People who supported Obama felt like they formed a relationship, that they were being spoken to. The way that campaign worked and the way he's worked during his first term is to make people feel like he's grasping their hand, whether it's by tweeting or email, moments after an event, sometimes during an event. It makes people relate to him.

Growing up, I didn't have any comic books, at all. But my friend had a trunk full of them, so comic books were like candy for me. I would go over to his house for a sleep-over, and I would just be devouring everything I could get my hands on. I knew the sleep-over was going to be over, and I was going to go back to my house and it was going to be Kipling.

I'm not eager at all to present my life out there for public consumption. I like to do one or two films a year and then do what is absolutely obligatory in terms of promoting them. My life outside of films is vital to me.

I lost interest in firearms because we had a dog that was scared to death of the sound of a rifle shot.

You know, when you choose to make your living as an actor, it's all fine and good to look at it as some kind of artistic endeavor. At its best, it is that. But the fact is, most of the actors out there don't earn $3 million a picture and can't afford to take two years off between films and look for the right thing. Most of us are tradesmen.

I think that Barack Obama faces a level of divisiveness, and I don't mean on a national level in terms of the North and the South and the Civil War; I really mean just politically.

Acting is a great way to make a living, especially when I consider what my alternatives were and probably still are. I mean, you are only making movies. It is a lot less pressure than being a surgeon; although it seemed like the only other thing that I was qualified for was manual labour.