Tell me how you got started in show business.
I did commercials one was a little kid in New Haven, CT. A commercial company that did the commercials for M&M's and Smarties... they were from Chicago, a company called French Fried Films. They were going around to local schools outside New York City and I was a little skinny kid with big blue eyes and curly blond hair and they just picked me. So I did if of bunch of those when I was a kid... that was the first real thing I did. And then a lot of plays in high school. And then went to Yale Drama school. So that's how I sort of fell into it. I always just wanted to do it.

And did your parents sort of bring you into it?
My parents met as actors... my father was an undergraduate at Yale and my mom was in the drama school. They were there with Dick Cavett and a lot of those types of people, and they did a lot plays together. My mom was also a musician but had a terrible time and dropped out and had kids. And Dad became a professor. But it was sort of a given thing... my sister was a ballet dancer, my brother was an actor, we were always doing artsy things as kids. It was always accepted, which I was very lucky about. They wanted us to do what ever made us happy.

So you didn't travel very far when you went to college?
I actually went to college in Maine. A little place called Bowdoin, and then I went to graduate school in New Haven. But where I went to college you couldn't major in acting so I was a music major. Ethno-musicology. And of course they have this great department now where you can be an acting major. But it was more extracurricular when I was there. So, I was only one of two people in my class who was not a drama major going into Yale, which was sort of an odd thing to be.

So it was an MFA program at Yale?
Yeah, its an MFA program at Yale. You go there for three years and the great thing about it is you're doing what you want to do for three years. You take dance, you take voice, you take speech... the first year you do just Chekov, then the second year you do just Shakespeare, and the third year you do Sam Shepard. And you're constantly inundated with doing plays. You can be doing five different plays at once.

Then I would go do the Williamstown Theater Festival, I was in their non-equity company. 1985, 86, and in 87 I got my Equity Card, which was kind of a big deal back then. You would go to a company and they would sort of wean you along and eventually they would make you part of the company. So I did that during the summers, which was insane because you were doing 5 or 6 plays at once and building sets and hanging lights and doing sound design... You were constantly inundated. And then you get out of drama school and... it's over. And you're not doing it. It's a very bizarre adjustment to simply not be doing that 24 hours a day.

I think the only reason I got into the drama school at the time, because it was so hard to get into, was because I had failed a couple courses in college and I went to the Yale Summer Program two years before I graduated from college. So I had all the teachers that were teaching at the drama school. So when I went to the auditions I had already done about two months of auditioning. They had worked with me, so they knew what my potential was and wasn't. So I had no expectation, I really didn't think I was going to get in. I thought what I would do was just go to New York and hit the bricks, try to find an agent... get a job and try to be an actor. And I was also a musician, I was playing with a band that had a record deal out of Boston. And that was a big choice too, I thought maybe what I'll do is go to New York and work as a musician instead of an actor.

And then I got into the drama school and that changed everything. So I went to essentially seven years straight, four years of college and three years of drama school and then shot out like a cannon into New York City. Which was kind of insane.

And tell me about the transition.
I think it's all so changed now. I graduated in '87 and it's all different now... the business is changed. The philosophy back then was that you learned how to be a well-rounded actor and they trained you to be in theater more or less. The problem is, you can't support yourself on regional theater, and even Broadway in New York. I think now there's some more preparation for film and television. I think there's more work on camera, which we didn't have.

See you get shot out of Yale and you think that just because you went to Yale Drama School that you're going to get out and you're going to be an actor right away. And that's just not... that's not true. So it's a pretty jarring transition. I was lucky because I got to New York and I had an agent already. Which a lot of guys in my class didn't have. I had done a couple plays on the main stage at Yale and agents would come down from New York and scout talent. So I had that coming out, but I had a difficult time, too.

Because in drama school you can play a leading man or a character, it doesn't matter... you play all sorts of roles. But you're not prepared for the business aspect of it when you get out in the real world and... it's business. It's "what type are you?" It doesn't matter if you can do this or that, it's "what can we slot you as right away?" And I was not a "type". I was between a lot of things... not really a leading man, but not a character actor... I looked a lot younger than I was when I got out, I was a lot bigger than I am now. And no one really knew what to do with me, and I wasn't prepared mentally to realize how hard that was going to be.

