I don't think you can help but personalize a role. You almost play to none of the preconceived notions of it. It's more or less a personal experience and journey.
In the Seventies, my children played in the street, read politically incorrect stories, ate home-cooked food and occasional junk and, yes, were sometimes smacked.
The part which American friendship played in helping us to win the freedom we enjoy in this part of Ireland has been gratefully recognized and acknowledged by our people.
'True Blood' is truly a playground. You get to go in and just let loose and completely just have fun and play around. There is so much freedom on set.
When I retired in 2002 I had retired to stay home with my family and didn't necessarily think my playing days were over.
Midwives and doctors play a crucial role preventing unnecessary maternal deaths. They educate women about nutrition, health and family planning. And they step in when complications arise.
In our family, my brothers and I shared toys. In other words, just because it was mine didn't mean my brothers and I didn't play with it.
Everything Sholom Aleichem talks about in his plays and his short stories is about people, family, man's relationship with his God, the breaking down of tradition.
A person can be big, because of spirit. A person can be big because of their position in the family, the hierarchy in the family. That role has been played by women who are quite thin.
Not what you would call a musical family, but my father used to play saxophone, and I discovered many genres of music when I was a child.
I've played a couple of gay characters onstage, and it's always been something I'm comfortable with. I grew up in a family and a culture that doesn't have stigmas about sexuality.
Even if you play perfectly, a fault of your opponent's can destroy the entire beauty of the game.
Of course in show business there are two ways to play it and I am not politically correct so I am not going to get endorsements or anything like that.
The blanket assertion that corporations are people obfuscates the complex issues at play in the changing business world. Corporation are institutions. People are people.
I have always been business minded, always been sorta an entrepreneurial guy; I played a character on 'Felicity' that was modeled after me, actually.
Women in pro-ams are always telling me about all the business deals they've struck on the golf course playing with their male work colleagues.
I like playing Vernon Dursley in 'Harry Potter,' because that gives me a license to be horrible to kids. I hate the odious business of sucking up to the public.
There's a lot more people that enjoy me playing the enforcer, the destroyer. If bad disappears one day, then good goes out of business.
Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.
Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.
Sometimes people walk into plays by accident - they don't even know what they're looking at; they just think to give it a chance. That can be the beginning of a long friendship.
