Having done television for almost 20 years now, a pilot is kind of like a rough draft. It's like bringing people into your ultrasound and hooking up to the monitor and going, "Isn't my baby beautiful?" "Yeah. I can only see the outline of it, but it looks like it might be."

Forget horror icon, Kety Bates is an icon. She's an acting icon. I was raised on so many of her films, everything from Misery to Fried Green Tomatoes to Delores Claiborne, all films that I've watched multiple times and been inspired by.

If you gave your best to what you were given, at the time, it's going to play out how it's going to play out.

Billy [Ray] is a preternatural enthusiast. He would say things to me like, "Now, let me tell you about Episode 3." I'm a big superstitious, having done television for quite some time, and I would say, "Billy, I can't wait to hear about it, but let's just stay here for right now, see what happens, and enjoy this moment.

My standard uniform is a T-shirt and jeans.

Certainly when you're dealing with more deep emotional work and sensory work, for me it helps me to just stay in it.

I at least felt the obligation to speak clearly [in 'The Last Tycoon']. This is pre-Brando and pre-James Dean. Nobody mumbled back then.