Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/1151945
think fast. "What do you do? You don't have backup equipment that you need. Ac tors are staring at you. What do you do? Literally, my brain just goes into overdrive…. All of a sudden, I'm doing really creative blocking to make up for the camera not moving," he explains passionately. What Peter enjoys most about directing is the collaborative process —as the director, he gets to work with all of the departments, more so than when he's simply acting in a project. However, his desire to spend more time in the director's chair, doesn't mean he wants to give up acting. "I don't think I'll ever hang up my helmet [and be, like], 'I don't want to act anymore,' because I love acting. But I do find directing, at this stage in my life, a bigger challenge. As an actor, you're a small cog in a big wheel. A lot of times, the actor gets all the credit. I mean, the director is really picking every piece of music, every frame, every costume, every nuance —it's all the director's choice… I find film and television is more of a director's medium than an actor's medium. The stage of a play is an actor's medium. A director can tell you all day long, 'Play it this way," and you get up on the stage and the audience is watching you and you're going to play it whichever way you're playing it that night and the audience is going to walk away with that. There's nothing a director can do about it, except yell at you the next day." Neither of these titles —actor and director— really suit Peter, he prefers "story teller" as it encomposses acting, writing, producing, and directing. Acting remains one of Peter's greatest passions. "I love being able to do the research on that character... There's something really nice about just put ting your life aside for a second and then being able to jump into someone's life and get a feel for what it would be like to be that person just for a small amount of time." Peter tells me that he was 10 when he realized that he wanted to be an actor when he grew up. One day, while watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he thought that Paul Newman and Rober t Redford looked like they were having the best time ever and decided then and there that he wanted to be just like them. "And then, I told my parents, and they laughed, so then I never mentioned it again. The next time my parents said, 'What do you want to be?' I said, a law yer, because the first time I said, 'an actor,' they laughed at me. I said a law yer the second time, they were like, 'Wow! A law yer.' So I was like, They like that. I'll keep saying that." He smiles. "So, when anyone asked, 'What do you want to be?' 'A law yer.' 'Wow, a law yer!'" Peter nods his head to emphasize their approval. Extremely shy in high school, Peter shares that he mostly kept to himself. "I was so shy in high school that I didn't eat. I didn't want to get in the lunch line because there was so many people. Imagine going to this giant auditorium, you're this pimply-faced 15-year- old kid, there's 3,500 people on line for a hamburger and I'd get so anxious that I'd drop something or that the whole auditorium would stare at me, that I would go to the opposite side and there was this old lady who sold pretzels and orange juice and I would just grab a pretzel and would sit down before everyone else and sneak by." He laughs at the memory. "I was such a wallflower in high school, I don't even think that people know I went to that school." It wasn't until college that Peter began to pursue acting. While attending St. John's University, where he was studying pre-law, Peter took Acting 101 as an elective. "It was very freeing for me because I could be somebody else. I could do any thing and wasn't shy —there's nothing to be shy about because it wasn't me. I remember there was a kid there and he said, "The next time my parents said, 'What do you want to be?' I said, a lawyer, because the first time I said, 'an actor,' they laughed at me. I said a lawyer the second time, they were like, 'Wow! A lawyer.' So I was like, They like that. I'll keep saying that."