A Quote by Jessie Mueller
I always thought moving to New York would mean starting over in theater, because I had great work in Chicago and didn't want to become a waitress here.
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I've always wanted to do theater in Chicago. Chicago is a big theater town-and, in some ways, I think this city is savvier and smarter than New York. Sometimes, I think it's a little too chic to go to theater in New York these days.
I've never seen a theater community to rival that of Chicago. Neither New York nor L.A. has the raw talent or integrity that Chicago theater has, and I think it's because Chicago doesn't have Broadway or the film and TV business to distract it.
Chicago theater vs. New York theater. There's just nothing to say about it really. If you've seen Chicago theater, you know that the work is true to what is there on the page. It's not trying to present itself with some sort of flashy, concept-based thing. It's about the work, and it's about the acting you're about to watch. So acting-based theater feels like it was born there to me.
I always wanted to be an actor, but I always loved design, and growing up in New Orleans there was such great style, great architecture. I would decorate my little apartment in New York over and over again, because it only had a couple of rooms. And I did it for friends and family on the side just for fun.
Chicago seems to follow New York, and coming from New York and being in real estate, I worry about things happening in Chicago that have happened in New York. I've seen a great city like New York go downhill. It has a wonderful financial downtown, but the rest of the city is not very nice.
In actor's career, I had a fair amount of denial, which I think is possibly in the genes, where I just couldn't go to, "Maybe this won't work out." I just couldn't do it. My mind just refused to go there. I don't mean there weren't low periods. There were plenty. But I remember arriving in New York and I was maybe 32, and I didn't have an agent. I came from Chicago, where I had gone to school and worked and got my sea legs, so to speak, and I remember walking out of the subway, walking the streets, standing in front of the theater and saying, "I will work in this theater."
I wanted to be a theater actress, but I thought it would be easier to get to New York and the theater if I had a name than if I just walked the streets as a little girl from California.
I always thought I would move to New York after graduation, but, instead, I moved to Los Angeles. I realized I was more scared of that choice than I was of New York, and I thought, at 22, I should get it over with.
I really would rather have gone to New York, since all my training had been in theater, but I didn't have the guts to go there alone. I knew only one person in New York, and that was a man. What I needed was a woman. That's the way Southern girls thought.
I never pictured myself in California. I just thought I would be a character actress in New York on the stage. I never really had that stardom goal; I just wanted to be able to work as an actress and not as a waitress.
I started, obviously, doing theater, and I always thought that I would; in a way, I always thought that I'd be a theater actor. When I was starting out, I didn't really plan on making films, actually.
I'm in the film industry, and I very seldom go to the theater now. It could be work, not being in New York, that sort thing - because in New York, you do go to theaters; you can walk to a theater and then walk to a restaurant. But in places you have to drive out to the cineplex to see a movie, it's starting not to be worth it anymore. It's like the days when you went to get a book at the public library. You don't have to do that anymore. You just go on your iPad and all of a sudden you're reading The Duchess of Malfi.
Everything I learned and didn't do in New York I would put into place here in the London West Hollywood. It's fascinating, when you look at the critics' reviews, and we had a great one in the New York Observer and all that, and then the New York Times came and it was a devastation; two stars out of four. They said that I played safe because it wasn't fireworks. Then they judged the persona over the substance that was on the plate.
I love Chicago. It's such a great town, and it's got great culture and great history, and it's not as extreme as LA or New York, and it's just- it's hard for me for work, because I don't live and work in the same place and that's tough. But I'm- I love it.
I think I can work anywhere, but you don't get the same kind of inspiration everywhere. New York theater has become a big inspiration for me. I only started writing for the stage myself because I like to see the good, mostly off-Broadway plays in New York.
I love Chicago - absolutely love Chicago. I mean, I'd much rather go to Chicago and do a play or a musical than New York, honestly. Because just probably for reasons that are obvious to you. It's just a little bit - it's a nicer, easier city.
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