I did study the art of being a barber because I wanted to figure out what my routine would be. Do you start in the front or back? Top or bottom? Swivel the chair or walk around? What I did discover is there's no such thing as the perfect haircut! |
I feel like I would identify more with someone who's a little shady, because I'm more guarded than either Temple or Derek. To an extent, I would understand a villain, the guy who's standing on the corner, watching and plotting what he wants to do, as opposed to being everybody's hero. But it all interests me, bad guys and good guys. |
I was unemployed after finishing Save the Last Dance and I went out for this other role. It wasn't like, "Okay, now I'm going to do tv." It was like, I have to pay my rent and my student loan, what can I do? I'm lucky that the show is doing well, so it looks like I've got this balanced plan. |
I'm always playing the nice guy in most of the projects that I do. As an actor, I needed to do something where I didn't have pressure to be likeable. |
I'm as anxious as any viewer would be to see what Temple is going to do next. All I know is that in the second half of the season, he's going to have more sexual tension developing. And it's a great cast - they're all Broadway actors except for me. I aspire to that. |
I'm the college educated, know-it-all barber who instigates a lot of the arguments in the shop. |
Those economic concerns have direct effects on acting. There were many scenes in Save the Last Dance when they said, "Well, that was good, but you're not likeable enough." There's a scene in the club, when [my ex-girlfriend] wants to dance, and I played the genuine indignation and hurt, and getting pleasure out of telling her to step off, with some venom. |
When you're doing a play you get to go full speed ahead, all night, in front of an audience. It's a roller-coaster ride, responding to other actors, it feeds you. |
When you're sitting in your apartment and you're unemployed, and somebody offers you a job, unless it's something outrageous, you take it. I auditioned and I got it. I didn't have dance experience, except for some aerobics dance classes, and I had to dance at the final audition, and that was bizarre. |
You don't usually get to see a guy that looks like me be on tv as a devout Christian, in all likelihood a virgin, and completely devoid of angst. So when the reviews were coming out before the pilot aired, saying it was "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Great White Hope," I thought it was nonsense, because it was like reading the first page of a book. |