I look at it scene-by-scene. Whether it's a historical character or not, whatever, on the page is one thing and delving into the history or somebody is one thing, but making something work for an audience in front of a camera is another exercise and you bring whatever authenticity you can to it.

Good decisions don't make life easy, but they do make it easier.

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.

A show that's been successful that been on a while, chances are it's going to stay that way. At least it's going to maintain some kind of standard. But when a show begins, there's no telling. Even after 13 shows or a whole year, you don't know what will become of it.

Improv is not something I had a lot of experience with, because for a long time, my only experience in front of a camera was all television, which is pretty rigid script-wise, except for the occasional scene where you toss in an ad-lib just to elongate something.

The one nice thing about doing a character for a long time is, you begin to feel more comfortable, and you are thinking less and behaving more. 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.

When you make a movie, it's up to so many things and so many people.