My philosophy is, 'Show up, shut up, and do your job,' and if you do it to the satisfaction of your director and the public, you're likely to be able to do it again.

Your primary tools, as an actor, are observation and imagination. You can pretty much get everything you need from that, and you do. It brings back that element of pretend.

I was relatively buff (before 'Avatar'), because I was working in a tanktop half the time on stage, anyway, but I just went kind of into hyperdrive after that and really worked to beat that old body into shape, to get that carcass where...I didn't want to be looking at it and see anything hanging where it shouldn't be hanging.

What has emerged as I've gotten older is simplifying the characters I play, unless the role calls for something that is arcane or ornate.

Theater, because of the commitment, it has to be a great role and a great play to me. It takes a lot out of you.

Hamlet, that's the only role there is, finally. The only role. After that, you settle down and only do the fun things on stage.

With correction, and given the chance, 'Terra Nova' can and will deliver seasons of transcendent images and story-telling. 'Terra Nova' is the Hubble Telescope of television.