'Working Actors' Series

Article by Jake Christensen
Detailed, lengthy interview for CITY ARTS
Transmitted 26 March 1999




CITY ARTS interviewed him for our program "Working Actors."

CITY ARTS: So, are you going to go to medical school?

B.D. Wong: Well, I'm thinking about becoming . . . What should I think of becoming? A neurosurgeon, I think. Oh, my gosh! Well, there's an answer to that question. I mean, I encountered a great deal of challenge. I mean, when I first decided to become an actor, I went through that whole thing with my folks, because my folks were so sure that they wanted me to be a doctor, which couldn't be a more wrong thing for me, really. But they had their natural kind of parental tendencies, and I had an older brother who was a doctor. So, it was very difficult for them to make the adjustment that I would become an actor, even though it was so clear throughout my whole childhood that I was so not anything but a kind of creative, hammy kind of person. To answer your question, the road that I've been on, which is a huge part of my success, comes from their support. That road that I'm on now is of great satisfaction to them. They feel a great deal of pride, I think, and a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that they played a huge part in my becoming an actor, and that the fear that they swallowed was a big part of what brought me to kind of get here. So, I think they are really enjoying this part of it immensely.

CITY ARTS: Is there something more that you need? I mean, you're on Broadway and you're in OZ. You have success as an actor, but yet, is there something more that you want?

I feel, for the first time in my life, a great sense of -- not relief -- the most relaxed place that I've ever been. I no longer worry about, knock wood, putting food on my table. I certainly make a living that's unbelievable to me in the context of my life, with the potential that I thought I had when I was a young boy. And I also no longer worry about -- in my kind of self-esteem, from that point of view -- I don't worry about whether or not I will be chosen, whether there will be a long gap between one job and another. I kind of have reached a rather metaphysical conclusion, which is that everything will be okay and everything takes care of itself, and that if I accept everything happening that happens to me, it somehow allows more things to happen. So that's how I am. I don't know if that answers your question specifically, but that's how I am, kind of emotionally and spiritually. I no longer worry about it at all, and it's made it incredibly better for me. I mean, it's made more opportunities come my way in a very odd way, because I'm no longer clenched. What I would call clenched is that I'm no longer invested in every single meeting and audition as the thing that's going to cure my lack of boredom, poverty, lull in my career, any of those kinds of things. I just only want to share my gifts, and that is so much healthier for me than the place of neediness, and the neediness to validate myself, or the need to validate my talent through work or through exposure. I don't really feel as much of a need for it anymore.

CITY ARTS: What was your dream when you first got here?

I'm from San Francisco, California, and I grew up in San Francisco, California, ironically enough, listening to Broadway cast albums that my dad played on a big reel-to-reel tape recorder, not really wanting to be on Broadway because of that, but knowing the medium of musical theater through that. I was introduced to the musical theater through school productions, and those school productions actually were my introduction to becoming an actor. And it is ironic, or not ironic, but it is only now that I've been in my first Broadway musical, after doing a lot of work in film and in non-musical plays, and so it's a kind of full circle situation for me. I've always loved the medium of musical theater and never judged it or turned my nose up at it like a lot of dramatic actors have. I love it. I think it is incredibly amazing. I love its American-ness, and I've always prided myself as being a perfect example of what it means to be an American in many ways, just because of my point of view as an Asian-American and a lot different things. And so, the American nature of musical theater really appeals to me. It really appeals to me. And so now, I'm actually doing that, and that's a bit of a dream come true, to be in a Broadway musical. I think a lot of people actually have this dream to be in a Broadway musical and won't admit it, but I have always had that, and this is a great rush for me -- to be in this show.

CITY ARTS: What do you feel like at the end of the night when you hear that applause?

Well, there's really nothing like it. I mean, obviously the power and the magic of music are singular. They really help to transport the theatrical experience to a whole other level. So, music is a big part of this incredible rush that you feel when you're in a musical, that you cannot feel when you're in a drama, no matter how satisfying that part is or that acting is. So, I feel incredibly exhilarated at the end of doing this particular play, partly because of the existence of music and the role that the music plays and my involvement in it. My being able to be a conduit of that music is amazing to me.

CITY ARTS: You mentioned that your dad played this music. Do you have any memories of your favorites?

