We actors are superstitious creatures. We do all the homework and we put all of the components together, but there's always one key aspect that we're not in charge of, really, and that's magic. You are always on the lookout for where and how that magic is going to ignite. When you have worked as much as I have and have sought it out as often as I do, you get very clear that it will come at very, very odd, unexpected moments.

When you eliminate vanity from an art form, and I would think that this would be any art form, what is left is an opportunity to be incredibly naked and truthful.

A lot of our young people are sleep-walking, dreaming that they're awake, and lots of aspects of society initially go about keeping it so.

You can't play history and you can't play historical characters. You just have to reduce it to the ordinary.

I love characters that are very layered and complex. It's more exciting and different than any simple role- plus, I love a good challenge.

It is the ordinariness of us that is the same in all of us.

I've sort of prided myself on playing characters with conscience. The first way I go about creating a character is looking at that area of conscience. What have they done, and what has it cost.