At school I was always trying to con my teachers into letting me act out book reports instead of writing them.

The basic laws of good acting are the same, but everything about the experience is different-your job responsibility, the time you spend on it.

I had learning disabilities, and I couldn't express myself in the written word.

My castings sort of go in phases. There'll be several icy professional parts - a lawyer or a cop. And then there'll be the intelligent-but-wounded group and then the period things. It goes in sequence.

There's a real passing down in the theater, almost ad nauseam. You have to listen to older people talk about their experience, but it makes you very aware of what has come before you or what is coming after you - that you're a part of a link in a chain. It's not all about you.

When you tell people, your world changes, your identity changes and people treat you differently. And then, not only do you have to deal with your own emotional response to what's going on, but you take on everybody else's emotional response.

I don't think you should exploit your own pain.