I remember exactly what he played. My father played all of these, you know, he played a lot of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and musical theater, on this huge reel-to-reel tape recorder. The first two things that come to my mind that he played are really telling to me. He played "The King and I" and "Flower Drum Song." Now, he played a lot of other things, too. He played "My Fair Lady"; he played "The Music Man"; and he played "Fiddler [on the Roof]." He didn't play a lot of, you know -- there are maybe ten albums that he played over and over again -- "Camelot," and a few other things. But he played "The King and I" and "Flower Drum Song" because he was one of those people of a certain generation, Asian-American. He's a third generation Chinese-American, and they were starved for -- Asian-Americans are always, but really were at this point in time -- starved for representation in the theater, and on television, and in show business, in the media. And so when these two plays came out, and they came out at different times, they felt so extremely validated. They consumed it so enthusiastically, and they listened to it over and over again. Now we look back on some of the material that's in those two plays and we think, "Oh, how condescending or racist or token or whatever," but at that time it was incredibly validating for them. So, I always remember that he played that, and that was some kind of a germ of some kind of awareness that I had of how I fit into the scheme of being an actor in the professional world. I always had a very keen knowledge that I was entering a field which didn't really welcome me, and that when it did welcome me, it was an exception rather than a rule. That was part of that. So, that's a whole other issue. That's a whole other thing that I could get into if you care to or not.

CITY ARTS: How much of a barrier have you come up against?

I'm not sure if you could describe the challenges that I face in my career on a day-to-day basis as . . . Well, first of all, I think it's an incredible . . . Well, let me start over again, because it's such a wide issue -- how much of a barrier is my race in whether I'm successful or not successful in the things that I face. There's no question that race really plays a huge part in my being picked or not being picked every day of my life. It comes up. We're not yet at a point in this country -- or, I'm not even sure if in any country -- where actors are totally, where we can be completely blind to color. That is something that, if things keep going the way they're going, it's very possible it could happen. But there will always, there is at this time always a really keen, a very palpable awareness of someone's race. So, it's very hard to put your finger on why you don't get picked for something sometimes. You aren't always aware; you aren't always sure whether it is any number of things that could be the reason why you've been rejected. You sense, a lot of times, that rejection comes from the color of your skin, and that's very, very demoralizing. But most of all, rejection [itself] is pretty demoralizing. That particular thing is, of course, a very sensitive issue for me. I'm not sure if I can tell you how large a part it plays, but it definitely plays a large part on a day-to-day basis. I'd like to be more specific.

CITY ARTS: Can it be an advantage ever?

Well, listen, for me it's the greatest gift of all. It's a great gift to have what I consider to be, you know . . . part of so much of being an actor is so wanting to be a special person, so wanting to be noticed and wanting to be, to have a certain kind of attention, a special kind of attention. I can't deny that. I mean, I have that as much as any other actor has it, and your race can play a huge part in that specialness. I think that that's a great gift for me. It, yes, can be an advantage in whether you're chosen or not chosen. You can be chosen because there's an issue of diversity that the director wishes to exploit or wishes to discuss in the production, and that, I think more often than not, is a very positive thing. I mean, I'm kind of loath to say, "Yes, it's an advantage, and exploit the fact that it's an advantage." I think it's such a very mercurial issue. It's so hard for me to kind of discuss it in black and white terms.

I'll tell you why it's such a huge issue. It's because there are so many different facets to the issue of race. There's the issue of non-traditional casting, and non-traditional casting specifically was invented because the playing field between actors of all different races was not even. And non-traditional casting is the specific casting of an ethnic person or a non-white person in a role in which their race does not matter in the piece. Now that's a very important distinction to make, because there are many roles in which the race of the character really is crucial to the mechanics of the play or the theme of the play or the theme of a production of a play. And non-traditional casting is not that. Non-traditional casting is, to put it really mundanely, we need a doctor, and the stereotypical kind of 1960s or 1950s version of a doctor is a Caucasian man in a white lab coat. Non-traditional casting was trying to show and trying to explore the fact that, "No, we must no longer think of a doctor as a Caucasian man in a white lab coat unless his Caucasianness is really integral to the production or to the play." So, that was really an employment issue. That was an issue of allowing actors to compete for parts and have the playing field be open.

