I had always wanted to play a boxer, all of my life. I grew up watching great boxing films.

Boxing is a place where, if you haven't done the training, that's going to be exposed very quickly.

I watched tapes and became a historian of the sport, and tried to combine certain elements and find things in the gym and saw what worked for me.

The greatest gift that an actor can have is good scripts because then you're relieved of the responsibility of trying to elevate the material.

As an actor, you very rarely have the experience of picking up a script and getting a few pages into it and realizing that what you're holding in your hands is not just a role on a TV show, but it's one of those special parts that comes along, once or twice in a career. If you're lucky, you get an opportunity to do something really memorable and to be part of one of those rare shows that passes into that special category.

Not all television scripts are created equal. And the process is ridiculous. They send you a script and want you in the next morning. That's not how acting works. You can do anything to me as an actor; I'm a very resilient guy. Just don't rush me. If you ask me to do it immediately with no time to prepare, I know you have contempt for actors.

You think like a boxer and behave like a boxer, and you try to live your life that way, being in the gym all the time and being careful to push the plate away at the dinner table. You don't need dessert. When you're out having fun, you ask for agua instead of vodka. It's very important.