Alec Baldwin’s Role in the Movie Glengarry Glen Ross Was a Repaid Favor

“Coffee’s for closers only.�

“First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.�

“You know what it takes to sell real estate? It takes brass balls to sell real estate.�

Alec Baldwin’s one scene in Glengarry Glen Ross — a seven-minute-long speech, during which he harangues Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon, and Alan Alda’s hangdog salesmen — is one of the great movie monologues of all time. Yet would you believe it wasn’t in David Mamet’s original play, from which he adapted the film? In the latest episode of our “Behind the Movies,� Mamet tells us why he felt debt-bound to add it for Baldwin.