Then, there's an issue of something called color-blind casting. And color-blind casting is, in the best of all possible worlds, in that world in which the actor's craft and his creativity and the audience's imagination are so incredibly perfect that anybody can play any part. A Caucasian man playing Othello, or even a Caucasian man playing the engineer in "Miss Saigon," or an Asian man playing, you know, my example is always Rolf in "The Sound of Music" -- because when I was a little boy I wanted to be Rolf in the "Sound of Music" -- is really "anything goes." You can have that, and the audience goes there, and it can be the most beautiful thing about the theater -- the fact that the audience suspends its disbelief to even transcend race, the most presentational thing about an actor. The way they look to transcend that, now, we're not really there yet. I mean, we're only there in very rare instances, and it's a rare and magical thing when that happens. But we're not there, because the playing field is not even for actors to compete for roles in which race is not an issue. Furthermore, it only goes one way. Color-blind casting, up until this point, really kind of only goes one way, which is the Caucasian actor playing Othello, or Caucasian actor playing the Asian role. I don't have the same freedom that a lot of classical Caucasian actors had, which is that they got to play all these different things, and I never get to play a white person, specifically a white person. I can play a part that has been played by a Caucasian person in the past, but that's kind of different. I will never get to put on a blond wig and play Rolf in "The Sound of Music." And I'm older than 17 going on 18 now, but that's beside the point. I don't see that happening until the playing field is completely even, and that we're all, like, so in it together that we're sharing that color-blind experience. It has to go both ways for it to really work. So, how that plays into my daily life as an actor, that's always something that I dream about, that's always something that I'm looking forward to doing. That is something when I'm doing a play where I'm playing a comic strip character that was born in 1952, who was thought of as Caucasian, and I'm playing that part alongside an African-American actor who's playing a similarly beloved character who's thought of as blond.

The point is that, for instance, in this time now, when I'm able to play -- or chosen to play, called upon to play, invited to play -- this character from a comic strip, a famous comic strip, who was born in like 1952 or something like that; and who is thought of, or would never be described as Caucasian, but you know, has Caucasian features, I guess, as much as a comic strip person can have; and I'm on the stage with another actor who's an African-American actor who's also playing a blond comic strip character; and I'm in a play where the audience doesn't really care at all, in fact embraces it and loves it, and actually loves it more than they could if it was just done the plain old way, the normal way; then I feel like I do feel a sense of hope and a sense of accomplishment and a sense of moving towards that day when color-blind, true color-blind casting is the norm. And it really isn't the norm now, and it isn't because there are even still people going, "Oh, Schroeder's black, what a concept for me to grasp." Schroeder wasn't a real person. Schroeder is a person that Charles Schulz created who is a comic strip character, and just to talk very briefly about this particular play, I really feel that the characters are iconic personalities, not necessarily characters of a specific race. They don't really ever kind of get into race in that world. They have a lot of human qualities. To me, the character of Linus in this play "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," or even Linus, the character of Linus outside of the play, in the comic strips and in the videos and on the lunch boxes, is a state of mind, is a kind of a person. To actually say that he's a Caucasian person and can't be anything but a Caucasian person is a really dangerous, and actually very unhealthy, way to look at it, as far as I'm concerned. So that's that about that.

Let me just say one other thing. When I decided to become an actor, when I was a young boy having this experience on the stage, and I got bitten by that thing, I was also a consumer, and I was consuming television movies and the occasional theatrical production in which a person that looked like me was generally excluded. And that caused for me a great schism or strange kind of . . . it was a very unhealthy. It caused me to think unhealthy things about myself, and to wish that I wasn't an Asian-American person, to deny it, and to kind of wish that I was Caucasian. And that was because I wanted so badly to be an actor. I mean, I had exactly that thing that all actors talk about, that burning passion or desire, that thing that you tell the young actors who are coming in about. If you don't have it, don't do it. I had that. And at the same time, I wanted to go into this field, and I saw that people that looked like me were totally excluded from it, or were made to make fun of themselves. Or if you were a man, you were emasculated, and if you were a woman, oversexualized, all of those kind of political issues. And I decided to do it anyway, and I thought I was doing it naively: "Well, I guess you're going to have to try to change it, or something like that." And that was a very interesting way to enter it. My parents kind of got on board with me, and they supported me emotionally to do that, and I have to say that at this point in time -- and it's maybe more than 15 years later -- I do feel like things have changed, and I do feel a certain kind of sense of . . . not personal victory, but I do feel like I have been here to see a slow sense of movement, and a different sensibility about my role as a minority, or specifically as an Asian-American in this industry. And I don't think that all actors of color feel that way, but I certainly feel that way, and have in my career. I think that that means that it must be better for others, and I hope that that's true, but it goes way back for me to when I was a young kid being confused by the things that I saw, and not liking it and not feeling good about myself because of it.

