On land, you can walk away from people, from unpleasant situations. But when you're on a ship for 14 months with 49 other people, if you don't resolve your issues it literally could mean - and this would be an extreme circumstance - the sinking of the ship. You learn a lot about other people. You learn a lot about yourself.

For me, the experience of making the show is very much like being in a novel. I enjoy getting the new script. I make a cup of tea and I read it the same way I would read a book, with the same amount of joy.

I grew up 60 minutes way from Richmond, in Charlottesville, Virginia and, as a child, I was obsessed with the Civil War. I used to do re-enactments and all that stuff.

To me, the AMC brand is great storytelling - they call it slow-burn storytelling.

Some of the best auditions I've ever had have been when my agent called and said, 'They want you 20 minutes ago, in an office in Century City, to see you for something.' I'm not sitting there thinking for a week and a half, before I'm supposed to go in front of a network president to do something. That just gives you time to be nervous.

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.

So many movies are so formulaic because you've got to get it done in an hour and a half. On a TV series, that's where the really interesting stuff can happen.