When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.

I certainly don't want to have too many pre-conceived notions before I show up because then you might be cutting yourself off from the real lessons of what is going on.

There are certain ways of being that people don't find acceptable or very pleasant in regular life, but you go out on stage and do pretty much the same thing and they find it spellbinding.

This whole notion of the acting career as a monopoly where you rise to power... it doesn't really work that way. I don't ever really feel powerful in any way. It's kind of the same thing it's always been: You just figure out what you want to do and you do it.

A lot of times the characters I play tend to be kind of loners or they don't have best friends or best buddies.

I just look at it as a real group activity when you are making movies. There are so many different artists doing so many different things, and they are all interconnected. So I like to see what everybody else is going to bring to the table before I make up my mind too much about anything.

The magic word for me is pumpernickel. I love pumpernickel. I must have some Russian blood in me because I could just eat pumpernickel and raw onions.