I really am a character actor, in my heart of hearts, because I really do like developing characters and painting a past for them.

I've always been fascinated by Baretta and Donny Brasco, and other undercover cops in movies.

The Victorian era is the sexiest age for me, but I also like a woman in a pair of jeans.

You never want to have a movie be derivative, because that's the worst if you ask me. I always want to be in original material, or an original idea, or an original vision, rather than a rehash of some other movie.

I believe that Ryan Murphy is a genius. His instincts remind me of Andy Warhol. I recently went to the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, and you can see a lot of echoes of Andy in Ryan’s work. Like Andy, Ryan’s finger is so on the pulse of culture that he’s ahead of culture. Their aesthetic and their vision of the world are very similar.

When I'm playing a serial killer, I'm in it. I'm not judging him. I'm not judging his environment. I'm just looking for the why. Why is he the way he is? But, there's no doubt that, if you're a good actor, you're going to take this stuff home with you.

My past is not pleasant; I grew up in a very tough town, Waterbury, Connecticut. I grew up in New York, too, but Waterbury was tougher.