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Alan Alda said that the longer M*A*S*H went on, the more difficult it became
"Why should the public take us seriously?”
Oftentimes, the longer you spend working on something, the lighter your load becomes. With knowledge and experience, things that once seemed like mountains to overcome gradually diminish.
However, for a show like M*A*S*H, things were quite different. Though the series was a comedy, the writers and actors often took great pains in order to accurately represent the reality of war. One of the show’s stars, Alan Alda, explained this perspective during an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I didn’t want them to let the war off easy, but to show it for what it is,” said Alda. “A place where people get hurt.”
M*A*S*H generated eleven seasons in as many years, though Alda revealed that the longer the series went on, the more difficult performing became.
“Oddly enough, M*A*S*H gets harder to do every year,” said the actor. “We don’t just get up out of our easy chairs and expose our personalities. There is an enormous amount of hard work and care that goes into what we call show business. And skill. It’s at least as hard as pole-vaulting.”
Though Alda considered his work as an actor serious business, he was aware that the public didn’t necessarily share that perspective. “Show business has always been sold on glitter, and glitter is not serious,” said the actor. “So why should the public take us seriously?”
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