden: Well, occasionally you get nice, meaty, chewy dialogue. You get some of that, and I.

Laila Robins: Have to work really hard at it. When I did, so help me, Todd. Boy, doing a comedy’totally different from doing a drama. You know, with a drama you can sort of, sort of. If you go up, you kind of bullshit your way with a dramatic pause or something, you know. But with a comedy, you, you got to land those lines. There’s a rhythm to it. There’s a. Often the camera stays on you for the entire. Until the punchline. So you have to know those things. I remember being in my hotel room and walking around for like three days trying to get all that stuff in my head. It’s challenging.

Steve Cuden: I’m glad you brought up to help me, Todd. Clearly that’s a different kind of genre than what you do mainly. You’re mainly known for dramas, fantasy shows and stuff like that. If you had a choice, if somebody said to you were going to cast you on a full time on a sitcom next week, would you take it?

Laila Robins: Well, you know, so help me, Todd was a, what do you call it? A, It wasn’t a.

Steve Cuden: It’s a dramedy.

Laila Robins: It wasn’t a studio sitcom. What is it called? A three camera of sitcom, you know, in a studio.

Steve Cuden: Right. It’s a single camera.

Laila Robins: I’ve never done that, so I don’t even know what that’s about. That would be an Interesting thing to oay, but doing. So help me, Todd. I was kind of terrified a little bit. I think I would be more comfortable in a drama somehow.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s your bread and butter.

Laila Robins: I was astound at, at Marcia Gay Harden could learn these paragraphs of things and I think she literally would. It looked like she was learning them the morning of in the dressing room, you know, while they’re putting on her wig or whatever. No, she didn’t have a wig. Whatever. She was putting on makeup. I don’t know, whatever. She really had a kind of almost photograph memory, which I do not.

Steve Cuden: Well, there are definitely people and I’ve spoken to people on this show who have a photographic memory. I’ve spoken to a number of sitcom actors and actresses and they kind of learned pages and pages of dialogue in one fell swoop at night.

Laila Robins: Yeah, I mean, I’m kind of a verbatim kind of gal coming from the theater. You know, I want to say exactly every word. Right. And some writers in TV and film are not that particular about that. And some people really are on the blacklist. They were very particular about verbatim, saying it exactly how the writer had written it.

Steve Cuden: That show, to me was a miracle. It’s a show that should never have worked. It should have never been on TV as long as it was. But it was so watchable. And James spadeater is so enjoyable to watch and talk about a guy who knows how to chew words.

Laila Robins: Yes, absolutely.

Steve Cuden: Just fantastic. I’m going to assume that you had to work a little bit to keep up with him at times.

Laila Robins: Yes. I didn’t have, you know, all in all, I didn’t have that many scenes with, with him. There was one kind of torture scene early on in my, in my time.

Steve Cuden: There toward the end of the series too.

Laila Robins: yes, at the end too. And he called me out on saying one wrong word in rehearsal one day and I was like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. It was just rehearsal, you know, I said, I’ll get that. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it. But he wanted it verbatim, you know, he was one of the producers on it too. Most of my stuff was with Megan, so being her so called mother. But yeah, he held a high standard and I enjoy that. And I want to rise to the occasion and I like somebody kind of, you know, being a taskmaster. I think that’s a good thing.

Steve Cuden: I think mission accomplished. Okay. I think I’ve never seen you not look like you know exactly what you’re doing in what Part you’re what for you, makes a good role. Good. What attracts you to a role when you have the opportunity to name that shot, like a, perhaps a play or some kind of a movie or TV show, Are there parts that you are more attracted to than others for whatever reason?

Laila Robins: I like characters that have contradictions because I think that’s very human and I think that actually makes a three dimensional character. I think some young actors, you know, when I’m teaching a little bit, they tend to make certain ideas about what their character would or wouldn’t do. And I keep telling them, as much as the character would do this, they would also probably do that.

Laila Robins: And it’s that space between those contradictions that can make a character very three dimensional. Because we all have contradictions within ourselves.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely.

Laila Robins: You may not want to reveal those and perhaps the character doesn’t want to reveal them, but they’re inside that character. And that tension is what creates kind of this free zone which makes people want to watch you because they don’t know what you’re going to do next.

Steve Cuden: Are you able to figure that out when the writing is not up to snuff?

Laila Robins: Well, then you have to make it up for yourself.

Steve Cuden: That’s what I mean.

Laila Robins: Yeah. Then you got to kind of make up some stuff for yourself if it’s not really on the page, you know, make some choices. But when you go in with something like that, you know, then you have to kind of pitch those ideas to the director and say, hey, I know it’s not quite on the page, but what if she did this? Or what if she was more like that? Or could she do that and that. And that would kind of show what a flip side. Or, you know, trying to find those moments.

Steve Cuden: Now you don’t have to name names, but has that happened to you a bunch where you go in and the writing’s just not very good? Does that happen to you?

