Backstage Magazine was virtually the only resource in New York City when I began looking for work in the film industry. Twenty years later, I can look back and say that I actually owe my start in the industry to Backstage!

Your magazine has carried me through the hardest of times. It was all I looked at when I first moved to New York. It’s like the mecca, the Torah, of actors going to New York. It has to be a part of your life. You make it so comforting for actors. I used you guys all the time for auditions and read the articles on how to be a better actor, how to be more patient—there was an article on rejection that I swear saved me. It’s such a great thing; every actor all over the world knows about Backstage. I read it for so many years and continue to look at it so fondly.

I was so excited to get my first commercial that I almost didn’t go to the Sundance Film Festival when ‘The Brothers McMullen’ got in. After two years of trying, I finally got my first commercial. ‘Brothers McMullen’ was truly my big break. I got it out of Backstage, and I didn’t have an agent and I wasn’t in SAG, and it went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and everything changed. And that film’s director, Ed Burns, is definitely a champion. I’ve done three movies with him, and I learned so much about the way I love to work by working with him. Pete Berg, too. I love working with the same people over and over again; I feel it always allows me to do my best work. Because I know that person is behind me.