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I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.

I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.

What I strive to do is to make the theater experience something that people remember and recall rather than dismiss because it was less like their everyday experiences. So, I'm less interested in internal emotionalism and much more in making the audience laugh and cry by the devices that we use as theater actors.

Acting is like free therapy! Trying to make people laugh or cry can be inspiring.

The joy of acting for me is to be able to experience emotions in a safe environment. You can't scream and cry in the street because everybody will look. If you do it on a movie set, you get applauded.

People come to the theatre to be excited and uplifted - I want to inspire my audience.

The thing about theatre is that when it is actually occurring, when you have the audience on your side, you absolutely think you can will them to do anything. It's exhilarating.

We all go to the theater and cinema to be inspired and moved on an emotional level, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears. Once I discovered that acting could have such an effect, I was sold. It has been one of the most rewarding discoveries I have ever made.

You've got to honor your relationship with your audience - that they sit down because they want to be entertained. And that doesn't mean you can't provoke them and antagonize them and challenge them in the course of the entertainment as long as you keep the entertainment part of the equation alive.

I've always found it not only easy, but enjoyable. It's necessary for us to reach out and I'm speaking for myself here. I certainly have a sense of responsibility to reach out to these people in the theatre who might look to someone like me for some guidance.