Carrying 200 pounds of velvet and satin around a stage for 90 minutes - that's man's work, let me tell you.
I built stages and I did stage management - I think I built the sets twice, I happened to be good with a drill, which is a talent I didn't know I had.
If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets.
Now, at this point, I can wrestle, I can go out there and cut an entertaining promo, I can also do the backstage stuff... and if you can contribute more to the show, you have more staying power.
I paid my dues at drama school and worked backstage in every Theatre in London.
Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions.
I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.
I painted sets before I ever performed.
I'm always at my fittest when I'm doing a show - even when you're not on stage, you are running around backstage doing quick changes.
There are moments when it's unbelievable how people who work on the hair or on the little bit of skin here, they have no other care or interest since this part of their job is the only thing that needs to look good. So you have to push everybody to the side so that you can have a connection with your actor and give some air to your actor.
An acting assistant stage manager in a theater in Canterbury, a rep theater. A small wage but just enough to get by on, and I made props and I walked on, and I changed scenery, and I realized that I just loved it.
I've done everything in the theatre except marry a property man.
