I played sports in high school and in college.

I think that, just like the art scene and the music scene is exploding in LA - I mean, let's face it: if you want to be an artist you cannot live in New York anymore because it is too expensive…

I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.

I want people to think about everyone in their life, and their responsibilities to their friends, their families and their country.

We all come from different levels, and I think every human has their own relationship to violence, athletic violence and fighting.

I've never been a big gore guy.

I think so many great artists are flocking to LA because the downtown art scene is so vibrant, there is cheap living and you can really flourish as an artist there. There is an unbelievably supportive and really smart, talented theatre audience in LA full of young, hungry, vibrant people. It's something that sort of makes me think of what New York must have been like in its downtown theater scene in the 1980s - before my time.