I did this play, 'Expedition 6,' that I worked on for three years in between other things. It was a good, interesting time for me because I trained as a theater director, and I went back, and we toured it around.
It's the same mindset I had in college. As long as I come in and work every day, it worked in college and I'm just going to continue to grind my tail off here in the NFL.
The biggest thing for me coming into the league was my last year in college I didn't think about the NFL one time. I just played ball and went out there and did what I did and let everything take care of itself. It worked out great for me.
I worked in a lot of cinemas when I was at college, and I'm a movie dork, and it's a nice thing to do while you're on tour. Everything is different a lot of the time - you're never in the same place - but I like going to the cinema because it feels like no matter where you are, the experience is really the same.
The difference between "trained OK" and "trained perfectly" doesn't really matter all that much to me. I once did a film with Lassie. When that dog got excited he jumped all over Rudd Weatherwax [Lassie's trainer]. Now that's the smartest dog in the world. If the world's best-trained dog can jump around to show he's happy then my dogs should be allowed to do the same.
After college, I did a bunch of different jobs - taught English in Mexico, worked in public radio, worked for a web design company - but there was something about documentaries that really attracted me.
I'm formally trained, I don't know what classically trained really means. I've worked with Sanford Meisner. And I've worked at Circle Rep with Marshall W. Mason and Lanford Wilson and some really good people. I was lucky. I had a lot of really good influences.
When the time came for me to go to college, there was only one scholarship that my high school offered at the time and I didn't win that one, but that didn't stop me. I went on to college anyway. I worked my way through it and paid my student loans for 11 years.
I joined the Madras Christian College but dropped out after three months. Telugu music director Ramesh Naidu asked me to assist him, and I did so for over a year. I did think of rejoining college, but by then, I was discovering the musician in me. I worked with Illaya Raja and Raj Koti and soon shifted to commercials. This led to movie offers.
After Newport, I worked in television for a while, and then I went to The Royal College Of Art and did a master's degree. I really did study quite a lot!
But you know, where did the Brontes go to college? Where did George Eliot go to college? Where did Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington go? Did George Washington go to college? This idea which we now have that people ought to have these credentials is really ridiculous. Where did Homer go to college?
I worked at a daycare for a couple of years going through high school and college. I did youth sports camps. I ran all the camps through my college.
I was an economics major in college, and every summer after school, I would drive my car from California, from Claremont men's college at the time, to New York. And I worked on Wall Street.
I trained, went to college, trained, and got a job. Then got another job. When I wasn't working I worked at a bar, then got another job.
I knew all these people had the same goals I did, but the one that worked the hardest would come out on top. That's what drove me all the time. But I had fun. I did better every day, and that's what made it fun.
No one ever asks me about Breeze O'Rourke! I did the pilot for[Payne] right after Jawbreaker, or at least right around the same time, and it was an Americanized version of Fawlty Towers. That was the first time I worked with John Larroquette, and it was definitely not the last time.