Eric Bogosian

I know that I’m inadequate, but I never thought that at seventeen. I thought I was doing the best I could. I thought I was being idealistic.

I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations – the director and the actors and the designers build the house.

I’m always surprised by things that happen to my work.

As soon as the dirt is hitting the casket, it’ll all be forgotten.

Ensemble is hard to do. It’s like 3-D chess.

It’s a mental fake-out to myself. I make believe I’m making a new show so I forget the material I was working on and make up some fresh material.

I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can’t quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that’s what the deal is with me.

I’m not hip, I’m not cool, I’m not glib.

If you say city to people, people have no problem thinking of the city as rife with problematic, screwed-up people, but if you say suburbs – and I’m not the first person to say this, it’s been said over and over again in literature – there’s a sense of normalcy.

I write for an audience that likes what I like, reads what I read, thinks about the things I think about. In many ways, this puts me in opposition to the people who go to the theater generally.

I’m not a light-hearted person, so I can’t think light-hearted at work.

Well, the real Eric Bogosian is pretty self-conscious of himself.

I started acting when I was in high school, started writing when I got to New York in 1975.

I write, but I also act.

For a long time, my shows were about people walking out or about getting my gigs canceled or having the presenter not wanting to pay me.

I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing.

I love playing other people’s work. I love acting.

I don’t know anybody who does what I do. I’m very underground.

If we all knew we were going to live to be 150 years old, we’d all approach our lives very differently.

If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest.

The world intrudes in my brain daily. Since my brain is dripping with all kinds of stuff that’s out there in the world, that I can’t seem to be able to shut out, it has to end up being in my work as well.

I’m very underground.

I was definitely surprised when Talk Radio took off as a play. As a film it has become somewhere between a popular thing and a cult thing.