It helps an actor an awful lot when he looks like the part. There's nothing more disconcerting, that makes you more anxious or more insecure, than when you don't look like who you're supposed to be.
In the beginning, when you're acting in amateur theater and off-Broadway, it was unheard of that anyone else would get your costume. And it was important to get a good costume. You put time into that.
I hate to talk about typecasting, because being typecast as Columbo ain't cancer.
If I'm a guy reading a newspaper, and I hear this actor who I know gets great seats at basketball games, and he's complaining about being typecast, I think, 'Hey man, count your blessings.'
I've been asked a few thousand times how much of Columbo is Falk and vice versa.
When I go see a basketball game, I'm always in the front row. I always have a table at a restaurant; I never have trouble getting a taxi.
