I never said, 'I'm going to be a big star.' I said, 'I'm going to be a good actor.' And that took the pressure off.

There is no best anything in art. Phillip [Hoffman] isn't better than Heath [Ledger]; Joaquin [Phoenix] isn't better than David [Strathairn] or Terence [Howard]. They aren't better than me. We all do different things. It's more of a celebration of a lot of great work than to give the gold to somebody. The underappreciated factor certainly has gone away.

There are so many projects that you go into hoping the story works, and here comes a new third act and that kind of thing.

Everything’s a story, kid. Stories are what help us make sense of the world.

Television in the last few years has been where all the great writers are going. TV now is what indie film used to be.

I don't watch dailies. I don't pretend not to read reviews, I just don't. I wait for it to come on the air, just like everybody else.

And the actors tend not to want to watch themselves very often. I'm one of those guys.