As a young man, I think I was in a bit of the revenge business for too many years of my life.
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.
I don't know what's going to happen in life, so I don't think it's fair that I know what's going to happen in 'Homeland.'
The way I like to work is to attach personal experiences to what I'm doing, so it helps tremendously if I can write my own play under what the writer has written.
Violence only perpetrates more violence, and it becomes a vicious cycle. There are political situations all over the world where there are untold acts of revenge for incidences, and thousands and thousands of lives are lost because of them.
I would go to war with words, not weapons. I would die talking before I lifted a weapon.
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.
So I'm truly an actor who sings, and not a singer who acts.
I was forced to lie to my father by doctors and relatives. I made that choice and agreed with them, and I will never, ever get over it. If I hear a lie in my life with my children, with my wife, my work, my audiences, I want to annihilate myself, vaporize myself, and wipe myself off the face of the earth.
We need to learn to accept and certainly mourn any harm that comes to any human being on this earth. But we also need to not be vengeful.
The biggest public mistake I ever made was that I chose to do 'Criminal Minds' in the first place.
I'm an obsessive person. I like intensity.
The songs I love to sing are story songs, from Yiddish songs to Tom Waits.
I have never been asked to be in a movie musical. Other than 'Yentl,' which I didn't sing in.
If you live close to an International Rescue Committee office in the United States, find out how you can assist a refugee family as they transition to American life. Invite a newly arrived family to your home for a welcoming meal. Listen to their hopes and dreams, and share your own.
Music is my balance... center of my life.
I have the strength from my mother, the survivability. I have wonderful qualities from my mother - but please, Mother, forgive me - I heard judgment constantly about my father.
I think it's fair to say I'm attracted to playing characters who are rather intense.
I guess I am sometimes over the top on stage, but then, that is my personality. I'm over the top in real life, too.
On occasion, a well-constructed drama can do what no reality or news program can do, what Shakespeare does brilliantly, is it can show both sides' opinions.
I saw 'Hamilton' when it was at the Public, and I just wept profusely in my seat because this is a form I love deeply, and to watch it be reinvented in such a genius, gifted way and executed by such a brilliant company of human beings, I was overwhelmed with not just appreciation for the piece of work itself but for the possibility.
I've been very blessed in my personal life and in my career and I have never been ungrateful for what I have.
Actually, the language in Shakespeare is wonderfully musical. You need to hear the music to connect with the words.
I think Bill Finn's one of the geniuses of theatre, and James Lapine's one of the diamonds of my generation. The two together are a joy!
Everything I experience influences everything I do.
Ted Cruz ,when he was running for president, was a huge 'Princess Bride' fan. He would quote the lines and, you know, trying to win families and everything.
When I'm on the road with concerts, people ask me to autograph my CDs, but more and more they come up with the cookbooks.
Singing in Yiddish was a great thrill for me and came about through Joe Papp, the founder of The Public Theater.
I just want other people to know the kind of joy that I have in my life. I want other people to be able to have fun.
I didn't think of myself as a singer. I'm an actor who recites words, and sometimes that happens to be on musical notes.
I desperately want to see the day today and do the best I can not miss a shred of sunlight. It'll be over before I know it.
One of the greatest gifts that 'Homeland' has given me is it's affirming on a daily basis.
My favorite word was a word James Lapine used repeatedly in 'Sunday in the Park with George,' which was the word 'connect.' All I want to do is connect.
Only through loving and supporting one another, even in the face of unbearable pain and suffering, will this cycle of violence end.
I never publicise in advance what I'm going to be singing because I never quite know until I start. I often change my mind halfway through. I sometimes throw in stuff about politics or Shakespeare or do songs in Yiddish.
People on both sides of any conflict believe they are right, whether it's on a TV show or in the real world.
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.
It's what great artists do. They suffer and feel more within the human condition than others. They're not better for that, just more sensitive, and there's a burden to that.
I got married because I wanted to do something that was more than I understood, because my feelings were more than I understood.
I'm active in PAX, which is a gun awareness organization. We treat gun safety as a public health issue.
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.
I'm in a constant state of gratitude.
When I was a kid, they used to say, 'Oh man, you don't ever wanna leave New York.' I don't ever want to stay in New York!
I love my work, I love the people I work with, I do the best I can.
It's what Shakespeare's mission was - to illuminate our thoughts and struggles and bring about the possibility of getting the most we can out of a day as opposed to least in this brief moment we're here.
Peace in the Middle East isn't going to be created by another war or violent act on the other side.
Even if it's a wonderful life, you wanna go somewhere and see the way other people reflect on the world and the lives that we're all living... I think regional theater is the life blood of our cultural lives.
Refugees come to us seeking asylum, seeking freedom, justice and dignity - seeking a chance just to breathe. And people in our country are saying close the doors and don't let them in?
Sometimes, trying to make a work of art can be very difficult and very painful.
