I went door-to-door selling cable television subscriptions when I was in college. I found it incredibly difficult, doing that kind of sales work. I would have thought I'd be good at it, but I wasn't. It's so easy in acting. Everything falls into place when they write that you're a salesman. People just say yes, and then it's great.

When I look back on my childhood, I think of that short time in Beirut. I know that seeing the city collapse around me forced me to grasp something many people miss: the fragility of peace.

There's something in human nature, the trying-to-get-on-with-it quality of people, the struggle to maintain or keep the show going can be exhausting. It just seems like that element of trying to move forward while things are breaking down... Obviously, it's always been the backdrop for a lot of great literature and great cinematic characters, but aside from that, I'm just drawn to it because that feels honest to me.

My adolescence was all tits and champagne. I'm downplaying the magic of it all.

I was always explaining why my term papers were never on time. I think that's where I got my acting training!

I'm very leery of show business, having been in Los Angeles for the last 10 years. Buzz is a dangerous thing that I've heard applied to a lot of people that I've since not heard of again.

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.