Thread by @carlquintanilla

“Glengarry Glen Ross” turns 30 today.

As a feat of casting, it’s peerless. “Al and I sat down and literally made a list of who we thought were the greatest living actors,” director @JamesFoleyJr said. “And we wound up with these guys.” 🧵

#Glengarry30

Foley and Pacino on set.

(2/x) @JamesFoleyJr

Baldwin’s scene wasn’t in the original play. He once asked Mamet, why the re-write?

“He said, ‘These men are gonna commit a crime and they’re not criminals .. I need to put the vice on them.’”

(3/x)

Ed Harris once said: “It wasn’t the most fun thing down there having Alec Baldwin give you that speech, but that was part of the character — just sitting there, taking it from this guy.”

(4/x)

By the way, Blake’s $970,000 salary in 1992 is equivalent to about $2,047,654.10 today.”

(5/x)

“It was the hardest film anybody has ever worked on. We rehearsed it for a month, and when we weren’t on screen, we’d run over to our trailers .. and run lines. .. Mamet is harder than Shakespeare, by far.”

- Alan Arkin

(6/x)

When Lemmon was cast, his agent called and said: "'Jack, on the billing, are we going to have a problem’ with Pacino's name going first?

“I said ‘hell no, put Al first.' .. I couldn’t care less."

(7/x)

This shot. Pure Lemmon magic.

(8/x)

"People are probably correct when they see me as the so-called Everyman,” Lemmon said. “I'm attracted primarily to contemporary characters. I understand them and their frustrations.”

(9/x) (via @sjmay92)

If you’re a Jack Lemmon fan, you’ll love this 12-minute interview (from the “Glengarry” laserdisc), in which he talks the challenges of playing Mamet — and whether actors who hate each other can ever give a truly great performance.

(10/x)

Finally, I wish I’d been smart enough to have asked @JamesFoleyJr to sit for a “Glengarry 30th anniversary” chat this week — but this enterprising cinephile did just that, and Foley said yes. 💯

(via @godisinthetv)

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