Daily Inspiration Quote by Gary Cole

The nervousness here isn’t just stage fright; it’s a confession of the actor’s real power dynamics on set. Gary Cole frames his anxiety as “a little” - the classic professional understatement - but the reason he gives punches through: the first scene is with Martin Sheen, and fandom collapses the usual protective distance of craft. He’s admitting that acting, for all its talk of technique, still has a high-school cafeteria hierarchy: some people walk in carrying decades of cultural authority, and you feel it in your body.

The line works because it’s quietly transactional. “Coming in” suggests he’s joining an established ecosystem, not building one. First scenes are first impressions, and first impressions in film and TV aren’t abstract; they can shape chemistry, confidence, even how directors read you. Cole’s subtext is: I had to prove I belonged, fast, opposite someone whose presence already fills the room.

Invoking Sheen as someone he’s “a huge fan of” also signals a kind of viewer-to-worker pipeline that defines modern acting careers. Cole isn’t just respecting a colleague; he’s acknowledging Sheen as a piece of his own cultural education, a performer he watched before he stood beside him. That’s the emotional charge: the moment your private taste becomes your public job, and professionalism has to coexist with awe without letting it show on camera.