Poe had this curious kind of alchemical courage, where he took all the terrible things and terrors that happened in his life, all this shame and fear and pain, and turned them into great works of art. He was a complex, brilliant person who was just wired too tight.

My dad had a commercial film company, so he had a videotape player before anyone. So he got Mel Brooks movies or Citizen Kane or some classic old movies. And every summer the revival house in Evanston would show the great films from the '50s and '60s and '70s.

Not only is America a country where torture is now policy. It's now outsourced. It's given to companies at a cost-plus basis. It's a triple whammy of surreal, absolute madness.

Well, acting itself is a form of rebellion, always. Getting up there in front of people, telling stories - you're kind of going against the grain to begin with, wanting to do that, don't you think? Why else would you do it? Except maybe as kind of a way to affirm your very existence.

Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers.

I was only in one of the John Hughes films, and I never saw the other ones. I didn't understand them. I kept hearing a really hip 40-year-old person talking in teenagers' mouths.

I read Noam Chomsky. I like some of Gore Vidal's stuff.