Good acting comes from finding the essence of a character.

I began my career in Los Angeles and started working fairly quickly.

I collect books, primarily first-edition 20th-century fiction.

I don't do a lot of guest shots on television.

I love reading. I'm fortunate enough to have signed books by Faulkner, Steinbeck, Thomas Pynchon.

I love working with Gary Sinise.

I'd like to be doing quality acting in a quality role and making as many people as possible happy.

If 50 percent of your career is not filled with failure, you're not really successful.

The only thing I haven't done as an actor, other than Thai puppet theater somewhere, is act on a Broadway stage.

You take jobs so much of the time when you don't need to necessarily work for a living, but it becomes important who you are going to work with.

Again, as egotistical as I am, as self-centered as I am, and as much as I love strangers idolizing me, I find it very crass to be self-promoter in a way.

I have 800 books of just Samuel Beckett's work, tons of his correspondence, personal letters that he wrote. I have copies of plays he used when he directed, so all of his handwritten notes are in the corners of the page.

Thinking fascinates me, and I probably spend too much time in my mind. My wife says that my perfect world is to be in the Suburban driving, with her next to me and the boys in the back seat and complete silence for two thousand miles.

When actors get pigeonholed, that's their own doing to a large degree. Because if you do something that people like, obviously they're going to ask you to do it again. It's up to you to say no. If you're that insecure about working, you'll probably do what you're known to do.