CITY ARTS: What was it like for you when you first came to New York?

When I first came to New York, I went to every single audition that I could think of, and one of the auditions that I went to was for this summer theater that was doing a season of musicals and plays. I think they were doing "Camelot," and they were doing "The Sound of Music," and I sat down at this interview after having waited in line all day, and the director said, "What show do you want to be in? And what parts do you want?" And he had prefaced it by saying, "Oh, we're really involved in casting people of all different colors for all our things. We're very open to it, and it's really wonderful, and we're really good about that. Who do you want to play?" And without batting an eyelash, I said, "I'd like to play Rolf in 'The Sound of Music.'" Now, that speaks to something really deep that was going on inside me, and that I didn't understand fully, and that I understand much better now. That was partly that, because the industry had treated me a certain way, and because I fit in or did not fit into the industry a certain way, I wished that I was a white person more than I was pleased with myself for being an Asian-American person. I wanted to play that part because I thought that I could. I mean, I was in such denial that I thought that I could. At this point in time, looking back, of course it's completely wrong and actually against a lot of the policies that I really advocate, which are that, at this point in time, before the playing field is even, it's not fair for us to be kind of crossing the line so much, playing outside of our race, even. But anyway, what happened to me then was really interesting to me. I always look back on that, and the naivete of that, and I see that I have a feeling that that phenomenon is not occurring so much, that kind of denial and all of that that I had when I was 18 or 19 years old, or 17. So, I think that's a good thing. I kind of laugh when I think about it, but actually it was a really painful kind of way, an unhealthy way to be, because of the magnitude of the industry and the way it treats a person and what it can do to them.

CITY ARTS: And then, when you were in "M. Butterfly . . . "

"M. Butterfly" was my first Broadway play. My acting teacher, Don Hotton, who was a teacher that I had in L.A., was the guy who helped me get the part. Don's technique was all about accepting the responsibility of being a messenger, not interpreting classic work, but finding out what it is that's on the page that you're supposed to do, and not trying to change it or be creative about it. And a lot of people are always trying to: "Oh, I'm going to play this way, or I'm going to add this way of speaking," or whatever, impose upon a part certain things. And he was like, "Just strip it down to what the writer's saying. And if you really marry yourself to that, you can be a great messenger and you can give a great performance." And I said, "I understand that, but I don't really understand what it means to be so in love with a writer's words that you really can do that and understand it." And I had this opportunity to read for this play called "M. Butterfly," and when I read the first page of it and as I started flipping through it, it validated me so much as an Asian-American and as a man and as a lot of different things. I just got so many things that I had felt in my life, or understood, that I understood what he meant. All of a sudden, the technique just went like this for me. And I said, "Oh, he means that you really feel, and you have enough life experience or a parallel experience that you can relate to it, you can give a great performance." And that's kind of what happened to me in that. I was able to channel something because I really believed in it. And that began, for me, a whole different way of looking at the work, which was that you really need to understand what it is that you understand about it.

CITY ARTS: And what did the success from that role do for you?

The success from that play was a double-edged sword. It was an incredible opportunity for me. It was the play that put me on the map. "M. Butterfly" was my first Broadway show. "M. Butterfly" was the play that kind of put me on the map. If there even is a map, then that was it. The success that I got from that play, or the success that I had in it, was a bit of a double-edged sword. I could not have asked for a more intense, satisfying, artistic experience. I was working with a fantastic director, John Dexter, a fantastic star, John Lithgow, and it was the part of a lifetime. And I was very young and inexperienced, and so I learned and soaked up so much from it. That was a great thing. I got a lot of opportunities after that, but I also had this very bizarre stigma that hung over my head because I had played such an eccentric kind of homoerotic part. And it caused me, for years, to not be able to get past, in the producer's or casting director's mind, how much of that was craft and how much of it was me. And that was very hurtful to me. I was very disappointed by that. I really felt that I was so transformed in the play; and at that time of my life, in my work, transformation was a big part of what I really thought acting was all about. I'm much less about that now. And so then I was just so into being a chameleon and changing myself and wanting people to understand and appreciate how much work went into that. And so I thought people got that, and yet at the same time I would go to casting sessions or not be able to get in for a part, and realize that it had to do with the fact that I wore a dress in the first two acts of a three-act play, in which, in the third act, I did wear pants eventually, but that seemed kind of a moot point. It was so worth it. Now, that is just kind of a milestone. There's more of a perspective that everyone has about what it is that I do now, so that's good.

