You have to keep people engaged until you get them through the next commercial. I'm not complaining about working in TV, at all, but just as an artistic reaction, I find myself being so drawn to moments of silence where things are allowed to breathe.

It could be my downfall, but I don't think it is - Hollywood is run on perception, and if you stray off the path of what you want to do with your career, it's suicide.

Right before I got 'Sons of Anarchy,' I actually quit acting for 18 months and didnt read a single script, and I wrote a film. I felt like I needed to do something that I had control over, as an artist, and also just do something where I felt like I had some control over my life, as just a human, out in the world.

A lot of my friends are gangsters. Not like gangsters - well, yeah, all sorts of levels of criminality - but not the types that are preying on innocent people. I have no interest in the type of criminality that has no respect for collateral damage.

It's generally more fun playing the villain

In the early part of your career you are always compared with somebody until you can stand on your own two feet

I always think it's better to take a smaller role in a great film rather than a leading role in something that you don't have complete faith in.