I’ve never been bored in live theater.
When I was in high school I got involved in the fringe theater scene in Chicago, and I met some openly gay people. I could see that it got better, that they were happy and loved and supported. I saw with my own eyes that it got better.
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.
When you’re in a club or a theater or even an arena, yeah, you want visuals, you want a good light show. But Slayer has always been about the sound. We have to sound good. It has to be tight.
You just have to stick to it beyond all reason and all sanity; you just keep at it. You have to believe that you’ve got to be in the theater.
I really enjoy theater. I just went to see ‘Death of a Salesman,’ and it knocked me on my ass.
I was planning on going to Yale to theater school.
If I wasn’t in the theater, I would be a hermit.
I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language.
I came from a family where I felt great pressure to be financially successful, and I felt that staying in Chicago and doing theater, I was, in all likelihood, not going to find financial success.
We all have an escape. Mine was theater.
When I was in theater I was forever trying to inhabit a space which puts yourself under the microscope as an actor and your personality and your take on life, but actually through another portal of a character.
When I came back from filming ‘Abduction’, I told my agent: I’m staying in London now. If it takes doing children’s theater from the back of a van in Kilburn, that’s OK. I need to be with my family. My job is to keep the family together and provide for them.
I had always wanted to be an actress. I went to summer theater camp from kindergarten on up until high school, and always had the leads in all the plays – even though they were at the YMCA – but it was something I always wanted to do.
The biggest battle for a lot of people who come out of the theater, which is where I was trained, is that they can never forget that a camera is pointed at them.
I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role.
I didn’t feel like gymnastics were part of The Cars. I certainly philosophically didn’t want to prod the audience to react to anything. To me, it was more like negative theater. We didn’t really talk to the audience. I didn’t see that being a part of this band.
Look, it’s a mainstream animated movie, and how often are those considered thought provoking? It’s meant to be a great time at the theater, but it’s also designed to work on more than one level.
When I die, it’s going to read, ‘Game Show Fixture Passes Away.’ Nothing about the theater, or Tony Awards, or Emmys. But it doesn’t bother me.
I might be doing a lot more theater, which is kind of what I love, but there’s simply no time for.
I would love to have a varied career, like Hugh Jackman. He started in musical theater, then established himself in film, but he still does a lot of stage work. And he does it all beautifully.
I have the cliche ‘struggling actor’ story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn’t work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.
My deep dark secret is that I was a nerd in school. I liked the theater. I liked to study. I wasn’t very good at sports.
I did ‘Fences’ off-broadway at the Beacon Theater, so it’s amazing that Denzel Washington and Viola Davis brought it to Broadway.
My dad was a theater actor, so he had an agent, and he brought me into his agency when I was maybe four years old. That was how I started. I started modeling, and it progressed from there.
Theater is so ephemeral, and I love that.
I’ve been auditioning since I was 20, working as a waiter, getting theater gigs, doing the ‘Law and Order’s.
I happened to happened to land in a time, in the middle ’60s, that without knowing it, and without being told by the history of theater – which we now see from a historical point of view was an explosive time.
I’ve always loved musical theater. It’s a bit of a family tradition.
I don’t think about going back to the theater.
All good performance pieces have some philosophical validity. That’s the difference between mere theater and performance art.
I think there are rock stars within every subgenre, and for people who are obsessed with musical theater Sutton Foster and Audra MacDonald are like Beyonce to them. I’m sure the a cappella world has their own version of that, and that exists in every geeky subculture.
I’m not into music – the only music I like is musical theater, but I have every Ween album.
We were at the Schubert Theater for two years. And we were the first act.
And I don’t consider Broadway the acropolis of theatrical art. I mean Broadway is commercial – that’s what it is. It’s expensive seats and a lot of them that have to be filled every night. Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway, as far as I’m concerned, is in New York the pride of New York theater.
When I was a kid, we’d go to the movies, and my parents would reach out to everyone around us in the theater, most of whom could barely afford the movie ticket. They’d hand out popcorn and Milk Duds, strike up conversations with them, lend shoulders to cry on, learn their names, and smile at everyone.
There’s something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
TV is like theater. You can’t enjoy it without a program.
Ingmar Bergman had a great sense of humor, and he had a very special, characteristic laugh that you always recognized – if he went to watch a theater show, ‘Ah! He is here tonight.’
Secretly, I’m in awe of Broadway performers. I would love to perform at that level. I love the exchange with the audience. I love being able to sing and dance to express your emotions and the community and friendships that are formed when working on a theater piece.
More than anything, people want the reality of the discussion at hand. If what is going on in that building is the real thing, if the transforming love and power of Jesus Christ is being experienced, you can sit on a metal folding chair or in a plush theater seat.
Mystery Science Theater is really a postmodern show, it’s really derived of many influences.
I really miss the rehearsal process of theater.
I like time off because I also have a life outside of theater.
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.
I’m supposed to be a pretty good theater actor.
I started in theater, and I love to go back to theater, just to have the experience and recharge my batteries, creatively.
Theater is there to search for questions. It doesn’t give you instructions.
Pinchas Perry, the director of ‘The Chicago 8,’ offered me the role of the judge, and he did not know that, 35 years earlier, I’d played a judge in the theater production. So life has its own little twists and turns.
This is my theater. This is where I can sing and act out a play and do sit-ups at the same time.
Most theater methodology is predicated on the idea of repeated actions. That’s what you work toward. Having the actor repeat the same moment eight times a week. In a film, it’s getting that one moment right.
Do some work in the theater if you can. It is the best training you can get.
I’m an extrovert, I like to gesticulate and talk loud and stuff, and the theater is easy for me.
Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60’s to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer.
Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from the theater, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. You can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.
I came out of repertory theater, where I worked 50 weeks a year, and I loved working with the people.
I’ve been acting for 25 years, living out of suitcases on theater tours or film locations.
When you’re in theater or the circus or film – to me it’s all one – affairs happen. People fall in love.
People may know me from films, but theater is my first love. I did about 35 plays before I even landed my first screen role. I’m very comfortable on stage, and theater is not something you can just wing.
In television, a sitcom is probably the closest thing to what it’s like working in the theater.
I’ve been working straight since 2003, so I might just want to take an improv or theater class. That excites me. I can’t wait to do different characters – not necessarily the leading chick who gets the guy, but the weird, freaky cousin.
