All the points of view have some place, and no resolution could be satisfying. Like life, we leave messy questions.
As for lawyers, it's more fun to play one than to be one.
Behind the Hamlets and the I'll Fly Away there are plays that nobody else remembers I did.
Elizabeth has a very independent mind. This is second time I've worked with a child of mine in a play. I did Long Day's Journey Into Night with my son James. That was a lot of fun.
Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.
I came to New York in 1962 and it began to look like I might he able to make a living in 1972.
I can't believe what a great career this has been so far. I cannot believe it.
I can't remember the last time anyone ever invited me to help invent the person.
I did commute to Atlanta when I was doing I'll Fly Away, but it was just okay. It was in the same time zone. We would have been presented with some hard choices if we'd been in California.
I did know at 7 that I liked acting, but I don't know that I ever said I'd signed a contract. I just never had a negative feeling about it.
I did The Great Gatsby on film and The Glass Menagerie on television all in one year. I met my wife. It was in the center of a very big year.
I don't think playing a villain is my greatest talent.
I enjoy listening to opera at home, occasionally, but I would much rather see it than just listen to it.
I got a note from my father, who said that Success is wonderful, if you don't inhale. That was his own aphorism, and I think it's the very best thing he could have said to me or anyone else on the subject.
I got the very strong impression that D.A.s were not all cut from the same piece of cloth. They were not all little gray people in little gray suits all speaking in the same manner.
I know what I'm doing next year, but after that I don't know.
I literally was saved by a role, from becoming a cab driver. I never did have to wait tables, though, so looking back I guess I had it pretty soft.
I met a man in the DA's office that I consciously modeled myself off of in the beginning. Except I think he had a beard, and they wouldn't let me do that. So to the extent that they let me, I used him as a model.
I pretty much believed the propaganda about TV series. The hours are horrible, and the scripts are terrible, the experience is awful, and the only thing that is pleasing is your bank account. I pretty much avoided the whole thing. I didn't look.
I remember pouring bullets on the prosecution table, but partly I remember that because I very often see the dents that the bullets made in the table when I go to work.
I think the bait for doing something really is always the part.
I work a lot, thank God I work a lot. I've been blessed left, right, and sideways, but that doesn't mean I have this sort of discretion to say, Summon me the head of Warner Brothers.
I'd like to do it all at once. That's the only way. Grab the thing and... take a big bath in it. Wouldn't that be great?
I'm interested in not breaking this thing that I think is so good about the show, this business of it being about people engaged in their work.
I'm sort of obsessed with the news. That is a syndrome. But I don't watch a whole lot of TV.
I've always done what I thought was good if I could live on what they were offering-and sometimes if I couldn't. So even when I was broke, my career didn't lack for interest.
I've been able to do things that allow me to hold my head up and still be popular.
If I have to be typecast, I'd like it to be as Abraham Lincoln.
If there's any business that instructs you in the strong hand of fate, it's show business. You can plan and plan, but it's what happens to you that really determines what your career will be like.
If you're going to be born ugly and be an actor - the least they can do is let you play Lincoln.
It turns out that practically everything Lincoln says in the play he actually said. I mean, down to the Hi, how are ya's.
It's a funny rap, but you can get stereotyped.
It's the same enthusiastic, generous audience. And the place is the same. It's got the same magic atmosphere and it loves comedy. This place loves comedy.
Much Ado became a big hit, and that was really when people noticed me.
My company's name, Stardance, is drawn from the play.
My family is the other thing that I do. That's it, really.
Obviously the first roles that you're proud of are the ones that everybody else liked too.
Shakespeare is the one who gets re-interpreted most frequently.
The bad guys don't always get punished and the good guys are not necessarily pure.
The only thing that has made it difficult is to be able to do what I'm doing and still have some vacation.
There is no problem that is not improved by effort, and no effort that is too paltry to be worth undertaking.
These past years have been full of interesting work, and that's why I feel so fortunate.
They've been very fortunate to have excellent head writers and writers in general, and I think we as a company here in New York have taken enormous pains week after week to make sure it's good.
This business of the game of the law and the high purpose of the office is endlessly interesting.
We're in a rare company here. There are only five or six shows that have gone this long ever. We just do one after the other without paying attention to the number. And then I thought, 300, 299, 298, what the heck!
When I was in my early 30s, a lot of good work came my way fairly quickly.
With a settled character like Jack McCoy... it sort of shakes up your insides, really, and everything settles in a new way. So your work feels fresh again. It's great.
You gravitate toward things that suit yo. Wherever you come from, that's what develops your tastes.
You know what the Jesuits say? Give me a boy before he is 7, and I'll have him for the rest of his life. It's true.
You must never count on anything in this business. So it's a very nice job, but you don't want to count on anything.
Sam was in the movie Le Divorce (2003) as Chester Walker.
The fictional insurance commercial Sam filmed for Saturday Night Live has proven to be popular over the years. It has been shown in later years on the show, even when he was not the guest host. The commercial featured a warning about the dangers of killer robots.
Sam appeared as host of Saturday Night Live on November 11, 1995.
Sam has portrayed a prosecutor in two starring roles on television series: District Attorney Forrest Bedford in I'll Fly Away and Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy in Law and Order.
Sam is the official spokesman for TD Waterhouse, the retail brokerage company. He appears in their television commercials.
Sam's character, Forrest Bedford, on I'll Fly Away (1991) was ranked number 17 on TV Guide's June 2004 list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time."
Sam lives in Connecticut with his second wife, Lynn Louisa Woodruff.
Sam studied at the Sorbonne in Paris during his junior year at Yale.
Sam studied French and History at Yale University.
Sam attended Groton Preparatory School.
Sam once lived in a house previously owned by noted author James Thurber.
Sam's full name is Samuel Atkinson Waterston.
Sam married his second wife, Lynn Louisa Woodruff, in 1976.
Sam is 6'1" tall.
Sam is an active humanitarian who donates a considerable amount of time and money to Refugees International, City Meals-on-Wheels, The United Way, and The Episcopal Actors' Guild of America.
Sam and Richard Belzer have appeared in episodes of four different series together: Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
Sam appeared in the movie Hannah and Her Sisters with Dianne Wiest, who later played his boss on Law and Order. In the film, their characters went out, but he ended up with Carrie Fisher's character.
You can share a link to this page with your friend!