Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I know what turns Bradley Cooper on.
By Erin | Season 2 | Episode 21 | Aired on 04.30.2003
Right.
I know that you had said that you'd always wanted to act, but you were sort of nervous about it or scared?
Yeah, I think so. I think I wasn't really prepared to do it. But, at the same time, I'm so glad I didn't do it because, you know, there's just other things to do which, ultimately, informs your acting.
Well, Brian Dennehy said that to us when he came to talk to Theatre School students. He was like, "Go out and live a life."
Yeah, I'm definitely glad that I waited. But I always knew I wanted to be an actor. Basically, there was a moment when I saw The Elephant Man when I was twelve and I just knew that's what I wanted to do.
Really? Because that movie creeped me out.
It was really just pretty much one moment. When Anthony Hopkins comes in and sees Merrick for the very first time. I was addicted to the way it made me feel; like the music and everything. John Hurt's performance, and Anthony Hopkins when he comes in the room and he just starts tearing up...it was just really crazy. He was humbled...and I would, like, replay it, just so I would have that feeling. And movies moved me in a way that nothing else had in my life, at that point.
Yeah, I always felt that way when I saw, like, Raiders of the Lost Ark or something like that, where I just wanted to do that or be that.
Yeah, and I lived next door to a movie theatre, so I was constantly going to movies. And my dad is a huge film buff. So I was exposed to a lot. And then I got a chance to do The Elephant Man for my thesis at the Actor's Studio, which was just a great 180.
That's really awesome. Did you learn other stuff there? Like, because we learned movement and music --
Yeah, we did the whole deal, voice class, movement. Alvin Ailey. Did really important technique with Martha Graham.
We did all that movement to music stuff --
Yeah, I'm sure it was very similar. Were you an MFA?
No, I was a BFA. Undergrad. Four-year program. Or, if you were gonna do the conservatory program, you just got, like, a certificate, instead of a degree. Which -- the degree did me NO good, because I wound up being a secretary for five years while I was acting at night. So degrees mean nothing unless you get them from, like, the Actor's Studio or Yale Drama School --
Eh, I don't know about the Actor's Studio.
Well, it has a little more weight, let's just put it that way.
Well, yeah, but the ultimate thing for me was, I learned so much. Luckily, I never had the delusion that the degree would get me anything, other than experience. But, I mean, the teachers in that program are pretty stellar.