I did four movies where I gained, like, fifty pounds. I had curly hair, and I had all of this facial hair. I had put on all this weight for these movies, and I did four or five of them back-to-back. Then I cut the weight and I got fit again. I cut my beard and I took away the mustache, and people were like, 'What are you doing?'
I want to see Brian Williams with no irony wearing a mustache.
It was my mustache that landed jobs for me. In those silent-film days it was the mark of a villain. When I realized they had me pegged as a foreign nobleman type I began to live the part, too. I bought a pair of white spats, an ascot tie and a walking stick.
I just grow a terrible mustache, so I try to use my neckbeard as a substitute. And when I get lazy, I don't shave that often.
It's usually my mom who gets on me about my facial hair. I can't grow a good mustache, so I guess it's just a neck beard. I just have trouble growing up there.
I had to be clean-shaven all the time to play a Mormon missionary, so after I was done, I grew a mustache out of rebellion. It was actually very polarizing. I became attractive to a completely new group of people and also repulsive to a new group of people. The lesson: mustaches are divisive.
The difficult part of writing about someone you don't admire is that it's easy to demonize them. What you get then is a cackling villain, twirling their mustache at every dastardly deed they commit.
I can't grow a mustache. It's pretty sad if I attempt to.
I remember, in middle school, we did the musical 'Oliver.' I loved the movie, and I always wanted to play Oliver. It might not have been stated, but the boys auditioned for Oliver, and the girls auditioned for Nancy. But we also did a play called 'Li'l Abner,' and I was really excited that they let me put on a suit and a fake mustache.
The connector part of the mustache to the beard wasn't always really strong for me. That's kind of how it morphed, and that's kind of how my beard comes in.
