I'd never done anything that required a five-year commitment. To build a show that seems to have kept the imagination of the world so much was a bit otherworldly.

We often get pigeon-holed as a tough guy, or whatever else. I've been pigeon-holed as a heavy and serious, and almost a baddy, but not quite a baddy, over the years of my work in television, particularly.

I don't know where the line is. I don't know how much of myself is in Walter. There's got to be a bit of him there.

Particularly in the final season [of Fringe], when we were shooting seven-day episodes with a reduced budget and big special effects, the team was so polished, by then, that we were able to do it and, I think, with incredible results.

I remember when I read Walter, for example, six years ago now, I said, "This is the role for me." I said that to my family. There was something there that I knew was absolutely right, and that was just based on the character. That's when gut instinct comes into play. I know there are certain things I won't do.

[Fringe] was just about doing the job, or trying to do the job, properly. It was never a job that you could rest on your laurels. It was a very challenging 43 minutes of television that we were shooting, every week.

We didn't know until really quite late in the piece how Joel [Wyman] would finish it off.