Phil Rosenthal

I knew I could do that, but I also didn't have the stomach for going on cattle calls for an extra hour.

to be an extra in the back of a commercial.

It didn't, I mean, here I was.

I was coming from, naively, the lead in the school play.

Now I'm fighting to be a nothing, literally.

Well, I think that's how you have to have what my theater professor called a healthy naivete.

You don't know what you don't know.

So why wouldn't you at least approach if you watch, you know, we're all watching the Olympics.

All these people thought at some point they could do that.

And then they did it.

I saw somebody great just say this really smart young lady who's got such a brain in addition to being this fabulous skier.

She said, I became, you can change the way you think and you can make yourself be what you want to be.

I am now the person that the eight-year-old me would have loved.

would have wanted to hang out with, would have wanted to have become.

We do have that power.

I think if you make something in your life a priority, you will not rest until it happens.

Not at all.

Originally, yes.

But then after many...

failed years in New York having all these odd jobs none of them was acting you know I'd work for free in a freezing warehouse and do a Shakespeare play with a small role I remember my parents very supportive they would come to the warehouse on 38th Street and 11th Avenue with all bundled up in their coats because there was no heat in the theater to see me do three lines but that love and support that's what buoys you through these rough times right