My entire life has been an attempt to get back to the kind of feelings you have on a field. The sense of brotherhood, the esprit de corps, the focus - there being no past or future, just the ball. As trite as it sounds, I was happiest playing ball.

I don't think you could function on set if you think like that. I think once you start to think of the impact, then you're not really coming from a truthful place. I think the best thing to do for me is what's worked in the past.

I will read biographies or autobiographies while I'm writing, but mostly I put books in a to-read queue, like Rachel Cusk's new novel, "Outline."

As I've gotten older I've become a devotee of 19th-century authors, such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

It's always like you write a poem when you can't really say what you're trying to say.

We like to keep the sexual tension underplayed, especially between the Smoking Man and me. Once we thought he was my father . . . it got more interesting.

My whole life, Ive wanted things before I was ready. I was always pushing for the next job, the next success. I was so focused on achieving and the path that I was missing some great point about life.