When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.

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.

If you're going to play a champion athlete, people expect you to look a certain way, and you also have to have the stamina to be able to continue to perform.

I love the whole world of boxing and the sense of community that exists there.

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.

I always wanted to play a boxer because some of my favorite films, as a boy, were those great boxing movies, like 'Raging Bull', 'Rocky', 'The Set Up', 'Fat City and Hard Times'. I just loved those films.

I love boxing, and boxing has always been my favorite sport. I was always into it, and I boxed recreationally all of my life.