Joe Mantello is the uber director. I wrote him a card tonight saying basically, 'Will you adopt me?'

I think when I was a younger actor, I did carry that stuff home. When I did ...And Justice For All, I was afraid to drop the character. But when you get older, you learn to go, "Okay, that's it. Let's go have dinner."

The most telling one was recently on a plane. This guy very dressed up and formal - the watch, the shoes, the cufflinks, the whole nine yards - he came at me, and I thought I was going to get nailed. But he literally came up to me and just gave me a hug and said, "Thank you for introducing me to a subject that I didn't know anything about." In those moments it always clicks for me what we're doing here.

Joe Mantello is the uber director. I wrote him a card tonight saying basically, 'Will you adopt me?'

I remember going to Bob Preston's dressing room because I was losing a laugh - as you do in a long run. He said, 'Give me the script. That's where you're going off the road.' That's comedy. It's never the line itself; it's in the foundation.

With Hellboy I am doing a comic-book movie. That's what's so great about being an actor: You get to do Meet Joe Black, and you get to do Arrested Development, and then you get to do Hellboy and Eloise, and The Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie. It's great. You get to play the field.

Am I a star? That's a different thing. I mean no, I'm not in People magazine. But I must be doing something right, because I've done it for 50 years! And I like doing what I do.