One of the things I love about acting is that I can enter into these other people's lives. But going back to being me at the end of the day is very important, too. That process of remembering who I am.
Both back when I was acting and now that I'm writing, I've always wanted the same thing out of my career: to be able to get up in the morning and do what I love doing.
Music I can discover a part of myself that I haven't been able to for a long time, and acting is the opposite. I'm in love with both of them and I would never choose one over the other.
You have to love what you do, and you have to need it like you need air. And there's nothing else that would give me the same degree of satisfaction as acting, which is why I can't walk away from it.
It's not a struggle, but sometimes when you're gone for a month or two, you start to miss your friends. I love acting so much that it fills that gap of being sad about not being able to see my friends.
I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I've stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.
There's no platform for an unsigned music scene in the main cities - it's all hyped acts or showcases behind closed doors. I read about artists that are doing it 'the old-fashioned way' and touring, as if that's a unique thing to do - well, that shou...
As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.
Be honest with yourself and the way you act when you hear music. That way, when people watch, they'll see something from your heart and soul, and as a result will communicate your feeling and thought much better.
For the first five years of music and first five years of acting, I don't remember it because I was running to where I was going. Finally I was like, 'Man, I missed everything.' So I just stopped, and I started looking around.
I was Aladdin, and then I was Captain Von Trapp from 'Sound Of Music' when I was 7 or 8, and then King Arthur. I was always the lead. I've always enjoyed being onstage, acting obnoxious, being someone that wasn't me, hiding behind a character.
I'm in a real minority as far as having really supportive parents in regards to the arts. They never batted an eye as far as not letting me do that stuff. That's invaluable. I can't believe how unabashedly supportive they were about everything, betwe...
I want to choreograph, I want to direct, I want to act, I want to write music, I want to play music, I want to sing. For me, it's never-ending. I want to do it all, really.
I've been in the studio experimenting on making a CD of my own. I'm trying out different producers, styles, sounds. With music, as opposed to acting, you are not playing a character. You are showing people who you are. I really want to have my spirit...
'Saturday Night Live' was actually started with a show that Lorne Michaels and I did at a summer camp called Timberlane in Ontario when we were 14 and 15. We would do an improvisational show with music, comedy and acting.
I'll always be an actor first. I grew up doing musical theater, so music and acting, to me, have always gone hand in hand. I'm going to be an actor first because it's my career, but music will always be a part of me.
Acting was always something I loved doing, but I didn't know that I would pursue it professionally. I really loved doing plays at school, but I was in a rock band and ended up going to a school for music.
No acting, no production, could take the place of that moment when you come out in the dark on to the stage and the drummer plays four beats on the hi-hat and then lights and music. It just takes your breath away. No words can do what music can.
The music I make and the process of acting, for me, are both about trying to understand people and get inside what makes us tick. That's the main thing that excites me. Our sense of who we really are and what drives us.
The only people who have doubts about the sincerity of my music are people who come to it relatively late, off the back of having seen me in a film. Acting is about being other people, and music is about being myself.
My goals are to continue acting and also to produce some independent films in the next few years. Music is a passion of mine, so I also want to continue along that path, creating with my friends.
