Gotta Act, Gotta Teach
Weekly tracked down Sam Groom (ex-Russ, ANOTHER WORLD; ex-Hal, OTHERWORLD; countless episodics) while gathering memories of the late Jacqueline Courtney (ex-Alice, AW; ex-Pat, ONE LIFE TO LIVE). We found him teaching acting in New York City.
Sam Groom: I teach at the HB Studios. Uta Hagen asked me to teach here about eight or nine years ago. I began and really, really liked it. It's a chance to help young actors not make the mistakes I made in the business. HB has a wonderful record of having working actors teaching there, so the people around are your co-workers and people that you've known for years and years. Louise Lasser (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) is teaching right after me on Tuesday morning.
Weekly: Are you still acting?
Groom: Basically, no. I'm not saying I won't anymore, but if and when I do it, it would be a project I create myself. You finally reach a point in this business after years and years that you just don't want to please anybody else. You want to create your own work. I'm exploring the idea of making a film for myself, rather than for somebody else.
Weekly: Have you done any live theater?
Groom: I worked in television for so many years and had done a number of films, but I had never done a Broadway play. I thought, "I don't want to teach without having done a Broadway play," and luckily, I finally did one a few years back with Matthew Broderick. It was a play called Taller Than a Dwarf. It was directed by Alan Arkin and written by Elaine May. It did not have a great success, but it was wonderful to work with all those people. Parker Posey (ex-Tess, ATWT) was in it, also. Once I had done that, the one thing I had never done, then I felt comfortable in just teaching. Luckily, I worked enough that I don't have to work. Although you are paid, it's not enormous amounts of money, and it's more like contributing than it is taking from them, and I really enjoy that. [Although] sometimes I wake up and say, "Why did I leave my agent? Why did I do that?"
Weekly: Are you still recognized from your soap days?
Groom: It's amazing; people come up to me to this day, and say they would rush home from school to watch a show with their mother. That's amazing, the connection to it that people had and, I guess, still do.
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