Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedict
Dirk Benedictis an American movie, television and stage actor who played the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original Battlestar Galactica film and television series. He is the author of Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy and And Then We Went Fishing...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth1 March 1945
CityHelena, MT
CountryUnited States of America
I maintain you can make a film/TV star out of a can of sardines.
I wanted to be Anthony Hopkins and ended up being neither a film star nor having a career on the stage.
Harrison Ford was pretty content as a carpenter who thought it would be nice to work on TV and ended up being the biggest film star in the history of cinema.
The only difference from one $100 million budget film to another is which of the 12 box stars are getting $20 million to be in it.
It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa.
I went from being a big TV star on the lot, with my own parking space, my own table in the commissary, to a complete nobody! When I went to get my stuff, they wouldn't let me on the lot.
The neurosis of all this ageism is that Harrison Ford, Eastwood, Redford, Newman, etc., etc., have been playing heartthrobs until they need more filters than a pack of Camels. And their girlfriends are in their 20s. But being a Movie Star changes all the rules.
As children get older, they are supposed to gradually stand more and more on their own and eventually completely leave the nest. My boys are definitely starting to do that. Soon I might actually go on a date.
That's Hollywood. Boom! From star to forgotten actor.
The only difference from one $100 million budget film to another is which of the 12 box stars are getting $20 million to be in it.
You can never tire, never wilt-and become half-tyrant, half-psychiatrist, half-madman, and half-dead to get it the way you want. Which I did. And it almost killed me.
Films are about emotions. They are, for the most part and certainly in today's mainstream film world, NOT about ideas. Not thought-provoking. They are all about EMOTION. FEELINGS.
I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy.
The best things in life are usually difficult.