Over the years I've grown to love the industry, my job, and the profession itself. It's been a journey full of ups and downs. For the first few years, it was a journey of self discovery where I grew to love acting while acting.
I'm an interior designer from the soul. It's not about just putting things in a room. It's much deeper and broader. It's about self-discovery.
Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before.
I kind of had a quarter-life crisis before I did 'Rent.' I had done Glinda in 'Wicked' for a while. I had worked for Cirque Du Soleil, and then I did 'Hair.' Then I had a real quiet time, not having work, and it was a time of not only self-discovery of me as a person, but also what I wanted as an artist and actor.
It's asking that never-ending question, 'Who am I?' which motivates me and takes me on a constant journey of self-discovery that teaches me so much. Will Everest make me more cautious? In reality, probably not.
The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge.
I believe the arts are the best way to help people go on a journey of self-discovery toward their own compassion and empathy for humanity and themselves.
'Ragtime' was the most magical show that I've done. I had an incredible experience with that, with the show itself, with the cast, with the audience. The response to that show - my God, it really blew me away, the reactions to that show, the way it changed their lives and altered their thinking, their own self-discovery.
The genesis of the Thinking Talent app came from wanting to create a way to scale self-discovery with a framework that we, personally, inside of the company, have used really successfully.
There's nothing ever monetarily or fame-seeking or any of the other motivations that sometimes go hand-in-hand with this profession. To me, it's just not like that. I'm on a journey of self-discovery and trying to avoid total existential crisis. That's the kind of operating zone that I'm approaching this business from.
