I had to work out where I was going, what type of films I wanted to make. For that reason, I decided to choose independent productions, less important roles, and I tried theater, too.
I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.
I got successful awfully quick, and I wanted it... But I do think there is responsibility to move the musical theater form forward. I think you always have to be aware of the work that came before and build on that.
Here in America, every single actor, since they were little boys, they sing and dance and perform like angels. We don't do that. We are actors who work in a theater in very classic performances or plays.
For me, my 20s were all about reaching for the brass ring of work in theater, television, and film, surviving in between by waiting tables, painting houses, serving coffee, and temping.
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.
My goal as an actor was to work - to be a working actor, whether it was in theater, and, well, I didn't even consider film and television when I was in New York, but what came along, came along.
If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.
I just want to keep writing characters who are interesting and complicated people and interesting roles for women, in TV or film or in theater. I think that's like my 'Blues Brothers' mission.
Memorial bracelets memorializing prisoners of war, missing in action, killed in action, and those who died of wounds or injuries sustained in a combat theater are authorized.
Live to live and you will learn to live.
Storytelling helps us understand each other, translate the issues of our times, and the tools of theater and film can be powerful in helping young people to develop communication/collaboration skills, let alone improving their own confidence.
My family was amazing; they exposed me to the world of show business, and, boy, it was the '70s and I got to spend a lot of time backstage at theaters and see the inner workings of how this entertainment industry is really put together.
I get very excited when I go to a show - there are all these people who don't know each another who've come together to celebrate this amazing ritual. The making of community that theater provides is quite profound.
I was just blown away by everything my dad was doing, every play. It was amazing to be able to go as a young person to the theater and see these visuals and how creative it could be. More than anything it was realizing you could do that as a life pat...
I had a blast on tour with Little Big Town. We got to play some beautiful rooms around the country - some really amazing old theaters. And it was just cool to see a band that's been together for so long.
I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness - there's nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you've ever had.
Everything has combined to make my life in New York an amazing experience. I told my manager a few years ago that I wanted to move here and try acting in the theater.
'Peter and the Starcatcher' is the most amazing piece of theater I think I've ever seen. It made we want to be a kid again and made me want to pretend, which I do on a nightly basis.
I think that narrative, fiction filmmaking is the culmination of several art forms: theater, art history, architecture. Whereas doc filmmaking is more pure cinema, like cinema verite is film in its purest form.
Theater publicly reveals the human condition through appealing to both intellect and emotion. Architecture, whether lowly or exalted, can do the same.
