Luckily, the public sees me as a character actor.
— Tony Shalhoub
People change all the time.
My mom was funny and nutty. I suppose she had to be to survive raising 10 kids. To cope and keep a cap on things, she kept us buoyant and harmonious. She wouldn't let us express anger, which later on landed me in therapy but also made it easier for me to play laid-back, measured roles.
I went to college on the East Coast in Portland, Maine.
You make certain assumptions as a parent. And you kind of think, at a certain point, you've figured things out. And then all of a sudden, that person that you raised and nurtured and thought that you knew is someone else completely.
I get the opportunity to play all different ethnicities and not get stereotyped or locked into one. It's been a tremendous advantage, I think.
Before I did any television or film, I did years and years of theater. Television and film stuff, even though it went on for a good, healthy number of years, almost felt like a diversion from theater.
'Quick Change' was my first real movie. It was an interesting audition process because there were no lines in the script. Bill Murray's character would say something, and Geena Davis and Randy Quaid would say something, and then it would just say, 'The cabbie speaks.' How do you audition for that?
I did some acting in high school and then a little more in college, and it just was the thing that I felt that I wanted to do more than anything else. And then I was fortunate enough to audition for and get into Yale Drama School right after college, and I spent three years there.
I'm impossible to direct. I couldn't get myself to do anything.
All I wanted with that film was to represent the possibility that there might be normal people who are Muslim or Arab with the same fears, responsibilities, hopes.
And Big Night, I think by the end the brothers find that balance, when they touch each other on the shoulder over breakfast and it's understood that what should never have driven them apart almost drove them apart. I think that's a true moment.
My father had season tickets to the Packer games, and I have several of those. I have a lot of family that still lives in the Bay Area and in Wisconsin, too. And so, I like to get back as often as I can.
My father came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 1920 when he was 8 without knowing a word of English. He traveled to Green Bay, Wis., married, bought a house, and he and my mom, Helen, raised 10 kids. Everything depended on his one-man business driving a truck.
My dad was a meat peddler who drove a refrigerated truck. He bought his meat in Sheboygan, Wis., and sold it to stores in the region. He was a terrific salesman. People loved and trusted him, and he never let anyone down.
I worked in the theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts for years and moved to New York and then to Los Angeles.
I have two daughters.
I'm drawn to that period, the '50s.
I've been lucky that even when I was younger, just because of my look or whatever, I was afforded the opportunity or called on to try. 'Can you do this Hispanic character?' 'Can you do this Italian character?' 'Can you do this Jewish-American character?' I just had to develop a facility for their accents.
'Longtime Companion' was really the first movie that I know of that addressed the problem of AIDS. This was back in the '80s that we did this.
To my fellow nominees, whoever they are - I'm not that familiar with their work - I just want to say, there's always next year - except, you know, for Ray Romano .
I don't look as handsome in Men in Black 2 as I did in the first one.
I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.
I come from a really big family, my father was a businessman and what he always instilled in us was to be your own boss. My father built up his business, and he was by no means a rich man, but he figured out how to work four-and-a-half days a week.
I am an actor. I try to do different things.
I was in my first play when I was 6. My older sister was in a high-school production of 'The King and I.' They needed children for a scene, so she brought me in. I had a costume and a couple of serious lines that got a laugh. I loved the feeling.
It was never really one of my goals to gain tremendous amount of celebrity or make a tremendous amount of money necessarily.
I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater - more theater than anything else - and when I was doing films, that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things.
I started out in the theater when I was a young actor, so I've always tried to move from one medium to the other.
I try to do other characters that are different from Monk, obviously, because I'd like to be remembered for more than just that.
I feel like I was born in the wrong time.
I'm a very sensitive guy!
It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.
With what's happened in the world the last three years, it's easier to see why it's become popular again to diminish and revile Arabs and Muslims in American popular culture.
I was one of those people who put too much emphasis on work and career and material possessions, and it took its toll on all my relationships, on my physical health, my emotional and mental health.
You're not really necessarily the coolest guy in their life. You are a conduit to the really cool people.
