David Ogden Stiers

David Ogden Stiers: The simple fact of it is, in the British tradition, you're an actor who happens to be in a film or on television or on the stage. In America, annoyingly, you're identified as a film actor or a TV actor or a whatever actor. Early in my career, I decided to stop paying attention to the labels.

David Ogden Stiers: (on what is your favorite piece of music)The one I'm studying. It sounds like such a cop out and I don't mean it to but whatever's next, whatever really stunning piece of music I get to approach next and hammer the secrets out of, of structure, choice, contrast, architecture, melodic structure. It's one of the most thrilling pieces of detective work I know.

David Ogden Stiers: I really like science fiction because it tells terrific human stories in a frame work that keeps you visually excited and challenged and lets you recognize the commonality of the characters in the piece with… with you and people you know in the here and now.

David Ogden Stiers: (in answer to What is your favorite TV show?) No favorite, although I lament more the passing of Pee Wee's Playhouse than almost anything that went away before its time. I thought that was the most imaginative half-hour on television.

David Ogden Stiers: (about conducting) You have no idea how dictatorial it is. Everyone should know what it's like to make a movement with a stick and suddenly between 22 and 107 people scrape, blow and thump at the same time.

David Ogden Stiers: Equal rights for homosexuals isn't an emotional issue to me as much as it is logical. The uproar over the Defense of Marriage Act struck me as very odd. If people of the same sex marry, then what happens? Where are the dominos that are going to fall over? I guess some people are scared that it gives permission to children that may not be predisposed at all to experiment.

David Ogden Stiers: (on does he prefer conducting or acting) What's next is what I really really like to regard. I don't care if it's voice over work, or commercial, or directing a play, or doing a guest appearance with an orchestra, or going into some sort of ear training for a movie, or what is next. That I keep working just astonishes me. I never take it for granted.

David Ogden Stiers: You have to like the characters, even if they're villains. You have to like every character you play regardless of what they do. Even murderers pet dogs, you know.

David Ogden Stiers: (In response to a question on if people call him Dave.) Not and walk away without a limp. I hate being called Dave.