Tim Robbins

And so then I started working and I realized, oh, well, I can fund the next play with this one paycheck, right?

And so I started this kind of dance and my agents hated it because they're trying to build momentum.

And I would say to them, well, I'm happy to work through this time, but then I'm going to do a play.

And they're like, oh, Broadway?

I'm like, no, no, I've got this theater company and we're going to do this thing.

So I need like three months free, four months free.

And I don't want to go out in any auditions.

And so they were like, you're crazy.

That's stupid.

And I was like, well, I'm sorry, that's what I'm doing.

And so this going back and forth in the first five, six years of my career was absolutely essential.

for my survival.

And what happened was my perspective was one of use that great gift that you're getting from working in TV episodics and sitcoms and make art with that.

So this continued for the past 43 years.

So my sister Adele, who was in the play, so she was working as a stage manager at this place called the Theater for the New City.

And they were doing weird theater.

You know, this is like late 60s, early 70s, Greenwich Village.

You know, there were plays with nude people in them.

And so I got kind of interested in what she was doing.

And so Crystal Field, who ran that theater company and still runs it to this day, invited me to be in a play called Undercover Cop.