IESB: What initially attracted you to acting? Was there someone or something that inspired you to do it, or did you just know that you wanted to be a performer?

Peter: No, I was the opposite of a performer. I was really shy, when I was growing up. I saw a movie called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in third grade, and I thought Paul Newman and Robert Redford looked like they were having a really good time, and I said, “That’s what I want to do, when I grow up.” I always was inspired by Paul Newman and Robert Redford to want to be an actor, but I never really did anything about it because I was shy. So, all through high school, I never did a play.

Not until college, did I start to do acting. I transferred into NYU from St. John’s University and started studying theater. I was going to take law because it seemed to impress people in my family when I said, “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.” One time, I told them that I wanted to be an actor and they all looked at me like I had five heads. The next time they asked me what I wanted to be, I said, “A lawyer,” and I got a lot of oohs and aahs in the family. When you watch movies and you watch Law & Order, it looks so interesting.