That was a huge thing... dealing with how the business categorizes you. It doesn't matter how good an actor you think you can be or the versatility you think you can show, it's about "what can we slot you as, how can we make money off you right now?", and I had a really hard time with that. The first two years out of school I didn't act. It was terrible. Got rejected all over the place. I was a bartender, and I drove a moving van, and I actually coached kids auditioning for drama schools a little bit. Those first couple years were really hard.

Were you taking classes at that time?
No, I didn't take classes. A lot of people take class, but I felt like I had been under a microscope for a few years and I needed to get away from that feeling. Because you come into drama school with all these raw instincts, and what drama school does is takes you away from all of those instincts and teaches you technique. And then you get very steady, and then the rest of the time you spend trying to get back to your raw instincts. I figure it took me 10 years to figure out how to be an actor after drama school. I've still got a ton of things to learn, but I didn't take class. I tried to stay away from it.

In those first two years, what was your relationship with your agent? Was it positive, or was someone saying, "C'mon... you've got to get something or this isn't going to work out"?
I was pretty lucky because I had the same agent for many years. And he was very patient. You know, you get out of drama school and you're 25 years old and, you know... Meryl Streep went to Yale and you think you're going to be Tom Hanks and everyone is telling you you're going to be Tom Hanks. And my agent was more patient. He said it was more important to build a career, to be a better actor... he was very patient with it. I was impatient and that's a problem because then you start to get too needy, you go in and blow your audition because you're too desperate. And then you try not to care as much but you don't care enough... it's a real fine balance.

But I realized at some point along the way, all I ever wanted to be was a good actor. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much money you're making or whether you're a star or not... all you have is to work on your craft. So you take your five minutes at an audition that day and you go in and work on it real hard and just try to walk out of there feeling good about your work. Whether you get the job or not, there's nothing you can do about it. So all you have left is to try to work on being a better actor.

And how many auditions do you estimate you did in those first two years?
50? 60? A lot. And the first job I got was an off-off-Broadway thing in a church basement that paid $400 a month. And that was my first job. And then I slowly started understudying... I understudied a little part at the Manhattan Theater Club, and then I got two lines in a Shakespeare play at Lincoln Center. I was carrying furniture and then I was a guard running in and saying my two lines in Measure for Measure. It was great because it ran for months and I was making a steady paycheck, but I still kept my bartending job. So I would do the show and then I would go bartend until 4:00 in the morning, and sometimes I would get two hours of sleep then work the day shift, then go back and do the show.

It was very difficult to make a living and sustain yourself doing off-Broadway and even Lincoln Center. You're making $400 a week. And you can't live in New York City and do that. And that's why I came out here... I thought, "Well, I'm not getting much work there, my agent said to try LA because if I get a job at least I make some money." That's why I came out here... financial.

When your agent said, Head West... what was happening around that time?
That was about 1990, so I'd been out of drama school for about three years. So I had little teeny jobs here and there. Then I started taking anything... I'd do readings at the Public Theater for 50 bucks. I'd be a reader for casting directors, because I thought well maybe if I'm a reader for a casting director, maybe that would help me. I did anything and everything, and the worst possible kinds of things. I did this thing for free every Friday night, it was called "Spies", and it was like a running serial. So every Friday night would be the next installment... it was sort of a take off on James Bond. I did that for no money. I did anything to get somewhere.

Finally around 1990, it was the owner of the agency who said to me, "You know, I think you should could come out to Los Angeles, I think you could get some work out here." And I was like, "I can't even get work in theater... how am I going to get work in television?! I'm not pretty enough, and yet... I'm not funny looking enough..." Finally, I just figured, what the hell... sure, I'll try it. I knew nothing about California, I knew nothing about LA... I came out here and slept on someone's couch. And my first audition... I got it.

