Play all audios:
ARE YOU ANY GOOD AT GOLF? Nobody’s good at golf. Only professional golfers are good at golf. That’s why we play. Last year I took my first trip to Scotland to golf with a bunch of the guys
on the crew of our show. Golf is a thing you never say, “Well, I pretty much mastered it, I don’t need to play anymore.” It’s to me — I love playing it — the greatest metaphor for life I’ve
ever experienced. Just when you think you got a handle on it, something comes along and you’re like, “Ugh, I have to start all over again.” Rocky Carroll stars alongside Mark Harmon in the
CBS drama “NCIS.” Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images Had you kept in touch with your _Chicago Hope_ costar Mark Harmon prior to working with him again on _NCIS_? No, it was a bit of a
reunion. I went in to meet the producers, and I tell people: The good thing about my interview for _NCIS_ [is that] I only knew one person connected to _NCIS_, and that was Mark Harmon. If
you’re going to know one person, and be friends with one person, it’s good that it’s the star of the show. I was a Mark Harmon–approved hire. YOU NOW DIRECT EPISODES AS WELL. HOW DOES THAT
COMPARE TO ACTING? The days I’m working as an actor, it’s almost like a holiday. I just come off my trailer and I go on set and somebody tells me where to stand and I play the character. As
director, you're the first one there and the last one to leave. Acting, you’re pretty much responsible for yourself and your character; directing, you are the royal wedding planner —
you’re responsible for everything. You’re not only responsible for the actors, you’re responsible for the layout of the scenes, hair, makeup, wardrobe, all the elements. YOU GRADUATED FROM
WEBSTER UNIVERSITY’S SARGENT CONSERVATORY OF THEATRE ARTS IN ST. LOUIS. NOT EVERY ACTOR PURSUES FORMAL TRAINING. WHY DID YOU TAKE THAT PATH? At a very early age, all the actors that I looked
up to, that I idolized and thought,_ Hey, I want to do this_ — they all had some common thread. Meryl Streep went to the Yale School of Drama, Marlon Brando was a member of the Actors
Studio — they all had some form of training. I always thought that’s what you do if you’re going to be really good at what you do. It’s one of few professions where you can just wake up one
morning and proclaim yourself a professional actor. You can’t wake up and proclaim yourself a professional dentist because you’d get arrested, but as an actor somebody says, “You got a nice
look. You should go to Hollywood.” … [But] if you can sit down and by osmosis play the piano, just think how much better you’d be if you had formal training.