I sailed a bit as a child, but it wasn't until I was around 40, when I was halfway through Patrick O'Brian's 'Master and Commander' novels, that I had the sudden epiphany that I had to go sail on a square-rig ship.

Everything about acting is a challenge. I'm self-conscious. You couldn't do anything to cause me to be more self-conscious than to stick a camera in my face and have 60 people standing behind it, waiting for me to perform.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to widdle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious.

The feeling of being at sea has put me in touch with who I am to a greater degree than if I had been on land all these years. So, in a roundabout way, I imagine it does inform my acting.

I don't really collect the mementos. I do steal books off of sets. If there's a library on the set, you can bet that I'll steal away with a book or two.

When I first came to Hollywood, I used to dream of doing films and escaping television.

I shampoo only once a week or so, with tree tea oil shampoo. And when I slap moisturizer on my face - just some stuff I bought in the grocery store - I pile it through my hair.