It's always best not to be thinking a hell of a lot while you're acting, because you want it to be as spontaneous as possible, not too intellectual. Just behaving and listening to other people who you're doing scenes with. I always like the latter when it looks easy, even though it may not be.

A lot of actors in my age bracket look at being still standing as pretty good.

If you're onstage and you're improvising and nothing's happening, people are racing for the door. But the director can go shopping later and pick up pieces and moments and insert them.

But for me, you also have to be conscious of what is going to play. And that includes playing with. Sometimes it's just a vibe. It's what's going to make this scene work. And sometimes there may be something that restricts you that has to do with something that maybe is historically accurate. And then you have to weigh that decision and give up something for a scene to work.

Part of you wants to look over at the people watching and say, "Not bad, huh? Me and Clint Eastwood." But you have to get past that and just be an actor.

You need someone to tell you how to do things like hitting your marks, or driving a car so it looks right or getting out of a car so it doesn't take a million years of screen time.

You don't really have time to do other than what's written. It's very rigid. Shows have a certain rhythm that nobody wants disturbed. So a lot of that doesn't take place on television, at least the television I was doing at the time when I first started.