You Have To Do Real Acting, Not

I Wasn't Playing Nixon's Satirical Stick Figure. I Was Playing Nixon The Man. As An Actor, I Felt I Had To Get To The Deeply Flawed Humanity Of The Guy.

You Can Get An Awful Lot Of Effects Into The Customer's Mind For A Great Deal Less Time And Money In Radio Than You Can In Television.

When I Was Growing Up, We Learned Our History Almost As Lives Of The Saints. And It Came As A Shock, "oh, Jefferson Had Slaves?" It Always Comes As A Shock To Us That Elevation To The White House Didn't Somehow Cleanse Them Of All Their Deep Character Flaws.

Because I Don't Do Stand-up, Radio Has Always Been My Equivalent, A Place To Stay In Connection With The Public And Force Myself To Write Every Week And Come Up With New Characters. Plus It's A Medium That – Having Grown Up With It And Putting Myself To Sleep With A Radio Under My Pillow [as A Kid] – I Love. No Matter What Picture You Want To Create In The Listener's Mind, A Few Minutes Of Work Gets It Done.

[c. Montgomery] Burns Is Much Purer Evil Than Nixon Was. I Think It's The Purity Of His Evil That Attracts Me As A Comic Character.