I was the youngest child and got a lot more freedom than my brother and sister. I used to wander, doing my own thing under the radar, but I didn't get in bad, bad trouble.
I suppose there must be some way in which I'm compelled to show some side of myself - or of people - that's paranoid and fraught and beleaguered and downtrodden, just as Tom Cruise wants to show that he's terrifyingly upbeat and terrifyingly heroic all the time.
My definition of likeable may be different from other people's. That's not traditional likeable. Sympathy is a different thing [to define it].
I like to work - I probably work too much.
Lead roles are fun, but I'm especially happy other, more colorful supporting stuff has come along.
It is because my dad died suddenly that I became an actor. I thought, I'm going to make money doing this thing I enjoy.
I've very critical of myself, and film has been an adjustment for me.
Academia is a rarified culture, especially an Ivy League academic background.
As an actor, to have achieved financial stability is amazing. But I always have this weird fear that I'm not going to get any more work; it's about not having enough money.
The broad comedy thing is really hard to do on film.
I feel like in a lot of ways I've gotten kind of soft as an actor, not doing stage stuff. In terms of being a better actor, it's really important.
I mean, I'm not going to play the hero of something.
Maybe it's because I have too much pride or self-respect, but I thought, `Why does a guy who has thinning hair and who is overweight have to be a loser or a joke?'
Come on, man.... Hemingway, Sexton, Plath, Woolf. You can't kill yourself before you're even published.
I always would be happy to make a character even more unlikable, but you know, there's a limit and if you go there, you get into a very different kind of movie, man.
I get a fair amount of time between projects, which is great. It takes me awhile to start getting nervous about getting another job again. I don't mind having a lot of down time. I'm pretty lazy. So I really don't mind it. But I'm lucky; I work fairly steadily. I'm lucky that I've managed to do that.
I definitely had a top-notch education.
I don't mind talking about acting. I don't have anything interesting to say about it, but it's interesting talking about it.
I definitely have a tendency to only see the blemishes of things, and see lots of things about my acting that I don't like.
I felt like I did lots of crappy work in the past. I can't even tell.
