I'm actually embarrassed to tell people I'm Russian these days, because it's become such an awful place.

I've been really interested in focusing on the aspects of my Russian heritage I'm proud of. I'm actually em­barrassed to tell people I'm Russian, because it's become such an awful place.

The way I see the job, my definition of it, is to create characters to the best of your ability and then fit into what's trying to be accomplished in the general framework of the film. I think that's whether you're doing this- even if you're doing musical theater. That's what I think an actors job is. I don't know. I like to think what an actors job is is to create characters.

I think you can always find interesting, complex and fascinating characters to play in different kinds of movies. It's in your hands.

I want things to be characters and not me. Why would I want to play me?

I don't feel any connection to Russia.

There's only a handful of people I trust completely, and I know who they are. Other than that, I pretty much don't trust people.