I started as an actor in the theater playing a lot of character parts, and suddenly, I found myself in this place where it felt like I was getting locked into a kind of a stereotype, and it did bother me.
I do come from a theater background, where the playwright is optimal and king and you have to serve the playwright. So I am, of course, a huge fan of scripted everything.
I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid, but I started doing theater in high school because it was a requirement. At first, I was completely irritated. But I ended up loving it.
I competitively ice skate, and I also dance, and I do a lot of theater, which also involves a lot, a lot of physicality, because you have to do a lot of fast changes.
All I know is that as an audience member, I am less and less inclined to go to the theater. But that has to do with content and also because the venues seem to be actively trying to repel people.
The trick is to have my own particular taste and feel for the theater to audiences who have been used to one particular style and taste for nearly 40 years.
I actually know the moment I became known. It was at the Cannes Film Festival, when they showed 'The Virgin Spring.' I walked into that theater as one person, and I walked out as another.
But, yes, I learned everything working in theater. I learned the importance of community - I was constantly going to play readings, stand-up nights, improv. nights.
I always get a little uppity when I hear the phrase 'TV actor.' It's like saying you're a magazine reporter. I was in the theater for ten years before I ever had a TV audition.
I'm terrified of being too famous. What I'm really afraid of is that the audiences will go into the theater and not be able to forget that it's me, that fame will stand in the way of my acting. I want to keep being able to change into different shape...
I have never directed anything for the stage. I studied for three years in the theater, and it was a very, very scary experience to direct live, being so vulnerable without the possibility to control things, to be so exposed.
You must not demand the failure of your peers, because the more good things that are around in film, in television, in theater - why the better it is for all of us.
My mother came from an Irish family of 11 kids and, of course, had a sister who was a nun, so I spent time at a convent and with an aunt and uncle who lived in New York and took me to the theater.
I was shy and didn't believe in myself, and I only bloomed when I was in theater during rehearsal. And that's how my family found out that that's where I needed to be, because that's where I felt the most comfortable.
When I was 13, I moved from New Jersey to Germany with my family. The high school was so supportive of my dream to continue with my theater training; instead of taking PE, I would get credit for dance lessons.
It's nice because working in England I'm know for working in television and theater when you get a chance to come out, it is quite fun to be out from behind the mask. You need to let people know who you are.
Do theater. Because you'll develop a craft that you'll always have. It'll give you a chance to really learn how to act and you won't go into the world with a few measly tricks that will only carry you so far.
You start in bars and then restaurants, then you want to get into comedy clubs where you feature, then you headline, and once you sell out clubs you're into theaters. I've been able to get there, and it's cool to do that.
I always wanted to have a career that would keep me at home in New York so I can work in the theater all the time and be involved in the creative process from the ground up.
I learned how to turn it on and turn it off. You learn that in theater, too, but for film work, I learned from doing 'Henry,' I learned how to leave work at work and go home. There's always spillover. Actors speak of this.
If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home.
