Voice-over stuff is so much fun because you don't have hair and makeup and wardrobe. You get to show up. And there were some talented people, and we don't even know them. And they're so gifted. They can do all these accents and voices. It's really fun to do that stuff. It's really like actor camp.

Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place.

It's like they talk about how American actors have the method and English actors just kind of switch views faster. And John [Hurt] is telling me the story as he's sitting in that witness chair, and they're putting the final touches of makeup on. And he goes, "Hold on a second," to stop his story so he can do the take. And he does this incredible take. They go, "Cut." And then immediately John goes, "Anyways, so Alec, he's playing the chess." And I'm just going, "Holy crap." You get whiplash from those kinds of quick turns!

As they were building that library in that school's gym [in the Breakfast Club], they built a rehearsal space for us. It was really an empty room taped out with the same dimensions of the library. And they had the tables all there. And he had us sitting at the same table. All of us.

It was an audition process after Breakfast Club, and I wasn't really sure I wanted to do the movie. There was a bigger role that Rob [Lowe] was already set to play, so the role they wanted me to audition for was Alec. [Director] Joel Schumacher... this is back in the days when you could trick me with things like this. He goes, "Don't you think you can play it?" And I go, "Okaaaaay." So then I did it for all the wrong reasons but I don't think I would fall for that again. Who knows. I might.

While they would have provided financial support if I had needed it, the greatest support my parents gave was emotional, psychological.

I went to acting school in New York City for two years. I studied with Stella Adler