Laila Robins: No, but, no, but I, I do remember and I’m not going to name names that were the show.

Steve Cuden: Yeah, please.

Laila Robins: There was one scene, we had finished shooting an episode and then that night we were starting a new episode with a new director and the new director came in and wanted me to play a particularly climactic scene in a certain way.

Laila Robins: And I said, oh, oh, I don’t think that’s how I would want to play it. I would want to play it like this. And he finally capitulated and let me do it. And then when they were in, the editor, he called me and said, you were Absolutely right. Thank God you fought for what you wanted because it’s totally the right tone and the right approach to that scene.

Steve Cuden: Well, isn’t that nice when you get that accolade from someone who you defied a little bit?

Laila Robins: Yes. And that’s probably not very common.

Steve Cuden: It isn’t common?

Laila Robins: No. With directors, everyone has an ego. All of us have an ego in show business. Don’t want to, you know, rile somebody upse. but if they can work with you and sort of hear you out and you can kind of, you know, come up with some good reasons why you feel the way you feel, hopefully they’ll give you that shot and at least do a take where you get to do it your way, you know.

Steve Cuden: So you have been cast in numerous kind of straight administrators or political types or military types or whatever that is. Why do you think that’s what they cast you as?

Laila Robins: I don’t know. Maybe it’s my pointy nose. I have the only nose you can open a can of tuna with. I don’t know. I think, you know, I have a very sort of, I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for? you know, kind of that preppy look or whatever, you know, I don’t know. I play officious, smart, hard working, you know, whatever kind of gals. I don’t know.

Steve Cuden: You play tough women too? I mean, they’yeah.

Laila Robins: I kind of play the tough’ve.

Steve Cuden: Got backbone and sp.

Laila Robins: I call myself Bossy Pants. I always play Bossy Pants.

Steve Cuden: I have to ask you. Call me whatever, but I love the Walking Dead. I’ve seen every episode of the Walking Dead. I’ve seen all the various series. Forgive me if this bothers you in any way, but you were in a number of really bloody scenes. The Walking Dead. Especially when you had to clean Sebastian’s face after he had died. And especially when you approached Lance at the fence after he had already turned into a zombie. I mean, very bloody stuff. How do you approach that as an actor? Is that. Are you squeamish? Is it difficult? How do you do that?

Laila Robins: Well, it was kind of squeamish, you know, early on when they had, the zombies come out and lay on the ground like they were dead. They looked so real to me, you know, and they. It’s kind of horrifying because they put all the dead zombies on a cart, you know, and it’s a little holocausty there for me. So I was like, like. And they’d lay them out and I was a little squeamish. And then there was a scene with my son, you know, in the jail cell that’s very bloody and glory and things are ripped apart. but I remember early on when I was working on, I got into a. The van, you know, the actor van, to go to the middle of the woods and. And a zombie was coming to get on the van with me. And I was like, oh, God, here comes one of those zombies. And just before he got in the vean, he said, oops, my cheek fell off. I kind of broke the ice, you know.

Steve Cuden: Well, how do you handle that when you know you’re going to be confronted with it because it’s in the script. But how do you psychologically get yourself over that hurdle and you have to then emote at the same time?

Laila Robins: U well, ultimately, I saw them as, you know, artwork, you know, living artwork.

Steve Cuden: Wow, that’s neat.

Laila Robins: And I was able to, I don’t know, maybe it was the exposure to it. After a while you get kind of desensitized, you know. But I mean, when the. When I talked to the producer about doing the show, I said, I have three questions for you. The first one is, you know, do I die a horrible, gruesome death? Because my mom was still alive at that time. And I said, I don’t want her to watch that. And she said, no, I think in the comic book you go to jail. And I immediately said, do I have my clothes on? And she said, yes, it’s a very American show. Incredibly violent, but chaste. And then, because anytime they had anyone kiss on the show, it was all this, you know, is that okay with you guys? Kind of stuff. and then the third question I had was, do I have to kill zombies? And there was a long pause and then she said, I can’t promise you won’t.

Steve Cuden: Do you object to having to kill characters?

Laila Robins: Well, somets. I mean, with zombies, you have to stab him in the eyeballs and stuff like that.

Steve Cuden: In the head. You’d put a knife in their head or something?

Laila Robins: Yeah, yeah. So I only had to shoot one from afar with a rifle, so I got away pretty easily.

Steve Cuden: You didn’t have to actually walk up and slam somebody?

Laila Robins: O no, I didn’t have to stick a knife in someone’s head.

Steve Cuden: All right, so when you’re given a role in a fantasy show, like the Boys or like of the Walking Dead, do you prep those characters differently than you would just a straight drama? Is there something different or is it the same approach? No matter what character you’re playing.

