If you're going to do a guest spot on television, they need bodies on those procedural TV shows. You've got to keep working, and that's where a lot of the work is.
I'm a huge fan of good, procedural-type shows on television... there are a lot of roles for women. But there aren't a lot of great network television roles for girls that will let you start a character in one place and finish up with her in a totally different one.
Broadcast TV has a very classy but old-fashioned way of doing television. That's what it's always going to be. But you've still got to introduce young talent and ideas and shows to the masses. That's the way you build a bigger and younger audience, introducing younger writers, comics, TV shows to viewers.
Sometimes when working on TV, especially when doing procedural cop work, you can refer to your notes. Your notes, of course, do contain, naturally, all the information you need.
I think right now there's more TV shows than ever. You've got network, you've got cable, you've got Netflix, you've got Hulu, even Amazon is putting out original content. So there's a lot of opportunities to find fans. You don't have to have a huge audience. You can cater to the people that like your stuff. So there is a boom in comedy and television and stand-up too through podcasting and all the different talk shows.
There are a lot of people who dream of overnight success, of being Brad Pitt getting discovered for 'Thelma and Louise,' but that doesn't always happen. I represent that stick-to-it-ness that it takes to build a career over time, guest spot by guest spot. Looking back from here, I wouldn't have wanted the journey to go any other way.
I keep saying we've got 92 million Americans on the beach. They're not working, and they're all eating, and they're all making phone calls, and they're all watching television. But they're not working. You mean to tell me if you tell them that to keep all that they're going to have to get a job, that that is a detriment to your campaign?
You know you're the guy when you're working on top and closing the show. That's the spot, and you've got to put work in to get there. That's the spot I want.
I had told my agents that I didn't want to do television. I can't believe I had that gall, looking back on it. I would never condescend to do TV, and then 'Taxi' called up for a guest spot in the first season. And my common sense kind of took over, I guess.
One of the differences between real documentaries and reality television, besides the artificial construct of reality television, is that the people who are recruited to be on those shows, and the people who are interested in going on those shows, basically want to be famous. Or maybe they can win a million dollars or something.
Well I've obviously been a guest on most TV shows and spoken a little bit and that but I got the call to stand in for Paul O'Grady when he was off.
For one year, I want to do this thing where I guest-star on as many television shows as I possibly can. I love television. The fact that television ultimately made me famous was very gratifying for me.
A lot of people live much more simply than in the old days. That doesn't bother me. Keeping busy is the problem. Television guest shot fees are going down. You can do a dozen guest shots a year, but you're not making that much money.
There are lots of procedural shows that I love, but I never really wanted to be a doctor on 'E.R.' - which I'm just picking as an example - or be on a crime procedural.
I am excited to be doing 'SVU' - I think there's a lot of inherent drama and a lot of inherent conflict in procedural shows. I have a lot of respect for police officers and the work that they do. There's a lot of nobility to depicting what these officers do on a day to day basis.
TV shows and stuff give people in the show business very bad names. I'm not going to name any shows, but a lot of shows.
'Cold Case' was fun. It was a fun experience. That was right when I was cutting my teeth as a TV actor. It was a great learning experience to work on really fast-paced television shows that are very high quality. It was a place where I learned that I had to keep up and I could keep up.