I succeeded on sort of chutzpah and charm. No technique at all, didn't know what I was doing, but it worked and the character suited me.
I liked the theater. I liked the people. I liked the time that we worked.
I envy children who know that they're going to become doctors, know they're going to go into the forces or whatever. I think choice is one of the hardest things, but that's what I try to give my children, to say you can do anything.
I constantly experience failure in that my work is never as good as I want it to be. So I live with failure.
However, I wasn't very good at the sciences, or didn't have a lot of help in the sciences or something but certainly didn't set science for my A level. And when I came to take my A levels I didn't get a good enough result to go to University.
Godspell was a good leap for me, it was a good shop window.
Because I'm now successful, what I'm being offered as an actor is more and more of the same.
At age 10 or 12 he's going to boarding school in the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight is, of course, down at the bottom of England just off South Hampton.
And whenever I'm in a situation where I'm wearing the same as 600 other people and doing the same thing as 600 other people, looking back, I always found ways to make myself different, whether it be having a red lining inside of my jacket, having red shoes, it hasn't changed.
And trust, yes, which is important, but that is what I aim towards. Now that is difficult for some people, and with that desire to get things as good as possible, I would say that I'm probably regarded as quite prickly to work with.
An acting assistant stage manager in a theater in Canterbury, a rep theater. A small wage but just enough to get by on, and I made props and I walked on, and I changed scenery, and I realized that I just loved it.
Americans enjoy uniformity in a way that the British don't; they wanted everybody of a sort of nice chorus line height and here I was, this person who was a good three inches taller than anyone else on the end of the line.
Actors often behave like children, and so we're taken for children. I want to be grown up.
A trip to the mainland was a big event and happened maybe once a year, although now you can get across in a speed boat in seven minutes but then it was a long way away.
We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.
I was the youngest. The yule lamb. The one who always got away without doing the washing up. My sister was four years older, and my brother six years.
I had done a fair bit of traveling during the holidays in my school days with my guitar and discovered that I could live on it. Admittedly, I traveled with a sleeping bag but I could always find somewhere to lay my head.
No, I don't believe in hard work. If something is hard, leave it. Let it come to you. Let it happen.
To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.
There's too many actors in LA. I mean, I'll go out there from time to time, but I always find it pretty soul-destroying. I don't drive, and the people kind of rub me the wrong way. It's just not home. You know? It's not New York. It's not... my town.
Not to toot our own horn, but when 'The Sopranos' was on, it was as good as any movie that was coming out in the theater. I think that goes for a lot of shows today.
My family is my life, and everything else comes second as far as what's important to me.
John Ventimiglia, who was on 'The Sopranos,' was in my first acting class and we have been friends since that time. Alec Baldwin was in my class back then, Sean Young and Andrew McCarthy.
In Britain you're more used to challenging drama. In America, TV is just boring, and numbing, and bloody terrible.
I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.
I've been working professionally as an actor since I was 20. That's going to be 25 years soon. So, that's a veteran. That's a big-time veteran. I've had some great successes, and I've had some not-successes.
I'd go for parts that didn't pay a dime, and there would be 300 to 400 actors there. It could be very discouraging. To make it in this business, you have to have a kind of dumb sense that you're really good. You have to believe that someone is going to recognize that.
I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it.
I do smoke in real life. A lot. We're all smoking right now in fact.
Detroit is a city that really stands out. It's been through a very difficult time. There's been a lot of pain here, and the city, physically, has suffered. You can see it in certain neighborhoods, and there's buildings downtown that have been abandoned.
