I love animals. All animals. I wouldn't hurt a cat or a dog — or a chicken, or a cow. And I wouldn't ask someone else to hurt them for me. That's why I'm a vegetarian.

I love working with the same actors repeatedly. That happens a lot. It's kind of inevitable, especially if you work with the same writers and directors and you start to form a company of actors. You gravitate towards each other.

George Martin is an incredible writer.

That's one of the things about theater vs. film - with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?

I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent.

My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.

I hate that word — 'lucky.' It cheapens a lot of hard work