John Astin

My work is to reach people with ideas, hopes, dreams, encouragement, insight, and revelation. That's what an actor wants to do.

Sometimes when I see a performance that really takes me, I struggle. How can I express this to this person, I want this person to know how I felt. I want to get this across, and it's not very easy.

We are running ourselves into a damaged earth. But I am optimistic. I believe that we can change; we must change. As a human race, we are very young and quite primitive. The sooner we learn the greatness of humanity the better off we will all be.

People are transported to that space that Poe wanted to make available to us.

My background is basically scientific math. My Dad was a physicist, so I have it in my blood somewhere. Scientific method is very important to me. I think anything that contradicts it is probably not true.

There was one where Gomez was on a Trapeze hanging by the legs upside down. I remember how much the backs of my knees would hurt until I got used to it. It was hard.

One of the great things about being recognized is that you receive this feedback from people. It is easy to see how sincere people are. It's nothing fake or jive. They're giving sincere appreciation. And it's not that easy to express.

I love to play for audiences that are simply made of people rather than so-called special people.

At a certain point he was very popular, from THE RAVEN. He was never fully appreciated, never made the money, and you know he was looked upon with admiration by some people, but also as an oddball. But that was his point.

I guess one of the reasons I'm doing the Poe piece is that I think Poe demonstrates that no matter how difficult things are, if you continue to move forward in life, you can eventually become victorious, even if it's later in life.

One life is worth the universe. Poe was able to go right into the very depth of life and to demonstrate this.

I think Poe had a mission to tell us what it's all about. To answer some of the great questions of life.