If we don’t get this done, we’re never going to be friends, because if we don’t get the job done, then the one thing we did together that we had to do together we failed.”
Rather than life just rolling over you, and you wake up and it’s Thursday, and what happened to Monday? Whatever the best part of my life has been, has been as a result of that remembering.
When I was a little kid playing baseball, my manager called me Sleepy. And only a few people, who know me from way, way back, call me that still. I used to drift off and that’s why they made me the catcher, so I wouldn’t fall asleep. That gift I have still.
I wanted to be a doctor once upon a time, but it turns out you’ve got to study, and that wasn’t going to happen. I had no idea what I was going to do. I had trouble holding jobs because they want you to be on time. That wasn’t going to work.
If you walk up to some random person on the street, grab them by the shoulder, and say ‘Did you just see what I saw?!’, you’ll find that no-one wants to talk to you.
It’s much harder to play beloved than to play a rotten guy. Rotten guy is a piece of cake. So playing a beloved person really sets a high bar for your behavior and your acting and what you project.
I try to be available for life to happen to me. We’re in this life, and if you’re not available, the sort of ordinary time goes past and you didn’t live it. But if you’re available, life gets huge. You’re really living it.
The set is stocked with Victorian extras and little children in Oliver kind of outfits, and the director says, “All right, Bud – just give it whatever you want.” And Hackett goes off on a rant. Unbelievably obscene.
