American - Actor | October 31, 1957 -
When I was 6 years old, I asked my parents for an organ. I don't have any idea why I wanted an organ.
Brian Stokes Mitchell
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I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.
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For a while, I couldn't get arrested in television because everybody thought of me as that guy on 'Trapper John.' So I thought, 'Great, I'll come out here to New York and do some theater, and when they get tired of me, I'll do something else.'
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I think I just had it by osmosis: an appreciation of Duke Ellington before I really even knew who he was.
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People comment on the way that I phrase. And in my 20s, I realized, my phrasing is jazz phrasing. I don't comply strictly with musical theater phrasing. Musical theater tends to be very one and three, and jazz is definitely two and four.
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Music is liquid. It's meant to be messed with and played with and stretched and pulled and pushed, I think.
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I'd been playing the piano since I was 6 and wanted to be a composer, but I also wanted to be an actor. I decided to just pursue both and see which won out.
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To me, a theater is a kind of a sacred space. It needs a kind of ceremony, like what happens when you consecrate a church.
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That's what I love about New York. So many people crowded together, pushing against one another. And that's what I hate about New York. So many people crowded together, pushing against one another.
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I hate those vacuous musicals, the happy-happy, 'Let's have a good time' shows.
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I wouldn't call what I do 'dance.'
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Fear is destructive. Fear and creativity don't mix. Ultimately, it doesn't do you any good.
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