Actors aren’t stupid, mostly, and if there’s a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director’s going for, if you’re aware of that too, you can do things to help that.
So if I’m swirling around on some wires, talking to Fred Flintstone, I make it the funnest I can. I also want to be good at it. I don’t want to be a crap cartoon character. I want to be proud I’m a vitamin!
The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story’s going to end and how it’s going to go. But on television nobody knows what’s going to happen, even the writers.
I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it’s a struggle sustaining that, because there’s such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.
I think American actors are much more intimidated by Shakespeare. I actually want to do this Shakespeare play in New York, but I think it’s interesting that there’s this gaping hole in the repertoire in the American theater, which is Shakespeare.
My feeling about work is it’s much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.
It is actually important to do songs they’re familiar with. Also, I love those songs. In a way, I think I’ve changed people’s perceptions of what a cabaret show like this could be.
