Tom Wopat Quotations

It's amazing to hear, as a voice matures and then starts to decline, what kind of emotion is still conveyed by a really good vocalist.

I think now I'm being taken a little more seriously. That's pure conjecture on my part.

There were a couple of years when I wanted to be a football player, but I really always wanted to be a singer.

When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth.

I did I Love My Wife on Broadway in 1978, and then went into television land. Now things are starting to come together in the way I thought they might when I was a kid.

The country experience was more of a departure. When you consider my education and my upbringing, you can see that was more of country rock outgrowth of my popular music aspirations.

I sang opera, I sang show tunes. I got into a rock band for a while. I've sung a lot of different things.

I listen to Steely Dan. I really like Steely Dan.

I'm facing upstage, with my back to the audience, and the spotlight comes up on my back as I start singing.

I've made it clear to my agents that I want more interesting stuff.

With Schubert, a lot of the melodies are very simple, but he's in this groove. He's in touch with his heart.

As I've gone along, I felt like I was discovering an aspect of my voice that I didn't know was there: an ability to interpret a song in a way that makes it more accessible.

I have no experience performing that music live in front of an audience. So that remains to be seen. I'm very excited to see what that's going to be like.

There's a guy at the record company who's 30, and he says, I would not listen to these songs except in this context. Somehow the recording process, the arrangements, make it more accessible.

When you're doing the traditional musicals, singing songs that are 40 and 50 years old, you realize there's a reason why those musicals are hits. These are amazing songs!

No, I kick Jim's (expletive). ... He's a terrific actor and wonderful singer, but I think that the musical stuff was maybe better served by me.

he said he liked it. So, I trust his judgment.

Irving Berlin just knows how to touch ya. It's a wonderful thing to discover this about music, even though I've loved music all my life.

I was new to the business, and didn't know a lot about it,

There's always been the educational process of teaching people that I sing, that I've sung all my life and that I'm not an actor who just decided to sing, ... I consider myself a singer first.

These classic shows deserve to be revived. Otherwise, people have no context for these great songs which become such a visceral part of our awareness.

An old friend of mine is doing Buffalo Bill. The ensemble is quite terrific. It's got a great energy, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

There's a little bit of subconscious resentment that they don't use Broadway people when they're putting Broadway musicals on film. That's cool - that's usually the way it's been. But it would be nice to get the opportunity to get some of those actors' takes on film.

It's not the worst thing in the world, ... It was a lot of fun. We had a good time. It wasn't a bad show. We really enjoyed it, and obviously millions of other people did too.

It's not the worst thing in the world,

I had no real specific dream, other than I really wanted to do musical comedy. Even before that, when I was a small child, I wanted to be a singer.

I don't want to be the father on a sitcom that's centered on the kids, ... The way they're doing shows on HBO and Showtime, there's a lot of interesting stuff out there. I would want to do something significant.

I don't want to be the father on a sitcom that's centered on the kids,

You could make a case that he's one of the least hypocritical people in the show, ... He basically comes out and admits he does what he does for money. Everyone else in the show talks about this and that, but he says he doesn't do what he does out of the goodness of his heart or anything. He does what he does to make a living, and he's good at it.