Mandy Patinkin's BIO Golden Globe nominee for 'Yentl' (1983)
November 30, 1952 (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
Mandy Patinkin's quotes |
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I try to say something about the human condition whenever I can when I'm lucky.
Everything I experience influences everything I do.
I'm on the board of directors for Peace Now, which works tirelessly between the Palestinians and the Israelis to create peace in the Middle East and we've never been closer.
Isaac and I are going to Israel to ride for peace enviromental justice and a safer world for us all.
Matter of fact in May, I'm going with my son Isaac for a 254-mile bike ride from Jerusalem to Elat for peace and the environment.
But I loved the theatre and I was just doing theatre 24/7 and kept dropping courses because I didn't have the time and the chancellor thought that wasn't a good idea after awhile.
This year is Creede's 40th anniversary and it was one of the best places that formed me as a human being and as an actor. It gave me lifelong friends.
When I met my wife, Kathryn Grody, she was really my political teacher. I didn't really know that much about politics.
Sondheim is the Shakespeare of the musical theater world.
I'm a spiritual person, I'm an America, I'm a Jew, and all of those things influence every breath I take, everywhere I go.
So the pure Sondheim-phile, who is so familiar with the songs from the shows, might have a more difficult time because they are not about the shows.
I'm active in PAX, which is a gun awareness organization. We treat gun safety as a public health issue.
I don't want people to sit and process the song. I want them to just let them bathe over them.
The best work I can do is to take myself as much as I can out of it and get it as simple as I can.
I plan on doing at least one classic ever year. That's why I'm going to be doing Enemy of the People this summer in Williamstown.
I try to get that across in the work, to try to, if I'm lucky, to make this world a little bit better for all of us before I check out. And that's if I'm lucky, I don't always get to have that privilege but I try always.
My dream has come true, now that I have passed it on.
When you work on a text of a lesser quality, as the interpreter or the delivery person, you are obliged to try to fill it out as you see so many people do in lesser work.
Going to New York City by myself, I'd never been there. It was a lot to deal with.
Well, I'm not a critic, I'm just a worker. So, I'm always grateful for anything the critics say - good or bad.
I can achieve that by personally relating the words that I am saying to something I have known in my life.
I wanted to go to a liberal arts college, I wanted to have that experience.
So I worked at the Creede Repertory theatre for two years and a lot of those people became lifelong friends. I even still have a home in Creede.
You rarely pay the rent by doing Shakespeare or Ibsen.
I'm active in the Prostate Cancer Foundation that Michael Milken started. I'm a prostate cancer survivor and I try to heighten prostate cancer awareness and tell people to get their PSA checked every year when they're 40 years old and over.
We did a different show every night. We'd open a show, and then two weeks later we'd open the next show. And two weeks later we'd open the third show until we had all eight running. And it was just one of the richest experiences I'd ever had in my theatrical life.
I've been very blessed in my personal life and in my career and I have never been ungrateful for what I have.
An actor's life particularly is what they lived and how they've osmosized what they've lived into the work and tried to say something.
I love my work, I love the people I work with, I do the best I can.
And all of those things: my religion, my politics, my family, my friends, the books I read, everywhere I travel - that influences everything I do.
And my wife was very political and my wife brought my two sons, Isaac and Gideon, and myself up to be very aware, caring, conscientious human beings who try to fight for the little guy and the underprivileged guy as often as we can.
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