I had the pleasure to speak with Gary.

S. Were you academically gifted as a child?

G. No (chuckles). 

S. Would you say you were a gifted actor? 

G. I was somebody who could not easily sit in a classroom and listen to a lecture by a teacher. That was always difficult for me to do. Academics was something that did not come naturally. I think early on part of the issue was that I didn't learn proper reading skills as a kid, so reading was always difficult for me. And of course, if reading is difficult for you, then studying is going to be miserable.

And so, what I didn't have in academic skills or basic skills I made up for in other ways by just doing things. Like, early on, all the local kids in the neighborhood, I would just organize them all into the baseball game, or the baseball team or the football team or the rock band or whatever. I somehow early on developed these do it yourself sort of leadership skills. I think part of that was that I felt intimidated by kids who were smart in school so I would just make up for it by bossing them around.

S. I imagine those organizational skills really helped you when you formed the Steppenwolf Theatre.

G. Yea. I wasn't the artistic director at the beginning, but then I became the artistic director and just started leading the company in the way that came natural to me. It proved to be effective.

S. What would you say you learned about the nature of talent working with aspiring actors at Steppenwolf?

G. I learned everything about acting from working with the other folks in the company early on. I think we all did. I didn't go to college. I just started the theatre when I got out of High School but the other two founders of the company, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney, they both went to college, Illinois State University and studied there, and they certainly learned some great things there. I learned in a different way. I just learned by doing it, by acting. And when the theatre company started growing and I was working with Terry and Jeff and my wife to be, we got married back in the 80's, Moira Harris, and working with Joan Allen and Laurie Metcalfe and John Malkovich and all these great people, we were all learning together and just kind of flying by the seat of our pants and just making it up as we went along. But I think we all learned a whole lot of great stuff.

S. You know, that's really interesting because there's a large literature in my field on what is called ‘group creativity', taking the emphasis away from the individual and what they can do, and looking at what the group can do. It seems like that is a good example of that.

Well, Steppenwolf was very much like that. Early on, we tried to be this little commune, where we could make all these decisions together. But that only goes so far before you start discovering that you are unable to make a decision because there are too many opinions. So leaders have to emerge. But what we were able to do is find a way for leaders to emerge, to be strong, to take initiative, to direct while at the same time use all the information that they had and the talent that they had at our disposal there, and we were able to focus the group into a direction. Early on, we were just kids all just wanting to do plays and everything.

S. It's interesting that you used the word "talent". Do you think acting can be taught or are there definitely individual differences in people's natural proclivity for acting?

G. It's a combination of both. A good teacher recognizes each individual and their individual gifts and is able to bring out the best in them by giving them the instruction that that particular person needs. That's what a good director can do, recognize that this person needs to be directed this way, this person needs to be directed that way to get the best out of them. Then there are those who are going to teach their method, their thing, and you're certainly going to get something out of that as well, but we were able to recognize that each individual had a special thing that they did and we would capitalize on that and make the most of it while at the same time choreograph our season and our play selection around the group ethic. We wanted to get everyone on stage as much as possible at the same time. We would look for plays that were great ensemble pieces, that had a lot of good parts in it.

S. In your estimate, what set of skills do you think comprise great acting?

G. Look, there are some wonderful actors who have never had a lesson in their life. They just have an intuitive sense of how to do it. Frank Sinatra was a wonderful presence and performer, but he never really had any acting lessons. Probably acting lessons would have ruined his thing! Now, he's not necessarily known as one of our great American actors of all time, but if you look at Sinatra there is something so charismatic and captivating about him, plus he's just so extremely talented. But when he started doing movies no one wanted to quite mess with what he did, because he just had this natural gift.

Then there's other people who went to Yale and studied with this person and studied with that person, Yale school of Drama has produced a ton of great people. And then there are folks who just go out there, they take a bunch of great classes, they start getting jobs and boom boom boom and there they go. Everyone has a different path and a different way that they do it and I don't think there's one method of producing a great actor that is better than another.

S. You contribute to things like Operation Iraqi Children and the Disabled Veterans' Life Memorial. What are some ways people can support these initiatives if they want to?