Jacob Zachar Quotes

I'm a theater guy at heart; I love the theater. I was lucky enough to spend a good decade and a half in the New York theater community.

I've never seen a theater community to rival that of Chicago. Neither New York nor L.A. has the raw talent or integrity that Chicago theater has, and I think it's because Chicago doesn't have Broadway or the film and TV business to distract it.

I've been performing my whole life. My mom signed me up for a theater program when I was five - I was the evil queen in 'Once Upon a Mattress.'

I started out wanting to be an actress. My sister was in this theater company in Brooklyn. I saw her in some plays, and I was immediately obsessed. I started auditioning for plays when I was about 10.

The L.A. theater scene is very different. The perception has been that people who love theater do theater in New York. The people who want to be discovered do theater on the side in L.A. But there are people who are very dedicated to theater who love theater in L.A.

In school, when we lived in New Jersey, we went to Broadway a lot, so I saw a lot of Broadway plays, and I just loved being able to see people play a different character and, you know, be able to be themselves at the end of the night. So, I've always wanted to do it.

I left the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin in 2004, and I did five years of theater after that.

I was a huge theater geek growing up, and that was not the easiest thing in the world, especially growing up in Chicago, where sports are really the norm. I was always off to the theater at night, from 7 years old on. Friends there in the Midwest who could talk to you about the idiosyncrasies of 'Pippin' were few and far between.

I think of the Roundabout as my musical theater family here in New York City.

I didn't expect to pursue acting at all, let alone TV and film, let alone New York or L.A. I was quite content doing Shakespeare out in Wisconsin.

I played sports, I did all that, but I was a theater kid.

I loved being a film executive. But something was always missing for me. I always had the feeling that I was looking over my shoulder - what's going on on Broadway?

I’ve loved the whole process. From previews to rehearsals, I’m in the best company. I’ve done one West End show before this but the excitement here…it’s incredible. It’s been a real education working on this, I don’t feel worthy. The role is over the top, bold and ridiculous.

I'm just a Chicago actor who's a playwright. Even with the success of 'August,' the people in town who come to our theater know me by sight, because they've seen me onstage so much.

I started acting when I got a summer job at the Everyman Theater Company with the Neighborhood Youth Corps.

I wanted to be a classical actress. I plodded along. I went to junior college in San Francisco, I was in a Repertory Company. My hero was Eva Le Gallienne, who was a great theater actress at the turn of the century who created her own company, and she wrote these hilarious autobiographies at the time.

When your father directed your mother in 'Orpheus Descending,' the kid's going to be a theater nerd.

I was a total theater geek in high school, no question. I was cast in 'Godspell' freshman year - with Vanessa Williams, by the way. She and I are still friends. We went to high school together.

Actually, I didn't like Dartmouth very much, but the whole theater scene I really liked.

The only thing I haven't done as an actor, other than Thai puppet theater somewhere, is act on a Broadway stage.

I used to do community theater with Conor Oberst.

I started out doing theater in New York. I used to go to Shakespeare in the Park a lot.

When I was 20 years old and first with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, we had an 88-seat theater in a basement and no money.

If you drugged me with truth serum and said I can only do one thing, I would probably have to say that I would be an actor in the theater. And then I would have you arrested for drugging me.

In Chicago, anything that you're doing, the community gives it value. Every little improv show, every scrappy reading, and every lead on a Goodman mainstage. It's all a promising opportunity for a young actor.