The only time it`s ever like work is when you don`t like what you`ve done. I`m very lucky in that I haven`t cultivated fame. Which, from what I`ve seen of my contemporaries, takes an enormous amount of time. I have a lot of respect for people that do it and they`re successful at it ... Especially people that aren`t such talented actors.

I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity.

I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me.

I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really?

It's the persona that makes you a leading actor. A leading actor has something extra that's fun to watch. But it isn't usually about acting.

My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7.

A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time.