That was my first time on television and I wasn’t even an actor yet, but what I remember clearly is that you didn’t get your money from the show immediately, but it took a long time to come through. I ended up being the five-day champion on the show, winning $34,000 in cash and prizes, prizes that I had to go and later sell for money. After a while I was too broke to stay and too broke to go home, which is when I found a game show in the classifieds called Sale Of The Century. I went out to Los Angeles with just the money I had raised doing construction back home in Alexandra, Virginia and money I had made with my band in college, which wasn’t a lot.
It’s that bit of adrenalin that’s not nervousness, but makes you feel alive and reminds you why you’re doing it in the first place. Now, I always get a good amount of nervous energy, which is what you want. That lesson helped me through a lot of things, including improv auditions and on the stage. When I went back a week later the nerves had gone, but I was more afraid of me than I was of anyone else. It was a helpful turning point for me though, because I remember coming off stage and walking right back into the men’s room and being furious with myself because I had taken a giant leap to go there and I let 200 semi-intoxicated people intimidate me. My knees weren’t knocking but my legs were jittering, my mouth was white and foamy and I was just so nervous. I got on stage after they introduced me, adjusted my mic and by the time I looked up into the room I felt all of those things that you hear about. I had prepared five minutes of material and had worked really hard on it. I was at The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard, which is renowned for the people who have been through there: Richard Pryor, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams. I mean I wasn’t great at it, but I hadn’t been nervous. I had done it a few times in DC when I hadn’t been nervous at all. Some people do and those are amazing stories, but for everyone else what you can do is go to an open mic night and do stand-up comedy. When you move out to Los Angeles obviously you don’t just get to jump on a television show or a movie. For a guy who had liked dating and wasn’t super monogamous when we met, I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, my gosh, she’s the one" and feeling that I hadn’t meant to meet her so early, but I realised I was done. Properly in love? That would have to be my wife. Well, that depends on the bar for what the word means. Extreme fame like that can mess with people but he couldn’t have been kinde, and it was most certainly memorable. He was so expert at meeting people that are freaked out over meeting him and he seemed extremely calm and normal. I was here in London playing Buddy Holly in the show Buddy and Paul McCartney, being a big fan of Buddy Holly, threw a party in celebration of his birthday in the Victoria Palace Theatre, where our show was. Later in life, though, as an adult, it would be when I met Paul McCartney. In this business that isn’t a forgone conclusion. He was incredibly kind, nice and neighbourly. The first time I was truly, as you say in the UK, gobsmacked starstruck was when I stepped into an elevator at the Pittsburgh airport with my mom as a kid and Mr Rogers was there.
0 kommentar(er)
