Just to rewind: When I was in high school, I did some show and I remember in one performance I suddenly felt that I was in it, that I was believing it, and the notion of being in the part, believing the fiction—was very exciting to me. As an actor I had a very big tendency to be a showoff, to want attention, to be theatrical. I had gone to the theatre a lot, and I had certain ideas about acting. I thought one of the ideas of being an actor was to be “interesting” and to get attention.

When you found yourself in it during that high school play, did it happen by accident?

Yes. Totally. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was an epiphany. I thought, “This is what I want.” So I was of two minds. On the one hand, I was looking for a strictly internal experience, and on the other hand, I was looking for a showoff experience. Which, in a sense, I think probably characterized me as an actor.

When you were introduced to sense memory, what did you think about it?

I thought it was crazy. But for some reason, I tend to be very good at hanging in there with something. Even not knowing what the hell it meant, or why I was doing it. After about a year and a half of this, I did a scene from Anna Christie, by O’Neill, the one when Matt comes in drunk to confront Anna about her having been a whore. And it was the first time I tried to create “drunkenness” sensorially and I had what I subsequently learned was a rather typical sensory exercise experience. I felt actual physical tingling. I was transported into a sense of being drunk. I was in a heightened state, totally unfamiliar to me. And, the state I was in was more important than the line readings. For the first time, I felt what it was like to be in contact with an experience that was more powerful than the intellectual manipulation of the scene and the text. It was fantastic. It was when I discovered what I really craved: Living in public. The combination of feeling I was really alive but I was also being watched.

That was when it clicked?

That was when I realized, “That’s what it was about!”

What was your journey to Lee Strasberg?

Getting into Lee’s class at that time was almost as hard as getting a job. There was a whole mystique around it in that period. I applied and eventually I got in.

How would you describe what it was that Lee taught?

Each person takes what they can, or takes what they need. The biggest thing I got from him—the thing that meant the most to me – was using my self. My personal inner monologue on the stage could be incorporated. In other words, I could allow myself to feel what I felt about being on the stage. I could use what I felt about wanting approval, I could use everything. To me, that was the great gift that I took from Lee Strasberg. I was an emotion-junkie. I wanted to feel on the stage. And Lee gave me the means to access my feelings. That was his great gift. I remember Lee saying to me, “You’re not inhibited. You’re just inexperienced having your feelings.” I never forgot that. I found that very liberating. Because I don’t think I’m inhibited, I just don’t know which end is up. For me, personally, as a not particularly open person—he opened me to myself.