Steve Kazee: I think we all have demons, but my demons aren't that bad...

Social media is its own sort of thing: Twitter and Facebook have changed the way everyone perceives everything.

Steve Kazee

media social way

My mother always told me before shows to stand up and show them whose little boy you are.

Steve Kazee

mother littles boys

I would love to play Lee in 'True West' and Bobby in 'Company.

Steve Kazee

company west play

I grew up in a very small, rural country town, and we didn't really have 'the arts.'

Steve Kazee

towns country art

All I ever wanted to do was be on Broadway. I mean, remember, I grew up in a trailer.

Steve Kazee

broadway remember mean

Three-quarters of my family is Irish. Of course, the "Kazee" is not.

Steve Kazee

quarters my-family three

We go see theater, we take in art because it makes us feel.

Steve Kazee

art-is theater art

Drag shows are one of my favorite things in the world. As a straight man I love going to gay bars. People at gay bars just love to dance.

Steve Kazee

gay men people

The thing is that I'm an actor first, and in 'Once,' I was able to be a musician and a singer as well as an actor.

Steve Kazee

singers musician actors

I never really trained to be a musician, but I've been playing guitar since I was around, like, 13 years old. For me, the guitar has always been the instrument that I've played. I play a little piano. I taught myself everything by ear. I don't read music at all, which has not really been a hindrance.

Steve Kazee

guitar play years

For me, music is sort of my passion, more so than being an actor. I just never tried to make a career as a musician. It was just something that I did on my own time, just for me. I had written a lot of songs, but I don't really record a lot of music because, for me, it's the same way as a poet: I write to get things out. It's sort of cathartic.

Steve Kazee

passion writing song

When you start hiding things away, that’s when the darkness creeps up. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Steve Kazee

hiding sunlight darkness

When you think about Broadway, you think broad and big, but the fact is there are so many plays that are very intimate, but fill a 1,500-seat house. Plays like 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' have deep moments of silence and intimacy to them.

Steve Kazee

virginia play thinking

'Peter and the Starcatcher' is the most amazing piece of theater I think I've ever seen. It made we want to be a kid again and made me want to pretend, which I do on a nightly basis.

Steve Kazee

amazing think me want

It's intimidating any time to have a piece of art that someone else created, and that person says, 'Let's see what you created based on what I created.'

Steve Kazee

someone you time art

If you try to create someone else's performance, it becomes a facsimile of a facsimile.

Steve Kazee

performance someone try you

It's amazing how fast you learn something if they shove you out on the stage and say, 'Learn it.'

Steve Kazee

say amazing something you

There was always music in my house when I was a kid. On Saturday mornings, my mother would clean house to 45s blaring out the songs of Neil Diamond, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Cat Stevens, Harry Chapin.

Steve Kazee

pink music mother doors

I will never not know where I came from. I can be in the biggest house, the best apartment, winning Tonys and Grammys and whatever, and I will always remember waiting in line for government cheese and bread and having food stamps. I had a tough life, and I will never not know the way I was raised and the place where I was raised.

Steve Kazee

best waiting food life

I was a disruptive student. I hated my teachers, especially my Spanish teacher. When I went to see the musical 'Matilda,' the horrible Miss Trunchbull brought back all sorts of horrible memories. I'd go into Spanish class, put on headphones, and sing at the top of my lungs until they threw me out.

Steve Kazee

teachers me teacher memories

I think we all have demons, but my demons aren't that bad. They're productive demons. They keep me focused on the man I want to be and the life I want to live.