4th Dog parks Everyone who knows me knows that I am completely obsessed with dogs. Which is pathetic when I was filming in Toronto and couldn’t bring the dogs, I went to the dog park. This very cute Canadian woman I saw there every day came to me and said: “Which one is yours?” And I said, “Oh, I don’t have any. I just miss my dog. I’m not at home. “And she stepped away from me like I was an elementary school pederast.
There are roles that I have played that are combinations of dogs in a dog park. When I had to play Hubert Humphrey [in HBO’s “All the Way”]I realized he was a cross between a corgi and a boxer. I’m just finding a fascinating portrayal of characters in a dog park. It’s like going into a four-legged mask class.
5. “Aretha’s Gold” My father’s mother was legally blind. She had a record player that came from the library for the blind and I would borrow it. Before every high school performance, I put on Aretha’s Gold and locked myself in my room or basement and turned it all the way up and jumped around and sang. And that became a kind of warm-up exercise. So if I’m nervous to this day, I’ll blow “Aretha’s Gold”.
6th ’92 Theater at Wesleyan University When I was with Wesleyan it was where all the student initiated productions were held and this is where I fell in love with acting. It was this joyful place that had been a church. I just got “Tick, Tick … Boom!” with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who felt the same way. There he began to write “In the Heights”. It’s just this magical place. When I first saw “Hamilton” I had no idea what kind of emotional reaction I was going to have and I remember crying after the show. And I said to Lin, “You are making the theater a church.” There’s something about the ’92 theater and the freedom of this place – and how bold you could be before trying this professionally – that nourishes creatively.
7th Yo-Yo Ma Its relationship to the Bach prelude [of Cello Suite No. 1 in G major] is amazing to me. People always say of “The West Wing”: “Are there moments that stand out?” And for many of us, it was the day that Yo-Yo Ma came and played that piece, and he was the most generous, unpretentious person. He came into a room full of probably a hundred background artists with his extraordinary cello and said, “Anyone want to play this? Does anyone want to hold it? “His aim is to break through the boundaries of hierarchy and demands in his classical music world.
That day he was playing that piece and I was supposed to have this emotional breakdown. You shoot him first and you have a shot of it, and then at some point you turn around and come to me. Technically, it doesn’t even have to be there, let alone play. And take after take after take, he plays it with all his heart. It was just amazing.
