NOVEMBER 30, 2010
I’ve mentioned this in a couple different interviews but wanted to expand on it a bit in a new unit of time. I think it was mid 2005, I sat down with my mentor and teacher, Milton Katselas to discuss my decision to QUIT acting. I was very frustrated. I wasn’t enjoying acting, the business mostly, but it affected my desire to improve my craft in class. So I was going to tell Milton that I wanted to quit acting and pursue directing. I sat across from him in his incredible house and pleaded my case, “I don’t enjoy acting anymore. I love directing. I realize when I assist you Milton, I’m watching you as a director, seeing how you discover what the scene’s about, work with the actors and tell a story. When I watch a movie, I’m thinking as a director, as a filmmaker, not as an actor studying their choices. I am a director!” I sat back in my chair, I felt good about what I just spewed.  Sitting next to me, was Art Cohan, the Senior Stage Manager of the Beverly Hills Playhouse, Milton’s right hand and one of my best friends. I looked over to him for reassurance as Milton began writing on his notepad in broad strokes. He wrote the words ACTOR and DIRECTOR and drew a line between them.  He turned the pad to me and said, “You have to make a decision today, ACTOR or DIRECTOR… you can only do one… which?”

Without hesitation I pointed to DIRECTOR… “did he not just hear my case just now??”  I was thinking. He turned the pad around and circled ACTOR and DIRECTOR and at the bottom wrote the word “BOTH”. He turned it around one more time and showed it to me. He said, “YOU… can do BOTH. But you have to give a hundred percent to the acting or you’ll never succeed as a director. You have to confront what’s blocking you in your acting or it will block you as a director.  You need the skills as an actor, you need to kill that and then you’ll be able to do both… with success.“