When you're watching yourself work, you're not really an audience member for yourself. Even being confronted by your own image can be jarring sometimes. The experience of making a movie or a television show is this really full one, and sometimes you see it and even if it's a great piece of work, it's not the experience - i t's almost sad because it reminds you of something that isn't anymore.

If you feel like you're working with good people, you give them your humanity and just let it happen.

I did my friend's film - this guy Harrison Atkins who's a great filmmaker. He just makes movies with all his friends, and I think that's all what we're striving for - to feel like we're among friends and people who care about each other. I'd like to think that good work comes from that - from a sort of loving and friendly environment.

What's nice about writing and making films is that being able to see a film from the outside - from the inception through production and then completion - just informs what you're doing when you're an actor. And when you're an actor, it informs the decisions you make when you're making a film. It's using two different sides of your personality.

I think you should identify with your character, but plenty of people like themselves and hate themselves. You just have to find out what's truthful for the person you're playing. When people talk about that, I think what they're saying is that as an actor, as Peter, you don't want to make a judgment that comes from your worldview about the character. Your judgments should be coming from the place of the character, and within that space, sure, you could love or hate yourself or whatever you think is most appropriate.

Sometimes it's nice to think, "Oh, I can only do this one thing." Instead of feeling like, "I could theoretically, maybe, if I applied myself, could be successful in a number of different fields." That can be overwhelming. Sometimes it's nice to have this myopic vision for your life and that's the only thing you can imagine yourself doing.

When I step back from any moment of crisis that I've ever had, I'm always struck by how humor and tragedy can kind of live in the same moment, holding hands together. How life can go from the ridiculous to the sublime to the tragic all in one breath.