Five Question Interview Meme

The Rules: Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me.” I respond by asking you five personal questions (I will leave these questions for you in my comments) so I can get to know you better. If I already know you well, expect the questions may be a little more intimate! You WILL update your journal/bloggy thing/whatever with the answers to the questions (please don't leave your answers in my comments unless you don't have a blog). You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are the questions So Gone asked me:

1.) If you were not to pursue acting, what would be your dream job?

Are we talking a realistic job? I grew up wanting to be the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I think that Ben Roethlisberger has that covered for the next decade or so. And I used to want to go into politics, but that was a lifetime ago. So, if I have to answer, I'd probably say being an urban planner. Like Robert Moses, only less evil/power hungry. Sports broadcaster would probably be number 2.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that one of my great regrets in life is giving up on my fledgling baseball career. I would love to play that game for a living. My dad passed up a shot at a baseball contract. I didn't get that close, but I think I can still say...like father, like son...

2.) What is the one characteristic a woman must have, no matter what, for
you to love her?

Personality-wise, I'll say independent intelligence - she can make up her own mind, without having to follow the herd.

Physically, she has to have a nice ass. That's not negotiable.

3.) If you met a woman who was your absolute dreamgirl, your soulmate, and
she told you that in order to stay together, you had to quit acting - what
would you do?

I've been thinking about the proper response to this for a while - good question! My first instinct was to be flip and say, "My soulmate would never ask me to quit." But I think that's kind of a copout.

So I thought some more. And I figured that, since there are a couple of things I could potentially see myself doing one day - like teaching, or writing, or possibly even politics or planning - that I would stop, for the sake of the relationship.

But then I thought, "But I still could do stuff on the side, right? Like, as a hobby?" And as soon as the thought entered my head, I realize that I don't think I could walk away from acting. At least, not right now. I mean, the reason why I act is because I can't do anything else. I'm qualified to pursue other things, and I have the intelligence and the aptitude...but I just can't do it.

So I'd try like hell to convince her that rejecting my career is rejecting ME. And if that didn't work...I'd have to say good-bye. But I'd probably be heart-broken.

4.) What is your favorite childhood memory?

There's a lot of them, many of them involving playing outside, or looking for caterpillars in the driveway, or riding bikes, or playing sports with my best friend, or doing stupid shit with my brother. But my favorites are the two earliest.

I remember, the night my brother was born, standing on tip-toe, looking out the screen door up the street, waiting for my parents to come back with my new sibling. And my grandmother telling me to come inside for my bath. And 60 Minutes was on.

The other memory is even earlier than that - it's my only memory of the 70's: I clearly remember waving good-bye to our old apartment building, sitting in the back seat of my mother's old Chevy Nova, as we drove away. My father took a picture of me and my mother, sitting in the car, just before we left. It was so full of stuff that they put me in the backseat in a cardboard box. (We didn't need seat belts or car seats in the seventies!) It's one of my favorite pictures of myself.

5.) Who is your idol?

As a little kid, it was Lynn Swann, a wide receiver for the Steelers who took ballet in the off-season. My idol as a teen was Barry Bonds the former Pirate-now Giant outfielder - we went to the same barber, and he always made time for my brother and I, and was quite gracious in doing so. When I was first starting out as an actor, it was Denzel Washington.

Now? That's a hard question. Merriam-Webster defines idol as "an object of extreme devotion: ideal". Dictionary.com says "any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion".

Those are pretty tough standards to live up to.

I guess, if pressed, I'd have to say my parents. They've done everything right, and I think they're great people. I love them, but I like them, too. I think they're the bees' knees, if you know what I mean.