Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterstonis an American actor, producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in The Killing Fields, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and his starring role as Jack McCoy on the long-running NBC television series Law & Order, which brought him Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Emmy awards, having starred in over eighty...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth15 November 1940
CityCambridge, MA
CountryUnited States of America
I enjoy listening to opera at home, occasionally, but I would much rather see it than just listen to it.
I don't like driving much.
I think the bait for doing something really is always the part.
I'm sort of obsessed with the news. That is a syndrome. But I don't watch a whole lot of TV.
Painting is very interesting.
I played Lucky in Waiting for Godot at Yale and it was a thing that Stanislavski talks about: he says you don't need his 'method' if you can count on your inspiration and it was a moment of inspiration that came to me, not in rehearsal but on stage. It hit me right there in the middle of the play and it was great-it travelled into immediate communication.
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.
Shakespeare is the one who gets re-interpreted most frequently.
Obviously the first roles that you're proud of are the ones that everybody else liked too.
That's where I'd like to be: when the business says here's a good actor who is marketable so we can use him. Just that.
If I have to be typecast, I'd like it to be as Abraham Lincoln.
I've been able to do things that allow me to hold my head up and still be popular.
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.
Separation is painful, and there's such a thing as doing it too much - the limits are how much it hurts.