CITY ARTS: How do you cope with rejection?

Well, I'm just getting to a point now in my life where rejection is not taken personally. Although every once in a while, that one thing catches you where you have put so much of your heart into something and so much of a knowledge in your mind that it is the right thing for you, and when it doesn't happen, it can be really, really sad. That's the one thing that I really want to get out of my life, the feeling of sadness that happens, because I'm becoming more and more aware now that it's not personal, it's not a personal thing. And a lot of times, I used to have to do a lot of tricky justification to kind of get past it, and I don't have to do that so much anymore. I don't have to say, "Oh, they're jerks," or, "Who needs them, anyway?" I just have to kind of accept that life is what it is, and that my life that I've chosen, which I love and which is noble, has these things in it. And I kind of like that now. I kind of wear it like the red badge of courage, I guess.

CITY ARTS: Can you comment on acting being a noble profession?

Well, one of the things that I get off on about acting, which is most prevalent when I'm on the stage, is the nature of the actor's role being very ancient and being very related to large amounts of people gathering in dark and temple-like rooms to witness this thing that happens before them, and to kind of reverently experience it all together. It is a very human, almost primitive kind of thing. I love being part of the equation, and I love the part of it that I am, which is the actor. Less and less as I go on in my life do I think that I'm acting because of my own ego, or because of what I want to get out of it, or what I need -- that validation that I need, or that fame, or that money. I do it now, more, I think, I hope, I wish, because of that fantastic, wonderful thing. That at the end of your life, you can say you were part of a vocation that provoked people's thoughts, moved them, made them think about themselves or their lives, and in some ways and rare occasions, made the world a better place. And so for that reason, I think that it's an incredibly noble and very misunderstood kind of craft, partly because there is such a preponderance of not only bad actors, but actors who are in it for the wrong reasons, or who don't understand that equation at all. So I have a tendency to spend a lot of time in my life resenting those people, and yet I still feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction from being there when the audience is there. I don't think it's like anything else. I don't even think -- and I don't mean to kind of turn my nose up at it -- I don't even really think it's like being an opera singer, a ballet dancer, or a musician. I have great reverence for those vocations. I mean, music and dance are just pure and beautiful, but what happens when you're an actor, or what you are able to experience as an actor through words and through being the conduit of someone else's ideas or passion, is incredibly profound to me. And that's why I chose it. I think that's why I chose it.

I mean, I chose it when I was very young, so I don't think I knew it then, but there was something very basic that drew me to it. When I was in ninth grade, I studied the violin, and I became apparently kind of really good at it. And when I was in ninth grade and this girl who was a classmate of mine invited me to audition for "Guys and Dolls" in high school, or junior high school, and I said I was going to play in the orchestra, she said, "Oh no, you don't want to play in the orchestra. You want to be on the stage." And secretly, I kind of wanted her to make me go to this audition, and I also was at a crossroads because I realized that as good as I was at playing the violin, I didn't like it. I didn't love it. I was kind of a robot, and I did it because my parents had paid a lot of money, and because the teachers were really encouraging, and because I was good at it. But when I walked on the stage, that was the first time that I understood that I could love it, and it would love me at the same time. And that was when it made sense. That was the creative thing, because I was painting and I was drawing and I was going to art school, and I was doing a lot of different things that were creative, but that was when everything made sense. And that's when I realized that I could do whatever it took to choose a life of that. I knew that that was going to be a huge set of sacrifices or a kind of miserable life in some ways, the way people look at it. It's definitely not a miserable life. But I think I thought it was going to be; I thought it was going to be. And yet, I thought it was worth it, and I did it anyway.

CITY ARTS: If a kid came up to you and told you he wanted to be an actor too, what would you tell him? Is it just about being persistent, or is there something to needing talent as well?

