When I retired from the NFL, no one knew who I was, and I had to start all over. I ended up doing security in L.A., and I was just on movie sets and watching.
Today, actors aren’t forced to ditch their regional accents like they used to. The best example’s Tom Baker, a Scouser who went to great lengths to change his accent and ended up with something alien – and fantastic. It’s sad that when the likes of him go, there won’t be those sorts of accents any more.
I didn’t really know you could make a living in songwriting. I was just very fortunate to have the opportunity to play a few songs for a guy there named Jimmy Ritchey. Through that meeting, I met another couple guys and ended up getting a publishing deal in Nashville.
I kept saying that I’d never live in L.A., and I didn’t think I would. But that’s where the work is, and I ended up making a lot of friends there, and my old friends moved out to Los Angeles too. And also, I think when you’re famous, its hard to live in a small town.
When I was about six or seven, I did this character reenactment performance where I read a monologue from ‘Peter Pan.’ I got into a complete Peter Pan outfit and did a little paragraph from the script – and I ended up winning an award for it.
I knew I needed surgery and I didn’t want to have it and I ended up having it.
There used to be a tradition within the Hispanic community that, regardless of your political party, you would support undocumented immigrants. That ended with Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
I remember doing a little student film where we had a guy that couldn’t pull focus. We ended up spending three times the amount of time shooting this thing as opposed to if the guy could’ve just pulled focus.
I think I definitely would have ended up in some kind of show business. I was very interested in music when I was younger. This was back when Crosby, Stills and Nash were around.
I’ve known Emma Watson since she was 9, we’ve watched each other grow up, formed this sort of brother/sister bond, and suddenly I’m leaning in to kiss her. Well, it felt completely wrong… but, you know, you try to sink into the character and divorce yourself from it. We ended up laughing hysterically afterwards.
I graduated from Academy of Fashion and Costume Design in Rome. At first, I thought I was going to be a costume designer for films, and then I ended up working in fashion – not as a designer, but mostly as a model.
U2 was involved in Live Aid, and I ended up going to Ethiopia and working there for some time with my wife, Ali.
Dancing was one of the hobbies my brother and I had when we were kids, and dance ended up being the one that stuck. I dropped everything else until that was what was left in the end.
There’s never been a southpaw fighter to make it five rounds with me. These are championship fights, and most of them can’t even make it out of the normal rounds. Fought Chael Sonnen, TKOed him in round one. Fought Vitor Belfort. He made it to round four when I ended up submitting him.
Danny Ferry did a very good job when he was here and put the franchise up to a certain level, as did Mike Brown, and his contract had ended after five years, and, ultimately, both sides decided they wanted to do other things. No hard feelings at all there.
To me, the series was the end of the actor, when the series ended.
When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn’t expect me in comedies or musicals.
What wouldn’t have happened to me if I hadn’t ended up in Hartford, Connecticut.
Regardless of any experiences in the past, for me it really is important to be engrossed in as much of the creative process as I possibly can. I was surprised with how much the eight years I spent on ‘Castle’ actually serviced that. I ended up, in a way, having a free education on that show.
I’d get home at 3:30 A.M. from the bar after my shift ended at 1. I’d write jokes, film it, and then sleep. So I did that for two years.
I remember once Manchester United were ahead of Manchester City by eight points and ended up losing it, so everything is possible in this life.
For graduate school I ended up going to the University of Iowa, which is, of course, the best graduate writing program in the country.
Every so often when I’m writing, a character might actually be a distinct person in my head – often not an actor or a face, literally a person who just seems to exist in my imagination. Then the challenge is finding somebody who is close enough to that to make me feel like I’ve ended up where I wanted to be.
Once, right before a show, I realized I’d forgotten shoes. I didn’t want to wear my flip-flops onstage because I could trip. I ended up going barefoot, which actually worked out because it became my ‘thing.’
The Elian events were shocking to Cubans because we were the fair-haired boys of the Cold War. The problem is, the Cold War ended.
The boy I was crazy about was super into photography, so I weaseled my way into AP Photo to impress him and spend more time with him. He never liked me back, but I ended up spending most my senior year in the darkroom – it became a sort of safe haven for me.
I started at a very early age in this business and I’m sure most of you have read stories about people who have started as children and ended up in very difficult lives and bad consequences.
Most controversies would soon be ended, if those engaged in them would first accurately define their terms, and then adhere to their definitions.
I am a woman with chronic schizophrenia. I have spent hundreds of days in psychiatric hospitals. I could have ended up living most of my life on a back ward, but things turned out quite differently.
I wanted to win the gold medal and then go home and further my education in college. I had no intentions whatsoever to become a professional fighter because I had heard horror stories about former boxers who made money but, in the end, ended up with nothing. I didn’t want to be one of those guys.
I started acting when I was 13 in New York. Worked there for a couple years, then auditioned for a show there that was going to be filming here. Ended up coming out, getting the job and just staying.
My family wasn’t particularly political. Mom and Dad voted, but that was the extent of their involvement. In fact, I ended up going to U.C. Davis because, to them, Berkeley was too radical.
Unfortunately, I ended up kind of getting sadly duped, in a way. I haven’t had an agent in 10 years, and now I’m doing some of the most interesting films I’ve ever had an opportunity to play in.
There were times after my marriage ended where, you know, I really felt like I was at the bottom of a mountain, there was a great big, fog up there, and I’m never going to cross to the other side.
I’ll never forget the first screening at the Berlin Film Festival. As soon as the film ended there was an outbreak of booing, which made us look at each other with some surprise.
Between their rise in the thirteenth century and their sudden fall in the seventeenth, when the line abruptly ended, the Medicis produced three popes, two queens, and many Florentine rulers, and they supported the work of Galileo, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Botticelli – a veritable parade of geniuses.
My parents were not perfect, but no one’s parents are. As childhoods go, mine was pretty comfortable and good in a lot of ways, and yet I still ended up with anxiety.
I always thought it was funny that my grandparents had bought a ticket to New York and ended up in Glasgow.
My teachers encouraged me to audition for some professional work during our summer vacation. I landed my first job. It was for the National Theatre Company’s Mimika Pantomime troupe. I ended up touring with them for the next two years.
My parents were practicing Jews. My mother grew up in an orthodox synagogue, and after my grandfather died, she went to a conservative synagogue and a little later ended up in a reform synagogue. My father was in reform synagogues from the beginning.
When I look back on my life, I overpaid for my big successes every time. And when I tried to get a bargain, get it a little cheaper or get a better deal on it, I ended up usually either getting it and not happy I got it. Or missing it.
I always said that if I could just find a guy who could chop wood and had a nice smile, it wouldn’t bother me if he was a thug or an aristocrat, as long as he was a good guy. And I’ve ended up with an educated thug.
In 1996, Republicans used reconciliation to pass major legislation that ended six decades of welfare policy.
I’ve ended up becoming my mother in some respects, despite my eight years of analysis!
Oddly enough, George Pal always began and ended something with The Bible. All his pictures had a religious undertone. God was always there, protecting us.
I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I’ve stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.
