My agent said 'You aren't good enough for movies.' I said 'You're fired.'
I took acting classes in college and once I graduated I decided to give acting a shot when I couldn't really think of anything else to do. It took me a couple of years to get an agent and my first big break was The Fanelli Boys which was a sitcom on NBC. Then I did a few television movies.
Actors are steeped in a world of agents and where the next job is coming from and what are their expenses and what is the hotel like. You want to take them out of that world and dump them into another world so that when you meet them on the screen they don't seem like the guy who was in two others movies that year.
When I got my very first phone call that I'd hit the 'New York Times' list I had a small rush of 'I've made it!' But the next morning it occurred to me I didn't know what it was so I called my agent and asked what being a 'New York Times' bestselling author really meant. He informed me that I was now a thousand pound gorilla.
When I left 20th Century-Fox to freelance my agent believed that getting big money was the way to establish real importance in our industry.
When I was seven I asked my mom if I could be on TV and she said if I really wanted to I could. I got an agent and booked my first audition.
An agent saw one of the plays I did at ACT but my mom was like No she's too young. I became so annoying that a year and a half later she just couldn't stand hearing me any more!
I told my agents that I didn't want to go on the audition. But as that was happening I called my mom who has been watching the show from the beginning and my mom said 'It's the coolest show. You have to go.'
From the very start of all of this my mom has read the scripts first. And if she liked something she let me read it. She told our agent what kinds of parts that we would want.
I was almost 8 years old when I was watching a kid on a TV commercial and I told my mom that I wanted to do the same thing. She said that I would need to get an agent and that she would research it.