Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show, actor Thomas Sadoski joins us to discuss his new film, Group: The Schopenhauer Effect, along with director Alexis Lloyd, and co star, a real life psychoanalyst, Dr. Elliot Zeisel. Plus, we'll recap last night's Academy Awards with Louis Virtel. He's the co-host of the Keep It podcast and an Oscars historian. That's the plan. Let's get this started with Tony Award winning actor, Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

In a revival of the play Tru, audience members get an intimate look into the life of Truman Capote. I say intimate because this play is staged inside a real gilded age mansion in the library of course. Imagine that you have entered the home of Capote. We meet him just before Christmas. He's in a tough spot. His high society friends aren't speaking with him after an excerpt of his proposed new novel was published in a magazine, a gossipy section that revealed some stories about the wealthy women of Manhattan. He has become a social pariah.

Alone in his apartment, Truman begins to talk to himself and to the audience. We learn about his struggles with addiction, life, loneliness, love, and loss. Tru is running in the library of the House of the Redeemer on East 95th Street through May 3rd. I'm joined now by Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Truman Capote. It is nice to meet you in real life.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Nice to meet you. Although I saw you this weekend at my show.

Alison Stewart: I was there. It is such an intimate setting. It's about 99 people in the room.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, 99.

Alison Stewart: Do you get to see people one-on-one?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Oh, yes. Oh yes. It's been really interesting. I think you saw my 9th or 10th preview. I had a few under my belt, but I really see everything, and I see everyone's responses. There's some people who are not quite comfortable having me quite so close. There are some people who are very comfortable having me close. If you glance down at your watch, even for a moment, I see that. I have people who have tears in their eyes, and I see that. I see everything. I've never experienced doing a play where I'm so in tune with what the audience is going through.

Alison Stewart: Does that change each performance a little bit?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Oh, yes, for sure. One of my favorite parts about being a live theater actor is that every performance is different, and the audience informs so much of that, but I'm not used to having the line blurred between myself and them. As blurred as it is in this play, we share not only rarefied air, but literal space together.

Alison Stewart: Sure. It's so interesting because it was funny to watch the audience a little bit. Some people look away, some people want to engage with you a little bit. It was just an interesting place to be.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: We made eye contact.

Alison Stewart: We did make eye contact.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I remember on what line, too.

Alison Stewart: Oh.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: That's how in tune I am.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I say something, "The rich are very nervous with you if they think you don't have any money," and I think I looked right at you.

Alison Stewart: Oh.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Does that feel familiar?

Alison Stewart: It does feel familiar. It does, yes. It was so interesting. Let me ask you about Truman Capote. What was your relationship with Truman Capote's work?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I read In Cold Blood in high school. It was required reading. I loved it. When I was reading In Cold Blood, I was like, "How is this something that's required?" It's very dark. I was born in '75, so I think in the '80s in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it wasn't super weird for us to be reading this book, but I couldn't believe that I was being allowed to read this and that it was required of me, too. It was unlike anything I'd ever read before. It was unlike anything that had ever been written before, something that marries true crime and fiction. He created his own genre with that book. Then after that, I just became fascinated with him as a person. He was on my TV, different talk shows.

Alison Stewart: Mike Douglas?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, yes, yes, yes. I just was aware of this really strange, peculiar man.

Alison Stewart: Who had a very strange way of speaking.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I just became fascinated with him. Then I became a fan of other people's portrayals of him. Philip Seymour Hoffman being the first one that really struck a chord with me. I loved the movie Truman that he won an Oscar for, or Capote, rather, is the name of that film. It was very fascinating as an actor to then see people tackle this character, seeing how far you could go with that characterization, still make it a human, and still make it someone that is an extension of that actor.

Alison Stewart: I'm curious, did you work with your vocal coach, Kate Wilson.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Kate Wilson, yes. She and I have been working together for quite some time, and I have done several projects with her. I adore her. She's on staff at Juilliard. I've done everything from Shakespeare in the Park to my last outing on Take Me Out. I worked with her on that. I called her when I found out I was going to be doing this, and I asked her if she could help me out. She does help me with dialect a little bit.

He was born in Monroeville, Alabama, so that dialect creeps out. I think he was one of those people that once he moved to New York, he tried to get rid of his accent, but it does creep out, specifically when he drinks, so that was fun, finding places for that to emerge.

