I guess rather than talk about me, I’ll talk about what’s become important to me. Throughout my life, I’ve learned belief systems that for the most part were based in fear. Belief systems that I used to argue and battle with people about and I was just afraid that a challenge to my belief was a challenge against me. In Alcoholics Anonymous, I’ve learned that I need to develop new belief systems that are based in Love. I remember something else Marty told me, which was right action needs no defense, so if I believe in something and it comes from Love that’s perfectly okay. You may not agree with me, but it doesn’t matter because it only matters to me if the new belief brings me joy. I think we’re here in AA to evolve … emotional growth is the only way to go.

Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your sobriety date?

A. Scotch and cocaine. 3/8/93

Q. Is there anything special in your sobriety toolkit that helps keep you sober?

A. Humility, and one day at a time.

Q. Do you think addiction is an illness, disease, a choice, or a wicked twist of fate?

A. It doesn’t matter to me what it is…not drinking and using keeps me connected to a power greater than myself.

Q. Where are you from and where do you reside now?

A. Manhattan, NY… now I reside in Encino, CA.

Q. What is one word you would use to describe yourself?

A. Open-minded.

Q. If you ever retire, would you prefer to live by the ocean, lake, river, mountaintop, desert, or penthouse?

A. Retirement is a fantasy … any local on earth is cool for me … ultimately I would prefer warmth, dry or humid.

Q. How do you measure success?

A. By valuing myself for who I am and not what I am.

Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?

A. Purposeful stupidity; if a person doesn’t know and yet isn’t willing to learn, I really have no use for them. The worst is when they do know that they’re wrong, and refuse to change. That person needs serious mental treatment.

Q. If you had an extra million dollars, which charity would you donate it to?

A. I would create my own charity for abandoned and abused animals, cared for tended to, by abandoned and abused children.

Q. Who has been the biggest influence throughout your life?

A. MY Father and Mother, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, George Orwell and Joseph Campbell.

Q. If you could give advice to your younger self what would it be?

A. The plan for making it in life is the same plan to use when you do make it.

Q. Who made you feel seen growing up?

A. There are many so I’ll narrow it down to those who truly seemed happy in their work. I got the best advice from people who are happy with their lifestyle.

Q. From what school of thought or teacher did you learn the most from?

A. I suppose it would ultimately be my Father whose best advice to me goes like this: “Anthony, if ever you don’t know the answer to something its okay to ask… for the embarrassment of asking is nowhere near the suffering of not knowing.”

Q. What is a phrase that has kept you sober during challenging times?

A. It’s actually a mantra of sorts and it goes like this: I am powerful and I am Loved … I am powerful and I am Loving … I am powerful and I Love it. I sometimes say that ten times in a row, and by the end I am usually shouting the words in a confident and knowing manner.

Q. What major event or realization shaped who you are?

A. I suppose getting sober back in March 8 1993. Everything started to awaken in me. Over the next 32 years of my practicing sobriety, Love, wisdom and empathy has grown in me to where I actually believe I am capable to be of true and unconditional service to those who may be suffering.

Q. What do you love most about living sober?

A. That each and every day I have the opportunity to experience true peace of mind. It is said to be the priceless gift we are all asked to enjoy and when appropriate, share with others.

Q. What is something you swore you would never do, but did anyway, in recovery?

A. Losing site of my plan for living a successful life by not including my sobriety as the motivator in all my thoughts, words and deeds. Sometimes I think I can run the show and I forget the passage in Step 3 which states—OUR WHOLE TROUBLE HAD BEEN THE MISUSE OF WILL POWER. WE HAD TRIED TO BOMBARD OUR PROBLEMS WITH IT INSTEAD OF ATTEMPTING TO BRING IT INTO WITH GOD’S INTENTION FOR US. Gladly I don’t forget nearly as often as I did before I got sober.

Q. What’s your concept of a Higher Power?

A. Unconditional Love. I truly believe there is no greater power in the universe, and connecting to the experience of Love for me makes living life. Such a wonderful experience.

Q. What is your Astrological sign?

A. I am a Virgo with almost 14 influences of Leo. I’ve been told that reading both signs would be a sensible thing to do. However, I don’t know how much stock I put in the validity of our astrologically signs. I don’t say they are folly, but there are some interesting characteristics one has that others claim are the result of the planets and stars.

