We were talking about television one time, and Damon Lindelof said he felt that, if Ernst Hemingway was writing for media, he would write feature films, and Lev Tolstoy and Fedor Dostoyevsky would write television series because there are some stories you just can't tell in two hours.

Acting gives you cosmic permission to take a trip in movies that lasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until the film is finished.

I love the way Damon Lindelof writes. It's almost like he was channeling me and he had my voice, even though the territory that those lines cover is unpredictable, and goes from raw emotion to laugh out loud funny but always true.

Damon Lindelof said, "There are three kinds of prophets - crazy people, like the Guilty Remnant, false prophets, who just want money, sexy and power and use that to get it, and real prophets - and you're a real prophet in 'The Leftovers'. The voices that speak to you never tell you a lie." And I said, "Name me some real prophets." He said, "Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad." I said, "Which one am I?" And he said, "None of them. You're probably closer to Moses than anyone."

Very rarely do actors, even with features, get to live with a part for that long and really dig into it.

You can't expect a man like me to be loyal to just one woman.

J.J. Abrams wanted me to do a part in Lost and we probably had three meetings, and I finally turned it down, but it wasn't because I didn't like television or Lost, although I think I said to J.J., "I don't want to be in Hawaii and have an insurance person tell me I'm not allowed to go free dive and spear fishing." That would be the worst kind of torture in the world. But I don't hate television.