Every tattoo on my body symbolizes a phase in my career.
In 1972, I signed a union card for SEIU. And for the last 38 years, 14 as president, it's been my life. I've seen the most miraculous, spectacular things. But there's a time to learn, a time to lead and a time to leave.
As I saw my 60th birthday approaching, I thought,What did 60 mean to me? I figured I'd probably live until I'm about 90, which meant that I was at the beginning of what I call my third act. As an actress, I know how important the third act is. It makes sense of the first and second acts. You can have first and second acts that are interesting, but you don't know what they mean. Then a good third act pulls it all together. And so I knew that, because I sat by my father's side over the long months when he was dying.
I feel I've had three careers in one, really. There was the 'Benny Santini' stuff; that came with a general sense of, 'Who the hell is he?' And then there was 'The Road To Hell' stuff, and now there's the blues stuff.
Very normal trajectory of a fighter's career - you start out fighting at the YMCA. You move on to the dog park. You get into a coliseum. On your way out, you go back to the YMCA, and then you finish up at the dog park.
I think all phases of one's career are serious if you take it seriously no matter if you are doing high profile dramatic pieces or not.
I think my broadcast partner Mike Gorman said it best. He said there's a generation of fans who know me as a player and there's a generation of fans who know me as a coach and now there's a generation of fans who think I'm Shrek!
When I broke 20, I said to myself, 'I will give concerts until I'm approximately 30.' And I made it a year and a half late, but, nevertheless, that's what I did. When I broke 30, I said, 'I think I should be recording until I'm about 50.'
Demos are something you do in the early stages of your career, but when you get going, you just go in and record the song.
You go through stages in your career that you feel very good about yourself. Then you feel awful, like, 'Why didn't I choose something else?' But overall I'm pretty satisfied that I made the right choice when I decided to be an actor.
As an actor, you know that every act has a closing curtain.
The peak of a career can only last so long. You go up and you try to maintain it. But, it can only last so long and then you're going to go down.
There are five stages in the life of an actor: Who's Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who's Mary Astor?
Whether you play or whether you're on the bench, or however it may be, at some point in your career you will be one of those three roles. You will either be a young, up-and-coming goalkeeper watching the experienced one, you'll either be on the bench or you'll be in goal yourself.
Acting gets into your blood, after so many years, and I just always like revisiting it. It's fun to meet new people and watch them coming along, at different stages of their careers.
Just like the athlete who has mapped out a plan to become one of the best athletes in the world by putting together a training program and executing it, he too should map out a financial plan from the beginning of his athletic career throughout every stage of his career.
As a spectator, you get to watch everything, but I'd much rather be playing than watching. I'll have time to watch later in my career.
When I was coming up in the '80s television, if you were on television that meant either you were a young actor just coming up like I was, or you were an older actor whose career was over and you had to go on television.
Some people don't realize that I've had a career pre-commercials.
There are always seasons to a career and perhaps always the grass is often greener, you're often looking at other people's careers going, "Damn, they get all the good roles. Why didn't I read that? Why didn't they ask me to do that?"
It is important that women have the opportunity to balance different priorities at different stages in their career.
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.
So much is made about the beginnings of ballet careers, the rosebud, and then once the petals and leaves start falling off, is it beautiful anymore? Some people think it is; some people don't. The expectation is to focus on the very beautiful parts, not the ending.
I've come to the possible conclusion that being a comedic writer/director is like running track. You do it for a certain amount of time and then you have to stop. Or you at least have to accept that you're not going to be at the top of your game. And that's OK.
All the things you're not supposed to do at the beginning of your professional life - transgressiveness, arbitrariness and violating expectations - you find more attractive at the end of your professional life.