It was the part of a rapist on Hunter. The first audition, I got the job. And then, my second audition, it was a movie of the week [Aftermath: A Test of Love] with Richard Chamberlain, and I got that part! And all of a sudden I'm working and I'm like, "Oh my god!" And then I got a movie called Necessary Roughness, which was a football movie in Texas for four months.

I think part of it was that I was the new guy and I was an actor from New York and because I was a little "different" I kind of fit in... for a while. And then after I got the movie I came back here and got a guest spot on a sitcom, and then I got a regular part on a sitcom called Flying Blind, which a lot of the original people from Friends developed. And all of a sudden you're like, "Wow! I've got People Magazine coming over to my crappy $400 a month apartment and taking pictures!" And people are telling you, "You're hot! You're hot! You're hot!" And you start listening to them and then... POOF! It didn't make it after a year. And the problem was, the part I was playing was the slick, yuppie, BMW driving sleazy Wall Street guy, and then all I could get seen for were those parts. All of a sudden I couldn't do anything serious, though I'd been trained in Shakespeare.

All of a sudden it all went away and then I struggled out here for like, three or four years and got nothing... and it all just went POOF! Because it's all about jumping into the next circles and I had gotten to this circle and then things just didn't work out. The timing wasn't right. So then I went back to NY and did regional theater for three or four years. You know, which you can't support yourself on... and then had a couple years of doing nothing. You know, back and forth... back and forth.

Well, now... let's look at this: Things are hot, People's at your aparment, and... are you buying into it?
I bought into it, sure! I totally bought into it. I was what... 27, 28 at the time? So, yeah! And I'd had such a hard time... I thought, "I'm never going to have to be a bartender again!" And I got to do a couple scenes with Paul Newman in a movie called Mr. and Mrs. Bridge that Merchant Ivory had done. But then the movie didn't do that well. And what I started to learn was that you can get into these things and if they're not hot... it doesn't matter. Nobody cares. You can be the greatest thing and they don't care. And if you get a bunch of them and they're not working... I got another sitcom in 1994 called Wild Oats and it lasted about three episodes and got cancelled. And then you don't work again for seven months or eight months.

So you're constantly terrified. You get a little taste of things, and you think everything's going to be okay, you're going to keep getting work, keep getting work. And then you don't work for nine months. You audition and you get rejected every day. But I did buy into the whole... I bought into it. Which was the biggest mistake. Because I had forgotten about working on being an actor. And after a while I started to realize that I had nothing but to work on being a better actor. Because all that other stuff doesn't mean anything... they come to you so quickly and they run away just as fast.

So when you moved back to NY... you packed it up and moved back to NY, or you just put your stuff in storage?
No, by 1995 I packed it up. Because I'd spent two more years here just... this place is the worst when you're down. It's worse than New York when you've got nothing going on. Because, New York... you can always walk out and there's people around and some kind of environment and you can always go do a reading or something. It's more of an actor-friendly environment. But out here, it's brutally cold because every place you go there's "the business" and everybody is a star and it can just make you feel really isolated and awful.

So I went back there and in 1995, I worked once in that year. Then I got a play at the Guthrie in 1996, which led to a play at Seattle Rep, you know... then I wouldn't work for four months. I kind of bounced back and forth. Then after a couple years I came back out here... I lived in a garage in Beverly Hills with a mattress on the floor. I lived on a friend's couch. I lived in my car... it was starting all over again trying to get work, trying to get auditions. And people would recognize me and they'd be like, "Oh, I remember you... you were that guy, you were on that tv show! Whatever happened to you?" And I was like, "Well, I'm still here." And then I couldn't get any work... it was the same thing all over again.

I also worked as a musician. I picked up my bass somewhere in the middle of this and thought, "Well, I've got find something else to do, because this is just insane." Because all you're doing is auditioning and getting turned down and it's all about result and you get paranoid because you can't get work and you can't make any money. So I started picking up music again, which I had always done my whole life, but had kind of put down for a while. And I started getting work as a musician. Which actually took the heat off of things a little bit, because I had to find something else to do. I was making myself insane.

