I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to be onstage. I wanted to do musical theater, and from that I realized I was interested in plays. I never imagined myself on television. I was so lucky to be onstage my whole life.
There's something about the alchemy of the show - the actors, the writers, the directors, the editors - that makes 'Parenthood' unique. You get so deeply embedded with these characters because you go through life with them, and that's our priority.
Acting is my true love. I would like to have been a serious actor, and I plan to in the next life. I'm gonna be Meryl Streep Rivers.
As an actor, it's a very strange adjustment to start playing the father. I was used to playing a kid my whole life, and then all of a sudden, it's like, boom. I guess when I let my hair go grey, things changed.
I have a wonderful wife I met at Rutgers while we were both there. She was in the Ph.D. program. She is not an actress. She definitely brings balance to my life. We actors can tend to bore anyone with shop talk.
The big turn in the late '90s was that I realized I was going to be doing this for a long time. I was fairly sure I was going to be an actor for the rest of my life, which I think calmed me down.
You have to have an ego to be an actor, but you need an ego just to get through life! Unless you want to sit on a corner and suck your thumb, it takes a healthy ego to get up in the morning and say, 'I deserve to be here.'
I would love to do Broadway the rest of my life! Because it's challenging, because it makes me grow as an actor, as an entertainer, as an artist, and that's what I need; that's what I'm hooked on.
The heartthrob thing came in the late 1960s, and to be honest, it was fun! But I was very aware that well-known actors are two people - who you are and who other people think you are. Life only gets tricky if you confuse the two.
I've waited my entire life to be busy. Whenever I hear actors complain about being busy, I think, 'shut up.' Because you do, you wait to be successful or to be able to work.
What I find sometimes that is tricky is if actors are using too much of their own life in a picture, in a scene, they get locked into a particular way to play the scene, and it lacks an immediacy.
On paper, actors are the dumbest group of individuals essentially out there. Most of us have not gone to college. However, we never stop learning. Because of what we do, we're constantly researching, constantly learning.
If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.
My first instinct was to cast as close to the short story as possible, but then I realized that I needed actors who could go for it and that they had to function well as a couple in a love story.
I love the company of actors, but the crazier it gets, the more I've come to realise how valuable my time is with my friends who work on the land or are builders or, you know, make music. Work in offices. Run shops.
I would love to direct an 'Apes' movie. It would be in the spirit of where I'm going with my career - avatars played by actors to say something about the human condition.
I love working with the actors eye-to-eye. I think something gets lost in translation, not only through a monitor, but when you leave the area where the actual scene is taking place.
I love casting against type and doing things you wouldn't expect, because I think you get more interesting performances that way. Hollywood loves to pigeonhole people, and there's nothing an actor loves more than to do something different.
But long story short, I didn't start doing stand-up because I wanted to have a TV show or be an actor or even wanted to write sketch comedy. I got into stand-up because I love stand-up.
In films people basically work for the camera, you know, and that's why actors can hate each other and not be speaking to each other and still look as if they're in love because really they're loving the camera loving them.
There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again.
