It's interesting to me because theater is, on any given day, 10,000 times harder than film and television. And that's not to say film or television can't be hard or challenging; it's emotional to do the same thing over and over and over. But in terms of stamina, there is nothing like an eight-show week to separate the men from the boys.
You really, really, really have to love what you are going to do in theater because it is an unmerciful life. It's six days a week. It's eight performances a week. And that's doing the exact same thing over and over and over again.
Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the director's eyes, you 'get it right' does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.
Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the directors eyes, you get it right does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.
Because of the power of television, I was visible to everybody all over the world. But there are many things in the theater that are more fulfilling and that I look forward to doing more. But really, I love it all: theater, film, television.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over & over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career.
I will do a big-budget film. I will do an indie film. I will do a short film. I will do a digital platform show, television, and even theatre. I don't have any restrictions in terms of platform as long as the content is something that I find interesting.
Before I did any television or film, I did years and years of theater. Television and film stuff, even though it went on for a good, healthy number of years, almost felt like a diversion from theater.
In film you have the script months ahead of time often, for a good film, but in television it seems like you might not get the script until a week or two weeks before you've got to film it. It's a little weird, but also quite challenging. It reminds me of repertory theatre.
If I hope to survive, I have to acknowledge the natural selection that goes on when film stocks and cameras are eliminated from the world. And film viewers won't want to watch the same thing over and over again from me.
Somebody once told me - and I could be wrong about this - that The West Wing was, on any given episode, $300,000 over, on average. Now today, if you were $10,000 over budget, they would cancel you. For sure.
If I'm really considering doing film from now on then that is the smart thing to do, or you can go either way. You can just do the same character over and over again and make a different comedy like over and over again.
Film and television are very different. On the TV show, we do seven or eight scenes a day, so time and money are of the essence, and we have zero room for creativity because you've got to do each scene in only five takes. Whereas, on a film, you have an entire day to film one scene, so you have so much time to choose how you want to fill in a scene.
I did enjoy theater. I actually do prefer making films and television, but it was a learning experience for me, because I got into television at 5 and film at 11, and theater was something I completely bypassed.
The days of television as we knew it growing up are over. You have a bigger, wider world audience on the Internet, larger than any American television series. People don't watch television in the same context as before. Nowadays they watch their television on the Internet at their convenience. That's the whole wave, and it's now - not the future.
I was on Broadway for three years with Spiderman and that amount of time spent on a show - it's a grind being on Broadway. The people that do that are probably the hardest working people. I shouldn't say that, because there's a lot of hard work that goes on in film and television, as well. That consistency of the grind of eight shows a week - I feel ready to go back to it now after having a bit of a break. I like to have the chance to jump between different art forms, whether it be theatre, film, TV, music. It's really wonderful to have opportunities in different arenas.