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.

If you're in something and you feel like it's not going well, what can you do about that? It's out of your hands. No matter what you do, you're not going to fix that as an actor.

I'm four and a half years older than my sister - it's an interesting age difference. Growing up it feels like a big rift. Then you get older and you realize it's not. But for a while there, we really didn't have much to do with each other - mostly because I should have been a better older brother. I'm making up for lost time. I want that in print so she can read it.

I was born in the West Village in New York, and then when I was about four my family moved to what they joke is the suburbs, the Upper West Side. I lived there for most of my childhood.

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.

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.

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.