The reason why I like theater is because it's a long journey, and no matter what role you play, we are all in it together.
I wouldn't be here if it weren't for 'Show Boat.' The kind of theater I chose to be involved in is completely a direct reflection of what 'Show Boat' made possible.
When I left Cambridge, I applied to regional repertory theaters in the U.K. and got accepted by one of them... And here I am, still at it.
I don't any longer make any quality judgement between theater and cinema. They are different experiences for the audience, and they also are for the actors - although they have a lot in common.
It's a tough transition really for theater actors to adjust to television or film, and all of these years later, I still have a tendency to play it too big.
In some European theaters, it's still not uncommon to have a late start and three LONG intermissions, because people actually eat and drink and converse during the intermissions.
The theater, for me, has always been a place where I'm free to be more creative, a place to sharpen my tools.
I like those older theaters - the acoustics are perfect, I mean, you just have that feel of there's been a thousand shows in there and now you get to be one.
I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me.
When I moved to New York City in 1965, I wanted to be in theater. I was following my Ethel Barrymore dream. But I was too young to be Ethel.
I'd studied theater growing up and loved that, but didn't have many examples of artists around me.
I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by.
After 'Peepshow,' I really don't know what my next project will be. But I would like to keep on doing theater. I think I could do that forever.
I was always the only black in the movie theater, the only black in class, the only black in the library, the only black in the discotheque. I always felt observed and judged.
I think I've definitely found a niche working in comedy, but dramatic films are what brought me here. After I saw 'Titanic' in the theater, I got the bug.
A lot of people I went to college with felt like they wanted to pursue theater exclusively, so I don't think that I really was in competition with people that I went to school with.
So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theater.
The thing I learned from 'Pride and Glory' is that people like to feel a little better leaving the theater than they did coming in.
I belonged to Stratford Children's Theater when I was a boy growing up in Manchester. Even then, I was always doing character parts.
I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.
Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job.