Alison Stewart: Oh, that's interesting.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Then, also, just where his voice sits. He has a lot more attic in his voice than I do. I could always push that and go higher than I expect I could go. That being said, it's very taxing on my voice. It sometimes feels at the end of a show like I've been singing for 90 minutes, so learning how to then take care of my voice and warm down, as they say, and make sure that I'm being quiet during the day. She gave me a lot of tools around that as well, Kate Wilson.

Alison Stewart: It's also interesting. You have his mannerisms down, the way he strokes his eyebrow when he's thinking.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: It's true. I think that I innately share some of those mannerisms-

Alison Stewart: Oh, funny.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: -because certain things-- I remember I would do that with my eyebrow. I would do this, or I would brush my leg of my pants sometimes, and Chris Lloyd and Steve Levitan, who created Modern Family, would always make fun of me for that. If they were to do an imitation of me, it would be one of those two moves. I've been able to incorporate those seamlessly, but then there's other things. There's so much great footage of Truman in interview or in documentaries. Stealing his mannerisms and his physicality has been very easy and very accessible.

Alison Stewart: What's been the hardest thing to figure out about him?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Oh, the hardest thing to figure out about him, I think-- Oh, that's such a great question. I feel, for me, it's been the marriage of me and him that's been hard for me to figure out, because I want to capture him, but I want to bring humanity to him. For me, as an actor, I've always found my pathway to humanity is by bringing myself into it and using that as the conduit for humanity. Finding that way that I can work alongside this character has been challenging but not being Jesse, being Capote, but rather this conglomeration of the two of us, that's been a really interesting challenge for me.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Tony Award winning actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. We're discussing his transformation into Truman Capote in the off Broadway show Tru, which is staged in a real library on the Upper East Side. It's running at the House of the Redeemer through May 3rd. When we encounter Truman Capote at the beginning of this play, what's going on in his life?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: It's a few days before Christmas and he is in the midst of a crisis. He has been ostracized by his closest friends. A lot of this story, a lot of people know about now because of Ryan Murphy's very wonderful series, Capote vs. The Swans, which was on television a few years ago, which tackles the same period in Capote's life, but he let Esquire publish a chapter of his book Answered Prayers, which he had been working on for 20 years. He started working on Answered Prayers before he even started working on In Cold Blood.

It was a piece he kept coming back to. He basically was drawing from the experiences, the life experiences of his closest friends, the Paleys, the Whitneys, the Coles, Slim Keith, Gloria Vanderbilt, and all these, the Doyens of New York. He was taking their moments with him, what they thought were their private moments with him, and recording them in his mind and writing about them. He published a chapter of Answered Prayers rather to lure himself out of a depression as he says in the play.

These women read their stories in the pages of Esquire, and they were obviously very angry with him, turned their backs on him, and he was left alone. I always say he was like one of the first people canceled. He was canceled before cancel culture really was a thing.

Alison Stewart: I thought was interesting in the play. It was something that my friend and I discussed because we were both journalists afterward. It was a subject, the idea that writers are observing you. Even if you say you're friends with them, they're always observing you. In your version, does he think the people he hangs out with are his friends, or is he just observing the elite of New York?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I think it's a little bit of both. I think that he is observing the elite of New York, but he does care for these people. I know he was very close with Babe Paley and Slim Keith. They were two of his closest friends. All of his, "Swans," I think he had a great affinity toward. They were allowed into his circle because of their status. He was obsessed with status and obsessed with people who came from wealth. He wanted to run in those circles. Even though he didn't have a lot of that money himself, but he wanted to be invited on the yachts. It's like how I look at a lot of influencers today. I see people on some of these yachts with these famous people. How did they end up there?

Alison Stewart: How'd they get there?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: They just made good friends with the people who happen to own these boats. I think he did care for them deeply, but also I think he assumed because he was a writer that these people knew that he was taking notes. When they were angry at him for writing about this, it's like they should have known. You don't befriend a writer and assume that they're not taking notes. He says in the play, "What do they think I was there for? The intellectual stimulation and wit. I'm the one that brought the intellectual stimulation and wit to the party."

Alison Stewart: It's so interesting. There's a point when he gets this huge, enormous poinsettias, comes to his door, and he's highly offended by this.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Highly offended.

Alison Stewart: What do the poinsettias mean to him?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: It's tacky.

Alison Stewart: Tacky? Yes.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: It's so tacky.

Alison Stewart: I like them, [unintelligible 00:12:17]

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I do too. I always have poinsettias at our house for the holidays.

