The Talks
Arturo Sandoval: “Focus on today”
Mr. Sandoval, as one of the world’s foremost jazz trumpeters and a musician for more than 50 years, do you still need to practice?
Oh, you bet! Every single day! Here’s a story for you: are you familiar with the name Pablo Cassell? He was probably one of the best cellists in history. And even when he was very old, he was still playing like an angel. Somebody once asked him, "Maestro, why are you still practicing so much?" And he said, "You know why? Because I think I'm improving a little bit!" (Laughs) That's a great lesson for everyone! I actually think that the older you get, the more you have to practice. I even invented this little device, it’s been nicknamed the “Sando-valves,” it’s a mouthpiece attached to the trumpet keys and it allows me to practice anywhere, sometimes I’ll even practice while I’m sitting in the movie theater! It’s essential, especially with the trumpet!
What is it that is so difficult about playing the trumpet?
It’s a tough instrument. It’s very demanding, you need excellent breath skills, you need a lot of air and to train the muscle of the diaphragm to push that air in the way that you need… All those kinds of physical skills before you start thinking about the actual music. The difference between the trumpet and the piano, for example, is that with the piano, you sit down and the music is there already. But with the trumpet you make the sound from scratch. I have to produce the sound. The commitment, the discipline, the passion, the desire to really practice, one hundred percent concentration in what you’re doing… That's the only way you could get a good command of your instrument.
“I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, on the essence of a project, the ideas or the themes.”
“Follow the things you love! Follow the things that you are intensely passionate about. Follow the things that you like to do, which often to others might seem unimportant.”
“You’re always looking for a second chance. You’re always looking to do a little bit better than you did the last time. And you hope that the readers will stay with you.”
“I would say that a strong work ethic is a vital ingredient for success. That’s something I was born with, I’m convinced of it; it was nothing that I acquired. If you take on anything, you try to do it your best.”
“Wherever any of us have been wounded, if we dive into what those wounds are, if we go down into and do the hard work within those wounds, we’ll actually find ourselves, we’ll find our real giftedness, a sincere, true giftedness.”
“As I began to take risks, leaving my very comfortable and secure job and taking this first leap into fashion, every subsequent risk became easier to take because I began to see the kind of opportunity and excitement that risk-taking offered.”
“To be an artist, you must start with a considerable drive; in my case it was a fierce madness, a wildness. I think that’s the mark of an artist, actually, that they are rebellious, unruly… And I was one of them myself.”
“I think when you’re an artist who’s been around for a while like I have you understand that it’s almost impossible to make work that is unanimously loved or understood! You can’t please everyone, and that is a great realization.”
“I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness to anyone else.”
“Each of my projects is kind of a marathon run. A lot of them won't make it to the finish line and the only reason they make it is because I go back and nurture them and try to figure everything out.”
“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”
“Life is confounding and who knows what’s around the next corner. But in many ways uncertainty can be exhilarating—there’s a lot of freedom in it. It would be a shame to waste our snippet of time on this planet being afraid.”
“When you’re young so many things happen and it’s really hard, but you have to fight. Sometimes to get what you want you need to have a really strong past to make sure that you become a warrior and you are not scared about anything and you fight through the night.”
“If I knew that tomorrow a meteorite would destroy our planet, I would start shooting a new film today.”
“Part of being a designer is to fail every day, to try things that don’t work out. In a way, every project fails every day until it succeeds! That’s what the iterative process of design is about. Timing in many ways is key.”
“I think that when you’re a creator, you set out to create the perfect thing, but the idea of reaching that kind of creative nirvana — that’s something that you should never quite reach.”
“One of the things that I’m striving for is an authenticity, to do things which feel natural and make choices which feel authentic and real. I think in a way you sort of can’t help sounding like yourself. You can’t help but put yourself into your work.”
“The journey of an artist is a journey of discovery and some engagement with the nature of material, with bodily things and all that has led me to this place. I’m really interested in that as a process because the process moves you in directions that you couldn’t rationally put there.”
“I always try to concentrate on the process and where the real goal is, which is trying to get up every day and be the best possible version of myself and do the best work I can do.”
