CBS News Transcripts February 11, 2007 Sunday SHOW: Sunday Morning 9:00 AM EST CBS Working Stiff; Actor Alan Arkin, nominated for Oscar ANCHORS: CHARLES OSGOOD REPORTERS: JERRY BOWEN LENGTH: 1338 words WORKING STIFF (Excerpt from "The In-Laws") Announcer: It's SUNDAY MORNING on CBS, and here again is Charles Osgood. CHARLES OSGOOD, host: (Voiceover) Alan Arkin got a lot of laughs in the 1979 film "The In-Laws." Now he's in a surprise hit movie that's getting him not only laughs, but maybe an Oscar. Jerry Bowen has the envelope, please. (Footage of Alan Arkin) JERRY BOWEN reporting: (Voiceover) These are busy times for 72-year-old Alan Arkin, a star in the off-beat independent film "Little Miss Sunshine" that caught Hollywood off guard. (Excerpt from "Little Miss Sunshine") BOWEN: (Voiceover) The film about a dysfunctional family racing to get their daughter to a kiddie beauty pageant has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Arkin for Best Supporting Actor as the heroin-addicted grandfather who's not going anywhere quietly. Mr. ALAN ARKIN: How do I describe him? He's irascible, he's opinionated, he holds back nothing. (Excerpt from "Little Miss Sunshine") Mr. ARKIN: Trying to maintain a life of debauchery and fun that he's had all his life, but he's just a pain in the rear end. BOWEN: When you're doing a character like this, do you lose yourself in the character? Mr. ARKIN: No, I think that's exactly who I am. (Footage of Bowen and Arkin) BOWEN: (Voiceover) It's a role Arkin almost didn't get. Mr. ARKIN: They thought I was too virile for the part, which is the best turn-down I've ever gotten in my life. (Footage of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris) BOWEN: (Voiceover) They are husband and wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. Mr. JONATHAN DAYTON: You know, he's just a vital guy, and... Ms. VALERIE FARIS: I guess we weren't ready to see Alan Arkin as a grandpa, you know? (Photo of Faris, Arkin and Dayton) BOWEN: (Voiceover) When they heard Arkin loved the script, they reconsidered. Mr. DAYTON: He's a great dramatic actor, and he can be very truthful in his performance, but he's also obviously an incredibly funny person, and we needed both those things. Ms. FARIS: Yeah, and the warmth. There's a warmth to him that was essential in terms of relating to his granddaughter. (Excerpt from "Little Miss Sunshine") BOWEN: (Voiceover) When "Little Miss Sunshine" debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, no one knew what to expect. Mr. ARKIN: I thought it was going to tank. I said, `Oh, God, I think it's an intimate, small, wonderful little experience, and they're not going to--it's just too big of a venue for it.' And then they went crazy. (Excerpt from "Little Miss Sunshine") BOWEN: (Voiceover) Really crazy. Fox Searchlight grabbed the distribution rights for a record $10 1/2 million. Since its release last summer, the movie has pulled in nearly 60 million at the box office. The family road trip that is the story of "Little Miss Sunshine" starts here in New Mexico, which is Alan Arkin's real life home, a refuge and getaway for the Brooklyn-born boy who grew up in Los Angeles, but is more comfortable here in the Southwest, far from either coast. (Footage of desert) BOWEN: (Voiceover) And Arkin says it isn't just the natural beauty that energizes him. Mr. ARKIN: Well, I like to be in a place where there are different kinds of neuroses, you know. In LA, there's just one, and in New Mexico, there's a lot of different kinds. Like, so I get to--I get to move around them more fluidly. BOWEN: The LA neurosis is? Mr. ARKIN: Look at me. Pay attention to me. (Photos of Arkin) BOWEN: (Voiceover) People first paid attention to Arkin not for his acting, but for his singing with a folk group called the Tarriers. That's him in the middle. Mr. ARKIN: Just going to be a job that I did on weekends to earn some pocket money, and within a couple of months after joining the group, we had a hit record that took us around the world for a couple of years. BOWEN: What was your hit song? Mr. ARKIN: Our hit song was--oh, God, I'm so tired of talking