I had interest in acting. I started as a drama major in college. I got to school and said, "What am I going to do with this?" But I didn't know anybody in the business, and it seemed like - I don't know. I had a teacher who said "Less than 1 percent of you will ever make a living being an actor." That was how we opened the semester.

My family moved - first to Washington, D.C., and then, in the spring of 1975, to Lebanon, where my father worked as a diplomat at the American embassy. My parents were enthusiastic about the move, so my older brother and I felt like we were off to some place kind of cool.

You don't get to pick your partners in families; you get assigned a seat at the table.

Cat lovers turn into cat collectors.

Jack Nicholson is fairly gifted. We were at the Sistine Chapel, and everybody went from looking straight up to looking across the room at him.

There is a gambling element to being somebody who is going to take on the job of constantly trying to represent and prop up people who might be somewhat shady. That notion is probably part of how they got the rap. But, I have to find the balance of being colorful, being at times despicable, and also being somebody who does believe in something.

Regardless of the weight of the role, I feel like the job is always kind of the same. Who is this person? What's this guy here, what's he trying to say? And what's the volley with all these other people around him? So I don't feel like that part of it changes. I have not reached the point - if there's a point you reach as an actor where it's, "Oh, I got this figured out, I know how to do this". But I am happy to say that the primary building blocks of where you start, at least, there is a little bit of sameness to that. And that's always nice.