Alison Stewart: Me too.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I think they're great. He hates them. He says it in the play, "Poinsettias are the Bob Goulet of Botany." He's offended by it, which also is such a diss to Bob Goulet. He's the type of guy who disses people when they don't even ask for it. He says, "I can't imagine a friend who would even think about giving me such a tacky thing. I don't even want to know who they're from." It's one of the first moments in the play is him receiving this delivery, a truckload of poinsettias.

Alison Stewart: Bob Goulet takes one for the team.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I know, right? What did he do? He wasn't hurting anyone.

Alison Stewart: The production of this is amazing because you were inside this beautiful library. There's only 99 seats, as I mentioned. What changes about your approach as an actor when you're in such an intimate space?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: When we decided to do this play, I felt it has to be something that's done environmentally. I really wanted people to enter into the space and feel like they're already immersed in that world before the play even starts. The play takes place in Truman Capote's living room. It can be done on a stage and it was done on a stage when Robert Morse did it in '89 and '90, but I wanted it to feel different. I was like, "How can I make make this play feel current, different, and separate from what was already brilliantly done?" I thought, "Let's actually make people sit in the living room."

It's one of those things when I walk in, it's like you are in my space. It's less of a shared space. It's more like you're eavesdropping. There's something a little voyeuristic about it as well. It definitely changes my relationship with the audience. There are certain things that only one side of the house will see because my back is to the other side and it's my job to make sure everyone feels included at one point. I move around the room constantly, so everyone at one point is very close to me. There's not a bad seat in the house. You could be sitting somewhere thinking, "Oh, I'm so far away from him."

It's like when you go see a concert and Britney Spears was on a revolving stage and all of a sudden she gets floated over to you. That's what I feel like. I'm basically like Beyonce. I move around the stadium.

Alison Stewart: Oh, just like Beyonce?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, yes, yes, yes, I move around the stadium.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Tony Award winning actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. We're discussing Truman Capote show Off Broadway show, it's called Tru, which is staged in a library on the Upper East Side. It's running at the House of the Redeemer through May 3rd. We should mention you're not the only performer-

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: That's right.

Alison Stewart: -on this stage.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: It is a one man show technically, but we have allotted some of the lines to my brilliant co-star, Charlotte d'Amboise.

Alison Stewart: She's amazing.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: She's gorgeous and wonderful. This was a concept that Rob Ashford had, my director. We wanted to include an element of the women in his life. That is being embodied by Charlotte d'Amboise, who is a Tony nominated actress and dancer. She's incredible.

Alison Stewart: What's it like to get to dance with her?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I do get to dance with her. I'm like, "You can lead me, Charlotte. You can lead me." She's a very skilled dancer, but she's like, "No, no, you lead me. You lead me." She embodies The Swans at some point. She embodies the spirit of my mother. There's a scene from my past that plays out with her. I love having her in the room with me. It makes it feel less lonely. I just feel like she brings an added layer of complexity to the piece.

Alison Stewart: We also get to know Truman through phone calls he has. What's revealing about him when he speaks to people on the phone?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: The people who are calling him are people who are still willing to talk to him. He has a great affinity to them. These are the people who are his lifeline still. When the phone rings, and it's someone-- I feel like when the phone rings, he's always a little nervous, like, "Is this bad news or something?" If it's someone who he cares about, like Carol Matthau-- Walter Matthau's wife, calls at one point and he has a lovely conversation with her. There's a wonderful exchange with a Western Union operator who confesses that she's a fan of his. His friend, Jan, calls at one point.

I should also mention, I don't know if you saw this in the program notes, but these voices of the people who call are voiced by some very special cameos, Kristin Chenoweth, Jan Krakowski, and Sandra Oh.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Fun little Easter eggs there. In our digital program, there's a thanks to them. Those are our voices that are calling in.

Alison Stewart: There's a moment when you play a recording of Truman. He's recording his life's work for, I think it's his biographer, yes?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Is that him or is that you?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: That's me.

Alison Stewart: That's you?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: He was recording pieces for Gerald Clarke-

Alison Stewart: That's it.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: -who wrote his biography. In the play, it's the device that starts him talking about his life and it's the reason why he's telling his story.

Alison Stewart: He also says to the audience, like, "We all talk to ourselves, don't we?"

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, that's right.

Alison Stewart: Do you talk to yourself?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I do, all the time. I talk about the lists I need to make.

