Even before appearing on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Alonzo Bodden knew there was nothing that would ever make him give up comedy. “That’s the drug,” he says. “When they laugh, it’s like I’m a jazz musician and they hear it and they get it. It’s power to take the crowd wherever I want them to go. I love it when they laugh, especially when they relate through laughter. It’s a beautiful thing. It also means I’m going to get paid, which is nice.”
A graduate of Aviation High School, for nine years he earned a paycheck as a jet mechanic for Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas. While comics around the country were making audiences laugh at airline jokes, Alonzo was working on the top secret Stealth Bomber. It was during a stint as a trainer that Alonzo discovered his ability to entertain a group of people.
Alonzo has ventured off the stage to have fun with his many roles on television and in film. He was the security guard, bouncer, crook, and/or a cop in Bringing Down the House, Angel, and Grounded for Life, to name a few.
Alonzo describes his material as “cynically good-natured in an angry suburban Negro kind of way.” While he strongly believes that all young comics should study Bill Cosby, he freely admits that his mom is the funniest person he knows. When his family and friends attend his shows, he loves and appreciates it.
One of the great things about Alonzo’s career is that he can make you laugh and fix your Learjet. One day Alonzo hopes to have his own Learjet. More information is at http://alonzobodden.com.
I used to be an airplane mechanic. That was my first career. Then I started training—teaching mechanics—in ’89. I could see the end of it coming by 1993 and it just kind of struck me. I was always funny, but it wasn’t until I started teaching that I knew I could just be in front of a group and be funny all the time. Some background: I’m clean and sober. And my main meeting place was a place called Studio 12. The joke was that the stars went to Betty Ford and the crew went to Studio 12. Really, that’s what it was. It was like a recovery home for the unions, the tradespeople. That was my first exposure to people in the entertainment business. I didn’t know what I could do in the business but I really liked it. The reason I talk about that is because the support of those people just saying, “You can do it. Go for it,” was everything.
I could always make people laugh. I wasn’t the class clown type. I was the type that sat in the back and made the person next to me laugh really loud and when I kept a straight face, they would get in trouble. That was more my style of humor. Still is. I always could make people laugh but it wasn’t until training that I knew I could do it in front of people. It’s a whole different thing. The difference between a comic and a funny guy—and I don’t know who said this, originally—is that a funny guy can make his friends laugh. A comic has to make a hundred strangers laugh on cue. That’s what I learned when I was a teacher: that I could make people laugh. I call it the gift. I don’t know what it is or where it comes from, but I have it.
When I got my layoff notice from McDonnell-Douglas, I was dating someone and she gave me an ad for a comedy class. The reason I wanted to go to the class was I didn’t want to be the only person on stage for the first time. I knew about open mics and stuff, but I didn’t want to be the only one doing it for the first time that night. If I went to a class, at the graduation, everyone’s doing it for the first time. The graduation performance was really cool. We were at the theatre and there were a lot of people there—all friends and supporters—and my second joke, everyone laughed. It threw me! Because we had never gone over in class what to do when a group of people laughed. I’m kind of standing there like, “Oh, shit. What do I do now?” I did my set and it was really great for a first set ever. They definitely laughed. I got off stage and a friend of mine said, “Well, it looks like you finally found out what you’re meant to be doing.” That was the exact feeling I had. I always had that feeling about it—I still have that feeling about it. I have to do stand-up. I love doing stand-up.
From there, I got into doing open mics. I would get up anywhere. I’d talk to people who were working and say, “What do I do?” and they’d say, “You gotta do open mics.” So, I started doing them. I started doing comedy when I was thirty. I couldn’t do that starving artist lifestyle. I’d already had a good job and a career. I was used to living a certain way. I wasn’t going to live in a one-bedroom with six roommates. A friend of mine who was a location and transportation guy back when I was with McDonnell-Douglas gave me a call and asked me if I could drive a truck. He said, “I need a truck driver for this new show called Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.” I was like, “Okay.” I showed up and I drove for him a few days and it was cool. Then I didn’t hear from them for a few months. About four or five months later, I get a call from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers asking if I’m interested in being a transportation captain. I said, “Hang on a minute. Let me do something. I’ll call you right back.” I called my buddy and asked, “What’s a transportation captain.” Literally, that’s how it happened. He said, “Don’t worry. You can figure it out. You’ll learn it as you do it. Take the job.”
