When we were casting my first movie，“A Few Good Men”，we saw an actor just 10months removed from the theater training program at UCLA.We liked him very much and we cast him in a small，but featured role as an endearingly dimwitted Marine corporal.The actor had been working as a Domino‘s Pizza delivery boy for 10months，so the news that he’d just landed his first professional job and that it was in a new movie that Rob Reiner was directing，starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson，was met with happiness.But as is often the case in show business，success begets success before you‘ve even done anything，and a week later the actor’s agent called.The actor had been offered the lead role in a new，as-yet-untitled Milos Forman film.He was beside himself.He felt loyalty to the first offer，but Forman after all was offering him the lead.We said we understood，no problem，good luck，we‘ll go with our second choice.Which，we did.And two weeks later，the Milos Forman film was scrapped.Our second choice，who was also making his professional debut，was an actor named Noah Wyle.Noah would go on to become one of the stars of the television series“ER”and hasn’t stopped working since.I don‘t know what the first actor is doing，and I can’t remember his name.Sometimes，just when you think you have the ball safely in the end zone，you‘re back to delivering pizzas for Domino’s.Welcome to the NFL.
In the summer of 1983，after I graduated，I moved to New York to begin my life as a struggling writer.I got a series of survival jobs that included bartending，ticket-taking，telemarketing，limo driving，and dressing up as a moose to pass out leaflets in a mall.I ran into a woman who‘d been a senior here when I was a freshman.I asked her how it was going and how she felt Syracuse had prepared her for the early stages of her career.She said，“Well，the thing is，after three years you start to forget everything they taught you in college.But once you’ve done that，you‘ll be fine.”I laughed because I thought it was funny and also because I wanted to ask her out，but I also think she was wrong.
As a freshman drama student—and this story is now becoming famous—I had a play analysis class—it was part of my requirement.The professor was Gerardine Clark.If anybody was wondering，the drama students are sitting over there.The play analysis class met for 90minutes twice a week.We read two plays a week and we took a 20-question true or false quiz at the beginning of the session that tested little more than whether or not we’d read the play.The problem was that the class was at 8：30in the morning，it met all the way down on East Genesee，I lived all the way up at Brewster/Boland，and I don‘t know if you’ve noticed，but from time to time the city of Syracuse experiences inclement weather.All this going to class and reading and walking through snow，wind chill that‘s apparently powered by jet engines，was having a negative effect on my social life in general and my sleeping in particular.At one point，being quizzed on“Death of a Salesman”，a play I had not read，I gave an answer that indicated that I wasn’t aware that at the end of the play the salesman dies.And I failed the class.I had to repeat it my sophomore year；it was depressing，frustrating and deeply embarrassing.And it was without a doubt the single most significant event that occurred in my evolution as a writer.I showed up my sophomore year and I went to class，and I paid attention，and we read plays and I paid attention，and we discussed structure and tempo and intention and obstacle，possible improbabilities，improbable impossibilities，and I paid attention，and by God when I got my grades at the end of the year，I‘d turned that F into a D.I’m joking：it was pass/fail.
But I stood at the back of the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington watching a pre-Broadway tryout of my plays，knowing that when the curtain came down，I could go back to my hotel room and fix the problem in the second act with the tools that Gerry Clark gave me.Eight years ago，I was introduced to Arthur Miller at a Dramatists Guild function and we spent a good part of the evening talking.A few weeks later when he came down with the flu，he called and asked if I could fill in for him as a guest lecturer at NYU.The subject was“Death of a Salesman”.You made a good decision coming to school here.
I‘ve made some bad decisions.I lost a decade of my life to cocaine addiction.You know how I got addicted to cocaine？I tried it.The problem with drugs is that they work，right up until the moment that they decimate your life.Try cocaine，and you’ll become addicted to it.Become addicted to cocaine，and you will either be dead，or you will wish you were dead，but it will only be one or the other.My big fear was that I wasn‘t going to be able to write without it.There was no way I was going to be able to write without it.Last year I celebrated my 11-year anniversary of not using coke.Thank you.In that 11years，I’ve written three television series，three movies，a Broadway play，won the Academy Award and taught my daughter all the lyrics to“Pirates of Penzance”.I have good friends.
You‘ll meet a lot of people who，to put it simply，don’t know what they‘re talking about.In 1970a CBS executive famously said that there were four things that we would never，ever see on television：a divorced person，a Jewish person，a person living in New York City and a man with a moustache.By 1980，every show on television was about a divorced Jew who lives in New York City and goes on a blind date with Tom Selleck.