I hate sitting around a table and talking about what a play might mean. I'm the person who's always like, 'Can we get up on our feet and just do it?'
I remember really getting into 'The Wiz' and an old musical called 'Purlie,' which Melba Moore sang. I liked those roof-raising shows because I connected deeply with the gospel aspects of those musicals.
It's thrilling to be onstage and to not know, literally, what the next moment is going to bring. To just submit to the not-knowing-ness of it.
Sometimes, you don't know what's going to happen to your character until the night before you shoot the scene. So, sometimes, you get a great big surprise at the very last minute, which is scary sometimes. You don't have a whole lot of time to prepare.
Something about being surrounded by water has a really calming effect on me.
I don't know if Jesus said it in the Bible, but someone said that 'the love of money is the root of all evil,' and I do think there's a correlation between the ambition that a lot of people have, in terms of financial remuneration, and the loss of core values.
Sam Shepard is - I didn't tell this to Sammy, but if I had to point to one artist that made me want to do this for my life, it's Sam Shepard.
If you individualize an audience, it helps up the stakes of your responsibility to that audience.
I've always been drawn more to film. But 'Bloodline,' to me, feels like a 13-hour piece of cinema. And the great thing about Netflix is you get to be almost like an editor. You choose how much of the narrative you want to watch at a time, which makes you complicit in the story.
I make decisions quickly.
If you are opening a play, a play that's really about something, a play that's really about ideas, you have to find a way to sell that play.
I was in the original cast of 'Wicked', and that got a bad review in 'The New York Times,' and it's the most successful thing that's ever been put onstage.
I have 10 brothers and sisters.
I got my Actors' Equity card officially by playing Nana the dog in 'Peter Pan' at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. That was the first show I did as a full-fledged, dues-paying member; I earned points in my MFA program, then went into the company after I graduated.
I have an acting crush on Gene Hackman; I have an acting crush on Tommy Lee Jones. Gary Cooper. Jimmy Cagney. Michael Gambon. Simon Russell Beale.
I love it when people take contemporary songs and find a narrative or a theatrical way of telling it.
I survived in high school by working at Kentucky Fried Chicken and made my way up to assistant manager. I was surviving high school and college with that job.
I've sort of left the theater just for little shoots here and there - little one-off series or small roles in films or whatever.
I used to do a lot of repertory theater. You're playing different roles all the time, and I love that.
I've never seen 'Mad Men.' I've never seen 'Breaking Bad.' I've never seen 'The Sopranos.' These sort of seminal shows.