Laila Robins: I mean, for me, it’s been the same approach, really the same approach. And sometimes that’s interesting because it’s more a question of tone. And if you haven’t been on a show and they’ve had like seven seasons, like, or six seasons, Iess with Blacklist before I came on the show.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Laila Robins: I had watched the show maybe one and a half seasons early on, but then I don’t watch a lot of tv, so I didn’t really know what the tone of the show was. And this is a character they’ve been talking about for years.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Laila Robins: Of course, I was stepping into some shoes that a lot of fans were going to expect. A certain kind of thing.

Steve Cuden: There’s even a younger version of you.

Laila Robins: Yes. I don’t know if I’m going to fulfill everyone’s fantasy of what this woman should be. And I’m sure I disappointed some people and I got some feedback that I. People thought it was just absolutely correct. But with the boys also going into that show, they had been working on the show for a while, and I came in late and had to kind of play catch up again and also play a high status character within that, structure. So that’s hard. It’s like very guys have been working together, like, who’s this, you know, and why is she bossing me around? so it was kind of a hard entry too, for me to kind of play catch up and know what is the show I’m in, What is the tone, what is the. And I think in the Boys, it’s kind of a heightened tone. But I played it pretty straight, partly because my character was a pretty straight shooter, definitely. I remember talking to my agent going, oh, God, everybody else gets to be so weird and interesting. And she said, no, no, it’s good that you’re straight because it needs that kind of grounding once in a while. And that’s maybe your job in the show is to kind of do that anchor business.

Steve Cuden: Well, that show is completely bananas.

Laila Robins: I mean, completely insane.

Steve Cuden: It’s completely bananas. I mean, it’s turned the whole superhero mythology completely on its head. And it’s full of sex and full of violence and it’s. It’s completely bananas. And there you are. And you are sort of that middle anchor when you appear.

Laila Robins: Yeah, yeah. So I guess once in a while they got to take a rest from all the rest of it.

Steve Cuden: When you work on the show like that and you’ve got someone opposite you, like a Carl Urban who’s clearly an intense actor.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Does that change you? Does that up your game or does it do anything?

Laila Robins: Oh, yeah. I mean, working with a wonderful actor. Yeah, I mean, Carl was great. We had quite a few things in that whole episode about my flashbacks to my younger self and that young lady did a fabulous job. She was a Canadian hire, I think. I thought she was terrific. We had that intense scene, Carl and I, and I. It’s always fun to work with somebody who’s, you know, so good and he’s lived with that character for, you know, three years and four years, whatever. He just, he completely immerses himself and in fact, he doesn’t really come out of character very much, I have to say.

Steve Cuden: Really?

Laila Robins: Well, no. I mean, he does, but he doesn’t do a lot of chit chat.

Steve Cuden: Does he speak in the cockney all the time? He’s New Zealander, isn’t he?

Laila Robins: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, there’s a bit of that. But he really kind of kept to himself quite a bit between shots. You know, he’d play a lot of back yammen with the hair lady. And you know, I. If you’re on the show like that every day, all day, you got to find ways to relax and you might not want to chitchat with every actor who comes through the door, you know.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Laila Robins: It can kind of take away from your energy. So.

Steve Cuden: And like you say, you had to jump on the train a little bit late in the game. So you weren’t part of that early discovery period that they went.

Laila Robins: Yeah, the earlyt discovery bonding stuff that, you know, happens even when you’re part of a new show.

Steve Cuden: You have also, I think in a greatly cool way, you’ve worked with some huge stars over time, both as fellow actors and as directors. So you have worked with, like we said earlier, James Earl Jones, you. When I was teaching, I’ve retired from teaching, but, I used to show Planes, Trains and Automobiles every year as a test in one of my classes. And so there you were every single year at the end of Planes, Trains and Automobile. So you work with Steve Martin and you Claire Danes and Homeland and James Spader, obviously, and people like Brian Cox. When you’re going to work opposite a really famous person, do you come at that differently or is that also the same prep? No matter what, do you treat them differently on a set like you would someone you’ve never seen before?

Laila Robins: no.

Steve Cuden: And I don’t mean deferentially or anything. I mean just the.

Laila Robins: No, no. In fact, I probably, you know, maybe you prep A little harder because you want to make a good impression on somebody. Like. Yeah, that’sure you don’t want to come in and waste someone’s time or make them feel like they got the wrong person, you know, so it kind of, as you said, it kind of ups your game. It makes you poised for, you know, success. You got toa land it. it’s exciting, it’s thrilling, it’s wonderful. it’s fun because they’ll often throw you something new, you know, which what is what good actors do. And then that can make me do something new. And it’s like playing tennis with someone who’s better, you know, and they didn’t.

Steve Cuden: Get there by being bad, they got there by being great. Right. So you’re working opposite someone that has figured out how to be great or they are great.

Laila Robins: Yes, yes.

