BY ESQUIRE
HARDEST-WORKING MAN IN SHOW
BUSINESS
I’ve been shaped by a lot of women.
Honestly. When you come down to it.
Between my grandmother, my aunt, my
mom, whole bunch of schoolteachers that
I had. Then I met my wife, who I’ve been
with for forty-some years. And now my
daughter has some part in that. Some
hard lessons. Some gentle lessons. I
learned to hear what people were saying
and not talk while they were talking so I
wouldn’t miss any of that message. The
whole thing was: Keep your mouth shut
and listen. So I learned to listen.
I got my poker face from them. And I
totally got my outspokenness from them. I
learned to value a woman's opinion. And
to sift through what was being said from
other people, to sort of get at the truth or
what they're ultimate goal was. To hear
where they were trying to go without them
even telling me where they were trying to
go.
I had English teachers in junior high and
high school who encouraged me to read
different things than I was reading—to
read Shakespeare and Beowulf—and to
expand my horizons in that particular way.
I’ve had drama teachers who encouraged
me to study not just one method of acting
but various styles and methods of acting,
who encouraged me to use my intuition in
specific ways to find out who a character
was and how I wanted that character to
interact with other characters inside a
play to find the reasons that a character
felt a certain way or espoused certain
feelings, a particular moment or space in
time.
When I first got to New York, I was Bill
Cosby's photo double or stand-in for two
years on The Cosby Show. So I used to
watch him work all the time. I never
bothered him or talked to him. I didn't
even know that he knew that I was there.
‘Cause I just did what I did, and he did
what he did. And I remember seeing him, I
guess two or three years after I became
sort of famous, in a basketball game in
Philadelphia. And he was like, "Oh, Sam,
hey!" I was like, "Hey, Mr. Cosby. How are
you?" He said, "I know I still need a good
stand-in." I was like, Get out of here! He
was paying attention.
He was very professional. He showed up,
he did his job. He knew what he was
going to do. He kept those kids in line.
He led by example. He was always on it.
I did plays with Morgan Freeman. I
watched Morgan. I remember I was
understudy in a play once, and I think one
day he was sitting in the back of the
theater, and we were doing understudy
rehearsal. That night, he's like, "I don't
know why you're working so hard. ‘Cause
I'm never going to miss a show. And now
that I seen you rehearse, I'm definitely not
missing a show." So I was kind of like,
Wow. "Don't worry. You're pretty good at
this. And you're going to get somewhere."
That meant something to me. All of things
mean a little bit.
Thank goodness the people at the rehab
facility were such assholes. That I made
up my mind that no matter what happened
I wasn't going back, because I didn't ever
want to see them ever in life again. They
were motivating forces for me. They were
trying to be—that's their job. It’s their job
to be assholes.
I was at a restaurant today, and this
young actress saw us come in, and she
actually came to the table with some
pages that she has to read for an audition
tomorrow. And she said, "I'm sorry. I don't
mean to do this. But this is one of those
opportunities I don't know if I'll ever have
again. I saw you come in. I'm doing this
audition for this thing tomorrow." And she
handed me the pages. And I’m like,
“What? What do you want from me?”She's
like, "Do you have advice for me?" I
looked at them. We talked, kind of
analyzed what she had. She had some
good notes in the margins. We talked
about them. I just told her to be confident
and enjoy it and have fun. Don’t be
pressured to trying to work to get the job.
But work to make sure you feel
comfortable in what you're doing, and
make sure you accomplish every goal that
you want to accomplish during that
audition phase, to make that happen and
to be comfortable for yourself.
When I got to Hollywood, I was at my
agent’s house at a party and I was
walking by a sofa and I heard somebody
go, “Sam, come here.” I stopped. And it
was Sidney Poitier. And I was like, I didn’t
even know he knew my name. He pulled
me over, I sat down, and I talked to him
for a while. He told me, “Call me
tomorrow, we’re going to play golf.” I
called and we went and played golf. And
talked about Hollywood, the business. And
now when I see him, it’s the same thing.
It’s like, God, I’m actually friends with
Sidney Poitier.
They want to give you this information,
so you share it, and they share it with
you. And you go to the golf course and
you talk and laugh and hang out. I see
guys like Don Rickles, and we talk all the
time. I'm actually friends with Don
Rickles. One of my best friends also is Bill
Russell, basketball champion. I never
thought I’d know somebody like Bill
Russell and sit down and have
conversations with him. It’s interesting to
note that people like that spend time with
you and respect you. In a way, it means
I’ve done something right—or I’m doing
something right.
Photo credit ESQUIRE
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