From 1965 to 1974, I served the best possible apprenticeship for an actor. I learned firsthand how a truck driver lives, what a bartender does, how a salesman thinks. I had to make a life inside those jobs, not just pretend.

Brian Dennehy

Categorized in : Thinking Jobs Doe

Theater is a physical activity as much as anything. It's harder for me to learn the lines than it was 30 years ago. At the same time, I'll never quit working in the theater - until I can't memorize two lines back to back.

never back me time

No one would ever cast me as an aristocrat. I think the big thing about being an Irish artist is access to melancholy. Especially the American Irish. The availability of loss, some kind of pain, is an important part of who we are. I think my Irishness gave me that.

think me pain important

It'd be very difficult to cast me as a ballet dancer. Everybody is, in some sense, controlled by their size and their gender. I'm not going to be allowed to play the part that Denzel Washington plays.

me gender difficult play

In this business, you have a hierarchy of stars. Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks - you name 'em, they can play any part they want. Guys like me who are somewhere down in the middle of the pack, that's a different story. I can do things in the theater that I can't do anyplace else.

me you stars business

The theater business has allowed me, in a way the movie and TV business has not, to do very, very interesting work. So that's what I do.

me business work way