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!

I got to play Santa, too. It's really important to play Santa, you know.

I don't know if one's more typecasting than the other, or what I am more like. But I know that the high school I went to was a private school. It was prep school. It was a boarding school. So we didn't have a shop class. We didn't have Saturday detention. We went to school on Saturday. We did have Sunday study, which you very rarely get, because then you have 13 straight days of school. Who wants that?

It's great to work with people that you like, any job, no matter what you do.

[John] Hughes is a great loss, I think. He was the first filmmaker that could look at someone who was young without seeing them as being less.

I took all the philosophy courses I could.

My first paid acting job was a movie called Fandango. It also starred Kevin Costner.