So I took the job. They were just great. When we started doing the show—I was there pretty much from the beginning—everyone thought the show was the most corny, bad thing, but it took off! It was a real blessing. The producer liked me, the people on the crew liked me. I forget how they saw me do comedy; they came to an open mic I did or something. By now, I’d been doing it almost a year. They liked it and they said, “Look, pursue your career. Your job will always be here. If you’ve got to leave town or whatever, you go.” It was such a great job because I only worked when we were on location—like two or three days a week—and I could make enough money to pay my bills. The other great thing is I was learning what everyone does in the business. I learned, “Oh, so that’s what a gaffer is. That’s what an electric is.” And I learned how shows were made, setting it up and the whole bit. Meanwhile, my comedy career was slowly blossoming.
What was your first paid gig?
A few people had hired me to open for them or do little one-nighters around here where you make twenty bucks, fifty bucks, whatever. People were getting to know that I was funny. I did the open mic at the Laugh Factory and Jamie Masada said, “I’m looking for a doorman. Work as a doorman and I’ll give you spots when people don’t show up.” I started doing that and one night Frasier Smith saw me. In the ’80s, he was one of the top DJs in LA. He had a midnight comedy show on 97.1, back when it was a rock station. So, he hired me to warm up his crowd for his midnight show every week. That was great, because every week I had to do a new five minutes. It pushed me to write and write and write and write. I tend to be topical, so my material is always changing. Also, I’d get to do the show once a month, which would be a twenty-minute spot. Somewhere in my first or second year of doing that, something great happened. I knew Tommy Davidson—I had met him—and I asked him for tickets to a show he was doing. He said, “Do you want to open it?” I was like, “Hell, yeah!” It was so funny, Tommy got paid five grand and I got paid a hundred bucks—and I wasn’t allowed in the green room. That’s really the difference between being the headliner and the opener. Opening for Tommy was a great break because his manager, a guy named Rick Rogers, saw me and took me on. That was my first real representation. Rick had me start opening for Tommy in other clubs. That’s how other clubs would see me for the first time. That was great for my career.
I was asked to do The Apollo Comedy Hour. That was frightening. At this point, I had maybe two years of experience. The whole thing about the Apollo is: Don’t get booed off! That’s your only concern. It was my first time working in New York, which is where I grew up. I got there and I went to the Boston Comedy Club because some LA comics had told me to check it out; it’s in the Village. The comics there were like, “Oh, you’re doing the Apollo? We can get you up in this room, that room, the other room, just to run your set.” This is back when Def Comedy Jam was really big. I’m not a Def Jam comic. It’s not where I come from. I don’t knock it, but it’s not my style. I went to this club called Manhattan Proper. It was in Queens, about two miles from where I grew up. I didn’t tell anybody I was going to be there. I just went. That crowd—second or third joke—started booing me and ran me right out of the room. That was my first time getting booed like that. I had bombed before. I would have jokes not work. But that was the first time it was that kind of reaction.
I got to the Apollo and it’s much smaller than it looks on TV. They had us downstairs in a bullpen. They would have a music act and then a comic, but they wouldn’t tell you who was next. I either followed or went right before Biggie Smalls. I went out there and my first joke was: “I grew up in New York. I moved to LA. Damn, if I was a rapper, I’d have to shoot myself.” They loved it! My set just went. People ask me if I get nervous and I generally don’t get nervous—even back then I didn’t get too nervous—but whenever I’m doing something new, it’s always about getting the first laugh. That’s when I can relax.
How did you begin crossing over into acting?
Rick was sending me out on auditions. It was really funny because I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know about the sign-in sheet, nothing. I was just an idiot. I can only think now how horribly bad I must’ve been at that point. The difference between comedy and acting is a comic can always work. An actor, if he wants to practice, he has to pay to go to class. Comics can always work for free. We can always find stage time somewhere. It may be the back of a coffee shop, but we still get to get up and do it. I think that’s the big difference. Rick also got me hip-pocketed at APA, which is a big agency. They had me showcase for the Montreal Comedy Festival, which is the biggest comedy festival in the world. There’s over a hundred comics there doing all different shows: New Faces Show, Urban Comedy Show, Jewish Comedy Show, Best of the Fest, Nasty Show, Alternative Show—it’s a phenomenal festival. I’ve done it a few times now and I love it. I went in, they picked me for the New Faces Showcase. This was in ’97, my fourth year of comedy. This was the big show to be in. I figured, “Now I have to go up there and get a deal!” I can’t waste time enjoying it; I’ve got work to do!