This is the age-old question about being an actor: Whenever you're somewhere, invariably someone will say, "For the young people that are going into it, what do you have to say to them?" And when I was young, nobody ever said, "Do it." And a lot of actors now, most actors, many actors, a lot of older actors will say, "Oh, don't encourage people to do it. It's a terrible thing, it's a horrible thing. You mustn't do it." And I find that actually reprehensible. And I find it reprehensible because I was this kid with an incredible, amazing passion that was being awakened within me as I was asking the question. I didn't understand the question. I didn't know why I was asking the question. I just knew that I had to know whether I was making a fool out of myself or not. And for them to say "don't do it" is really, I think, very, very unfortunate and irresponsible. I would say, "You can't do it if you don't have that thing, if you don't have a burning desire to do it. It's not worth it." A lot of people always say, "Oh, you know, I've done some catalog modeling and I was in a couple of, I don't know what, print ads for something, and somebody says I should go into acting, and I think I'm going to try it." Now, of course, everybody's right is to do whatever we please, and I think that that's fantastic in one way. On the other hand, I'm infuriated by that, because that's not really what an actor is. An actor is not a person who's a good-looking person, clearly, who just feels like saying a few lines and making a living out of it.

An actor, to me, is that person who wants to be part of that equation where they are a messenger, are able to use their talent and their passion for their craft to enrich someone's life by their witnessing what it is that you do. And that can be done in a lot of different ways. When I was a kid, nobody ever said that I should do it. They were all very negative about it, and yet, I know that there are a lot of negative things about it, and I would never tell somebody not to do it. It's so rewarding and so incredibly full of adventure that how can you tell a kid not to do that because of that? Now, they should understand more about life, is what I think kids should do. And the thing about life is that life is full of ups and downs, and a lot of lousy stuff and a lot of great stuff, and if you choose the right thing in your life, those rare moments of greatness and wonder and magic are so worth the price that you pay when the lousy stuff comes by, that you have to do it. You just have to.

CITY ARTS: You have an incredible level of confidence. Does your confidence come from winning the Tony?

That's very interesting to me. First of all, you know, I have heard people say that I'm a very confident person. I don't really feel necessarily more confident than anybody else. I think that it's very difficult to be an actor, or to live the life of an actor, without a certain tremendous sense of confidence. I think it's very difficult. I can't imagine not having confidence and doing it. I know that a great deal of my success now -- and I don't mean success, material success, I mean my own measure of success: whether or not I'm living up to my own potential -- I know that that has a lot to do with being confident. I don't know where it really comes from. I mean, somebody would say, "Do you have confidence because you have the Tony award?" I don't think that's it. I think that I definitely had confidence before I had a Tony award, and I don't think that's it. The Tony award was extremely validating for me. That's definitely true, and fortifying. But I think I make a special effort to have confidence, or to find confidence, and to nurture my own confidence, and to hone it, the way I try to hone everything else, because it's a necessary component in how you get along in a day-to-day way.

CITY ARTS: What advice would you give an actor just starting out?

One of the other things that I would say to those kids that are starting out is that seeking support from a system of support is really important. I had a great set of parents, an unbelievable set of parents who supported me and who nurtured me, and my support system, my circle of friends, has always been strong and very, very cheerleader-like. It helped propel me into the darkness. I think in your own sense being a cheerleader for yourself is really important, and that's where confidence is really, really important. It's a very interesting issue, because I think there are a lot of actors who lack confidence in a very bizarre way. There are a lot of very good actors who lack confidence, and in some bizarre way, their lack of confidence makes their work good, in some ways. In other ways, it's their enemy. I think there are a lot of different ways to look at it. One thing that's great about acting is its subjectivity, is the fact that it's so subjective. The thing that makes one actor great is totally something that makes another actor terrible, and vice versa, and all of the different equations of it. In my case, confidence works in my favor. Confidence helps me to get through it, and I like myself better when I'm confident. I don't see how you can go into a room with a bunch of strangers who are all sitting behind a table, and I don't see how you can perform for them and put yourself out there, in many cases reading opposite a person who you've never worked with before -- you don't know what they're going to do and all of that, all of the things that happen on auditions -- how can you do that, how can you actually even walk through that door, without being fortified in some way? Fortifying yourself, or having others fortify you, and that's important. It's a huge part of it. Most actors hate to audition, and that's a really interesting thing to me, because I really enjoy it. I think it's fun. I will tell you, 11 times out of 10, I don't get the part. I mean, that's just the way it is when you're an actor. And so you kill yourself if you don't think of a reason to justify that. My reason for justifying it is that it's another performance. And I will say, "Oh, I've never played Iago in 'Othello,' but, you know, I've auditioned for that part, which means to me that I've played the part, because there was an audience there, and I did it." So, I think that that's funny that people don't like to audition. I mean, I have definitely gone to auditions that I've dreaded, don't get me wrong.

