I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought 'Well if acting doesn't work for him he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately the acting worked out.

I do readings at the public library. I just did a benefit scene night for my old acting teacher.

I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely or actually barely how much work it is to be a teacher. It's an incredible amount of work.

I've always remembered something Sanford Meisner my acting teacher told us. When you create a character it's like making a chair except instead of making someting out of wood you make it out of yourself. That's the actor's craft - using yourself to create a character.

I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.

Teachers make a difference and we would serve our students better by focusing on attracting and retaining the quality teachers by raising teacher pay.

I've always thought of acting as more of an exercise in empathy which is not to be confused with sympathy. You're trying to get inside a certain emotional reality or motivational reality and try to figure out what that's about so you can represent it.

Every success story has a parent who says 'over my dead body.' Every success story has an old person who walks up to you and says when you're acting the fool 'you know I worry about you sometimes.'

The more I get to do this character the more I realize that she's not just annoying. It's that her strength is not interacting with people socially. She just doesn't have time because she has so much going on in her brain.

About 10 000 years ago males and females were acting equitably and were treating one another as equals and then males took over the power because they have physical power and physical strength.

I'm not slick. I'm not polished. I think my strength is in reacting.

I love sports - if I'm not acting I'm probably doing sports.

I grew up playing sports football basketball baseball everything and acting was such a different environment and different world for me.

My heart lies in music and acting however my inspiration comes from adrenaline rush I get from sports... and life.

If I stayed a football player my career would have been over 20 years ago. As it is my knees are shot. I found I got the same good feeling in acting that I had in sports but I found I could have a more profound impact on people.

I think having a vision can make someone an influential man. I'm not talking about acting or anything like that I'm talking about people I admire whether it's a writer or a musician or a sports figure or a politician whatever.

There are kids who get on a BMX bike when they're eight years old and they go 'Whoa this is incredible ' and grow up to do extreme sports. It's the same for me with acting.

As athletes we're used to reacting quickly. Here it's 'come stop come stop.' There's a lot of downtime. That's the toughest part of the day.

I've always thought of acting as a tool to change society. I watch a lot of actors and I see panic in their eyes because they don't know why they act and I know why I act. Whether I'm a good or a bad actor I know why I do it.

The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story whether in print orating writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers.

Acting the arts in general is a magnet for the wounded of society.

When I got out of acting school I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots ' and for society not me it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion and I was not.

Acting is a sense of wonder and magic and mystery for me and when life takes me on a new journey I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward.