A Mother’s Love Nurtures a Dream
The Right Foundation Supports a Brilliant Career
“What the camera needs is truth and if you’re doing a big musical number and [it] requires a kind of energy, then you’re not going to overwhelm the camera if you’re doing something that’s authentic to what it needs to be. …you still need that kind of intensity. If you held back, then it, to me, would ring false.”
Anthony Rapp’s first stage performance was at the tender age of 6. Recognizing his talent and acknowledging his desire to pursue acting, his single mother (of three), a nurse, moved heaven and earth to give her son the opportunities he would need to be successful. It wasn’t long before Rapp was a working child actor and has continued to remain busy for most of his life. In this episode, Rapp discusses his inspiring career, and the love, respect and gratitude he has always felt for his mother, who sadly passed away in 1997.
Anthony Rapp is an American actor, singer, writer and director who got his start in community theater as a child. His first Broadway performance was in 1981 in The Little Prince and the Aviator, a musical based on the novel, The Little Prince. He has had numerous roles both on stage and fim. He made his screen debut in the 1987 film, Adventures in Babysitting, and later worked with the same director, Chris Columbus, in the film version of Rent, reprising his earlier role on stage. He has appeared in such films as Dazed and Confused, A Beautiful Mind, Road Trip, Six Degrees of Separation (stage and film versions), and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
What You’ll Learn from This Episode:
- Rapp’s start in show business as a child and the sacrifices his mother made so lovingly
- How Rapp felt when his fellow community theatre actors were many years older than he was
- What it was like to be cast in a Broadway musical at the age of 9
- Rapp’s unusual childhood and how his mother managed to make it happen
- His experience at 10 years old in The King and I with Yul Brynner
- How he felt about the long hours and hard work in childhood
- How he feels about doing Shakespeare
- His thoughts on his stage performance in Rent, as well as his later appearances in both film and television
- How London audiences compared to those in the USA
- How he feels about his Star Trek experience
- His feelings about some of his mentors
- An actor’s comparison of stage and film work
- Advice from his ten-year-old self