You want to try and bring a character to life in an honest a way as you possibly can. It doesn't matter whether he's a doctor, an actor, a car salesman or a captain of a starship. If you can bring truth and honesty to that character, then your audience will believe you.

I never intended to be on television or in a movie. The theater was all I ever dreamed about, once I decided to try to make it as a business profession. All this other stuff has just been icing.

The reality of our business is that for every actor who's rolled up his tent and given up and gone home, the next day you hear about some shoe salesman at Macy's who had this audition and now he's Harrison Ford. There's always that carrot out there in our business.

Being an actor opened doors for me to explore my emotions as different people and characters, and expand my own inner soul.

I wanted to be an actor because it gave me the opportunity to express myself in ways I wasn't comfortable expressing myself, as a kid growing up in St. Louis.

And I've always felt comfortable certainly in a courtroom because you're just performing. And there was a time in my life when I thought when I grew up I'd be a trial lawyer myself.

It's a joyful, humbling feeling to be in different places around the planet and people have seen shows that I'm proud of being a part of, that do have things to say about the human condition, the planet, and who we are and where we've come from, that will sustain. Those ideas are universal and they work in any language.