“There is a thing called discipline. If you really want to do it, you’ve got to put in the work. Work, work, work, work. Practice, practice, practice, practice.”
“Having come out as a gay man and the self-confidence that gives you is huge! It affects every aspect of your life, including my work. People like honesty. They respect honesty. And my film career took off once I came out.”
“Life is struggle. Life is about struggle. You’re not supposed to be happy all the time. It’s about challenging yourself and pushing yourself, you know? You become content. That’s not happiness.”
“Everyone’s life comes to an end. We’re all going to come to the same fate. So you just keep going while you can, doing what you like.”
“I have a moral standard of my own. I know the difference between right and wrong, I know what I feel comfortable with. And if you live up to your own moral standard, you’re going to have a more comfortable life.”
“Risks are very important to me. It’s the only thing that will define the next career move or else I’ll be plateauing. I’ll be completely stale if I don’t take risks. And that’s not just my career.”
“Of course we all do stupid things when we're young, but that's your way to find boundaries, you know. Have I done stupid things I regret? Yeah. But I can learn from those mistakes and grow. That's what it’s all about.”
“I think all actors have to be dreamers. I think every citizen of every kind of society has to dream. If you stop dreaming, it’s over.”
“My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”
“I was a soldier in Korea and I got into a situation where I knew I was going to die. The rest of my life I have lived every bloody moment from the moment I wake up until the time I go to sleep.”
“I think you always have to have risk when you’re creating a piece of art. Without that, I don’t understand really what the drive is to succeed. It’s the risk factor that, weirdly, keeps you feeling safe. It keeps you on your toes.”
“Sometimes when you lose faith and you understand that something will never be possible the way that you dreamed, but you keep trying, suddenly one thing flips and everything re-accommodates. It totally flows. You don’t give up — and suddenly it’s almost a transcendental thing.”
“Right now we are 40 people working in Osteria Francescana, for 28 or 30 covers a night. So, it’s totally the opposite of a business. You cannot survive with that. But we believe in those kinds of dreams and so I keep investing, and reinvesting, and reinvesting.”
“I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”
“It all comes down to realizing how good you are and really consciously working with that. I think as an artist we always try to hide the imperfections. But the imperfections are there because we’re all humans, and this is what makes us interesting.”
“If you’re doing one thing, you can burn yourself out. But for me, if ever one of those things burnt out, I would have moved to another one. So it makes it difficult but it makes it possible to keep going.”
“I don’t want to be good. I want to be the best. Even in failing that, you’ll hit a higher mark than if you never tried.”
“You can work hard at this skill forever, you never reach the end; you never are a master, you’re never done. Writing is endless and I like that. I like that you can never conquer it.”
“Belief is very important. It’s like when you are riding a horse and you want it to go to the left, you look to the left first and then pull the horse’s head. As a human being it is the same thing: wherever you put your attention is probably where you are going to find yourself.”
“If people don’t like the pictures, I don’t care. To me, there’s only one point of view: that’s mine.”
“Even though I wanted to be minimal, for the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more ingredients. Only three years ago I was confident to start focusing on removing, and this is when I finally created a dish where I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”
Glenn Close: “My passion is exactly the same”
Ms. Close, is it true you’ve kept pieces from each costume of every character you’ve played?
Yes, it’s a living collection, there are over 800 pieces! I think it started with the love of the characters that those costumes represent and the time spent in the fitting room, putting those characters together. Because for me, the costume designer is as important as the director: you spend time literally figuring that out. It is absolutely right at the heart of the process of creating a character. So I have most of the costumes from Fatal Attraction, from 101 Dalmatians, from Sunset Boulevard I even have costumes from my very first movie as Jenny Garp.
Those are such iconic roles you’ve listed. Why do you think you’re so good at playing these kinds of complex women?
I don’t know! They are the ones that fascinate me the most. I think those kinds of women who maybe are conflicted, they are interesting. And basically that is where we all live, we all live in the gray area of life. No one is all right or wrong or all black or white. Everyone is hiding their real thoughts and their real feelings. That’s where the fascination comes from, because I think they are true. And my journey as a craftswoman in my profession is to find where my common humanity is with them, and as an actor, you cannot judge them.
