In the beginning I had a real work problem. Every time I had job I had to convince the immigration authorities I was the only man for that job and get a special work permit until I went under contract to MGM.
I learned really early on that I had to treat it as if it were a real job. This might be my middle class background - the Irish work ethic, which isn't quite the same as the Protestant work ethic - but still, it's, 'Get a job and show up every day. Be there. And don't complain. Who do you think you are: you're nobody special; go to work.'
And every job that I had was a stepping stone to my next job and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work.
I've never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a steppingstone to my next job, and I never quit my job until I had my next job.
I had no plans once I finished my football career, which was a problem, so I had to go looking for work. Television was the one area that it was easier to get a job than anywhere else.
We all had jobs that were just fronts. I felt like I was in the mob. I had a job, but that wasn't my real job. My real job was to be an actor. I always knew that and never forgot that.
If you've never been on anything before, they're not going to take a risk and give you a huge job 90 percent of the time. There are exceptions to that. I certainly wasn't an exception to that. I had to pay my dues big time, but I wish somebody would have explained, 'Look, your job is not to get work. Your job is to get better.'
And to get real work experience, you need a job, and most jobs will require you to have had either real work experience or a graduate degree.
I mean, if somebody said to me, junior year of college, you can go anywhere, your old man's paying for it, I'd have been gone in a flash. But I had to work. Every summer my mother would say, 'Get that job and hold on to it until August 30.'
I had three weeks of prep on 'Wolfman,' a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to try to bring together the fractured and scattered pieces of the production. I had taken the job mostly because I had a cash flow problem, the only time in my career I've ever let finances enter into the decision process.
They were both academics, but my dad had to get a job on the railway, and my mum had to get a job in the Post Office. It was pretty hard in terms of the racism they had to endure.
I was on a couple of scholarships. I had a job in the school administrative office. I had a job as a hat-check boy in a restaurant. I had another job as an assistant to a casting director. It took a lot to get myself enough money to put myself through Juilliard.
I had a teacher who said something great. That was, 'Go out and collect your nos. Once you get fifty nos then you can start wondering when you can get a yes.' He said, 'It is not your job to get the job; its your job to do a consistent body of work. So, every time you go in there, just go in there and be consistent, and eventually it will get noticed and someone will hire you.'
The only other job that I've ever had that provided that time in the morning, where you're going to work and you can't wait to get there, and the sun's rising, and you are moving towards something you look forward to, was getting up and doing every day, was being a carpenter.
It was my first day at work - and beginning my training on the job, I was given the job of writing cheques and entering their details. The branch was surrounded by hordes of people... soon, they had to close the gates to manage the crowds, and they started pushing in.
It's funny, I talk to some of my friends and they don't want to to get a job at Starbucks. They don't want to get a job at, wherever, because they feel like it's below them. And I think the only thing that can be below you is to not have a job. Go work until you can get the job that you want to have.
I had a sense when I took the job that the 1976-77 Trail Blazers could be very good. We had made a lot of positive roster changes, but it wasn't until I had the team in training camp that I realized that this team could be special. Midway through that season, I felt we had a chance to win it all.