CITY ARTS: The character of Linus, is that you?

Linus, the character of Linus, is more me than a lot of characters that I've played. I think that has to do with Michael Mayer, the director, kind of wishing to choose people that inherently, spiritually, emotionally -- not physically, but inside -- match to these people that were so beloved to everyone over the years, have been so beloved. And so he is, it turns out, a lot more like me than some of the other characters that I've played. And like I told you before, I don't have as much of a desire to completely transform myself now as I used to. And so yeah, he is, he's really close to me. He's really, I think, in my mind's eye, he's more my dad, and I love my dad so much. He's so much of the purity and the spirit and the spirituality and the wisdom of my dad.

CITY ARTS: When you played Linus many years ago, did you say to yourself, "I'm going to do this on Broadway someday?"

You know, I was in "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" when I was 15, and it was at the "Y," and it was a tiny little community theater group that just kind of put this whole production together. As a matter of fact, the girl that made me go to my first audition, she was in that company; her dad was running it. And I was playing Linus, and, you know, I had no idea that I was going to become a professional actor when I did the play. I did know when I did that play -- and this was like the second play that I had done after "Guys and Dolls" -- I had the bug continuing to bite me through that play, and I remember feeling funny in that play. Doing something that made the audience laugh, and hearing a collective room of people laughing and going, "Oh wow, that's really good," and wanting more of that, and wanting to just make people happy in that way, and for them to get something out of it. That has continued, and I felt that way, but I didn't think that I was going to become a professional actor. When I started rehearsing the Broadway revival of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown," I asked my mother, "Do you remember that I did this play when I was 15 years old?" And she said, "Oh, yes." And I said, "Well, what do you remember about it?" And she said, "Well, I remember that it was very funny, you were very funny, and that at the end of the show, they introduced the guy who played Charlie Brown, but they didn't introduce you." And I said, "Mom, those days are over."

CITY ARTS: Do you have a funny audition story?

You know, I don't have a really funny story. To me, bad auditions aren't funny. I can't make, even in retrospect, can't make fun of . . . Well, auditioning is so funny, because it's a time in which you're supposed to do your absolute best and most focused work, even more important than actual performance, because you're being judged to be given the job. Yet, there are so many more variables. There are these variables of -- you know, it's so incredible what actors have to do. They have to deal with all this kind of obstacle course of variables -- this partner that you're reading with that you don't know. In Acting 101, that's just . . . you don't do that. You don't just kind of say, "Hello, how are you, let's do this really intense love scene together." You don't do that. And then there's the issue of whether the director is paying attention or wanting you to be there or not, and all of these other things that are going on. I do remember that very recently I had an audition for -- I will tell you exactly what it was for, instead of mincing -- I was auditioning for the television movie version of MOBY DICK, which recently starred Gregory Peck. I had gone into this room with the casting director and the two, the producer and the director, and I was so well-prepared and confident, and I started doing the scene and the monologue, and the director fell asleep. Now, they had just come from Australia, or gotten on a red-eye or something really bizarre, and he just was watching me, and at first I thought he was incredibly intent on my performance, and then he just went . . . like this. I was watching him while I was doing the monologue, kind of like, "Wow, he's falling asleep. He's actually falling asleep." Now, when the director falls asleep -- this had never happened to me before, right -- and you're thinking to yourself, do you actually stop and say, "Excuse me, you're falling asleep. Should I start over or what?" And at the end, I think what became clear was that I finished, and there needed to be a moment when he realized I was done, and he woke up. He said, "Oh I'm so, so sorry that I've . . . " whatever, and it was one of those kinds of auditions that you felt was a complete waste of time.

