I believe really deeply in the pilot process because you learn things about tone and casting. Even some of our best shows have had substantial re-shoots and reworking before they've gone on the air.
The interesting thing for 'Playing House' to me is we both are at crossroads in the pilot. We both have our lives kind of upside-down, and then because we're taking care of each other, we're able to move forward and live our best lives.
I won't name any names, but I've done a couple of shows where once the pilot got picked up, the creators openly said, 'I have no idea where we're going.'
I don't know how much credit I can take for 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' because I only worked on it for three weeks. I re-wrote the pilot, and then my name was on it forever.
With pilot season, you have to jump through so many hoops, there are so many people in the room, you end up doing four or five auditions. You're just quaking by the end of it.
I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.
I didn't get my first pilot that I screen-tested for, and I really thought it was the end of the world. But it's fine, you know, you move on to something else.
We did one pilot for FOX which was about this couple that moves to a town, and we play everyone in the entire town. So it was like a Peter Sellers film.
Your intuition is the pilot's seat of your soul. If you don't trust it, you'll keep missing the most important of destinations in life.
I dress like a 7-year-old space pilot. I have clothes that I still wear regularly from high school.
I had this job at Hollywood Video, and during my worst audition ever, I forgot all of my lines in front of Chuck Lorre at the callback for the 'Mike and Molly' pilot.
I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I'm in a world of my own.
So just as I want pilots on the planes that I fly, when it comes to monetary policy, I want to think that there is someone with sound judgement at the controls.
The reason I've never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn't entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.
In the early 1930s, flying from England to Australia was the longest flight in the world. It was considered extremely dangerous and hazardous, pushing pilots to the limits of mechanical skills and human endurance. Aviation was young.
Pilots are so hard because you have to introduce all these characters, you have to hook an audience, and an audience has such a smaller attention span than maybe they used to have.
The second episode of any new show can be tough. You have about a week to top the well-crafted and polished pilot episode that was written over six months.
Let's take flight simulation as an example. If you're trying to train a pilot, you can simulate almost the whole course. You don't have to get in an airplane until late in the process.
Disney has been such a big part of my early career. I've done two pilots for Disney, and I've been working with them since I was 16, and I just turned 21.
I had done a directing producing job before on 'Big Day' and 'Jake in Progress,' and those are two shows where I directed the pilot and stayed with it in series.
I was born in 1935, and as far back as I can remember, I was sketching designs. My first subject was an aircraft, which I imagined myself piloting.