Steve Cuden: And the same with the directors. Now, you’ve clearly worked with some amazing directors. You work with Clint Eastwood.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And De Niro U. Huh? And John Hughes and Peter Yates. And you’ve worked with some amazing directors. Do you think that you learned anything from any of them that you can share with us? Is there anything, any particular lesson you learned from any of those great directors?

Laila Robins: I think with Peter Yatesats early on, I come from the school of, like, self deprecation. Maybe it doesn’t sound like it now, but when I was younger, you know, like, every take I did was like, oh, that’s. That wasn’t any good, or something. And he would just say, stop putting yourself down. You’re always criticizing what you’ve just done. It was great. Don’t you know, it was just maybe my defense mechanism perhaps, to do that. I don’t know where it came from. I would say with Clint Eastwood, you know, I met him, he casts off of tape. So I met him in the makeup trailer, you know, getting ready to do the scene. And we ran lines, and he was directing as well as being in the scene. And he has this crew that he works with all the time. So he literally just waves his finger and they start the cameras. And I would say, you know, can I do this or that? And you go, well, let’s just do it again. He was, like, so relaxed about everything. That’s part of it is relaxation in front of a camera. That’s a big part of it, too.

Steve Cuden: Was that hard for you to learn that relaxation part?

Laila Robins: I think when you’re young and you’re trying to, you know, do your best, maybe there’s an element of that, that maybe it’s yeah. Wanting to do well. And what does that do to your adrenaline or to your, you know, energy?

Steve Cuden: And he famously, I mean, really famously doesn’t say action. Is that correct?

Laila Robins: That’s right. He doesn’t do all that silence. Okay, Roll sound. Okay. The clipboardink. You know, it’s always a tag. Whatever you do it. I can’t remember what you call it. The clicker thing. He would do that at the end of the scene so he wouldn’t have all that noise and distraction before we actually just kind of went into the scene organically.

Steve Cuden: He doesn’t end. Clap.

Laila Robins: Yes. Thank you.

Steve Cuden: And he will say. I mean, this is. You know, there’s lots of interviews with him where he will say that the way he calls a scene is to say, okay, whenever you’re ready. And then when he’s done, he says, okay, that’s enough of that shit.

Laila Robins: Well, surprise. But you know what? He also gets a whole day’s work done in half a day.

Steve Cuden: Oh, sure.

Laila Robins: Because we were done with a whole day’s work by lunch. And then you have lunch. And then he said, oh, Laila, you want to come and watch some of the. At that point, we could see daily, as I guess, you know, right away. So we went in, watched some of it, and he said, it’s all terrific. Thanks. Bye. You know, I mean, he was very, very. Gave you a lot of confidence, you know that a director who gave you confidence and you felt like, yes, he chose me for a reason, and he’s happy he chose me. And’m, you know, and it’s all going pretty well.

Steve Cuden: He doesn’t seem to dwell on minutiae.

Laila Robins: No. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Now, have you worked and you don’t have. Again, you don’t have to name names. Have you worked with directors who are dwelling on minutia and make you do take after take?

Laila Robins: Probably not in the. You know, I’ve never done a super big lead in a movie where the director is, like, working with me that much, probably Peter Yates, when we did the Innocent Man. But he didn’t make me do things over and over again. He was like, it’s good enough. What are you worried about? Know. But, I did see Robert De Niro. not with me, per se, but I saw him working with other actors within that film where he did go after. Made people do take after take after take. And maybe he, as an actor, likes to do a million takes. But, a lot of actors don’t, especially if there are movie stars.

Steve Cuden: Most movie stars don’t like to do take after take.

Laila Robins: Right. Because they think, well, I kind of. I nailed it, and that’s it. We’re moving on. But, you know. But I think, De Niro enjoys watching things develop, grow, change. Maybe he, you know.

Steve Cuden: Well, one gets the feeling that he just loves being in it. The game, whatever the game is.

Laila Robins: Yes, whatever it is. Just. Yeah, he was. He was very lovely and very nice to me. I really enjoyed my time there.

Steve Cuden: So you’ve already told us one. Do you have any other examples of, like, a great piece of direction that someone has given you that you’ve taken away and maybe used in other work?

Laila Robins: Well, sometimes, I think early on, when I was younger, the thought of playing, a different note against another person, sometimes you can fall into a thing where you start to pick up on somebody’s energy. You know, that kind of Meisner thing where you’re almost like mirroring somebody’s energy or intonation. I see. It happens sometimes when I’m teaching. You want to come in with a different note. You want to come in with a different energy. If one character is talking very slow, I mean, just change it. Don’t fall into being in that same hypnotic place with that other actor. It’s all the same then.

Steve Cuden: Is that more prominent in stage work than in film work where you’re, definitely getting into a rhythm with people on tire piece rather than just little scenes?