about this. Our hit was the "Banana Boat" song. (Visual of sheet music) BOWEN: (Voiceover) Arkin co-wrote the song, and the group performed it in the movie "Calypso Heat Wave." (Excerpt from "Calypso Heat Wave"; visual of Tarriers album) BOWEN: (Voiceover) Harry Belafonte's version came later. For Arkin and the Tarriers, it seemed to be the ticket to the very good life. Mr. ARKIN: And that was exciting until I got to the Olympic Theater in Paris, and I was playing the guitar and singing my brains out, and looked down at myself with my black satin pants on, and my sports shirt open to the navel, and I said, `What the hell am I doing? Who am I?' I said I got to get back to acting, and I quit the next day, and starved for a couple of years. (Footage of The Second City theater; excerpt of Second City group) BOWEN: (Voiceover) And then came the call to join Second City, a bold, new improvisational comedy group in Chicago. Mr. ARKIN: I can't overemphasize how important it was. It saved my life, for one thing. I couldn't get arrested in New York. (Excerpt of Second City group) BOWEN: (Voiceover) Arkin says Second City, a comedy institution now, launched his acting career. Sketches like this one, with Barbara Harris, gave him a new confidence. Hollywood took note. His first film role brought him his first Oscar nomination, Best Actor as the lead Russian in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming." (Excerpt from "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming"; "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"; "Wait Until Dark"; "Catch-22") BOWEN: (Voiceover) Two years later, a second Best Actor nomination as the deaf-mute in "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." Arkin terrorized Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark," and battled the military bureaucracy as Captain Yossarian in "Catch-22." (Footage of Bowen and Arkin) BOWEN: (Voiceover) Arkin was on a role, and he was miserable. Mr. ARKIN: For the first, I guess, 30 years of my life, 35, acting was my reason for living. And if I wasn't acting or watching acting or talking about it, I felt like I didn't exist. BOWEN: Would you describe yourself as driven? Mr. ARKIN: No. I was, but I'm not anymore. BOWEN: What happened? Mr. ARKIN: Well, what's--it started by going into therapy when I was in my late 30s. I'd achieved everything I ever wanted to achieve as an actor, and I--once I was off the set, I was just miserably unhappy, and I realized that there was something wrong. (Footage of Arkin with Martin Sheen and Eva Marie Saint) BOWEN: (Voiceover) Though acting no longer defines him, it remains his passion. Mr. ARKIN: I once had such a deep need to be with a group of people where everything is working, and everybody's on the same page, like what happened with "Little Miss Sunshine." (Excerpt from "Little Miss Sunshine") Mr. ARKIN: (Voiceover) When a movie has that kind of sense of community, the audience knows it. They always know it. BOWEN: (Voiceover) Arkin has made acting a family affair, working with all three of his sons, including Adam, playing the long-lost father to the surgeon's son in Adam's old TV series "Chicago Hope." (Excerpt from "Chicago Hope"; footage of Bowen and Arkin) BOWEN: (Voiceover) And now, after all these years, Oscar has reared its golden head again. What meaning would it have for you if you do win this award? Mr. ARKIN: I have no idea. I haven't got a clue. I don't know if anybody knows. I mean, I have fantasies about it. I have it, I take it home, where am I going to put it? I'm not going to put it in the living room, I don't want to intimidate anybody--everybody that comes to see me, and you know. (Footage of Arkin) BOWEN: (Voiceover) So winning the Oscar would be fantastic, not winning the Oscar... Mr. ARKIN: (Voiceover) Yeah, I said I would be depressed a little bit. I'd be--I'd be saddened for a little while, but then my life would go back to being exactly what it is. I like my life. I love my wife, I love my kids, I love my grandchildren, I have wonderful friends. (Footage of sunset) Mr. ARKIN: (Voiceover) I get to see this every day.