It was amazing to be nominated by the Academy who saw fit for me to be nominated for best supporting actor. The Critic's choice award was wonderful. I'm on cloud nine.

Who told you to step on my sneakers? Who told you to walk on my side of the block? Who told you to be in my neighborhood?

The beauty of the unexpected and unknown, and it's certainly very tantalizing for me as an actor. Other actors can't deal with that; they want to know, but then they make choices and decisions with that knowledge because that knowledge gives them forethought, and they can think about how they want to play something that takes away spontaneity of what they could be doing.

We all do things at certain points that are contradictory. Some things, it's a smaller contradiction, and other things it's larger.

People who have not done their research on me do not know that I am European, born in Copenhagen, Denmark to an Italian father from Napoli and a mother from Alabama who was singing opera and went to Europe, met my dad, fell in love, and then moved back to Rome, where I was raised, between Rome and Hamburg.

Many times - especially when I'm playing an historical character - I want to be really on target with how I create that character and really nuanced with who that human being might be. But I don't want to lose the likeness of me or the depth of my own personality. So meditation and my spirituality has helped me to realize that, yes, I want to get out of the way but I also want the ability to hold on to what the audience likes of what they see of me.

I have a lot of very, very powerful women in my life. My mother being the first.