I thought a parent's job was to tell their children not to go into acting as a profession!

It is brilliant going to the theatre and being forced to sit and listen and think about life. It can be almost a near-religious experience.

The ratings thing is the real issue. It really hurts movies. For example, in Redbelt, I smoked. The whole plot of my character was based on the fact that I was a smoker. And then they discovered that just by having someone smoking in the movie, it immediately makes the rating an R. So they had to cut out every shot where I had a cigarette in my hand and it totally affected the performance. That was very frustrating to David Mamet as well. I can remember him saying, "It's a nightmare."

There were moments where I was being kicked in the stomach, and even though I had this brace on to protect me, I still had to prepare myself for it . You can't be relaxed when that's happening. You have to brace your muscles. I can remember thinking as it was about to happen "Wasn't that how Houdini died?" I think it was.

You are exposing yourself all the time as an actor. There's the risk of being thought of as bad or boring or unattractive.

The harder the circumstances under which you're making a movie, generally the better the friends you make. You're far away from home and so you're kind of lonely, and you end up all gravitating towards each other and the bar every night. It tends to be inversely proportionate to the comfort level on the movie, how close you become to everybody.

There's something helpful about the fast pace of a TV set where everything has to be finished by the end of the week. You have to finish the episode; it doesn't matter how long you have to go on Friday night, but you have to get it done.