Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Samuel Shepard Rogers III, known professionally as Sam Shepard, is an American playwright, actor, author, screenwriter, and director, whose body of work spans over half a century. He is the author of forty-four plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth5 November 1943
CountryUnited States of America
It's hard to explain why exactly, but I think that when I began writing plays, it was from an actor's point of view more than anything. I had the feeling that if you put yourself in the position of the actor on stage and write from that perspective, it would give you a certain advantage in terms of being inside of the play.
There's no way to escape the fact that we've grown up in a violent culture, we just can't get away from it, it's part of our heritage. I think part of it is that we've always felt somewhat helpless in the face of this vast continent. Helplessness is answered in many ways, but one of them is violence.
I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.
I don't get offered leading parts. I suppose I've become a kind of character actor or sideman. I think it had to do with probably in the '90s, I refused so many leading roles that they gave up on me, or I just became unpopular, or I became old. All those reasons.
I think without writing I would feel completely useless.