You kept coming back at it, though... you kept working at it and coming back to it. What has kept you going on the acting? After being hot and then not...
I think that... that's a tough question. I don't know, except that what happens is that you love acting so much and then the business comes along and steps on it and starts to kick all the love out of it. Then I think there was also that hope, that taste of being able to act again, to do what you love, what you feel most right at.

But also there's a financial thing... I made a little bit more money in television. So that became almost like I had no choice, might as well come back out here because at one point I had made some money at it. I couldn't make the money in NY and when I did do regional theater, I spent probably two years living out of a bag. I was like a professional vagabond. I had no home. You're going from Chicago to Seattle to Minneapolis to Hartford... that's crazy too. And you're making $400 and sending it home to pay rent. And then that kinda burns out. So you start wondering, okay what's the next thing? And I got a show on Broadway and I thought, "Oh great... I can be making $1,000 a week!" And I was making $600 a week.

So what else is there? Well, I might as well go back out and whack at it as hard as I can because even if I can get on a show that makes it only three episodes, that might mean I make $30,000. So it became a very strange catch-22. You're really caught in between.

What do you love about acting?
I think that when I first started doing it, somehow I always felt, even though you pretend to be someone else, I always felt like I was the most myself when I was acting. It fulfilled me somehow. I felt just right... I can't explain it. It's like... it just fuels you. You feel powerful. It's like nothing else in the world. And that's the problem with it, too. It's like heroin. You try to kick the habit but it's great. So I really just felt most myself. And it's also a creative thing. The creativity gives you a sense of purpose. So when you don't have that, suddenly you don't have purpose. It's just terrible.

What do you hate about it?
I hate the business. I mean... acting can be very difficult. You take jobs, you take a guest part and you get treated like crap. But you're always reaching for that one great role. But I think the business end of it sssssssucks! It stinks! But it's part of it, and you have to learn to be able to deal with it.

Acting can be very frustrating if you're confused and getting up in your head. If you're working with a director you're not synapsing with on the right levels it can be sooo frustrating and such a... there's nothing worse. And when you're in a bad play... people hate it... then it's the worst thing in the world. And I've been in a couple of those. It's just awful. Terrible. And you know people hate it and you still have to do it. And then everything is dark and horrible. So you live for that one time in ten when it's fantastic and fulfilling and great and fun and free and... that's the best.

And what's "the business" that you hate so much?
That's the stuff that you're never really prepared for. That's the stuff that you learn through the school of hard knocks. This is a business and there are some people who are very lucky and who haven't worked at it and you go, "Why the hell do they deserve this? I've worked my ass off!" And yet they seem to be born with a silver spoon in their mouth and they're handed things because of how they look or who they know or because they're just plain old lucky for some reason. Or something they got in just happened to take off and you just don't have that luck. But you have to just keep constantly telling yourself you're on a different path and you just learn to be a better actor.

And the whole sort of "slotting"... you know, you are THIS TYPE of person and then you try to be that type that they want you to be and you make concessions with yourself instead of saying, "no I can try to do something different... try to change people's minds, make them see you differently." It's always a constant struggle. That stuff is really hard. And you're not prepared for it when you go to drama school. And the only way to learn about that is to be out there and doing it. And then you're going into auditions thinking you know exactly what they want to see so you try to give them what you think they want to see, but it doesn't matter. You can be the greatest actor in the world and doing it perfectly, but if you don't look exactly right you're not going to get the part. You just have to let go of it, which is really difficult.

Is it most often the way you look? Is it more about your picture, or your resume?
It depends on who's sitting in the other chair. You know, there are a lot of people out there with integrity who actually take a moment to look at your resume and really talk to you and really see you and have an imagination. And there are other people who... it's all about how you look. They don't care about anything. It all depends on how you look. If you don't look right for something they don't care what you've done or how much you've done or haven't done as long as you're that. What they see, you're it. Until they decide that you're not it and they fire you.

