I've had a pilot every single year that didn't sell for the past four years, that'll smack you in the back of the head. I had a really good one last year; I wouldn't have done the play in New York if I had gotten that one.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I did a pilot for Anything But Love in 1988 that didn't sell.
There's this funny thing with pilots that you have to sign the contract to do the whole job before you're even offered the part. And they make about a million pilots a year, but hardly any of them get turned into series.
I've done a lot of pilots. A lot of shows. You're young and you do a job just because you know someone gave you a job.
For someone making a pilot, assuming the talent is there and you can maneuver the system properly, it's just a matter of standing your ground and trying to make something great until you are making enough money for the studio that they let you keep making it.
It's scary to sign a six-year contract for something that you don't necessarily know about. And yet I did that most every year. I've done a lot of failed pilots.
When you accept a role in a pilot, you automatically sign up for five years. You think it's scary to walk down the aisle? Try signing a five-year contract for a show you may not want to be part of down the road.
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.
If you go to pilot then you are probably going to go to series. That's my feeling about it.
The reason I've never gone for pilot season even as a younger actor, and wouldn't entertain that sort of thing now, is the idea of signing a piece of paper that binds me for six or seven years.
I did a couple of pilots that didn't sell, a few movies, and one year of nightclub work, which I hated. Then I did the pilot of 'The Brady Bunch' and never had to do another nightclub.