An unexamined faith is not worth having for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.
I was very very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith but I question it.
I've learned to think in terms of having a long career. Actors can have very long careers that last until the day we die but there will be moments when you'll feel like you're a failure or when you're disappointed in yourself.
Having in my life been bitten by the jaws of both victory and defeat I must rush to add that success is to failure as butter pecan ice cream is to death.
So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity if it fails to do this the failure will announce itself either in prose or in insignificant verse.
Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That's really where failure comes.
Now having had this experience I can't say really what they were looking for. I don't know their minds. But every time I see a reality show it seems that the most entertaining parts on other reality shows are when they make their guests look foolish.
I think a lot comes from having the experience of doing stand-up comedy. It allows you to figure out the psychology of an audience what things are funny and not.
Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and if I'm upset I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.
I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.