I don't have to prove anything to anyone. As a result, I am ready to take up again the characters who are closer to what I really am.
I have no bones to pick and no fight with society. And I'm willing to be and interested in being in the mainstream of society.
People may never understand this - and perhaps I should give up caring whether they do or not - but the idea of me playing Superman is so far away from what I was brought up to aspire to.
When I first began acting, I assumed an intellectual responsibility attached to my profession, which I had accepted for a long time. My father taught me that an actor had to have a social and political conscience, and that the work that he does has to reflect from that.
Having that college-town atmosphere with a live repertory company available was a real gift. I found myself gravitating toward the theater from about the age of nine. I guess it was the environment that got me started.
I don't think actors are to blame for poor writing. The culture changes first, and the theater follows it. In the case of the movies, it's the same thing.
In the second half of the 20th century, people are becoming more limited: Vocabularies are smaller, thoughts are smaller, aspirations are smaller, everything is very scaled down. Everyone is typecast.
Maybe one way I am original is that at heart I really am a classical actor. I haven't had my chance yet in the commercial world to show that. Movies aren't really made about classical people so much any more.
The bigger the canvas, the better I do. I'm not so good at understated, kitchen-sink kinds of parts.
And if you can channel the truth of your own experience onto the stage, that's what the audience wants to see.
The character is a piece of fiction. You are yourself, however, and that makes you interesting, because you're alive and you're a human being.
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