Q. Who is your favorite celebrity in recovery?

A. Scott Redman I always thought was a celebrity of sorts — especially based on his notoriety. I definitely enjoy Ed Begley Jr’s shares.

Q. What book(s) have you read more than once?

A. The Big Book of AA, as well as the 12 and 12 of AA. Key to Yourself by Venice Bloodworth. The Knight in Rusty Armor by Robert Fisher. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. The Bible by various authors. Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox. The Artist Way by Julia Cameron.

Q. What books are you reading now?

A. Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. The Capitalist Code by Ben Stein. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris. Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy.

Q. If you were giving a dinner party for your 3 favorite authors, living or dead, who would they be?

A. Shakespeare, Dickens, Orwell, Twain and Joesph Campbell.

Q. Which film have you watched the most?

A. The Godfather, Chinatown, My Darling Clementine, The Wild Bunch, Postcards from the Edge, and Annie Hall.

Q. Who is your favorite film director?

A. It’s a six-way tie with no exceptions: John Ford, Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Mike Nichols, Frank Capra and Steven Spielberg.

Q. What book would you most like to see turned into a movie or TV show that hasn’t already been adapted?

A. The Knight in Rusty Armor by Robert Fisher and Helen Kane — struggled against Hollywood stealing a whole persona. And someone to try again to do a series about the Bass Reeves.

Q. Are you binge watching any TV series?

A. Don’t believe in binging however, I can and do watching the original Fraser sitcom over and over again. Additionally, I enjoy Hacks and Only Murders in the Building.

Q. What is your favorite App?

A. Don’t have one. I mean come on, I spend far too much time on my cell phone and iPad as it is … now I have to have a favorite app. That’s a bridge too far.

Q. Who is your favorite performer, living or dead?

A. Jack Nicholson, William Holden, Meryl Streep, Gene Hackman, Morgan, Freeman, Katherine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Cary Grant and last, but not least, Sophia Loren.

Q. What are some of the most memorable songs in your life?

A. Anything sung by Bob Dylan before 2000, In My Life by The Beatles, the whole Sticky Fingers album by The Rolling Stones, almost everything by Dean Martin and Louis Prima and Keely Smith. And Come Fly With Me the whole album by Frank Sinatra.

Q. What do you love most about yourself?

A. How much I’ve embraced humility as a part of my whole reason for being.

Q. What is your favorite city?

A. The best way to answer that question is that since I was born in New York City… it’ll always be in my heart forever. However, currently my whole body is totally enjoying the weather in Los Angeles. It’s a matter of simple math. I lived in New York. The weatherman used to say “today is one of the ten best days of the year;” in Los Angeles we have over 300 ten best days — I like the odds.

Q. What is your favorite hotel?

A. I like the San Dominica in Taormina, the Principe di Savoia in Milan, the Hotel Londra Palace in Venice, The Biltmore in Los Angeles and the Ritz Carlton in New York City.

Q. What is your favorite restaurant?

A. My Aunt Angies kitchen. The touchstone by which I judge all Italian restaurants.

Q. What is your favorite cuisine?

A. Duh, Italian!

Q. What is a style trend you wish would come back?

A. At the award shows for my industry, all the men wear formal attire. I love having an occasion to wear a Tux or dinner jacket.

Q. What are five things you always carry with you?

A. Cash, a gold necklace with five extremely personal gold charming keepsakes, a money clip that my dear friend Jon Polito gave me when I was filming Crime Story, a pebble from the road leading into the entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp; always reminding me that whatever road I may be walking upon, no matter how arduous the journey, real or imagined, it can never be as horrifying as the road leading into that nightmare of history.

Q. What is the best and or worse piece of advice someone has given you?

A. Before I embarked on my journey after being cast in Crime Story, a good friend once said to me, “The best advice I can give you about Hollywood is that the only thing you can be sure about is that there’s nothing to be sure about.” As long as you remember when things go your way, great, and when they don’t, you won’t be that disappointed. I suppose the worst advice I ever received was “Don’t trust anybody in Hollywood; everybody’s out for themselves.” I realize how crazy that is, because everybody in Hollywood is trying the best they can. Some people lose sight of their values, and others hold those values really dear, because at the end of the day, all we really have is our integrity and our dignity.

Q. What is the best piece of advice you’ve given someone else?

A. I guess the best advice I give people is that one time, I read a book about 25 highly successful people, and the only thing that they all had in common was they all had a plan and stuck to that plan. Additionally, they all had some sort of mission statement that they held onto as they pursued their dreams. So I tell people, make a plan, make a mission statement, and go at it. Ultimately, it gets down to: what do you stand for and why?

