People who are feeling bullied and people who feel like outsiders should talk to their parents and guardians about finding a place with likeminded people where they can feel accepted. That's what I needed, and that's what I found with musical theater.
In the commercial theater, I've been pretty fortunate. The producers that I've worked with have allowed me to define the artistic integrity, the artistic limits of the work.
I don't think about going back to the theater.
I'm preparing for a multimedia theater piece, Airport Music, that's coming up in New York City.
When I was a senior in high school, I worked at a theater where they hired New York actors. And they told me about 'Backstage,' and so I got my school in Pennsylvania to subscribe. And there was an audition for a tour of 'The Sound of Music,' and I got the job. Deferred my admission to college just to go on tour.
I think in any form of acting, you're always well served if you've done theater.
I want to make movies that people talk about when they leave the theater, that aren't clear-cut, but effective and fulfilling in some sense.
It will take very sophisticated marketing to achieve our aim of bringing more black people into the theater.
The joy of my career is I've been very blessed to be able to be an actor in major films, television, theater, and also British radio. In fact, my dream as an actor when I started out was to be able to work in all the media. Thankfully, that's what I'm being given to do.
The theater was my first training ground. It taught me discipline, dedication and appreciation of hard work.
I've always wanted to do theater in Chicago. Chicago is a big theater town-and, in some ways, I think this city is savvier and smarter than New York. Sometimes, I think it's a little too chic to go to theater in New York these days.
When I entered college, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. My advisor happened to be from the theater department, and he encouraged me to take some classes there, which I did.
You know, when we were kids, we had to go to a theater to see a movie. And then television came in and you had to wait until midnight to see the one you wanted to see. Now, all you've got to do is go to a store and buy it and you can watch it whenever you want!
I'm terrified of being too famous. What I'm really afraid of is that the audiences will go into the theater and not be able to forget that it's me, that fame will stand in the way of my acting. I want to keep being able to change into different shapes and different personalities.
I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid, but I started doing theater in high school because it was a requirement. At first, I was completely irritated. But I ended up loving it.
Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.
I grew up in Pennsylvania in a small town. Real small, like one high school and one movie theater. Well, there was a state college there, that was the only good thing about it.
'Killer Joe' provides a lot of red meat for the theater. Pam MacKinnon is the perfect director to shepherd a group of actors who share a certain bloodlust.
Theater is about language, so characters have to define themselves through language for an audience.
The reality is that every movie is a new business. Nobody says, 'Hey, let's go down to the Pantages Theater, I hear a Warner Brothers picture is playing there.' Or, 'Let's go to this theater, I hear the film came in on budget.' It'd be ridiculous.
I started out in pre-law. I was going to go to law school. And I saw a production of 'Tally's Folly' that spring term. I took a theater class that term and auditioned for 'Harvey' at the end of the summer, and I was in a play every semester after that.
I understood that I was not the best director in the world nor the worst director in the world. I realized that there is a very mysterious element to what works and what doesn't work in the theater. And it's good to know that from the beginning.
I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
Theater feeds my heart and soul.
Where I come from, it's a little bit like England. We start from the theater, and we do films a bit on our free time. The history of making films in Scandinavia is so old, it's like the oldest. The Nordic film industry started before Hollywood in Stockholm in Copenhagen.
I was always talking in weird voices from the time I was two. I guess I just found a way to keep doing it! I did get a degree in theater and took some voice-over classes... but most of it is just the same stuff I was doing as a kid!
So I've done my fair share of theater. I have also been very fortunate in that I've been able to come to New York two or three times a year just to see as many shows as possible. I think the live theater culture here is incredible.
Having come up in the era where movies are only movies if they're released in the theater... I don't know if that holds true anymore. I've been involved in some movies that have gone 'direct-to-video,' and that used to not be a good thing, but now it's different.
Depending on what your interest in theater is, I always recommend working on plays. It's a great way to be introduced to the field, and also a great way to be seen by agents and representation. I'm also a great advocate for studying acting at a drama school or a college.
I can work every day of the year. TV is easy. My call's at 8:30 a.m. I'd like to break out of the comedy thing and take a shot at something serious like theater. The off-season allows me to do movies, but I'm not tired of TV yet. There's nothing like it. I've got the best of both worlds.
When I was doing theater, I was very successful at believing that I was great, God's gift to the theater.
I didn't do a movie until I was almost 30. I'm grateful for that because it gave me a chance to be an adult in the world and do work in the regional theater that very few people cared about. I loved it and I wanted to do that stuff.
I love small films, and I love films being seen in a theater. I love film, and unfortunately, that's being phased out.
When I started off as an actress, I did at a play at the Taper Too Theatre here in Los Angeles, called 'In The Abyss Of Coney Island.' That was more of a dramatic play. It was a small theater house. This was the first time I was literally on the road, doing a play, for four months.
So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.
I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.