Alison Stewart: You do?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes. I sometimes talk myself off ledges. Like, "It's okay, I'll just deal with that later." No one's in the room except for me.

Alison Stewart: That's okay. It's good. You're a good listener.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, exactly.

Alison Stewart: We learn a lot about the loneliness that Truman Capote was going through. How did you want to convey his loneliness to the audience?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I think there's a lot of people who feel like he did a really bad thing by exposing the lives of his friends. I don't disagree with them. It's my job as an actor to bring humanity to him. Also, I care for him deeply. I need to care for him. One of the things I'm so proud of is I get to play Capote as an out gay man, and I get to bring my own experiences of feeling ostracized as a child. I get to bring that layer of complexity to him.

There are parts of the story that I find very moving that bring tears to my eyes. I let that happen. I try and let Capote's conflict with what's going on in his life really come out. He lets down his guard because technically, even though there's an audience in his living room, he's in his own space. He's in his safe space. He feels safe enough to reveal certain parts of himself. I think that's a really interesting part of the play is I think it allows us to see his struggle with what's going on in his life and his loneliness and his deep desire to reconnect with some of the people who abandoned him.

Alison Stewart: We also get to witness his addiction in process.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, alcoholism and addiction, sure.

Alison Stewart: There's also cocaine at one point.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Cocaine, yes.

Alison Stewart: What role does addiction play in this story?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: He was known to be quite a partier. After the success of In Cold Blood, he became the toast of the town, and he really lost himself in the nightclub scene. He became a very heavy drinker. If you look at photos of him during the height of In Cold Blood, he was trim and healthy. Then you look 10 years later, he's really gone downhill. He's very bloated. He became a victim of alcoholism and addiction. A lot of it was self-medicating to get through this very difficult time in his life.

Also, he was going through a crisis of not being able to write. He was not able to complete this book, Answered Prayers, which he had been promised to complete for 20 years. He was self-medicating and basically using he was using alcohol and booze to keep his mind off of the fact that he was really in a crisis with being able to write.

Alison Stewart: You read some of Capote's work out loud in the play. What do you admire about his writing?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Oh, God. There's such eloquence in his writing, even when he's being super tart about something or super-- Even when he's cateirizing someone, and just coming at them, it's done so beautifully and elegantly. He really knows how to throw a diss.

Alison Stewart: Just sculpt with a scalpel, right?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Yes, exactly.

Alison Stewart: Just slice the scalpel.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I just find his prose to be stunning. It was present in his early writing. I've read his very, very early work, and it was all there. Then you read some of his writing that he wrote at the end of his life, it's still there, and even deeper. He really brought his life experience into his writing. No one compares to him. His writing really holds up. In Cold Blood is still such a fantastic read.

Alison Stewart: Why do you think he remains such a fascination for people? You mentioned Ryan Murphy's The Swans. How many movies and plays have been done about him? What is it about him that's so fascinating?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: I think because he was such an interesting character in his real life as well as such a wonderful writer, I also feel like-- Like I said before, he was one of the first people canceled. If before cancel culture existed, he was truly canceled very publicly. Also, we have this deep fascination with reality TV now and The Real Housewives and all that stuff. He was operating on that level before that existed. He was writing about these people who were fascinated by that lived in these gilded towers that we didn't have access to and he was exposing their secrets.

I think that there's that thing that we're so fascinated by now with Real Housewives, reality stars, and The Bachelorette, and all these reality TV, I think he was already onto that back then. He was tapping into something that I feel like we didn't even realize we were interested in.

Alison Stewart: How do you get psyched up to do the show? It's just you.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Coffee and sleep, both of those things are very important. Every night before I go out on stage, before I enter that room with those 99 people, I'm terrified. I'm absolutely terrified.

Alison Stewart: Really?

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: This is pretty similar to every time I walk out on stage. The minute I walk out, though, the moment, the second I walk out, I relax. There's something about being in front of an audience that just makes me feel so good. I've done my work, I've prepared, I know what I'm doing, I know I'm in charge of that piece, and I'm in charge of that room, and I feel like I just want to give these people a great show. The minute I walk into that shared space, I get a jolt of adrenaline that's unlike anything I've ever felt before and it always gets me through.

Alison Stewart: My guest has been Jesse Tyler Ferguson. You can see him transform to Truman Capote in the show Tru, which is on the Upper East Side. It's running at the House of the Redeemer through May 3rd. It has been really nice to have you.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson: Thank you for having me, my dear.

Alison Stewart: Huh, so good.