Aside from what it teaches you, there is simply the indescribable degree of peace that can be achieved on a sailing vessel at sea. I guess a combination of hard work and the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea - the profound solitude - that does it for me.

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.

The only thing better than going to Pitcairn in the first place, is going again.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to whittle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious. So, it's always a challenge, whether I'm lying in a hospital bed or flying around with a rocket pack on my back, or what have you. On the best of days, it's a challenge for me.

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

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.

Once something is well-written, then everything else is gravy.