Laila Robins: No, I wouldn’t say it distinguish itself that way. I think it’s just a bad habit people have. I don’t know, mimic the other person or mirror the other person in some way. I wouldn’t say it happens in stage versus more than film and a good piece of direction. You know, it wasn’t a piece of direction somebody gave, me, but Austin Pendleton was directing, an actor in a play where the actor had to play somebody a little less intelligent than himself. And the actor said, well, how can I play this guy? I have to make him so dumb, and I’m a little smarter than that. And Austin Pendleton said, don’t think about all the things the guy doesn’t know. Pick five things the guy does know, but there’s only five. And that’s what makes you look stupid.

Steve Cuden: And by the way, Austin Pendleton’s been on this show, too, and thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. so have you ever gotten notes from a director, whether on stage or in a film, that you didn’t know how to handle and you had to try to work your way through it? Maybe you disagreed with the notes.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: And what do you do?

Laila Robins: Well, it was tough because the director insisted that I had to cry in a particular scene about something. And I said I didn’t think that she would, I think she may be crying inside, but I don’t think she would. And he kept pounding away and trying to come up all these examples about why I should cry. And I really, I just, I disagreed. And then I had friends come see the show and by that point I was succumbing to what the director wanted. And the friends would come and say, why did you cry in that scene? And I said, gu. The director told me to.

Steve Cuden: Are you able to cry on demand?

Laila Robins: Yes. It used to be easier, but. Yeah, but now, you know, I don’t know. There was a little patch there, where I couldn’t cry on demand for some reason.

Steve Cuden: Is it sense memory? How do you get there?

Laila Robins: Yeah, sense memory.

Steve Cuden: Sense memory, yeah.

Laila Robins: Substitution. Probably had enough tragedies in my life now that I can call upon.

Steve Cuden: You know, if you live long enough, you’re going to go through a few.

Laila Robins: Yes, that’s true.

Steve Cuden: It really is true.

Laila Robins: None of us get out of here alive.

Steve Cuden: So, what do you think actors should do to get the most from a director?

Laila Robins: Actors should do to get the most from the director?

Steve Cuden: Yes. Are there questions that should be asked? Are there ways to do things that you’re going to elicit a better sense of direction from a director or something that you better need from the director? Because every actor needs something different from a director.

Laila Robins: I always say, you know, let me know, let me know if I need an adjustment. I think I give them permission. I say, know, bring it on. If you’re not, you know, I’m directable, tell me what’s not working, I’ll adjust it for you. I can adjust. So letting them know that I’m open to criticism or direction. Also, if something that they say then does work to compliment them. Everyone has an ego, so to say. Hey, that was really great direction. Thank you.

Steve Cuden: That always helps, doesn’t it?

Laila Robins: That helps, yeah. Help with everybody, doesn’t it?

Steve Cuden: It does. The old saying is you can attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

Laila Robins: Right.

Steve Cuden: You know, so I’m wondering, I’ve got to assume that you’re able to book gigs these days without going through the whole audition process. Do you still audition?

Laila Robins: No, not always. I just got a job and that was an offer. But no, I still audition.

Steve Cuden: When you go for an audition.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: What is it that you do to prep yourself? Whether it’s a last minute thing or whether you actually have a day or two to prep. What psychological thing do you tell yourself? Or how do you approach an audition so that it’s not painful if you don’t get the job? And it’s great if you do. Are there any tricks or techniques?

Laila Robins: Oh, go that. Yeah. You know, you never know if you’re going to get the job. And it really has very little to do with you. Often it has to do with. It’s not that you’re a bad actress. It’s just that they are looking for something else or they’re matching you with somebody else or somebody. You look like somebody’s mother and they hated their mother. I mean, it could be a million things, you know, why you don’t cast.

Steve Cuden: Oh, you never know why they don’t cast you.

Laila Robins: Yeah. So you can’t take it too personally. Mean, you can feel bad about it and get their job, you know. But there’s so many actors out, so many talented actors out there. So I don’t know. I try to get off book as much as possible. Cause these days, you know, it used to be where you really would hold the script and just sort of eat it. Now you, you m. Like, because you’re filming yourself now, you want it to look like you’ve memorized it.

Steve Cuden: So you, like everyone else, don’t go into an office anymore. You do everything on camera at home.

Laila Robins: Haven’t for a long time. Yeah, haven’t. So we’re doing all of it. You know, we’re doing the lighting. We’re doing. It’s. It’s a. It’s quite an ordeal setting up the equipment because we don’t have a room in our apartment to have the equipment just set up all the time. So it’s setting up, you know, lighting. Get someone to help you, you know, but kind. I also do like it because you get to do as many takes as you want and then you get to choose the one that you think is best. Right.

Steve Cuden: Of course, that is a little advantage in the room.

Laila Robins: Like, you get that one shot and that’s it.

Steve Cuden: You know, because if you go into the room, you may just get that one reading and that’s it. Right?

