You think you can go into all those auditions not knowing who you are? The work came after I found my sense of self - when I wasn't so manic and desperate.
My personal philosophy would be don't whine, don't let opportunities pass you by, be willing to work hard, and remember that you don't know as much as you think you do, ever.
When you first start, you just want to get a job. It goes from that to really deciding what kind of work you want to do and what kind of actor you want to be - and it only gets harder.
Well, being 6' 5', pull-ups are my nemesis. I have really long arms so I have to do twice the work of someone with short arms to get the weight up there.
That made me feel very disturbed, because it never seemed to be about how much hard work was involved. Ever. It was about... 'hazel eyes'. It does help if you can brush that stuff off.
I don't know if you know this - I don't drive a stick. I mean, I barely drive my automatic. I get to work and everything, but I'm not any kind of driving prodigy.
When I interview somebody, I look at their resume to see what they've done, who they've worked with, and how many times. If they've gotten repeat work. Those are the kinds of actors I want to hire.
There's nothing wrong with giving yourself a pat on the back. If you can't do that, you can't be objective about your work. You can't be conceited or cocky either, but you can't be too modest either.
When you're talking about people like Shonda Rhimes, Vince Gilligan or Beau Willimon, you're talking to people who are notable and celebrities in their own right. People want to know how their brains work.
I'm going to have fans and I'm going to have people who don't like everything I do. All I can really do is go to work and do my job.
You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.
So I am happy to have fans, especially if it enables me to keep working. And I am really grateful when people respond to my work.
We were using a hand-held camera to film the scene when Morse collapses. The camera wouldn't start. Three times they said action and it still wouldn't work. To this day, they still don't know what was wrong.
You start where you can get an opportunity, you take everything that you can do to gain entrance. You do the little work and you try to find people who can teach you.
I started in theater. I would liken sitcom work more to theater work than I would, perhaps, to dramatic television. It's so quick. It kind of feels like the pace of a play.
Now I've gotten to know more about the industry. And now that I'm over 18, I can work without my parents on set. That was nice and helped me get comfortable.
I started out as Keith Mitchell. I had done probably about ten years of television work under that name. Then my grandfather passed away in 1984. I wanted to honor him and his name.
If I didn't work in television or film, if I didn't have the right look, I never took it personally. Because there was always the theatre. I'm not a nihilist, I'm an optimist. And that has served me well in this profession.
I'm definitely in a place where I'm looking for different than what I've done in the past, just so I can go to work and do something I haven't done before.
How do you create chemistry? If only I knew that! Some people say it's a natural thing that you have with someone, and maybe it is to do with that, but I think you can work on it.
In North Carolina nobody bothers us; we're all about concentrating on the work or our auditions that we're trying to get a flight out for. So all that crap is not something that I'm confronted with on a daily basis.
