I've been a political junkie for a long time. I find the way Washington works is just fascinating to me.

I think the problem with polemics is that it's general and it's lazy. When you say, "This is bad," that's a general thing. We're more interested in asking the question.

I don't want to do an action movie, because I've acted in them, and they're so boring to do, because they're so technical. The headache of that is daunting. But, if it were an action movie with really interesting characters, how great would that be?

Capital punishment? It makes no sense as a policy: It's not a deterrent, and economically it's a disaster. It's very clear that there are innocent people on death row. And if I put an innocent person to death, that's murder.

I'm a moderate Democrat. I've always been fascinated and maddened by the way things get done in our system, which as an ideal is so extraordinary, but the way it actually works can be mind-boggling.

I think I've inherited a kind ofwillfulness, a kind of quiet willfulness that I'll just hang in there with something until it happens.

My mother's whole family had been from the theater, really. Because I grew up in Hollywood, I wasn't that interested in Hollywood. But the New York theater was completely exotic and fabulous to me.