Wealth & Money Quote by Jerry Orbach

Orbach’s line lands with the casual certainty of a working actor who’s logged enough rehearsal rooms to know the difference between a craft culture and a brand culture. On its face, it’s a regional preference: New York casting feels “varied and rich.” The real move is the polite demotion of Los Angeles from artistic center to industry hub, a place optimized for packaging rather than range.

Coming from Orbach - a Broadway veteran who became a household face through TV - the remark carries insider authority. He isn’t some coastal snob tossing shade; he’s mapping two talent ecosystems. New York, in this telling, is a deep bench: theater-trained performers, character actors, people who can disappear into parts because they’ve been doing it eight shows a week, often without cameras, without glamour, with technique as survival. “Varied” signals texture: accents, body types, ages, energy that reads as lived-in rather than engineered. “Rich” suggests density and redundancy: multiple great options for the same role, which is exactly what directors crave and what casting directors quietly compete to secure.

The subtext about L.A. is less “worse actors” than “narrower incentives.” Hollywood’s star system rewards recognizability, market fit, and a certain photogenic sameness that travels well. New York’s stage pipeline rewards stamina, specificity, and oddball precision. Orbach’s career sits right at that intersection - a performer who could be romantic lead, musical comedian, or granite-jawed detective - so the line also reads as a self-portrait of what New York made possible: longevity through versatility, not reinvention through hype.