Tell me about your relationship with your agent. What is the actor's side of the relationship?
I'm very low maintenance. But there was a time when I was hounding my agent all the time. You know, "Why aren't I getting this audition, why isn't this person calling me back, why can't I do this, why can't I do that, why won't they see me for this...?" and then, like everything else, eventually you've got to let go about it. I think, again... it's a lesson in letting go.

But it's something you have to figure out. Because there are agencies that are huge that you have to be sending them flowers every week and taking them all out to lunch and schmoozing them. And then there are other ones that are smaller, boutique agencies and you don't have to do that. That's a whole 'nother ball game.

I think the best way to have a relationship with an agent is to be totally honest about what you want, where you want to go, where you're coming from, and what you want. And then that person takes that within reality and sculpts it and molds it. I mean, you can walk into any agency and say, "I want to be a movie star!" But... I mean, what does that mean? I think that you just trust the person... if they're not working for you, if you don't feel they're sending you out on the kinds of things that you want to be sent out on, you have to ALWAYS open your mouth. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

What do you do when you're between jobs?
You're always auditioning... that becomes your unpaid job. For me personally, I've got a lot of energy, I had to find other things to do. Because I made myself practically literally insane by the constant... two inches forward, four feet back. When I came out here, I went to a martial arts school because I realized I needed to learn how to focus some more. And I did that for ten years and it was one of the best things I've ever done. It was completely different, the people were completely different... I was hanging out with Viet Nam vets and people completely separate from the acting business and it was really good for me. It was really good for physicality and a great thing if you're an actor... you learn how to calm down. More than anything it helped my acting.

And I am a musician... around 1995 I picked my bass up again and started auditioning for bands. Over the last six or seven years that's what I did. And now I'm a session musician. I have that to fall back on... I get hired as a freelance playing with bands and on people's albums. And the music business? That's more insane than the acting business. BUT... I'm at an age now where I'm not expecting to be a rock star. I can do a gig and get paid, but I can also say, "Nah, I don't feel like doing that."

Other people have other things... other people take acting classes, other people learn to cook, do pottery. I think it's important to find something else to do that's creative.

So that's your "fall back" job? Musician?
[laughing] Yeah.

I'm finding that a lot of people initially approach it thinking, "Well, I'll do this other thing to make money so that I'm free to do my acting." But to make money at something generally requires your full attention and then your acting suffers. Do you agree?
Yeah, that's the catch. How do you do that... how do you find something? I should tell you, though... the story about how I got this television job.

Okay.
Two years before I got this tv job [Judging Amy], I was really struggling hard and I was hardly working at all. I had gotten a job in a show and I got fired and it was terrible. And I'd come out here again and I was living on someone's couch and I was auditioning and getting rejected, I was always the second choice... and it was horrible. And my brother is an actor [Paul Giamatti], he's a very successful movie actor, character actor. That was also very difficult, when your little brother gets out of drama school and VOOM... takes off. Luckily I love him and we get along great so it was never a problem, but your own ego... I mean, you can't help it.

And in the spring of 1999, I decided... I went back to New York after sleeping on someone's couch for months, auditioning and getting no work... we used to have this thing, it was called the "Dollar a Day Program" so we'd eat only on a dollar a day. Frozen peas... I mean... you know? You would try to spend no more than seven dollars a week. You have these funny ways of surviving.

But I went back to New York and I'm like, "I'm done with it. This is insane, I'm losing my mind." Really. My quality of life was shot. And I decided, I mean... I have an MFA, I'm going to apply for teaching jobs. I was going to be a teacher, and thought... "That's it! I'm out. It's over. I'm done!" I'd gotten fired, I was having a horrible time and it was really affecting the quality of my life.

And a friend of mine was directing a show at the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival for $300 a week. It was a six week job, I figured it was perfect, I could make a little money. So I went to the first day of rehearsal and it was really fun. So I got home later and I had gotten a pile of applications in the mail for Rutgers and a bunch of other places. I put the pile down on the table and the phone rang... it was my manager. And she was like, "Well, you know, you're 35... We need to have this talk now. You've been trying again and again and I'm going to have to drop you."

