It's been over 35 years since movie fans went along with Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure. The film inspired two sequels, a cartoon TV series, several video games, and many trips to the Circle K to see if strange things were afoot. Alex Winter was 21 years old when he played Bill, but was already a dozen years into his career. Last year, Winter reunited with his "Bill and Ted" co-star Keanu Reeves on Broadway for a four month run of Samuel Beckett's classic play, "Waiting for Godot." I asked him about the reunion and returning to the Broadway stage.
Alex Winter: You know, we were looking to do another project together, trying to figure out what that would be. You know, he knew I was a big Beckett fan and both of us loved the drama of that period. So, at one point he reached out to me and asked me what I thought about trying to tackle that play, which is a tall mountain to climb. But it just seemed like a challenge, and we both like a challenge, and wanted to do something that wasn't necessarily easy or a guaranteed win. So it was fun. It was a very rewarding experience. It was hard, you know, super hard, but it was very much worth doing. I feel like.
Bob Barrett: Yeah, that's pages and pages and pages of dialogue.
Winter: It's a ton of dialogue and my character talks nonstop for hours.
Barrett: Well, you have a career in radio if you want it.
Winter: That's right. (laughs)
Barrett: Well, coming up on Pensacon, you're going to be appearing with a few of your co-stars from one of your early films, 'The Lost Boy Boys.' How did you get involved with 'The Lost Boys'? I mean, you were pretty young then, weren't you?
Winter: I mean, kind of. I'd been acting since I was 9, so I've actually already stopped acting once already, before I did that show. I started acting at around 9. I did a lot of commercials and theater and by 12, 13 I was on Broadway. And I was on Broadway all the way until I was through high school — so until I was about 17, almost 18. And then I stopped and went to film school at NYU. I did a couple other movies around that time. I did "Death Wish 3" with Michael Winner and Charles Bronson. And then I met with Joel Schumacher who really was very encouraging. And I told Joel, I was like, look — he directed Lost Boys — I said, 'I'm, in film school, I can't really do this movie and, graduate.' And he said, 'well, why don't you figure out which one you'd rather do?' So I ended up dropping out of NYU right before my senior year to go do "Lost Boys."
Barrett: And of course, just a couple years later, you got introduced to Bill S. Preston, Esq. Making that movie, you worked with what I consider two of the coolest human beings ever on Earth, George Carlin and Clarence Clemons.
Winter: The cast was great. I mean, Rufus took a very long time to cast. So we really didn't know who was going to be playing Rufus until we were well into the shoot and a lot of names are being thrown around, and we were kind of curious and eager to see who was going to end up in it. But it was, probably one of the only people that I was starstruck by at that time. You know, I'd been acting for a long time. I'd acted with some pretty huge people by the time I did Bill and Ted. I'd done "King and I" with Yul Brenner and worked a lot of big stars. But Keanu and I were both pretty starstruck because George was just such a cultural icon at that time. And, you know, we were kind of like, 'why do you want to do this movie?' And he was lovely. I mean, they're both. Clarence was lovely. I mean, this beautiful person. and it's really sad that they're both gone.
Barrett: In your career, you've done talk shows probably for years. What's your best talk show experience?
Winter: That's an interesting question. I really enjoyed going on Colbert with Keanu because it was just fun to do a show with him and look back at the work we've done together. I really enjoy doing talk shows about the documentaries because you dive into such deep conversation and, have had some amazing NPR experiences with the docs and then doing interviews, very deep dive interviews on the docs. It's hard to say. I have been doing it a very long time and I've been getting interviewed a long time. I had a great time on going back on Jimmy Kimmel for when I did "Bill and Ted 3," because I'd worked for Jimmy for a little while when he first started his show. I was shooting a lot of the fake movie trailers and things like that. And, you know, it was really fun to go back on Jimmy as a guest after having, you know, been behind the scenes there for a little bit back in the day.
Barrett: I am a huge fan of the TV show the West Wing, and I always try to dive into somebody's Wikipedia page and find something weird. You directed 'The Jackal,' the music video?
Winter: I did, yeah. I directed a lot of music videos, but that was one of many, many, many music videos that I directed, but I did. Yeah.
Barrett: I was today years old when I found that out.
Winter: Yeah, no, there's. There's probably a lot more that I've done on the music video front that you would have seen over the years. I was doing quite a bit of that in the day when those were popular. Yeah.
Barrett: Well, from now on, now I'm going to call you The Jackal. Just one more. And it's the question everybody has to ask, will there be a Bill and Ted 4?
Winter: I really have no idea at the moment. I really don't. We never say never. But I don't have any concrete news of any kind to give anyone.
Barrett: I know making three took so long.
Winter: It took us over a dozen years. Yeah, it was not easy. So, who knows? Who knows is the answer to that question. We never say never.
