"Put this one and A Woman Under the Influence side by side and you have ample proof of my theory that Gena Rowlands is the greatest American actor or actress ever. Period. No prosthetics, no extreme weight gain or loss, no accents or limps . . . and yet has any other actor ever created two more distinct, honest, or complete human beings on-screen? Rowlands somehow simply shifts her center of gravity and transforms from Woman’s selfless and fragile Mabel Longhetti into Opening Night’s cunning and self-obsessed Broadway star Myrtle Gordon. Ben Gazzara is her director, Manny Victor, and the scene where he shares an intimate midnight moment with his neglected wife (the great Zohra Lampert), only to be interrupted by his leading lady, is priceless."

"Although I have been doing plays since I was eight-years-old, it was only when I started doing Shakespeare at age 19 at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival that I felt like my career started. I learned from master teachers at the University of Evansville, at Juilliard, at Shakespeare festivals all over the country, eventually landing at Shakespeare in the Park in NYC. That show transferred, so I got to make my Broadway debut doing “The Tempest” with Patrick Stewart. I owe so much to Shakespeare. Nothing is more humbling and more exhilarating than taking ahold of those sacred words and riding them like a wave. If I could only take one book to the island, this one would do just fine."

"Paul Newman, Milo O’Shea, and James Mason. I met Paul Newman a couple of times — he saw me in two of the three Broadway shows that I’ve done in New York. He came backstage and said how much he loved the shows, and I’ve just been a fan of his work forever. This [pick] was a toss up between this and Cool Hand Luke, another monster Paul Newman movie. There was something wonderful about his lost soul that he found in The Verdict. The [characters are] on opposite ends of the scale. Luke can’t be broken, apparently. He’s got that grin and that spirit. In The Verdict he’s already broken, he’s hanging on by a thread and hoping he can pull this out. Wonderful actor, underrated."

"What else? Waiting for Guffman! Stop already, right? Christopher Guest and all of his tomfoolery. Of course, there was Spinal Tap, but in more recent years…I think the storyline of [Guffman] was so relatable to any actor who’s ever done community theater in their hometown. Here were all these egos, in a small town, where it just didn’t matter. I come from Indiana, and when you’re doing stage productions in high school, or in your community theater, or on the college stage, you think you’re Broadway bound, for sure. You’re all going to be stars! It’s delusional theater, is what it is. But that whole cast of people, having their basic storyline, and then vamping on their own brilliance, was just golden. Just golden."