I was a baseball player at North Central High School in Spokane, Washington even though I was all-city in basketball, even when I signed a letter of intent to play quarterback at Washington State.
I go for as much feeling as I can rather than show what I can do up and down the neck. I don't play to show people ability.
I think there are people, and I do not mean this to be disparaging, there are people like Jay Mohr and Jeremy Piven where they just give you that vibe, 'This guy's going to play someone a little venal.'
Apparently 'The Office' plays in Brazil. Who would've thought that Brazilians would identify with a bunch of pasty white Scrantonians in a paper company? But the Brazilians I've met have really loved the show.
I'm dying to play a nice guy! No one's willing to cast me. They know I'm all right at bashing people up, but they don't know if I can do the other stuff. And I can.
Well, you create your own persona, don't you? And you have to live with that. But the people that I meet, they don't think that I'm a lunatic. And if they do, then that's OK, because it means that I'm playing the parts all right.
Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there. Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real.
I would say that I definitely play a different role with my style; I like to mix it up a bit according to wherever I am. I dress differently in New York, L.A., Paris and London.
When you play arenas you can create whatever you want. At a theater the height of the stage and the limitations of the theater can make you feel more separate from the audience.
For years, I've felt like the loneliest brother on the planet. I don't play basketball, I can't dance, and I'd rather listen to Harry Nilsson than hip hop.
In my early performing days, I played gigs under the pseudonym Whitey McFearsun. I painted my face blue, wore crimson lipstick, and strung on some tight silver latex pants.
I'm very influenced by jazz drummers. I always liked drummers like Roger Taylor, Keith Moon, Ian Paice, John Densmore. I just learned from playing to those drummers.
It would be easy to say that I want to play a role that was very much like myself, but more or less with acting, you get to be all these different things, and you aren't trying to be yourself, so it's escapism in a way.
Sometimes you only get one chance to rewrite the qualities of the character you played in a person's life story. Always take it. Never let the world read the wrong version of you.
Wish I could just play with water without bills to pay ... and only by then I could truly say I can wash away ALL the dirt there is to clean.
I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.
Like the Elizabeth I play, Queen Elizabeth is a monarch who actually moves with the times. She gets new information, assimilates it, and changes in order the fit in with the way the world is moving. I admire that.
I think everybody's got different methods of working which suit the particular individual. Mine is to sort of play the part, and give 100%, to concentrate and focus on it while I'm actually working, but then leave it behind until the next day.
There were bars that began to have acoustic musicians play, it was 1970: Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, America, The Eagles, all that kind of stuff was popular. It was very easy for me to just kind of move in and be noticed.
In general, I prefer to record all traumas and save them for later, playing them over and over so they can haunt me for a disproportionate number of weeks to come. It's very healthy.
The way I look at myself, the biggest achievement in my eyes - forget winning trophies or scoring in World Cups - is that I'm still at a top club playing at a really high standard having been almost two different players.
