My role models were always the Pacinos and the Oldmans, the guys who get dirty with their characters, and I arrived in L.A. during the big boom of 'Dawson's Creek.' I was getting cast as the boy next door, or the friend of the jock. I thought, 'Did I really have to do all that studying?'

It's funny, people talk about the characters they play and who do you sort of see yourself as or which ones maybe were closest to you and in some ways.

I never wanted to get caught in doing something that was really one note.

I needed to put something together that would continually get me up at 4:30 in the morning, get me to work and get me excited to throw on those costumes - which clearly continue to excite me, if you are a viewer of the show - and circumstances that continue to surprise me and ask me to go places acting-wise that I haven't explored before.

I wanted to be in an anti-gravity machine so bad! Maybe a different time, a different place.

I'm not going to lie. I would definitely steal stuff from set.

My father is a college professor and that's about the extent of my college experience. I'm sort of a professional student forever. I think just as human beings we always have a student who is alive in us and is waiting to pop up and make us feel like we are 16 years-old again.