Q. What is one thing that always makes you smile?

A. When I walk down the street and I smile at someone and then they smile back. Then my smile becomes wider and broader. And I truly enjoy when someone does something, especially in my business, that gives them the opportunity to pursue their dreams on the stage or on the screen.

Q. Is there anything you do that seems mundane on the surface but has turned out to be sacred for you?

A. In the beginning of my sobriety, prayer started to become routine and almost habit-like. It didn’t have the initial enjoyment I got when I first started to pray. So not too long after that, I started to really think about the prayers that I was saying, and how in the third step prayer of AA, I can be relieved of the bondage of self and be more productive.

Q. What was the proudest moment in your life?

A. The day I realized that my Mother and Father are the true heroes in my life and that because of them, I say proudly that I gratefully work in a gold collar profession with blue collar values.

Q. What is your favorite compliment to receive, and why?

A. When people tell me that I’m responsible and dependable. Values that never had any meaning to me when I was drinking and using. I just pretended that meant something.

Q. What is your biggest fear?

A. I’m not sure. I can’t imagine I would but I guess breaking a promise to someone. Especially someone I Loved very much.

Q. Where do you go when you’re seeking solitude?

A. I just sit down in as quiet a place I can find, and just relax and breathe deeply. I do that until the uneasiness goes away. I think of Love and wait for the connection to the flowing energy of all there is.

Q. What is your biggest regret?

A. I made a decision a long time ago in my career, where I thought I knew more than anyone else. I wasn’t sober, so I was clearly in self-will run riot mode. Thankfully, I made it through it all and got my career back on track but the whole thing would have been so much simpler if I had just asked for the council of another actor or producer in the business.

Q. What is the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?

A. I once ran into a burning basement in the building of the theater I was the manager of, and put out the flames before it got completely out of hand. Later, I found out the fire was moments from exploding the fuel tanks.

I suppose the other risk was not taking this job performing on a cruise ship, when I really needed the money, because I felt that I had been having great auditions, and that a really good job in television or film was really close. Two months later, I got cast in Michael Mann’s Crime Story for NBC and my whole life changed.

Q. Have you ever been arrested and, if so, what for?

A. I was arrested 5 times for dealing blackjack in after-hour clubs in New York City. Fortunately, I didn’t spend more than overnight in jail, (the Manhattan House of Detention). Not a fun place to be.

Q. What is the hardest amends you’ve ever had to make?

A. To myself. My first sponsor Marty Warner, God rest His soul, said to me when we were doing the ninth step there’s somebody on the list that you forgot to put down and I said who? He said you! You are the common denominator in all the stuff that you’ve done… you brought yourself to all these misadventures… and you put yourself in jeopardy so many times. You owe you amends. It’s very hard to do, but I did it and it was so beneficial.

Q. Where did you go right?

A. I hate to keep saying this, but when I got sober is when I went right. I couldn’t believe this is the place that I’ve been looking for my whole life, someplace that was filled with people who thought and felt the same way I did. It was a place where empathy was born in me.

Q. Where did you go wrong?

A. I think I already said this, but when I forgot that the plan for making it is the same plan when you do make it. I thought it was a different plan and I was sort of directionless for a while.

Q. What is something you’ve learned about yourself in the last six months?

A. That you never stop learning. I have much more to learn and just like when I was a kid, I love to learn. So I guess I’m looking forward to more and more discoveries about me and how I can do more in this world.

Q. What is something you are currently curious about?

A. I don’t want to sound too esoteric, but I’ve been told through my studies that the universe is a never expanding situation. I guess what I think about a lot is, what is it expanding to? There must be so much space out there that’s not fulfilled or empty. It’s just exciting to think about the possibilities.

Q. What do you like most about 12-step meetings?

A. Connecting to people in an empathetic way

Q. When did you realize you were a grown-up?

A. When I discovered that it was more important for me to be happy with who I am, rather than what I am. It seems like a grown-up thing to do or a grown-up way to be.

Q. How important are your pets to you?

A. Our pets are our children. Our dog Dolly, who is the youngest member of the family. She continues to teach me about enthusiasm and unbridled love.  Our three cats, Archie boy, Kookie Carrie and Fancy Nancy are complete love machines.