Acting: “A Life On Stage”

Can I ask you a question?

What the hell you want to ask me? Mrs.

Dewicki is the one you got the questions for.

How come you ain't never liked me?

Liked you.

Who in the hell ever said I got to like you? What law is there that say I got to like you? Do you want to stand up in my face and ask me some damn fool-ass question like that? Talkin' about likin' somebody.

[chair clattering] Come here, boy.

I want to talk to you.

I remember first reading August Wilson's Fences in the library at Yale School of Drama, and I recognized that it was a great play.

I was, "Wow, this is amazing, and they're gonna get a big football player to play James Earl's son." Shortly thereafter, the cast list went up.

I didn't, didn't go over there 'cause we were second-year students.

We're not gonna be cast in Yale Rep shows.

But my girlfriend at the time told me, "You better go look at the board, Court." I said, "Well, I, I..." "Go look at the board, Courtney." And that's when I saw my name to play Cory in Fences.

And the hardest thing for me to do was to try to figure out what to call James Earl.

Everybody was calling him Jimmy or other wonderful little nicknames, and that wasn't for me.

I just, I just called him sir, which served me well in the role.

As long as you living in my house, you put a sir on the end of it when you talk to me.

Yes, sir.

You eat every day?

Yes, sir.

Got a roof over your head?

Yes, sir.

And clothes on your back?

Yes, sir.

Why you think that is?

'Cause of you.

[gentle music] We can all remember a performance that made us laugh or cry or moved us in some other way.

I was so excited to have a part like that, and to play a theater with an audience, it was so thrilling to me.

Actors enter our homes through our TVs and our phones.

Many people have dreamed of making it as actors, and found out the hard way that it isn't easy.

I wanted to act for the rest of my life, and didn't understand that I was ever gonna have to pay income tax.

The TV shows or movies or plays you love, they all have actors.

I got brought onto The Pit, which was my first real TV job.

But what does an actor actually do? Welcome to Oh, The Drama.

In this 10-part series, we'll explore 100 years at the David Geffen School of Drama, where it's been, where it's heading, and how each of the school's programs individually and collectively trains the next generation of artists.

Today, acting, a life on stage.