Jefferson Mays

“My mother was a children's librarian, and I was raised on lots of English children's literature. It gave me this weird idea that I was English.”

“I don't know what we did without Velcro in the American theater. It's a miracle substance! People had long intermissions, probably.”

“I was offered jobs impersonating everyone from Cher to Madonna.”

“It's such a rare and rewarding thing to be in control of space and time for two hours a night, to go through a journey and take the audience along. There's nothing quite like it.”

“When I was younger - I don't do this too much now - but sometimes if I couldn't sleep, I would lie in bed and imagine all the characters I've played at a dinner table together.”

“Some actors start with the right shoes. I start with the right hats.”

“A musical sweeps you along, like you're on a magic carpet ride of sorts. But you have to keep up.”

“I love hats. I've always loved hats.”

“You can really get your chops in shape in the resident theatres, and I urge anyone to investigate them and to be willing to go anywhere to pursue the great roles.”

“There was a lot of playing by myself, wearing last year's Halloween costume and wandering around the yard talking to myself - which may account for my fondness for doing different voices.”

“The beauty of performance for me is finding details with which to betray character.”

“I should be one of those actors who has a list. A lot of people do - 'I wanna do this and this and this' - but I don't. I enjoy being surprised - indeed, often ambushed - by a role.”

“I try to inhabit each of the characters as fully as I can, however short-lived they are. But most of my show happens offstage.”

“I'm kind of a reluctant Anglophile. My mother's a children's librarian, and all of the children's literature I read was from her childhood - E. Nesbit and Dickens, which isn't children's literature at all, but I was sort of steeped in English literature. I thought I was of that world.”

“I always dress up for recordings.”