I think it helps, as an actor, to never know when you're going to get that next script and you're done.

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.

I went to school to play sports, but I got involved in theatre in college kind of by mistake. I ended up taking an acting class almost just to get rid of an arts requirement, but I wound up in this wonderful acting class with this teacher named Alma Becker who really saved my life. I was just kind of this knucklehead kid from DC and I was in and out of trouble all of the time. I took a theatre class and she really discovered something in me and I absolutely fell in love with it.

My time in Moscowmade a man of memade me an artistthere was a reality and a brutality of life that I think was very important, as a young American, for me to see.

People have different goals, when you start out making a movie. If the goal is darkness and destruction and despair, it's not like, "Hey, let's go to set, and then let's hit the bar afterwards. Let's jaunt into London and pick up some Chinese food." No, you go home from set and you go fight at the gym, and then you go to sleep. You stay in it. You never excuse yourself, you never take it easy on yourself, you never eat good food.

I did come to L.A. to try to get on TV and get in front of a camera, so I could have a stage career in New York.

Fighting really does reveal everything to the other guy. It's not just about who can beat up to or who's tougher, it's who bullies who and who goes easy on who. You change from opponent, so it's about how you deal with a challenge and how you deal with a guy who you can handle easily.