And I was like, "Well, you know, as a matter of fact I just decided yesterday and talked to my wife and... I'm out. I'm done. It's over. And it's okay, actually... it's okay. Because I just got all these applications, I'm going to keep working as a musician..."

And she says, "Oh, well you know...", and then she says, "Can you hang on a second?" She puts me on hold and comes back a minute later and says, "There's this television show that Fox is producing for CBS called Judging Amy and they just fired the actor from the pilot and they want to see you. So you're going to get on an airplane tomorrow and you're going to fly out for the audition."

And I was like, "I'm not going to do it. I'm not doing this! Because I'm not going to get the job." It was for an older guy, you know... I thought, I'm not going to get this part. I haven't been getting any parts, why should I get this part?! It'll cause me too much stress... I'm not doing it anymore. So I said, "Tell them, for X amount of money, I'll do it."

So she told them and they laughed. They're like, "We're not giving you that kind of money!"

So she says, "Look, just get on the airplane and go audition for this thing." I commented that I didn't even have a manager and she said, "Well, we'll worry about all that later."

So the next day, I got on the airplane, I flew out here... and my agency went out of business. The day I was on the airplane! J. Michael Bloom literally went out of business because of some fraudulent thing. So I had no manager, technically, I had no agent, and I wasn't going to do this any more. And I started to get really terrified on the airplane. And then I thought, "You know what? It doesn't matter anymore. I'm not doing this anymore... I'm out! So it doesn't matter. Just go an have a good time, you know? Stay in the hotel..."

And I was so relaxed. I had to do all these tests... I had to go to Fox, I had to go to CBS... and it kept getting weeded down and finally, I was one of three guys. And I went in for Les Moonves at CBS and I auditioned and I was thinking, "You know what? I'm just going to fart around. I'm going to fuck around with it. I'm going to fuck around and do this thing the way I want to do it."

And I got the part. And here I am, five years later.

Now, I also thought... everyone thought... this show was going to go down the tubes in six episodes. But it has completely turned my life around. And if I hadn't gotten on that airplane, I don't know what would have happened.

But the lesson in all of that... to make the long story short, is that it's about letting go. And you have to have that attitude all the time. I think I got this job because I truly didn't care any more. I didn't care. It didn't matter. I really didn't care. I was sooooo relaxed at the audition, the other guys were all jittery. I didn't care. I did what I wanted to do and I was so relaxed. I was out... it was over. I had finally come to a place where I had truly let go. And I got the part that's turned my whole life around. Financially, mostly. And... I mean, who knows what'll happen when this thing is over? I could go back to being a schlep and unemployed and... it'll happen all over again. But I often think of that. Because I still don't think I'm supposed to be here. And I'm working as a musician, and I've got a great job. Because I let go. So that's an important thing.

There's a fine line, I think... I mean, you say, "I let go, I didn't care..."
It's impossible.

But you did show up.
Yeah, which made all the difference.

Because... then some might interpret this as, "Well then I can get drunk tonight and it doesn't matter because I don't give a shit! And that's how I'll get the part!"
Right. And that's not true either. It's about having the attitude that you can only control the things you can control. You cannot control whether someone's going to give you a job or not. You don't know if you're right or not. What you have to do is just go in and do the best you can do... and then walk out the door! Because you're going to get the parts you're meant to get. You're going to get the parts you are right for. And if you're using your head, and you work on your craft... that's the most important thing. If you do that, it'll all come together.

You seem confident that if you work on your craft and you "let go" and you maintain balance, that things will work out and you will get the parts. That would be difficult for someone who has experienced failure after failure after failure to accept.
Except that... I have experienced failure after failure after failure for years! So that is me. I have been there. People look at me now and they're like, "Oh, well you're on a tv show, you can't understand!" And my attitude is that I'm just a working schlep that was hard headed enough, that stuck around long enough, that believed in myself enough, that worked my butt off on acting enough that I'm still here. I am that guy. Nobody ever gave me a break.

I know it is really hard to understand that, to accept that. Because I've been on that side of things where people said to me, "You've just got to let go, you've just got to work on your craft" and I was like, "Yeah but how do I get a job?! How do I put food on the table?!"

