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Alan Alda was reluctant to sign on for M*A*S*H
He wanted nothing to do with war.
In taking on any job, there's the matter of the employer's values. What are they? Do they mesh with your own? Can you put a price on compromising what you believe in? It's a tale as old as manufacturing itself. If you clock in every day, is the thing you're making worth your time, or does it contradict what you stand for?
This phenomenon can plague an actor, too. What does this project represent? Sure, there's a disconnect between actor and character, but what's the message of the overall movie or show? An actor can play a villain and not have to agree with the character. But if the story presents a message that the actor doesn't align with, where do they have to show responsibility?
War, in particular, is hard to present in a visual narrative format, specifically if the creators involved don't believe that wars are just. Francois Truffaut, director of movies like The 400 Blows, spoke about this issue with the Chicago Tribune back in the '70s, stating that ‘Every film about war ends up being pro-war.’ To Truffaut, showing war was ennobling war. How can a movie be anti-war when it makes war look so darn cool?
Initially, these thoughts plagued Alan Alda when he was offered the role of Hawkeye Pierce in the television series M*A*S*H. Raymond Strait's 1983 biography about the actor quotes Alda speaking about his conflicted viewpoint of war media.
"My greatest concern," said Alda, "was that the show would become a thirty-minute commercial for the Army."
Alda was a well-known pacifist and wasn't immediately thrilled with the prospect of portraying scenes of violent wartime to a national audience. He was totally against the war in Vietnam, so how could he profit from acting in a show about the Korean War? He paid careful consideration to how the show was presented, only accepting the role if the series dealt first and foremost with humanity, rather than some patriotic propaganda.
It was at Alda's insistence, allegedly, that each episode featured operating room sequences. To Alda, this offset the war-time drama and instead focused completely on the human element. His decision to join the show came at the last possible moment, as he signed the contracts at two o'clock in the morning before going directly into rehearsals that same morning.
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