Then, at some point, you get identified with certain things.

I was a little nervous coming in mostly because my first scene was with Martin Sheen, who I'm a huge fan of.

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.

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.

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.

You make the choice. You look at each scene and you make sure that this is not a person deceiving people.

To be in a movie directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and a movie that had a large budget... I got a taste of what really good filmmaking could be.