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" I was actually a poetry major in college before I punted and decided to become a theater major. I wrote the poem that we put on the sauerkraut boxes in the style of Elling. "
Denis O'Hare
Poetry
Style
Become
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" It's highly dishonorable to ever quit a production. I never have done it, and I can't imagine ever doing it. However, I have been in productions before where, on the first in the read-through, you feel that someone is in trouble, and indeed, actors have been let go shortly after read-throughs. I've seen that happen before. "
Denis O'Hare
Trouble
Done
Doing
" It's pretty crazy. I was thinking about that today, how 'True Blood' has penetrated so much of the cultural zeitgeist. It's truly amazing; it's incredible! The cover of 'Rolling Stone' is major. What's next, the cover of 'Vanity Fair?' When I'm in a 'New Yorker' cartoon, then I will feel like I have made it. "
Denis O'Hare
Amazing
Today
Thinking
" Generally, it's a great exercise to not get stuck in one medium too long because you begin to lose perspective on the peculiar drawbacks and strengths of the medium. For example, if I'm in the back of the stage and I want you to see my emotional change by a flicker of my eyelid, we're all going to be in for a long boring evening. "
Denis O'Hare
Long
Change
You
" I was born in Missouri, but I was raised in Detroit. One of my stock and trades is accents. "
Denis O'Hare
Missouri
I Was Born
Detroit
" Funnily enough, I was a big fan of the show and had been watching it - along with everybody else - and had never imagined that I would be on it. You kind of look at shows and think, 'Oh, I wish I had done that one.' But I didn't really see myself on 'True Blood.' "
Denis O'Hare
Think
Enough
Myself
" Evil is such a simplistic way to describe any character, be it Iago or Caliban, or any character from history. "
Denis O'Hare
Describe
Evil
Way
" My first paying gig was a play called 'The Voice of the Prairie' at a theater that no longer exists in Chicago called Wisdom Bridge. I played a fast-talking radio huckster - a salesman of crystal sets in the 1920s - and I actually won an award. Look at that! And then promptly didn't get hired for a year. "
Denis O'Hare
Award
Bridge
Wisdom
" There are values on Broadway that are dangerous: it's got to be Best Musical, it's got to make money, it's got to run a certain amount of time. Nowhere in this, of course, is there any mention of quality. "
Denis O'Hare
Time
Run
Quality
" Probably I have more phobias, fear and eccentricities than I would care to admit. I don't think I'm in danger of losing my mind, but I do often question my own behavior. I have a very bad temper, and it's not always healthy for me and for others. I make my way in the world more difficult, and I could do with a little more yoga. "
Denis O'Hare
Care
Mind
Think
" Anybody who knows me has said, 'I had a Denis O'Hare moment.' I suppose in the kindest instance it means standing up for yourself. In the unkindest, it means the crazy guy in the street. "
Denis O'Hare
Me
Moment
Crazy
" I was a big fan of 'Six Feet Under.' So, I got a bootleg copy of the first four episodes on videotape, watched them and was instantly into it. During the first episode, I was like, 'Eh.' By the time I got to the second one, I couldn't watch them fast enough. I got on the phone that night, called Time Warner cable and ordered HBO right then. "
Denis O'Hare
Phone
Copy
Enough
" I somewhat resist the whole gay rights-vampire rights metaphor because it is fraught with problems. I don't want to be seen as a gay man as a blood-sucking killer. I don't think it is the way to win hearts and minds. "
Denis O'Hare
Man
Minds
Problems
" I read five books on the Constitution. My favorite was 'Plain, Honest Men' by Richard Beeman. I went on a science jag in the same way. I kept getting in arguments about evolution and being bested. So I read Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of the Species,' a fantastic book that is not that difficult. "
Denis O'Hare
Men
Constitution
Book
" I read 'Dracula' in high school. I've been around vampires forever. "
Denis O'Hare
Been
High School
School
" For all the import and message of 'The Iliad,' it's ultimately a story that's meant to be heard, and the person hearing 'The Iliad' determines what it means. "
Denis O'Hare
Person
Message
Meant To Be
" 'The Iliad' is about a war 1,200 years ago that solved nothing and achieved nothing. Most of our wars achieve very little. But whatever agenda I have gets buried in a work this great. If you're being honest, you realize that, as an artist, you're not a policy maker. "
Denis O'Hare
Great
You
Work
" Especially when it comes to something like the awards, I find it kind of baffling that 'True Blood' has been snubbed so many times given the incredible range of acting they have on there; I mean, incredible storytelling and the incredible production values. "
Denis O'Hare
Kind
Values
True
" I think it was 1987 - something like that - or '86, and I thought, 'When you go equity and you're gonna get paid, you'll finally be able to make a living.' But it was not to be so. I always bartended and waited tables so I ended up not doing theater for about a year because nobody would hire me. "
Denis O'Hare
Thought
Think
Me
" I'm a little bit of an obsessed artist, and I'm not very talented. But isn't Suzanne Somers a bad painter? "
Denis O'Hare
Talented
Artist
Bad
" If you see me in New York, you'll probably see me on my bicycle riding furiously between a city bus and a taxi cab, hitting one of them on the side and yelling at them. "
Denis O'Hare
Riding
You
New York
" I was raised on the brothers Grimm, but my favorite fairy tales in the world are Oscar Wilde's - 'The Nightingale and the Rose,' 'The Selfish Giant.' The latter is probably my all-time favorite. "
Denis O'Hare
Fairy
World
Selfish
" You have to learn to express differently. Whenever I do TV or film, I ask if I can see the shot to see, to see if it's full body or a close-up. That helps me understand how to communicate. "
Denis O'Hare
Body
You
Understand
" I love monsters, I love creatures, I love beings, I love aliens. That's more supernatural and more the stuff of fairy tales. Fairy tales are as ancient as we are. I love those stories. I think they're really interesting because they always have more than simply the fright aspect. There's something deeply psychological. "
Denis O'Hare
Interesting
Always
Fairy
" I moved to New York City in '92 and had no money. I had a lot of free time, as actors do. I would go to the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. "
Denis O'Hare
New York
City
Go
" I guess the big thing to say about 'Pig Farm' is that none of us knows if it works, and we're going in blind. It's in the tradition of 'Urinetown,' kind of - but that's a pretty small tradition. It's possible that it can fail. "
Denis O'Hare
Farm
Kind
Blind
" I went on a Buddha jag. I read 'Confession of a Buddhist Atheist' by Stephen Batchelor and Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha, which is a great book. "
Denis O'Hare
Which
Atheist
Book
" I guess I didn't even know the word 'genre' until I did 'True Blood.' That's how naive I was, and I didn't realize that there was a point of view about certain types of TV. And so I guess I found it disappointing that there is a segment of the critical community that looks at genre as something that is separate, less than. "
Denis O'Hare
Community
View
Point Of View
" Michael Winterbottom is one of the great directors of this century. "
Denis O'Hare
Directors
Century
Great
" I hate singing. I hate dancing. I enjoyed doing 'Cabaret' and 'Assassins,' but I would wither up and die in 'The Music Man.' "
Denis O'Hare
Music
Singing
Die
" When I did 'Racing Demon' by David Hare, I worked with Paul Giamatti, who had stacks of books in his dressing room. I was offstage a lot, so I would go read in his room. He was reading a four-part series on the Byzantine Empire by Alexander A. Vasiliev. I read two of those during the run of the play. "
Denis O'Hare
Reading
Run
Dressing