Acting can be a very reactive profession. Acting is a fantastic thing, and it's my life, but writing is also part of me too, so I did it and in so doing took responsibility for my own life.

The truth is, I'm a character guy. That's how I see myself. I always see the role as being far more interesting and important than I am... not all actors approach it that way.

As you get older, stuff starts to wear down. I can't play four basketball games a week anymore. It takes me three days to recover from one. I'm a little older, a little scrappier. So now I do yoga instead. And whatever else happens in the day, I'm set up in the best way possible. I feel great. I'm so flexible.

I've become more empathetic, and my capacity to understand and be patient - to give people a break - has enlarged over the years.

I've always been curious as to why one man jumps out of a fox-hole with a grenade and charges a machine gun nest and his buddy, who sits right there next to him, sits there cowering. My feeling is that the different is tiny between the two.

Fortitude, determination... in a way they're things that I idealize myself and am curious about.

I get a lot of people coming up to me and saying, "I really hate you." And they say it in the nicest possible way and I accept it. It's the people who come up to you and say, "I really liked your character. Man, he was right!" Those are the ones you worry about.