Movies are terrifically optimistic enterprises.

It takes a very long time to read a script. I'll look at a script, but there are so many scripts. I remember once being at the dentist, and the guy was doing my teeth and telling me about the screenplay he'd written and he said, "Will you read it?" And I said "Oh...okay." And it turns out that it was about a dentist!

And I think that when I play these villains, maybe what is different is that the audience sees me play these and they know that that's Chris and he's having fun and he knows that and he knows that and you know that and everybody knows that.

I have made a number of movies that I have never seen. It's not a matter of ego. It's a matter of being disappointed. It's really a shame. It's just as difficult to make a movie that no one cares about as to make a hit.

I became an actor kind of by accident. I was in musical theater and I got a job as an actor in a play and kept going. But I never set out to be an actor; it happened over time.

I've been to Chicago a lot - it's one of my favorite places. My wife is from Chicago, and I worked in the theater there a lot.

My own way of thinking is very conservative, very linear and not particularly imaginative, but if I look for things in different places, sometimes things happen.