Let me demonstrate. When you greet a friend this is the duration of the kiss that's acceptable. "Hi, good to see you - yeah." When you make a mistake and stay too long at the lips, this is how long it is. "Hi, how are you? Good to see you." And that's what happened. It was like, "Uh-oh, what was that? Oh."

It's cyclical. I'm riding a wave right now, and I recognize that. I wanna do as much work as I can, do the best I can. And when it's all said and done and they say, "Get outta the water, you're done," I wanna be so exhausted that I look forward to it.

I didn't feel entitled to become a star. I didn't expect it.

My passion is becoming involved in good work, whether that means as an actor or writer or director or producer or all - that is not as important to me.

This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.

When 'Malcolm in the Middle' was over, I was looking for a drama more than a comedy...but if it was a comedy that came up, it would have to be as well-written as 'Malcolm' was, and it would have to be a different kind of character than I played on that show. That's harder to come by. In drama, there were more opportunities, more options for me, and when I read ('Breaking Bad'), it was just, 'Good night, Nurse! I'm going after this sucker!'

I realized, "Oh my god, this is an enormous play. And it's almost all me. Big. big chunks of speeches, speeches, speeches." And I started to panic.