Laila Robins: That’s it. Right, right. But other people really like being in the room because they want to schmooze with, the director. Know, the schmooze part was not so easy for me. I kind of wanted to show you what I can do with my work.

Steve Cuden: You’re talking about when you go in for an audition, what they call the chit Chat or whatever it’s called.

Laila Robins: Yeah. Because sometimes my head is already, like, in the character, so it’s like, ohh. Yeah, Right. Oh, yeah. Okay. And thenom, you know, going into the. I kind of like staying focused on the work.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s kind of important, especially as you have already said that, you have to work really hard to remember what you’re trying to do. So if that’s the case, then you don’t want to get thrown off of that.

Laila Robins: Right, Right.

Steve Cuden: Is that also true on set where you’ve got the lines well cooked into your head? Do you try to not be dealing with other folks on set because they’re going to throw your game?

Laila Robins: It’s thought they’re going to throw my game. It’s just they may pull from my energy. You know, it takes energy to talk to people you don’t know.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Laila Robins: And then people chitchat and they want to get to know you, and it’s like, that’s all good. But if I’m going to be shooting all day long, I tend to keep to myself and I tend to leave the set and go to my trailer. I’m not antisocial because I love talking to people. But when I’m working, I have to. I have to protect my energy.

Steve Cuden: Okay, and what do you do when you’re in your trailer? Do you read? Do you write?

Laila Robins: Do you. What do you do? Just lay down, you know, put my feet up, hydrate, you know, make sure I’m eating properly that day. Stay focused on the scene. It’s just quiet. It’s not that engagement with somebody that’s just taking energy.

Steve Cuden: That’s just an energy drainer is what that winds up to.

Laila Robins: Yeah, a little bit. It can be. It can be. I mean, especially if you’re going to be there all day. If you’re the person who’s going to do three scenes in one day, but the third scene, you know, you’re running on fumes a little bit. So you have to protect your energy, that’s all.

Steve Cuden: And probably even more so if it’s night work.

Laila Robins: Yes. Oh, God. Night shoots. T like night shoots.

Steve Cuden: Don’t like night shoots.

Laila Robins: I become a pumpkin after 2am M. Forget it.

Steve Cuden: I want to talk to you for a moment about teaching. You’ve already said you’ve taught for a while and you, Which is a great thing. I love this question, which is, what is it you think you learn from your students when you teach?

Laila Robins: I feel it forces you to articulate your process and to kind of try to turn it into a system of some kind. Something that’s, like, learnable or clear enough. You have to organize your thoughts, and in having to speak them, I think I learn about my own process. I learn a lot about. Oh, yeah, that is what I do. That is what I think.

Steve Cuden: You tend to, I think, remind yourself of the things you perhaps already know.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Sometimes you learn something really new. But frequently, as a teacher, I found that I was. By teaching it, I was reminding myself of all the various moving parts to being a writer, to being an actor. And it’s nice to have that reminder, sort of instead of trying to remember it when you need it.

Laila Robins: Yes. No, no, no. I mean, I haven’t taught, recently. I think probably three years ago was the last time I taught down at HB for UDA Hagens School. But I enjoy. Yeah, I guess they’re kind of. The students are showing me a version of myself when I didn’t know how to do that particular thing or something. I remember Larry Sacaro asked me to teach at Fordham, and I said, oh, I don’t know. I’ve never taught before. I don’t know if I could teach. He goes, oh, you’d be surprised what you have to teach. He was saying, don’t worry about it. You know, there’s a lot to teach, lots, and a lot of them don’t know a lot. And it’ll be very basic. And obviously, I like working with more advanced students better because it’s more interesting in a way, you know.

Steve Cuden: So what makes an ideal student? I’m saying this for the listeners who are either in school or they are thinking about becoming an actor. What should students do that you think will help them to get to a career?

Laila Robins: I think staying very open to criticism or to someone trying to teach you something, often you can take it very personally and get defensive and feel like, well, there’s nothing wrong with what I’ve done, but the teachers are trying to help you. That ego thing has to go away and really take in what the teacher or the director is saying and saying, okay, I’ll try that. I’ll try that. You know, in some ways, me coming from the Midwest and coming to Yale, it was kind of a good thing because I hadn’t already been to New York, and I wasn’t jaded, and I wasn’t. I didn’t feel like I knew everything. I was kind of green, you know, in a way. And I came very open. M. And if a teacher said, you know, we’re gonna do an exercise where you’re a tree. I mean, I got into it because what else was I gonna do? You know, I wanted to glean whatever they had to offer. And you may not always agree with everything in a program that you attend, but why not explore a particular idea or a particular way of doing something? And then when you leave the school, you take your little toolbox, and then you see what tools work for you. But when you’re in school, it’s about staying open to all the ideas. Why wouldn’t you.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that there are tools you learned back then that you’re still using to this day?