This was one of my best moments in comedy. I was doing New Faces and I said, “I don’t like hockey.” The whole crowd starts going, “Boo! Boo! Boo!” I just looked at them and said, “Shut up!” And then I continued, “I don’t like hockey because the only thing black is the puck. Now, golf on the other hand….” So, the crowd roars. After the show, I walk outside and I’m attacked: “I’m from NBC.” “I’m from ABC.” “I’m from this studio.” “I’m from that studio.” This was back when they still made deals at the festivals. It was funny because, for me, it was just a set! I probably had the best set of the group, but I was just thinking, “This is what I do.” The guys from APA said, “Listen, we’ve got to go over to the Gala and hang with Denis Leary.” The Gala is one of the biggest shows they have and Denis Leary was one of their clients. I was like, “What? Guys! This is when I need you, fellas. I don’t know how to talk to these people. I’m not supposed to talk to these people. That’s your job.” William Morris was just bird-dogging me after that. I could not turn around without bumping into a William Morris agent. It was the funniest thing.
Rick, my manager—who was up there with me—called me when we got home and said, “You’re about to make a ton of fuckin’ money.” We went in and signed with William Morris, I got a deal with a company called Greenblatt-Janollari, I left Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers—that was when I crossed over to full-time comic. My deal with Greenblatt-Janollari was my learning deal. I didn’t know I was supposed to come in with my idea for a show. I just thought, “Okay, I’m funny. You guys, do your thing.” I met with a bunch of different writers. We shopped a show to NBC, everybody got their hands on it and it died—but they did let me keep the money. Rick, the whole time, was talking about the deal getting renewed, but it expired. I was kind of languishing but I was still working the clubs.
After I did my New Faces, a guy named Willie Mercer—one of the producers of the festival—came by and said, “I’m going to have you back in two years to do a Gala.” Sure enough, he did call me a year and a half later and said, “You’re going to do your gala this summer.” I went back to Montreal in ’99. Rick Rogers left the business, so I didn’t have a manager for a while. I got hooked up with Willie Mercer, the guy who had booked me for Montreal. I knew he was a manager and I knew he was a man of his word. In this business, it’s almost shocking when someone actually does something they say they will do. By the way, once the deal expired, I wasn’t the hot guy at William Morris anymore.
Note to comics: Don’t make fun of your agent when they have a big ego. There was a room called Dublin’s on Sunset. This was 2000 maybe ’01. This friend of mine, Ahmed Ahmed, had booked me. He would do comedy anywhere—pool halls, bowling alleys, bars. We did it once in the back of a Cuban restaurant. He started doing comedy at Dublin’s and said, “Come on down.” It was basically like an open mic workout room. It wasn’t new comics but it was comics who work, working out new material. Dublin’s was really organic and really great. It was me, Dane Cook, and a guy named Darren Carter. We were kind of the anchors. A lot of other comics would come. People liked seeing us different than they saw us at the Laugh Factory or the Improv and we liked having a crowd. They fed each other: The crowds got bigger and that made bigger-name comics hear about it and want to do it. It just grew and grew. Then it became this show. My thing was, I would always go in there, sit on a stool, and just talk and see what would come out. That’s how I’d get new material.
I’d been rippin’ on the Clippers one week. The guy who wrote Juwanna Mann was in the crowd and he came to me and said, “I’m doing this movie about the WNBA and I think some of your Clippers stuff might be interesting to use.” I was like, “Okay, whatever.” I guess he did research, found out who I was, and contacted William Morris because the next week, William Morris had people down there. Now, I had told them about this room. I had said, “You guys have really got to see what I’m doing at Dublin’s,” because it was different than my stage stuff. At Dublin’s, I was usually really dirty, really raw, and people weren’t used to seeing that from me. So, they came down and I said, “Yeah, my agent’s here. My agent asked what I’ve been doing. That’s like my mother asking me how old I am. You should know!” There’s roaring laughter. I said, “I’m not going to mention the name of the agency, but they’re on William Morris Boulevard and they’ve been hawkin’ me for a hundred dollars for a year. I don’t know, but I’m thinking, if there’s a street named after you in Beverly Hills, maybe my hundred ain’t puttin’ you over the top.” Well, the next morning, Debbie—who was Willie Mercer’s partner—called and said, “You know, there have only been two days your name has been on every desk at William Morris: when they found you in Montreal and when they dropped you this morning.” At the end of the day, I went to Debbie and I said, “Was it funny?” She said, “Fucking hilarious.” I’m like, “Okay. Then it’s fine.”
