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.

My father is also gifted at business, which is a blessing and a curse, because if you have the kind of mind that he does where you can do anything very well, that in its own way is sort of limiting.

I've always known that I wanted to be an actor. My family kind of was a theatrically inclined family. My father came to New York when he was a young man to be an actor and he, over a course, was in a couple Broadway musicals. I grew up in family where theater was always part of the vocabulary. By the time I was a teenager I was just totally obsessed, and it was the only thing I could imagine myself doing.

When father was younger than me he came to New York to be in musicals and was in a number of them. But he, at that time in his life, didn't feel he could fully commit to a creative life - he had this voice in the back of his head that said, "I need to make money." So that propelled him to open up an ice cream parlor, which then spawned into a number of different food businesses and took over his life for 20 years.

I took ballet for two years in high school and then in college on and off, and I went back into class. I'm nowhere near good enough to be a professional, but it's great to be in that environment. The discipline is so impressive.

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.

Seeing a movie you're in is nothing like seeing a movie you're not in.