Laila Robins: Yes. I mean, yes. I mean, the first year class was all about Chekhov and the given circumstances and the historical context of a play and playing actions, you know, and where are you coming from and where are you going? You know, where you coming from when you first come into the scene? Where have you been? What’s just happened? All those things. I remember when I did Heartbreak House on Broadway with, Philip Bosco, I played, Lady Utterward. And there was a whole thing where I, you know, pulled up in a carriage and got out of the carriage, and then I come through the door, and right before I would go on for about five minutes, I would fantasize what that journey was.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Laila Robins: What I was seeing out the windows of the carriage. What were my feelings about home? What did I see that was familiar? Oh, my God. Why didn’t somebody sweep this sidewalk? why isn’t anybody here at the door for me? And then make my entrance?

Steve Cuden: And that just shot you into the scene perfectly, didn’t it?

Laila Robins: Yeah, it led up to it. I was already within the world and the play. I wasn’t making an entrance because what I found is that I’m not afraid to be on stage. What I’m afraid of is entering a stage. I learned that.

Steve Cuden: Oh, why is that?

Laila Robins: Well, because often, Well, luckily, I mean, I’m blessed to have played a lot of leading roles. And I found once I’m on stage, I’m totally comfortable. But that anticipation of entering the stage and that audience being there is something energetically that is sort of scary for me. And I used to, when I was younger, have kind of a. Antagonistic, respondes. Like, well, yeah, okay, I’m gonna go there and show them. And then I realized, oh, no, no, no. They’re all just little naked children out there, and they’re just little children, and they want me to do well, and they’re hoping I do well.

Steve Cuden: Oh, they Definitely want you to do well.

Laila Robins: Yeah. And so why not have a positive energy about that? But, there is something about entering the stage.

Steve Cuden: So that’s a huge difference between camera work and theater is that you actually have the audience. Your audience on a camera show is usually the director and maybe some of the people on set. But when you’re doing stage work, the audience is actually a, actually a part of your, your evening’s performance, isn’t it?

Laila Robins: Yes, yes. And they’re different. And they’re different and they do affect your performance.

Steve Cuden: Every audience is totally different.

Laila Robins: Yeah. So you don’t know. Exactly. I mean, they’re the other character in a way, you know, And I really learned a lot about that in the Richard Nelson plays, the Apple family plays, because our audience was very, very close to us in the Ansspacher at the Public Theater. In fact, the rug of our set, some of the audience members feet were on that rug and we had shares. Literally a person would be two feet away from me during the play. They really became a part of our play. You know, we could smell them.

Steve Cuden: You could smell them. You can hear them making noises, no doubt.

Laila Robins: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: And all the resting.

Laila Robins: Snoring.

Steve Cuden: Snoring. Oh, wow. Well, now that’s not necessarily a good sign. If they’re snoring, you might have a problem. I’m assuming that doesn’t happen very often.

Laila Robins: No, that just. I just flashed on that because Chris Walkin did that in Coriolanus, I guess a woman was there with her husband, husband was sleeping and he walked up to the woman in the play and said, you wake him up.

Steve Cuden: Half a step back again. I assume that you believe in education in the arts, education in being an actor, an actress, that. That’s important. I know there are people that don’t believe in it, think you don’t need it. I’m assuming you do.

Laila Robins: I can’t make a sweeping statement that there’s probably a lot of actors who’ve done very well nevering about acting as an academic, no doubt idea of any kind. I think those are few and far between. And I’m not sure those people can sustain a performance on stage. Sometimes you see that and not always. Not always, but sometimes you see if a person is mostly film and TV and they come to the stage, they really don’t have the proper technique or tools to make a performance. Hit the back row. It’s a different technique.

Steve Cuden: Well, we have had over the course of the 110 or 20 years of Hollywood at this point, a pretty significant number of Stars that were not stage trained. And they aren’t stage actors. They are camera actors. They’re film actors. the one I’m thinking of most prominently, is Jack Nicholson, who really has not done a lot of stage work, if any, and that hasn’t hurt his career any. But that’s his thing. That’s him.

Laila Robins: And that’s not to say after a career like that, that he couldn’t just be given a couple of notes like, you know, speak up or whatever. Of course, I mean, he could probably.

Steve Cuden: Do it, but you look at Brando and De Niro and Pacino and people like that. They’re all stage actorse Jack Lemon, they’re all stage actors. And I’m a big proponent of the theater leading two film, not the other way around.

Laila Robins: I would agree with you.

Steve Cuden: Well, thank you. I have been having the most marvelous conversation for just shy of an hour now with Laila Robins, and we’re going to wind the show down a little bit. And I’m just wondering, in all of your experiences, your many experiences, can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny?

