It's hard to find scripts that know what they are from page one to page 115.

I think the real heroic teachers are the ones who work with kids, like my mom and my sister do.

My favorite parts of work as an actor and a director are those unplanned mistakes that do happen, because it's like catching lightning in a bottle. It's the best part of what we do.

You're kinda striding the line of what's yours and theirs. What's yours, what's mine, what's ours as creators of it and what's yours as owners.

The only episode which was completely my idea was for Mitch Pileggi, the actor who portrays Skinner, the Assistant Director of the FBI. He appears often in the series, but only for a few scenes. You know virtually nothing about him. I wanted him to have an episode that was his alone, so I wrote Avatar for him. He even has a scene that's pretty . . . hot [knowing smile]. He was very happy.

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.

I don't mind close-ups, I like them, but they're kind of forceful - you see a lot, you get a lot of information in a close-up. There's less mystery.