When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don't keep something to yourself.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have often been asked what I think about at the moment of take-off. Of course, no pilot sits and feels his pulse as he flies. He has to be part of the machine. If he thinks of anything but the task in hand, then trouble is probably just around the corner.
Nothing's worse than telling your family you got a pilot, hearing the pilot got picked up, and then finding out it's not in the fall lineup.
For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.
It was understood that when I left to do the pilot that I wasn't coming back.
The funny thing is that making a pilot is sort of an audition, at least for me. There's something psychological there, where you're sort of asking for the job while you're acting. And then when it's been picked up, it's a completely different psychological dynamic.
I didn't get my first pilot that I screen-tested for, and I really thought it was the end of the world. But it's fine, you know, you move on to something else.
A pilot is like the most extensive dress rehearsal you can ever imagine, because the writers are learning about the actors, the actors are learning about the characters.
When you go in to do a screen test, you negotiate your contract and sign all your paperwork before you even get on a plane.
Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it.
The principal task of a conductor is not to put himself in evidence but to disappear behind his functions as much as possible. We are pilots, not servants.