I would say auditioning was my real training ground. The technical aspects - like hitting marks and pacing yourself and preparing and dealing with the downtime - the first recurring role I had on 24 was probably the way I learned that stuff.
McLeod's Daughters was my first regular job out of drama school, and my first full-time role. That was great because I learned a lot, in terms of working in front of the camera. I learned a lot of technical aspects that you take for granted once you know them, but you have to learn them somewhere, along the way. It was a bit of a training ground for me, working in front of the camera and also dealing with media.
Baseball shaded my entire outlook on life, because that's how I first saw the world. I looked at everything, even today, through what I learned about the game. Like pacing yourself, focusing yourself, preparing yourself for what you want to do, keeping yourself healthy for the game. I do all that through the eyes of a ballplayer.
I would love a recurring role on '90210.' I would say yes to just about any role in acting that doesn't tarnish my image.
Whether you make an action blockbuster or a comedy or a drama, you've got the right camera and all the right technology to do it. In games, it's not the same yet, and I would like to see technologies dealing with cameras the way we do - dealing with bouquet, dealing with performance capture, with lighting - with all this stuff the way we do.
I would say 90 percent of the stuff we do is technical anyway. If you look at a two-hour training day, 12 minutes are probably spent running or gaining fitness.
A lot of us have classical and jazz training, and it would be hard for us to work with a hip-hop artist who doesn't know a lot about the technical aspects of music. But when you listen to Wyclef's records, you hear bridges, chord changes and real structure. You can tell he has big ears.
There's a rhythm to script [ in "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore"], as well, especially the pacing of it. But there definitely were times when I would say something and [ Macon Blair] would say, "I didn't think to deliver it like that" or, "I didn't think it had that meaning." And he'd say, "I like it. I think it's good." So he's open. He's not battering it into you.
I would say that for the younger musicians, technical proficiency is necessary and a given these days. But the study and the way you function in society, your beliefs and the way you live, that is where you will find a real musician, a real artist.
When I do the roles, when I'm in the room and auditioning, I'll ask the director if they're cool with me adding stuff, or just improvising while we're doing it. And I would say, like, 90 percent of the time, they say, 'Absolutely.'
I think I could have worked as a technical director. But in this role, you can't attend training or say anything for fear it won't suit the coach, directors, or media. I don't think I want a job like that.
By training with Ken Hahn, who comes from that full-contact karate school where he's hitting me in the back of the head while I'm hitting the bag, I learned that pain is a temporary state.
I landed the role in 'Caddyshack' auditioning, like everybody else. It wasn't a role I thought I'd get, so I had nothing to lose.
It's important to keep auditioning. If you're auditioning for something, you're auditioning for a role that people can't see you in and you need to convince them that you're the right person.
The band that I was I auditioning for, they were just all like, dreads and stuff, so I did look kind of out of place. But I had learned the material and it sounded cool as f**k when we were rehearsing.
I would like to be, like, a young jedi in training, like, do some cool stuff and have some awesome stunts, like Tom Cruise. I think that would be my dream role in 'Star Wars.'
Berklee played a huge role in shaping my music. On an academic level, I learned a lot about vocal technique and culture. Since my major was Music Production and Engineering, I got a good handle on the technical and creative aspects of making a record.