How did you get your SAG card?
It was really funny. I had gotten my SAG card in a role because a friend of mine was a director. He said, “I need an undercover cop for this thing. I’ll set it up where you’ll say a few lines so you’ll be eligible for your card.” I did that and then I actually got a recurring role on The Visitor on the second-to-last episode. That started my acting career as a man in uniform. I’ve been an Air Force Lieutenant, security guard, prison guard, bouncer. All of it.
One great thing William Morris did was turn me on to an acting coach named Janet Alhanti. Janet is phenomenal. Janet isn’t one of those artsy types. She’s nuts-and-bolts: This is what you do. And if you try any of that artsy stuff, Janet will say, “What’s that? What are you doing?” I love Janet. Janet was the first person with whom I began to understand acting and what acting is. That’s when I started going into auditions basically having an idea, knowing what I was doing. She taught me how to break down sides and make choices. She explained what making a choice means—you decide: “This is how I’m going to deliver this,” and you do it. You don’t flounder or anything. That’s when I started the grind. I was on the road doing my club thing, I was doing auditions, I was doing Janet’s class.
When did you feel like a “real” comic?
When I did New Faces in ’97. That’s when I felt like, “Okay, now I’m a comic.” The comics who were working the Laugh Factory and managers and people who had seen me as “doorman,” they were congratulating me. When you get it from your peers, when you get it from Dom Irrera or from Barry Katz, that’s real. They’re talking to me like I’m one of them. It’s weird! But that’s what really felt good—beyond the money, the networks, the agency—it’s being accepted by your peers. Now I’m one of them.
There are a lot of LA comics that do LA open mics and that’s all they do. I was on the road. I was working shitty one-nighters in Montana, Idaho, Washington. I did a couple of circles around Texas—you drive to Texas and circle the state. I did New Mexico. But that’s how you get good. I tell new comics that: “You don’t get good staying in LA.” You certainly aren’t going to get good Saturday night at the Improv. You get good doing comedy in places it should never be done: Wednesday night at a biker bar in Montana. Your ass will be funny. That’s how you get good.
There were a couple of years that were really lean. I was really lucky that, when I got that big development deal, I had a friend who was an accountant bookkeeper. She handled the money. She made the money last a couple of years. She also got me to buy a house. In ’01, when I was broke, I was able to take a second on the townhouse and live. I was really lucky in that respect.
How did you get your second development deal?
I went to the Aspen Comedy Festival and there I bumped into Judi Brown who used to book comedy for HBO. Judi and I knew each other. Judi was someone who had always been honest. Rick had tried to get me into Aspen and Judi said, “Nah. HBO thinks he’s a festival guy.” It used to be, you could do Montreal or Aspen, but only big names got to do both. Judi said, “Well, I’m traveling and I’m asking, ‘Who should be at Aspen?’ and your name keeps poppin’ up so we’re going to showcase you.” I showcased and that was really fun. Aspen is completely different than Montreal. I don’t think it works the same. I think it’s more of a “casting and executives who like to ski and we may drop by a show” thing at Aspen.
Well, another comic named Jeremy Hotz, who is a phenomenal comic originally from Canada, is a very neurotic, Woody Allen-ish kind of guy. We’re friends. I’ve known him for a few years. We were having lunch and an agent who happened to represent Jeremy at the time said he couldn’t believe Jeremy and I were friends because we’re so opposite. I’m laid back, Jeremy is very on-edge. He said, “That’s a show. You two are a show.” We came back to LA, we worked on it, we pitched it. We went to Castle Rock and they were like, “Eh, we kind of see it. We don’t really get it. Work on the pitch and come back.” The second time we went, Jeremy had just bought a car and I helped him do the deal. We were literally walking into the office arguing with each other. Glen Padnick from Castle Rock was sitting behind his desk cracking up, just dying laughing. We were like, “Okay, we’re ready to pitch,” and he said, “No. No need. I got it.” So, Castle Rock took on the project. What had changed since I was in Montreal and got a deal and this Aspen deal, is that now studios don’t pay when they take on a project. They don’t pay you until they sell it. So, there was no big fat check. Castle Rock took it out to Fox; they didn’t buy the idea. Then the idea just kind of died on the vine. The thing I love about Hollywood is that they never say, “No.” They just stop talking to you. You never know—me and Jeremy could become superstars and then they’ve got our show, ready to go, since they didn’t ever really say no.
