Jesse L. Martin, Shakespeare in the Park 2010

The Winter's Tale and The Merchant of Venice to the outdoor stage. The cast, as usual, is talent-studded, with the likes of Al Pacino, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and beloved Broadway and Law & Order actor Jesse L. Martin sharing the stage.

Jesse has had quite the career in New York. After graduating NYU, he met Johnathan Larson, starred in the original production of Rent as well as the movie version, and spent nine seasons as Detective Ed Green on Law & Order. This summer, he returns to his original love of Shakespearean acting. It's just too bad we don't get to hear him sing.

I saw that you went to NYU Tisch for acting? I did.

How was that experience for you? Actually, it was pretty incredible. When you first go into the school, you don't really have any idea about what you need or what you want as far as training. You just sort of take everything in that they give you.The best decision I made at NYU was joining the Shakespeare ensemble. It literally led to everything I did after that. It gave me the kind of confidence I really needed. And it also gave me my first job, so...

And what was that job? I was doing The Acting Company, John Housman's The Acting Company. They do two classic plays in rep for a year and pretty much go all over the country.

Your Broadway debut was in Shakespeare as well, Timon of Athens, 1993. Exactly. It all came off of that decision.

Do you still live in New York? I do, downtown.

So in The Merchant of Venice, you play opposite Al Pacino. How is it to rehearse with him? He's an awesome, awesome guy. He has a tremendous appreciation for the theater and the rehearsal process. You'd think somebody with that sort of fame would be at least a little bit difficult to work with, but he's not difficult at all. He couldn't be cooler. He seems to have a real love for actors, he loves being part of the group. So it's been a joy, its been a real joy. Not to mention occasionally you remember that he's Al Pacino. You kinda freak out a little bit.

Al Pacino in rehearsal for The Merchant of Venice. (Nella Vera)

I believe it. The whole cast is quite impressive. It really is. There's some funny, funny dudes in these shows. Jesse Tyler Ferguson is probably one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. Everything the kid does is funny. I think he tunes his life to being funny. And I can say the same about Hamish Linklater. I mean, that kid is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Jesse Tyler Ferguson in The Merchant of Venice plays Launcelot Gobbo, and Hamish plays Autolycus in Winter's Tale and Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice.

Can you tell us a little bit about your characters in the plays? Well, in Winter's Tale, I play the King of Bohemia, Polixenes, who grew up with another king, Leontes, played by Ruben Santiago, and we've been raised as brothers. Some trouble starts in the beginning of the play, because one brother is jealous of the other, and all hell breaks loose. In Merchant I play Gratiano, who is basically a friend to Bassanio, played by Hamish Linklater, who is sort of in cahoots with helping him get married, basically. And we find out the reason he wants his friend to get married is so that he can get married too. With a whole lot of trouble in between.

They both sound wonderfully mischievous. Exactly.

Are they classical Shakespearean productions, or are they modernized at all, a la the Broadway production of Julius Cesar back in 2005? Well, I mean, there are some time-period changes, we certainly don't do it at the time these plays were written. But as far as the script, the language hasn't changed much. There's been some trimming, but other than that they are pretty much your classic versions.

So Shakespearean acting is where you started from. Have you been wanting to get back to it? Is it something you identify more with than other types of acting? Yeah, it's definitely something I wanted to get back to. What it does, for me at least, is it literally stretches all the acting muscles you could ever possibly stretch. You do feel like, after rehearsing particularly two shows in rep, you feel like you could probably do anything. That's probably the best way to describe it for me.

I've been hearing news of you playing Marvin Gaye in an upcoming movie, but I've been hearing that news since 2006. Is that project on hold? When can we expect it? I know, I know...It's been one of those things that's been literally bouncing around. I mean, right now there's no real story to tell, as far as that is concerned. The only thing I could say is that it is something that I've been wanting to do for quite a long time, but the universe hasn't quite handed it to me yet, so to speak.

Were you possibly going to be directing it? No, no just playing the role. But, you know, you never know, I might have to direct it at this point because it's not happening in the other channels I've been taking.

You were on Law and Order for nine years as Detective Ed Green. Do you miss him? I do miss him. But when I left the show it was the perfect time for me to leave. The fact of the matter is, after nine seasons, you start yearning for other experiences. Because that's a one-hour drama, it just takes so long. It takes so much time out of the year you don't really get a chance to do any other projects. Part of the reason I left was to get back to other projects. Things that had been on my mind, things that I had been missing, like being on stage. It was the best experience I could possibly have had, and I'm extremely grateful for it, but now it's time to start expanding again. Flexing those muscles.

Is there any street in the city you guys didn't film on? I don't think there's any street. Unless there's a new street that just cropped up, really. [Laughs] We've been everywhere, every borough. Some people got really angry with us, you know, we take up their parking.

What's next for you after this? I'm not really sure. I think I might want to get into development, as in developing my own sort of piece, whether it be for the stage or the big screen or for television. I think I'm reaching an age where either you sit around and wait for the perfect opportunities to come, which we all know are few and far between, or you start creating those opportunities, which I think is what I'm going to concentrate on, creating them.