I could have gone to the gym for three hours a day and bought into all that, but I just wasn't interested.

Doing the right thing has power.

Theater is the foundation of how I live my life, actually. My father was a playwright, so I was around it all the time and loved to talk shop with him, just loved it. And basically everything that I hold to be good and true and worthy, I learned in the theater. So not even just about the work, but just about life. Discipline, problem solving, creativity, how to get along with people.

My family is from the South, and I can remember all those ladies I grew up with, like my great-aunts, who had handkerchiefs. There's something sweet about them.

There's something grueling but very appealing about rough, to-the-bone material in a low budget context. There's less between you and the material. There are less people. There is less time. There's often less technology. You have to concentrate very intensely, and you jump in a little deeper because there's nothing in your way... but there are challenges.

Courtroom dramas can be boring.

I have a bag with a toothbrush and toothpaste and all the things I might need during the day. I call the bag my trailer. Sometimes you don't have a trailer, so that's my trailer.