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Ralph Waite had to adjust to working in an ensemble cast on The Waltons
Waite said that working on the show helped him mature.
Though The Waltons did a good job of focusing on the entire family, no one can deny that the centerpiece of the series was Richard Thomas’s John-Boy.
However, adapting to such a young protagonist wasn’t easy work for the rest of the cast, as Ralph Waite explained.
“It wasn’t easy to have my role as a father figure be merely supportive to Richard Thomas’ part of John Boy,” said the actor during an interview with Bangor Daily News. “But that’s the way the show was developed - and it was a situation I had to learn to live with.”
Sharing the spotlight certainly wasn’t easy; however, Waite acknowledged that it helped him grow as an actor, as did working with such a large group of actors.
“Managing that feat helped me grow, helped me mature,” said Waite. “So did being thrown into a situation where I had to deal with a whole ‘ family’ of people on such an intimate level for so long…learning to appreciate and understand their egos - and put up with others' self-preoccupation that seems to be part of the territory of our business.”
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