Name: Oprah Winfrey Can’t Cry | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-01-15T23:00:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Oprah Winfrey Can’t Cry | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Oprah Winfrey Can’t Cry | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-15. Transcript available.

thank you welcome back to the show oprah winfrey will be here have you seen the
color purple paul
no not yet we should go see these movies we have guests on from these films and
you should go see
it it helps i really should i think they feel better if you go see them they
feel like they're
wanting for me it's hospitality yeah right after the screening of the comet my
next guest makes
her motion picture debut as sophia in the motion picture the color purple which
paul will be seeing
tomorrow i understand she is also the host of a very successful television
program in chicago and
is the first guest we've ever had on this program named oprah please welcome oprah
winfrey
you look terrific thank you that looks like it's uh painted on there i'm
guessing it's not
you know there's a wonderful people in chicago uh i was trying to wear chicago
designers and they're
called grass orchids page mayberry she hand paints these things isn't it nice
it's very nice what
kind of material is it oh sure you were it's leather this is leather they
painted it right on leather
right on leather it's a suede yeah expensive uh no you know you mentioned chicago
you just came from
chicago and the city must be nuts they're crazy can we hear it for the bears
let's hit
wasn't that a great game yesterday yeah it was a very impressive display yeah
part of the bears yeah so
that i like it when people say a very impressive display wasn't it a great game
uh yeah okay good
yeah um very impressive display let's see now the uh okay never mind uh go
ahead and tell me about
your name you know i was mispronouncing your name all last week i was i was
under the impression it
was oprah i bet you winfrey oprah but it's not no it's oprah oprah do you know
anyone else named oprah
not a soul yeah and why did your mom and dad pick well it's actually my aunt
either call me named me oprah it
was named from the bible ruth first chapter 14th verse go home and read it uh
and it's supposed to
be orpah but no one knew how to spell in my family so the p got put before the
r so it's supposed to be
orpah but it's oprah yeah yeah that's why and uh which is harpo backwards no
that's what somebody
no it is and it's also important to know when was it quincy jones when they
were casting the film he
thought that that meant something because somebody else in the film was named
harpo yeah you know you've
seen the movie yes i have paul hasn't seen it paul has not however but he is
going to see i will be
seeing it tomorrow yeah well yeah see when i was first cast for this movie when
and when i was in
the middle of like auditioning and screen testing they call it i said to steven
steven spielberg if
i may drop the name uh i said harpo is oprah spelled backwards and i think that's
a sign oh you that
was your idea that was that i there's a sign so you kind of you kind of uh put
this in their head
and they went back to the office that gee what do you know she may have
something whatever maybe now
tell people what you do in chicago we mentioned you're the host of a very
successful television
program how long has it been on the air well it's been on the air in existence
you know all those am
shows that all right what's this called am chicago good morning chicago get up
chicago and now
it's called the oprah winfrey show you know wow mr big shot that's why uh and
and what what station
is it on it's on channel 7 wls channel 7 which is the abc affiliate yeah okay
and and what kind of
things you do on the show you do a lot of cooking and that kind of thing oh we
don't cook yeah i
don't cook i use my oven to dry my socks what do you and and and so so now that
you're a a motion
picture star and people are saying uh awards uh nominations for major awards
and so forth you're
gonna 86 the show and move on no you're gonna stay in chicago i'm going to stay
in chicago i'm
syndicated you know well congratulations thank you yeah and we'll be in new york
as of september
of this year where will you be where can people see you on over on the other
station which which
other station channel 7 channel 7 with the abc station 10 o'clock in the
morning in new york
we're looking forward to that thank you uh now uh what was it like working with
steven spielberg
what was it like well you know first of all david you walk into a room and
there is steven
spielberg it's pretty intimidating you know so the first impression is oh my
god he's much shorter
than i thought yeah and then once you get over that it's like oh he said my
name and i wanted
to remember everything in the room so that i could at least tell my friends and
remember the moment
you know there's a little popcorn machine in the studio and that little things
like that yeah yeah
it was very intimidating at first ever have any trouble with the guy no trouble
with him at all
what happened is uh early into the movie stuff missing out of your dressing
room
early in the movie though we had to do you know everything shot out of sequence
in movies so we
had this never having done a movie i'm gonna have to take your word
so we were doing the juke joint scene oh yeah that's fun you know yeah that's a
great look yeah first
shot first scene in the you'll enjoy that one paul first day on the set is my
day is my scene up i had
no idea what you do i'd never been on the universal tour so so there i was and
steven had come over to
me for one of the scenes and asked if i could cry and i was having such you
know so steven spielberg
asked you to cry you want to give him a bucket or two yeah now when he says cry
does he mean just
the the theatrics of crying or actual tears he wants a tear falling out of that
left eye so when you turn to
the camera and hit your light that it's falling right there yeah and i couldn't
and i was so afraid
that i was not going to be able to i started plucking out my lashes and
sticking them under my contact
lens and still could not cry and then cried all night because i couldn't cry
when he asked me to
but then i later had a conversation with adolf caesar to be really serious and
adolf caesar said to me
he plays old mister in the movie those of you who've seen it and he said what
you have to learn to do is
give yourself over to the character and let the character take control and i
never had a difficult time
after that yeah well the but you know it's easy to have it explained to you and
it's easy for you to
explain it to us but the actual doing of it yeah it's a very difficult thing
what i would do when i
had to cry i'd start crying early in the morning yeah so i'd make sure that by
the time i had to cry i'd
still be crying i'd cry all day yeah now uh i did i did uh at any point and and
uh you know if this if
you don't want to talk about it just say so but at any point did steven get
everybody together and say
you know what would be nice some kind of flying saucer i don't know you know
just come down here
somewhere right on mr's farm no he didn't yeah it didn't this movie has not one
special effect yeah
that's what's so great about it now do you have other movie offers coming in
already and what kind
of things are you getting offered i can't tell you no you can tell us i really
well i'm looking at some
scripts right now i really am like what well there's a movie that they're
thinking about
and called native sons i'm looking at that script and what would the part be
for you the mother a
bigger thomas did you read it in school yeah i'm sorry native son yeah yeah
yeah i did
i can tell i can tell yeah yeah i did i stayed home one week and read it
it's great isn't it i you could play the part of bigger if you were you know i
like to think so
what do you have there and this is what i wanted to tell you i have one of the
greatest staffs in the
world and so they they're not better than our staff oprah you have 47 people on
this staff no we don't
do we yes you do and my staff was so how do you know you're counting the crawl
what is going on
i asked i said how many people on this staff they said 47 well so my staff was
so excited that i was
going to be on the letterman show steven spielberg movie they said oh that's
very nice yeah letterman
show they were so excited they said to say hiya hiya hiya mr letterman and they
all went out and and
got themselves dressed as larry bud melman isn't that great oh god that's my
step oh god hiya hiya hiya
mary k rizzo gina chris jimmy i have a feeling that a couple of those folks
aren't acting
yeah i i think this one here right there in the middle i think she's trouble
doesn't she look like
larry budd if she doesn't get the medicine right on time uh oprah
congratulations geez you're uh you
couldn't be hotter you got the movie and perhaps a nomination for an academy
award and your syndicated
show perhaps perhaps so relax a while give somebody else a shot david nice i'm
so glad to me you know
what you're the kind of guy i'd like to have as my friend i'd like to call you
up on wednesday nights
and say you're watching dynasty you know nice guy nice guy okay try and get the
number
we'll be right back
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