I don' t know. You've just got to work at it. You've got to find other things to do. You've got to find other ways to fulfill yourself... take the onus off of it. I don't know. I mean, it's a very good question and I don' t know what to say other than, "I am that guy."

It seems that everyone I've talked to is that guy. The thing that amazes me is that most everyone who's had success in showbiz tells me, "I'm the luckiest guy in the world." And then they say, "Well, there was that 5 year period where I was eating frozen peas every night, but... I'm very lucky!"
Yeah, isn't that funny?

LA is often perceived as cutthroat, hard core. Is that your experience? What's your perception of the competition among actors here?
It's very tough out here, very cutthroat, very competitive. And you look at a lot of people and think, "Why did that guy get the job when he's not as good an actor?" But it doesn't matter. It's all about bucks and whether they can put meat in the seats and how much money are they going to make off of you and with you and it's not for the light of heart out here. It's tough.

And also it's tough out here because it doesn't have that environment like New York or Chicago... there's a different vibe to those cities. Here it's much more insular, you're in your car all the time, you're not out on the streets. There aren't people around, there aren't plays to go see... you're much more segregated geographically. Those kinds of things just make it harder. It's really tough out here and unforgiving. Because it's not about how good you are. It's about money and type.

What's your definition of a professional actor?
I immediately think of people I've worked with... Richard Crenna, Paul Newman... there are a couple people like that who I consider professional actors because they have paid their dues. I mean, yeah... Paul Newman was a pretty guy but he worked real hard.

When I think of someone like Richard Crenna, I think now there's a guy who never stopped literally working, but also never stopped working at being better at what he did. He always took it seriously no matter what he was doing. That's being a pro. He didn't complain. I never knew what he really thought, but he kept it to himself and he showed up and he knew his words and he had choices. He treated people, whether they were guys on the crew or other actors, as equals and at the same time had a great attitude. He felt lucky to be doing what he was doing because he wasn't digging ditches by the side of the road, and he had fun. And no matter what he was called upon to do, he fulfilled that moment. And he showed up on time. That's what I think a real pro is. Someone who is continually growing, continually learning and is gracious about what they do.

Seems pretty simple.
[laughs] Yes, you'd think so.

What do you hope for?
Well, that's the thing... I hope for... I mean, you come out of school and you have all these gigantic aspirations about all the amazing great things you'll do and then you realize to be a working actor is the whole point. I'm doing what I wanted to do when I was a little kid. I am. I'm an actor. I'm a working actor. I may not be a movie star or a household name, but I'm doing what I want to do and I've had a career. I have no problem being a working actor... I don't need to be famous or anything like that. I would just like to keep working, and I would like it to get easier for me as I go into my forties.

But that's important... being a working actor. That means you're in it for the long haul, not the instant gratification of it. Because if you're in it for the long haul, you put your time in. There is no formula, that's the thing. I know a lot of young people who come out here and they think, "I have to go to this party and I have to meet that manager and I need to wear this suit or that dress and I need to get onto the lot at Paramount and I need to be seen at blah dee duh blah..."

Who knows whether that's going to work?! Maybe for one person that'll work, but you can spend years doing that... chasing your tail around in circles. And it doesn't mean that, even if someone does pick you up from that, that you're going to have a career after that. It doesn't mean you're going to learn how to be an actor. You know? That's all great and fine, you might get a part on a tv show and if you're lucky, you might become a movie star. But those things don't happen generally, and it really eats up people's brains. Because there's no formula to it. Everybody's different.

I had to realize that about myself and my brother. My brother's totally different from me and just because he's had so much success... doesn't mean he's better than you or anything like that. You know, you're different... everybody's path is different. And my path... I became anti all that stuff, the schmoozy stuff. Because it didn't work for me. It only made me crazier.

So, I don't know... people try to tell you you need to do this or that, but I don't think there's any formula to it. Because you have to be really careful out here, especially with that stuff. You've got to just find your own niche where you're comfortable and just... do your job.

-KW

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