I didn't get the part, and yet I did think at that time that it was kind of funny. I guess I didn't really want or care about doing that particular project that much. And if it had been, you know, Declan Donnellan or somebody falling asleep in front of me, I would have been mortified and want to kill myself, but it was just what it was. That's what happens to you, though. You go and you put yourself on the line. This is what's so incredible and noble about it, this kind of idea that you throw yourself into it, and that you throw yourself into it knowing that the chances are that you will be rejected. I'm talking about not being in performance mode, but in vying for a job. You throw yourself out into it, and the things that you have to do to do that, and the things that you have to deal with, are incredible to me. People falling asleep. Where else do you have that, really? The one person who you look in judgement of, you know, you're looking to them for the approval. They're falling asleep.

CITY ARTS: Do you really feel like those people should be sitting in judgment?

Well, they're the gatekeeper, you know. They have the key to heaven's gate -- which is work, which is that huge idea, work -- that you want, that you wish for, that you know you're going to have to deal with not having when you go into it. You're going to have to deal with not having the work. Your brother is a doctor; he will always have the work. He will have days when there are no patients at the clinic, and yet, he will still have the work. And you're going, "Okay, I know that this is what it's like; this is what it is." And yet you -- this is the other thing -- you have to be nice to these people. You have to be nice to them. You have to say, "Oh, it's all right that you fell asleep. I mean, you must be very tired, and I really appreciate that. Thanks for letting me come and do this for you." You have to do it. You have to do it, and that's incredible. That takes whatever, a certain kind of resilience, and I think that, you know, these are things. This is the thing that's interesting to me. These talents, they have nothing to do with acting. The talent of resilience really has nothing to do with whether your craft is really finely honed and whether or not you can be that messenger. No, it's a whole other set of talents. It's a whole other thing that you have to do. It's a whole other book you have to read. It's a whole other class at the New School that you have to take, you know? You shouldn't have to do that. Those rare times when I've been able to act and not felt that I had to deal with all that other bull have been the most satisfying times, you know?

I recently had this incredible experience where I had seen a play at the Signature Theater off-Broadway, and the day after I saw it, the leading actor quit for whatever reason. He left, and he took his option and had given 48 hours' notice. I saw the play on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, he quit. On Thursday, the play was supposed to close on Sunday, but they were going to close that night because he gave his 48 hours' notice. And I said, because I knew the Director, Nicky Martin, a great director and a great friend, I said, "I'll do the play. I'll read the play with a book in my hand if you want." And he said, "Okay." And we immediately pressed ourselves into this incredible mode of rehearsing as much as you could rehearse a person that was going to go on in less than 48 hours, and meeting the other actors, and doing the play. And I did the play, and it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, because there was none of that other stuff. There was none of the rehearsal process or the craziness of it. It was just the craft happening. And that's really satisfying. And the audience's appreciation of the phenomenon of what I was doing, that was incredible. And that's when I realized what acting can be or is. It's not this whole world of rejection or all the stuff. How well you deal with the rejection, and how well you deal with the whole lifestyle of it, aren't what make you an actor. The proof is in the pudding of what happens when the lights go out, when the lights go down. That is where you're an actor. And I wish that that was really the only thing you had to deal with, but it isn't. There's all this other stuff. And yet, I can't see it any other way except as worth it. I wake up every day, and I'm so lucky and happy and feeling so incredible that it found me, that I was able to discover it. I know there are people everywhere that haven't found that thing, or don't know that thing; they didn't explore enough to know that there was this thing that could make them so happy and fulfill their lives, or that they could feel that they did the right thing or chose the right thing. I am lucky that I found that thing, or that it found me.

CITY ARTS: And we're lucky, too.

At the very end I realized that there's so much about your being chosen. Your whole lifestyle is about wishing to be the one that gets chosen. You know, being auditioned and, "Oh, I hope that I get picked. I hope I get it," from "Chorus Line." That's what it all is. And yet at the same time, there's a vocation that chose you. And so you are, in your whole life, always feeling in some way chosen. That's a big issue with me, that I feel that being chosen is important to me. Being chosen on a day-to-day basis is not half as important as feeling like I'm the one that was chosen to do this. And so looking for that "being chosen" is worth it. It's so worth it. How can you not remind yourself of that when you need to remind yourself of that? When you start getting that way, roll clip, you know.

CITY ARTS:When it's good, it's really good, and . . .

When it's bad, I guess for some it's really bad. I'm lucky; I have really great people that remind me every day that it will be good someday, that I just have to find my way through it to find it being good. You're talking to me at a time when it's really great, when it couldn't be better, and yet I would hope that I wasn't any different four weeks ago, before I opened on Broadway in my first musical. I would hope that I wasn't.