A Conversation with Susan Egan

Craig: Can you tell us how you got bitten by the acting bug?
Susan: That would be my parent's fault. I was always taken to theater – I was very fortunate. They took us to a lot of films. And not necessarily mainstream films but the art films and I went to them on school nights with my dad. He's a huge film buff…So I don't know HOW they could be surprised (but they were) when I said "mom and dad I want to be an actor"

CB: Why? Did they want you to be something else?
SE: Well yeah, I was brought up to go to Stamford. And then I decided not to go and instead go to UCLA for acting and my parents went "gasp..gasp". And THEN, my dad looked at the difference in tuition and thought it was a really good idea!

CB: So what was their original plan for you career wise?
SE: You know, my Dad's a doctor and he failed miserably on three fronts with my brother, sister and I to get any of us to be a doctor – although it's his own fault. He would bring Polaroid's home and show them at dinner of surgery. And he wondered! I remember I cracked my head open when I was 10 and my dad took me to the hospital and he walked me around on my way to get stitches trying to sell me on the idea of being a doctor because he knew he had failed with my brother and sister. And here I am thinking my head is cracked open and I'm about to be in pain with stitches… it just was never going to work… I do think he is glad I didn't become an attorney.

CB: Well I think there are a lot of people that are glad you didn't become an attorney
SE: Well that was sweet of you. I would have been a good attorney!

CB: Do you like to argue?
SE: I do. I love to argue. I can argue any point – I don't even care which side.

CB: Does performing run in your family?
SE: No.. it really doesn't. My mom is completely tone deaf. How excellent it that? I have no pressure when she comes to the shows. She just thinks everything is great.

CB: So no performing relatives?
SE: Well this is kind of a cool story…My middle name is Farrell and I was named after my grandmother who I happen to also look just like. I don't look like my parents. I look like my paternal grandmother. She was really talented musically. She was a terrific pianist and she had this teacher who wanted to make her a concert pianist. But her mother said that women just don't do that sort of thing. Because it was in "that day and age". But she always played. She and her husband had a little pub up in Carmel, California and it was the hangout of Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Van Heusen and all these guys from Hollywood. Jimmy fell in love with a girl up there and got married at my grandmother's house. So I have this great picture of my dad with Sinatra in his heyday – he was probably in his early 40s.