DO YOU HAVE THE CHOPS

DO YOU HAVE THE CHOPS? If you want to be great at something, you’ve got to have the chops. If you want to be amazing at something, you have to have great skill—or chops. Chops is slang for the jaws or mouth. Trumpet players need to have strong jaws if they want to become better players, so people used to say that you couldn’t become a great trumpet player if you didn’t have the chops for it. Later the expression came to mean the ability to play any instrument, not just the trumpet. And now we use chops to talk about any skill or ability. She just doesn’t have the chops for this demanding role. Children as young as two already have the mental chops to understand politeness. If anyone has the chops to get the department back on track, it’s definitely Donaldson. David is a decent musician, but I don’t think he has the chops to be famous. I think it’s funny how the…and maybe it’s different now because I think you know film is kind of merges into the TV and vice versa. You can do whatever you want now. Nobody cares. But there’s a sort of …there’s this mentality and maybe there’s still that mentality where for some reason they think, you know, if you have a smash hit like This is Us and there’re great actors on that show. I have friends on that show. But if someone’s in Vampire Diaries or Smallville or some other show that happens to be on a different network – CW or Superhero or whatever…They don’t think some of these actors aren’t capable of doing what those guys are doing? Does it make sense? Of course! To me it’s just like ….just because we’re on a show that deals with all this stuff…whatever it doesn’t mean we don’t have the chops …If we were on a different show with the right writing and directing and the creating…It’d just be as good. Because you’re only as good as the writing and the production. It doesn’t matter how good of an actor you are. If you are a great actor and you’re on some okay show or some fluffy show or whatever the show. I’m not saying Vampire Diaries or Smallville are, but, you know, the CW thing. I doesn’t mean you don’t have the chops…Look at Malcolm in the Middle and look at f*cking Cranston, he is a f*cking genius. Now, Pam’s dad was played by Rick Overton and he will be back again in Niagara. And Rick is actually a really funny guy. He’s like an improvization comedy veteran. He’s also a writer. He won an Emmy for writing an episode of Dennis Miller Live. So it’s funny to me how we would cast people with great pedigree to stand and do a silent POV shot in the parking lot. But that was because this is a big role. Pam’s dad. If we bring him back, we need to make sure this person has the chops to go the distance. And Rick was great.