How did you get involved with Last Comic Standing?
Judi Brown was working for Star Search. I did Star Search in ’02 or ’03. It was pretty cool for me. I had done another show in 2001 called Next Big Star with Ed McMahon for PAX. I won that one. It was kind of a low-budget cable version of Star Search. I won a car. It was right on time, but it costs a lot of money to win a car. You gotta pay taxes on the car, you gotta pay registration on the car, and you have to pay income tax on the price of the car—a lot of people don’t know the car is considered income at retail value. It would’ve cost me about eight or nine thousand dollars to win that car, so I sold it back to the dealer, bought a cheaper car, and pocketed some cash. When I was asked to do Star Search, I had done it before, in terms of doing ninety-second sets. I knew how to put together a ninety-second set.
When they did the first season of Last Comic Standing, I went in for the initial two-minute interview, routine, whatever you want to call it. They said I’d have to drop everything in my career to do this show. I had gotten a role in a movie called The Girl Next Door. I said, “Forget this. I’m not giving up a part in a movie for this unknown reality show.” I passed on it. It went that summer. It was sort of a hit. That fall, the guys who had been on the show were making a ton of money live. That’s when everyone’s interest piqued: “Whoa, this is great exposure!”
When it came up again in January of ’04, they asked me if I wanted to come in. I had a great two-minute set and then I did the Improv that night—the three-minutes—and then I made it to the New York round. In New York, we had to do five minutes. That was the first good experience on the show for me. I did a routine about Bed, Bath & Beyond. Colin Quinn questioned me: “Black comic? Bed, Bath & Beyond?” And I hit him with the line, “Look, Colin, black people wouldn’t get it because we don’t buy sheets.” And the crowd just cracked up. It was the first time on the show I was able to do a, “Look, I’m good at this. You want to mess with me? I’m going to mess right back with you.” I made it to Vegas and then I made it to get in the house.
The house was a great experience. It was really weird because none of us knew what to expect. Most of the time, the house was boring because there was no TV, no telephones, no Internet, they even stopped us from buying the newspaper. No outside influence for 28 days. We used to joke about the “gunline:” “You could walk down the driveway to a point, and then if you cross that gunline, you’re gonna get shot!” The bathroom situation was miserable: Five guys shared one bathroom. It worked out for me, because I just got in the habit of waking up early and getting in there first.
It was mostly good times. As each person left the house, it got quieter. Jay Mohr would tell us, “Don’t strategize, don’t team up, no alliances. Pick the person you know you can beat. That’s the strategy.” I stuck to that. And I wouldn’t tell people who I was going to vote for. There was definitely tension whenever somebody would be leaving. The day of the votes, there would be tension. If you didn’t have to perform in a challenge, there would be a big exhale of relief. Through the experience, I never got challenged. The only time I got challenged was in a “challenge off.” The way it worked was, we’d go in a booth and say, “I know I’m funnier than blank.” Whoever got the most votes, they’d have to perform and they’d have to pick one of the people who voted against them. In the house, I think I was respected. People had seen me in clubs and knew what I could do. That was a good experience, even though I didn’t win.
We were immediately asked to do the third. I think my advantage was that I’m a writer—I’m always writing new stuff, always coming up with new stuff—and a lot of people couldn’t reload that fast. We had two weeks between seasons. They didn’t have new material to do that fast. It was grueling because we would be doing live shows Thursday to Sunday, fly back Monday, do rehearsals, shoot the show on Tuesday, maybe be off on Wednesday but more likely be flying to another city. It was a grueling six or eight weeks. But I had a good run! We were all exhausted but we were all making great money. Jay Mohr told us about this, but I don’t think any of us believed it until it started happening. You’re literally making in a week what you used to be lucky to make in a month. It was crazy!
