All I've tried to do as an actor is follow the good writing. That's been my main drive. It's not always possible, so when you do come upon it, like when I came upon this, you realize pretty quickly this is something you need to be involved with.

For me it's always been about the stories, not what medium. The medium is secondary to the stories.

I guess because theater's so ephemeral and it's gone. You make this nightly contract with the audience and you redraw that contract for the next night, whereas film and television, it's forever. I suppose it's always about adopting personas, never about being yourself. I think they call it a "shy man's revenge."

I'm terrible. I'm the wrong person to talk to, I really don't know a thing.

You need to be as clean of a slate as you can be, as an actor. You have to try to be open to every experience.

I think audiences are a lot more intelligent than what we give them credit for and understand that an actor is playing a role and that doesn't mean he can't play different types of roles.

It seemed to work on camera. And there's very few films - because you make a lot of films and you meet people and you work very intensely and intimately and then you're gone - but there's a few where you actually make friends, and this [The Fall] was one.