I was so focused at 21, maybe to my own detriment because I didn't allow myself to have fun. I was constantly looking for the next audition and working to pay the bills.
'The Walking Dead' was my favorite show before I even auditioned for it. That's every actor's dream, to be on a show that they're a fan of. It's just dark, and as a comedian, I'm drawn to dark things.
I had auditioned for 'Saturday Night Live' two or three times before and never really saw myself there. I looked up to Belushi and Bill Murray and Aykroyd and I never saw myself as in their world.
As an actor, there's very little you can do if people don't want to see you. Just getting yourself into the room to audition is tough.
I started writing and acting in these little plays and then I was discovered by Dustin Hoffman. He got me my first audition for a film he was in, called 'I Heart Huckabees.'
I came in the Dawson's Creek era; it was all about tiny guys who looked like teenagers, and I haven't looked like a teenager ever. So I was, like, auditioning to be their dads. At 25.
I think commercials get a bad rap, that there's no creativity to them, but I haven't found that to be entirely true. The process of auditioning for them can be tedious, but actually doing them can be really fun.
I was looking through a newspaper and it was an audition for 'Kids Say the Darndest Things,' so I tried out. One thing led to another and I appeared on 'The Rosie O'Donnell Show' and 'Oprah.'
So many actors are lively-minded, creative people who just tread water in this awful way, waiting for the phone to ring and doing their hair for auditions. It feels like a bit of a dreamer's life - as opposed to a sensible ventriloquist's life.
By the time I auditioned for 'Aliens in America,' the July 7 bombing had happened in London. So I'd had those experiences where I would get onto the Tube, and people would get off. So there was a lot about Raja that I understood.
When I've done TV and film, when it's offered to me, I loved doing it, and I would do it again, but the ins and outs of auditioning is - that's time away from my kids.
I used to audition like crazy - I would go on a hundred before I got anything. It took me a long time to get any jobs at all. It was hard until I booked 'Galaxy Quest,' and then it started to get easier.
By the time I was 14, I was about six foot. I remember going into auditions, and they'd look at how tall I was and say, 'Well, you're taller than the lead actor, so there's no way we can cast you.'
I can see my ghost trying to get that Academy Award, forever stuck in a casting office. Can you imagine? I've spent enough time in audition rooms. I don't want to be doing that in my afterlife.
Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other person's back is turned or having other people parrot what they say.
The DC 9/11: Time of Crisis film was hard to get the part; I had to audition three times. It was very serious and very sobering. We studied and tried to re-create all the stuff that we all saw that day.
I played teen roles until high definition came out, and I could never understand it. I would go in for adult roles and be older than many of the people auditioning, but they'd cast the girl without a line on her face.
The Pentagon can't even audit its own books. It doesn't even know where its money is going. And we refuse to have the tough forces go on the Pentagon so that at least they are efficient with the money they're spending.
I will never say never, but I will say never to doing the more typical romantic comedies. You know, unless I'm getting audited and I'm on the street and I desperately need some dough and that's the only thing that I'm getting.
I can't watch my first audition because it makes me too upset. I just think it is really sad. I look at myself and don't recognize myself. I do think fame and fortune changes people.
I guess in the independent market, I'd be getting offers, but in terms of big studio films, I still have to audition. I don't think my name is that well-known, I don't have much of a following to guarantee box office success yet.
