I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.
A lot of my stories are inspired by Japanese folklore or literature or movies: I've done stories based on Kabuki and Noh plays, and on Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' movies.
Kabuki is the way that I so often write; Noh is how I would write if I were more 'spiritual,' more understated, or perhaps just older.
There's hearings on everything. They're kabuki theater.
I first got really interested in Noh in about 1977. There was an independent bookstore in Bloomington, Indiana where I was going to high school. It was a really nice place. There was a New Directions paperback. It was the Pound/Fenollosa book, 'The Classic Noh Theatre of Japan.'
For conservative leaders, making candidates pay them court, publicly and ostentatiously, is a colossal source of their symbolic power before their followers. It's kabuki theater, mostly.
The best night of my life was watching the Japanese Noh theater. I've only seen it once, but even saying it now, I think, 'How can I ever have this experience again?' It was so mesmerizing, so complicated and so primordial; I could not believe it.
I find theater terrifying. There are no do-overs, you know? It's all happening live. You need to be in it 100 percent at any given moment, and the audience is right there. I'm really intimidated by theater, but it is my first true love. I love theater. I love that anxiety.
I have a background in theater - I went to school for theater. I love film - love it - but there's just something about theater that I really miss.
[Greek] Theater started off and used masks and Kabuki, in the East, they used mask-work. And then, Commedia dell'arte in Italy and then, you know, we're part of an acting tradition and, and performance capture is no different.
I think it's a shame when pop culture forgets that theatricality is a big part of it. When Neil Young is fumbling around in his pocket looking for the right harmonica, it doesn't matter that he's a dude in the hat who is a man of the people - there's a theatricality there. You don't have to be David Bowie or the Kabuki theater to have that theatricality going on.
When you're on stage, you're playing to whoever is in the back of the room, and TV and film is so much more detailed and nuanced, but I think that's what I always wanted to do. As much as I love theater and musical theater and would love to do it again, I really love the subtleties of film and theater acting.
It was a weird moment in my life and a weird experience [doing a theater]. It made me think, "Gee, I don't know if I ever want to do this again." And I love theater. I love going. I love the experience of theater. But I am not sure it's for me.
I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theater for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied.
I'm a theater guy at heart; I love the theater. I was lucky enough to spend a good decade and a half in the New York theater community.
I love doing theater. Despite the fact that out of theater, film, and TV, theater is the hardest thing to do. It's the least paid, and we all have these bills that we have to pay.