I went from being a twelve-hundred to two-thousand dollar a week club act to bringing in three, five, ten-thousand dollars a week, depending on the club. And then on top of that, there was payment from the TV show and residuals from the repeats of the summer show. So, money was just flowin’ in. And my season—season two—was winning all of that fifty-thousand dollar bonus money every week that we got to divide. In the third season, they did tell us that the final prize was two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars. We did the deal, we put up with all the stresses, it came down to the final four. I knew I had a set that was going to kill. We performed, I killed, and the next day they called us and said, “The series has been cancelled. There’ll be no final episode.” I laughed. This is the business. This is Hollywood. Suits have no souls. They don’t care about people. They just do what they do. This is network suits I’m talking about. Our show’s producers were generally pretty cool. But, hell, I won the show. I was like, “I still get the money, right?” One of the nice things about winning all this money is I now have a “Jay Leno Starter Set” of four bikes. But it still annoys me when people say to me that I should’ve won. “I did win! You just don’t know it.” It’s not a big thing, but an annoyance. I missed out on getting to do all of the interviews after the big finale aired, since it never aired.
All the stuff, the money, the toys, cars, motorcycles, whatever; it’s all a by-product of the work. It’s still all about the work to me. I feel as a result of this exposure and winning this show, now people expect more. I can’t coast! I’ve got to come up with new stuff that’s better than what you’ve been seeing. I’m still shootin’ for Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. Those are the top two guys and that’s where I want to be. Believe me, it’s comical how much money I make now and to compare it to what I was making. I’m happy, I’m comfortable, I’m taken care of. I have great people working with me: agent and business manager who handle all that stuff. I’m lucky to have those people around me that I trust and who are good and who I believe have my best interest at heart and have a good track record.
What impact has performing had on your personal life?
I think that great comics really love the comedy more than anything. I think we comics all have this thing inside us that we really want to be loved. Compromises to the personal life are part of the deal. There are definitely sacrifices in the area of personal life. But, my personal life happens to be fantastic in that my family is close. My sixteen-year-old niece refers to me as her “famous uncle.” Making her laugh kills me. She has this deep laugh for a little girl. Whenever I make her laugh, I feel great. My little nephew—he’s not little, he’s twelve—is really cool. He had this thing where I had to send him something to prove to the kids at school that I was his uncle. I sent my backstage passes and stuff so he got schoolyard cred. I have friends that I’ve known from before I got into comedy and a lot of them enjoy this more than me. To me, it’s work. To them, it’s: “I know that guy! He’s my boy! We grew up together!” In that respect, it’s fun.
The dating, relationship thing—I don’t know how that works. I’ve never been any good at it. I’m still not good at it. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. Groupies are out there, but I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not 25 anymore. It is fun—and I’m not saying I’d turn it down, ladies reading the book—but they almost have to hit me on the side of the head with a club because I’m just not looking for that kind of vibe. There are times it is more fun to have dinner with someone on the road than to sleep with them. Conversation and company are really fun.
The acting, I hope to do more of it. Right now, I’m so busy touring live that I can’t audition. This is because of my contract with NBC. I’m very limited to what I can do, TV-wise. So my agent and manager and I agree that we may as well use this time to build up my live shows and bookings. If NBC calls, of course I’ll go in for them. And once that contract ends, I’ll be more open. I don’t have the confidence in my acting that I do in my comedy, but then I don’t do it as much. It could come with time and getting some work and things like that. I think what Last Comic Standing did was show all these people that I’m funny. I’m always cast as the cop or the security guard or “big guy in bar.” Now, they say, “Hey, if we let him talk, he’s really funny.” Maybe I’ll get a chance to show that. I never know what my overall goal is with my career. I look at what’s next. I think my next goal is another part in a movie—hopefully bigger—and television, I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re going to let me do what I want to do on television. Maybe cable or something like that. I think there’s more ahead. I think this is a start, not a finish.
I’ve done honest work. A lot of people in this business have never done honest work. Consequently, they think that this is hard work. They don’t understand that there are places where they don’t feed you lunch every day, there isn’t a table of food waiting for you, and they don’t send a car to your house to pick you up. There are people who literally go home tired every day! Overall, I have to say that I love what I do. That’s the biggest gift. I get to make a living—and now it’s a really good living—and I love what I do. A lot of people don’t get that. I understand the beauty of the family thing: the wife and kids and stuff. I don’t know if I’ll get that or not. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. But I got this.
This interview was conducted on January 11, 2005, and it originally appeared in Acting Qs: Conversations with Working Actors by Bonnie Gillespie and Blake Robbins, available at Amazon.