Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audiobooks. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad Retina Display campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar telecasts. His distinctive voice helped him win a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 1992 for narration of "The Meiji Revolution" episode of the PBS series The Pacific Century, as well as a...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth10 October 1941
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
People call me a movie star. If you're in the business, a movie star is someone who can make a film bankable. My name and $6 million will make a $6 million movie. I'm a working actor. Because I started late, I had a very short run as a leading man, and my films didn't make money in America.
I would say 90 percent of my mail and phone calls are from people who want some kind of help or succor or commitment from me to do something.
I think it's good that people value their bodies and take care of them. I think if you cross the line and begin using your body as an asset or as an extension of your vanity, you've gone too far.
Where I didn't have the maturity and the compassion to consider other people's needs, I did a lot of damage.
The terrible thing about being an actor is that it's not a solo occupation.
We put on shows at Golden Gate Park with the Dead and Jefferson Airplane, and the groups were part of the community they emerged out of, not some superstars. We had multiple stages, diversions, communal entertainment. There is something slightly fascistic about sitting in a huge auditorium focusing all the energy on one group far away on stage.
I am fascinated by women. They're as close as we men get to experiencing 'the other.' The challenge for me was to know and accept fully formed, powerful women.
One of the most treasured books that I own is Donald Allen's 'The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.' It was a totem of great importance and potency to my group of writer friends in college from 1960 to 1964.
My dad was a very violent, frightening and dangerous guy. Next to him, I was this vague kind of kid who walked around, as I still do, gathering impressions.
When I was young and growing up in New York, my parents took me to children's theater quite often - elaborate presentations of 'Goldilocks' and 'Rapunzel' for Upper East Side kids. As I grew older, they took me to adult theater, mostly musicals.
Young people, for whom I should have been a role model and an uncle, duplicated my worst habits and died as a result.
My house and my garden are built as part of nature, not over it.
Acting is the way I make my living.
When I went to get my master's in creative writing at San Francisco State after Grinnell, I joined the moribund remnants of the Actor's Workshop, until I saw Kay Hayward and Sandy Archer in the San Francisco Mime Troupe and drove down that day to audition. The rest is history.