To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

Davis contrasts intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The “meat and potatoes” are the hard, often solitary work of making something—pursuing a dream, enduring the sweat and discipline of craft, and experiencing the rare permission to create on one’s own terms. Money, by comparison, is “gravy”: pleasant and useful, but secondary and nonessential to the core nourishment of a meaningful life. The phrasing also implies a professional ethic—especially apt for an actor known for intensity and control—where fulfillment comes from the process and standards of the work itself rather than from fame or paychecks.