'The Stand' came out in May of '94 and was seen by 60 million people a night for four nights, and then two months later, 'Forrest Gump' opened. So within a very short time, I went from being depressed about not getting any work to being in two of the most popular shows of the year.
The negative about acting is that you have to spend a great deal of time away from your friends and loved ones, but it's not like working a 9-5 job and only having two or three weeks off a year. I may not have seen my girlfriend for two or three months, but then we can spend two or three months together solidly.
In the course of carrying through our program for which we have calculated four years, two and one-quarter million out of six million unemployed have already received employment again within a period of eight short months.
This is my sixth series, and I'm burned out wondering if a show is going to change my life. Don't get me wrong, I love when people recognize my work. But I've given up worrying about whether it'll be seen by two people or two million or 22 million.
Usually, you can live very well for two, three months, then you're in trouble. Every coach, I think, is like this. For two months, you're happy because you have time, and after two months, you miss adrenaline.
This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.
Sophomore year, I got hit in the stomach playing football, and I was out of school for four months. I was in the hospital for two and then out of school for two.
I was really unfit last year, so I worked out for a long time, then spent time by myself in Oregon. For about two months the only person I saw was my trainer. Every day I did a lot of running and I just didn’t want to talk to anyone for two months. So when I started talking again, it was like you would communicate wrongly, like you wouldn’t really remember how to speak. That was one of the key things as well as just reading the book, reading the script a million times, just figuring things out.
In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night.
In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a half hours. Today someone in that age group might work out for four hours, two hours in the morning and two at night
I gave up accounting. I went in for about six months writing ad copy. I was fired from that, and then another guy and I did a kind of poor man's Bob and Ray kind of syndicated radio show. Then I decided to stick it out and see what happened. I'd give it a year, a year became two years, and then two years became three years, and then along came the record album.
Conclusions are based in time. We live in time. So any definition of success is bound up with time. With other things you can say, "Can I yo-yo? Can I juggle?" Usually you have a pretty small window in which to get your answer. Stand-up is different. You can't do stand-up for one night and say, "Am I a funny stand-up comedian?" In two months or two years you'll start to realize it.
If someone said, 'Jon, we need $250 million a year from now and we can make a dramatic breakthrough for ovarian cancer,' I'd have $250 million in two months. You just work day and night if the cause in your heart is justified.
I was trying my best not to drink. I'd go a day or two, and I just couldn't stand it. It kinda got around that 'Hamilton got religion.' So for about a year, it was the most miserable time of my life because I was secretly still drinking. One night I came home, after about a year of this, and I woke up the next day and the desire was gone.
The president of the University said that night, congratulations to you the students, you've won a great victory, now the war will end. And I'm certain that he believed it that night and I believed it and we went away happy. Four days later, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Two months after that, Kennedy was assassinated. Two months after that, Henry Kissinger emerged from the swamp he was living in at Harvard with a plan to expand the war.
I may not have seen my girlfriend for two or three months, but then we can spend two or three months together solidly. It's swings and roundabouts.
I've gone from a kid who was sneaking out of my childhood house and lying to my parents to do shows in a community theatre in Reading, PA, to now having two shows on Broadway opening within two months of each other. That's sort of crazy, that trajectory.