I've heard it said that umpires are necessary evil. Well, we are necessary, but we are not evil. We are hard-working and dedicated people whose primary interest is to make sure the game is played fairly. We are the integrity of the game.
My aunt got me interested in journalism - she found an old typewriter, had it worked over, put it on the dining room table, gave me a stack of paper and said, 'Play like you're a writer.'
People ask me if I ever get sick of playing 'Daydream Believer' or whatever. But I don't look at it that way. Do they ask if Tony Bennett is tired of 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco?'
Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders - not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and takin...
When I meet a girl I like, I call her the next day. I don't play that three-day rule. Maybe that's psycho. But I usually feel like I should have called her that night!
I've been pretty well treated by the critics, but the critics who didn't like my comedies hated them with an unbridled passion, and then I would see these same people writing very respectfully about ordinary naturalistic plays.
We've never played at this place before. This place is big, and I'm kinda nervous, so we're going to make it feel small by pretending we're in a... bedroom. We'll hang off the edge of the bed, take off our shoes and get naked!
I wanted to show off - a simple impulse or drive; in much the same way as some kids wanted to play football, I wanted to show off. Not complicated in that sense, very natural; it just depends on how you want to show off.
The indie world changed when the economy went south. I was frustrated with doing something, then waiting for it to come out, and sometimes it never did, or would just play in New York for 50 people. So I really wanted to try something else.
People know what they're getting with me. It's part and parcel of football that people want to see new faces, but all I can do is play games, score goals and prove I can do it. My record is there for everyone to see.
I cycle, I take an hour's strenuous walk in the evening, I play tennis twice a week with a trainer, and I sail. I used to ride horses professionally - I'd ride seven or eight horses a day, so I had to be fit for that.
I was obsessed with X-Men as a kid, and I would have to go and play every last one of them. My sister was obsessed with Barbies. So we would create these X-Men-Barbie combos and perform weird musicals where they interacted with each other.
That was the producer who produced a couple of my solo albums. He produced my second, third and fourth solo albums. It was his project and I just joined him on it. I sang on one and played bass on another one.
A lot of the people in San Francisco think of themselves as healers - not just as people delivering this base service, but giving their clients spiritual help. It's almost like being an actor, playing a different part for each trick.
I actually ran in junior high school a little bit, you know, like most kids do in track and things. Then I got out of it and just trained for football and played ball for so many years - high school, college and the NFL.
The first episodes I actually read for 'Downton,' Sybil was really intimidated and hadn't come into her own. So it's only in Series Two that she's become so headstrong. In general, I find it exciting to play strong, female roles because they're shock...
I don't think a man has to go around shouting and play-acting to prove he is something. And a real man don't go around putting other guys down, trampling their feelings in the dirt, making out they're nothing.
I think I've proven with my career that I can play a wide variety of characters. Yet, I still get typecast as the crazy slob guy. That's how it always works.
I want my list of works to be lean and mean and everything was urgent and had to be done. Nothing to play the market. My family’s had to suffer for that, that I haven’t done commercial jobs just to bring home the bacon.
I did a lot of community theatre and met a manager that worked out of Philadelphia, and she started sending me up to New York for auditions, and I got the part in a play at Manhattan Theatre Club when I was 15.
We were so fundamental that almost everything had been stripped away from the place of worship. Think of the role words can play, when all other enticements and sensual attractions are gone.
