I find Washington audiences are basically the same as every other audience; they watch me and go, 'Who's idea was it to go see him? And is it too late to ask for my money back?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Like they said about The West Wing, you can't do a show about Washington until you can.
If I'm a game show host, will someone buy a ticket to see me do standup? To do a dramatic role in a movie?
Most of the big money people don't know what would interest an audience if you did it. They only know what interested the audience last time.
The show can go on without me, and probably will, but I want to come back to act in Chicago. My wife and I just bought a condo downtown, and I want to do theater.
If the Rolling Stones are playing a concert across town, that's not my audience anyways. But I do find that there's a lot of people coming back around to see me again.
There are many different ways the public can respond to actors - they can see you on TV and feel they know you and own you, and there can be something quite cornering about that.
I can go to a movie theater and watch a movie I was in with an audience... but with television, the opportunity to meet the fans at Comic Con or any other situation, it's a chance to enter that circle; it's that sharing.
I've always loved and enjoyed the theatre, but I have to say that none of our sponsorships have been done because I'm one of those chairmen and chief executives who goes gooey-eyed about something. They are done for a very specific marketing and commercial agenda.
If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets.
If I have any audience, they can know that anything I am in, I would go see, with the expectation of being really satisfied.