Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on stage?

I would love to tell you I've found the secret to eternal youth. I go to the gym and avoid too many chips. I love to eat, hate to work out, but if you can't count all your ribs from a distance you're considered obese.

Acting is a really simple job - it's just hard to do. You just have to be that person with their background in that situation. That's all it is. My kids do it all the time when they're dressing up and playing games.

God, I hate interviews with actors pouncing on. Who wants to know about their lives? I don't want to know about Al Pacino's life.

I went off and read the books after the audition and I read all four books in one sitting - you know - didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood why my friends, who I'd thought where slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack.

Acting is usually regarded as a wholly narcissistic pursuit but there really is a hunger in me to unravel the human condition.

In the moment of acting you don't feel like anything, you feel like the person, as much as you can.