We were raised right in the heart of the Bogside. Everything was so bad at the time that Mammy would bring us to the pantomime, circus, concerts because we were so confined at home.
I haven't had a stationary home since going with the circus, but since my parents lived in Lafayette about 25 years ago and my sister lives here now, I always claim it as home.
I love animals, and I was always attracted to the idea of being a zoo veterinarian or a veterinarian with the circus.
Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.
I played football when I was little. I didn't want to be an actress at all, I wanted to be a majorette in an Australian circus. That was my ambition.
Jack O'Donnell: If we wanted applause, we would have joined the circus. Tony Mendez: I thought we did.
I grew up very comfortable in this bizarre, circus-like existence, but, as comfortable as I was, I was also aware of the struggles that actors go through.
Can the sarcasm,' he said. 'Please, I always use fresh sarcasm, never canned.
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said It was the dream itself enchanted me ("The Circus Animal's Desertion")
You can get the monkey off your back, but the circus never leaves town
We get schooled by the people around us, and it stays inside us deep.
Prospero the Enchanter's immediate reaction upon meeting his daughter is a simple declaration of: "Well, fuck.
Out of the frying pan into the fire! What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? No different!
If she were gone I would be nothing. You should think better of yourself than to settle for that.
On the high wire, within months, I'm able to master all the tricks they do in the circus, except I am not satisfied.
When I first became involved with PETA, it was on an 'issue-by-issue' basis - they interviewed me in my old apartment about animal abuse in the circus as I sat on a leather sofa.
I resisted the film business as long as I could, because of the big circus act and the amount of money that it costs to make films - I saw my father suffer through that.
What happened was, my parents after 'Circus Boy' decided to take me out of show business for two years to go back to normal school. It was the smartest thing they ever did.
Living as an actor is rather like living life on the trapezes in a circus. Every time you jump on, you have to pray that, when the time comes for you to jump off, there is another trapeze swinging your way.
The students that, like the wild animal being prepared for its tricks in the circus called 'life', expects only training as sketched above, will be severely disappointed: by his standards he will learn next to nothing.
When I was 18 I worked with the Ringling Brothers circus, taking care of menagerie animals. I used to rather deliberately risk my life with the big cats.
