138 Quotes by Eric McCormack

Growing up, my father was a financial analyst for an oil company. He was just a regular dad. And when I would say, Hey, come see my play, hed say, Sure. Hed see one, Oh, good play – you know, very typical dad reaction.

I had played many gay characters before, but they were finite – guest characters in TV shows or characters in plays.

As a television actor, there’s a power you’re given to use your image to do something valuable. As a parent, these messages are particularly important to me.

I love playing anyone that does stuff that I don’t do. The fun of playing an assassin is that I’ve never killed anybody. The fun of playing a brilliant musician is that I don’t actually play any instruments.

Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, ‘Sweeney Todd’ was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.

I think there’s a certain objectivity that comes from being Canadian. You’re partly British and partly American; you have a good bird’s-eye view of both countries. So much of the comedy that comes out of Canada is impersonation – it’s less ‘look at me’ than it is ’look at me playing other people.

I always get a little uppity when I hear the phrase ‘TV actor.’ It’s like saying you’re a magazine reporter. I was in the theater for ten years before I ever had a TV audition.

I think we all realize that anyone can – and has – gotten AIDS. So there’s obviously still a lot to be done.

Mental illness is the last frontier. The gay thing is part of everyday life now on a show like ‘Modern Family,’ but mental illness is still full of stigma. Maybe it is time for that to change.