Laila Robins: Well, I did bring up Christopher Walken earlier. I have a few things. my first sort of professional show. No, no, actually, I did one before that, but up at Williamstown, I was cast, in Chekhov’s, Anton Chekhov’s the Ivanov and Christopher Walkin. And Diane Whies was the wife, and I was Sasha, the young girl who’s in love with Chris. With, Ivan.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Laila Robins: And I had this terrible young actress habit of. Because I was in love with him, I would touch him a lot, and Chris didn’t like that. He’d say, lya, you touch me again, I’m gonna have to hit you. At the end of rehearsals. He’d say, this is going to be a disaster. And then finally, we opened the show, and the director went away, and he started changing things, changing stuff. I said, chris, that’s not how we rehearsed it. He said, oh, the director went away. We do it how we want now. And then once he left me on stage, in the middle of a scene because he thought he heard the air conditioner come on, and he didn’t like that. And the stage manager’s desk was just off, right? So he held up his finger like, I’ll be right back, walked through an imaginary wall, went up to the desk and told her, I told you not to turn that thing. She said, it’s the rain on the Roof. It wasn’t the air conditioner.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Laila Robins: He left me alone on stage, you know. Toendnd.

Steve Cuden: What did you do?

Laila Robins: I think it was a scene where I was in his office, so I just kind of played around with stuff on his desk. I had to do that with Jeremy Irons, too, because there in the real thing, there’s this cricket bat that he goes to retrieve, and it wasn’t in the right place backstage. So he’s running her,

Steve Cuden: Aw.

Laila Robins: I can hear him running back and forth backstage looking for this cricket betat. And I was on stage, you know, for a good minute by myself, going, mmm, m. So I don’t know, I think I started eating some fruit or something. I just try to keep it interesting.

Steve Cuden: Was it real fruit? Not plastic fruit?

Laila Robins: No, it was real.

Steve Cuden: This is what I love about the theater are the things that go wrong.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: Guns that don’t fire, doors that don’t open. Things like that. Where people come on, they’ve got the wrong costume on or they’re in the wrong place. People missis ceues, all those things. I love those stories. That’s really great. Okay, so last question for you today, Laila. You have shared with us already a tremendous amount of really useful advice. I’m m wondering if you have a piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to those that are starting out in the business or maybe they’re in a little bit, trying to get to that next level.

Laila Robins: You know, the business is so different from when I started. My heart goes out to the kids who are starting in this business because so much of it is about social media and all this other crap that has nothing to do with acting. And I’m sort of glad I didn’t have to go through all that. I mean, when I was young, all I did was focus on the craft. Just the craft, the craft. Just keep working, keep doing as many plays as you can. You know, meet more people. A lot of it’s about connections, staying friendly with people, staying in touch with people. They’ll think of you for the next play. They do. I have a bugaboo. Be on time, be punctual. This is very important. You may not think it’s important, but it’s very important to be punctual. It’s disrespectful not to be punctual. That was one of the things my teacher told me in college, and I took it to heart, and I believe it to this day. I don’t know. I think there’s so many distractions in today’s. World and all that stuff. You know, all the children know their angles in their face and how to do the pose and this and that. But it’s the internal work. It’s the internal. Find a good teacher. Find a good acting teacher. Challenge yourself with different roles. Stay involved with the craft. It’s a craft. Don’t get all caught up in trying to become a star or becoming famous or some people are in it for all different kinds of reasons. You have to love it for the craft or it’s going to show.

Steve Cuden: You definitely don’t want to be in it for the money.

Laila Robins: No. No, you don’t. What they say about the money is you can’t make a living, but you can make a killing.

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Well, that, that’s what you say about in the theater, as a composer, as a lyricist, a writer. You can’t make a living, but you can make a killing. My Training always was 15 minutes early is on time.

Laila Robins: Yes.

Steve Cuden: On time is late. And late is unforgivable.

Laila Robins: Yes. Well, see, we agree again. That’s a.

Steve Cuden: There you go.

Laila Robins: We’ve agreed up on there you go.

Steve Cuden: That was all really fantastic advice and really important, especially in today’s, scattershot world and fragmented world, it really is important that people learn their craft, learn to do what they need to do, and come in and be on time and ready to go.

Laila Robins: Ready to go. And that shows respect to your fellow actor and actors. And I would say another thing to keep in mind, which sometimes is challenging, is that different actors work in different ways, their processes are different. And sometimes you might be an outside in person coming in the other guy’like mumbling, and he’s finally going to get a performance out here somewhere. And you’re coming at it from completely two different ways. But just have faith that somewhere in the middle it’s all going to work out. But it’s very difficult through that process because you’re not particularly getting maybe what you need to feed, what you want to do or where you think it needs to live. But give time and respect and space for the other person’s process, which is not always easy.

Steve Cuden: I love that. I think that that’s spot on. Laila Robins, this has been just a wonderful hour plus on, StoryBeat today, and I can’t thank enough for your time, your energy, and especially for all of your great wisdom.

Laila Robins: Thank you. It was so much fun. Thank you, Steu.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of todays StoryBeat. If you like this episode, m wont you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Tune in, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.