Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.

Looking at acting, in the movies or the theater, and the way I like to look at it, it’s just an extension of childhood play… Kids play and imagine in a very intense fashion and they don’t need any director telling them “You really have to believe in it.” They believe in it completely.

It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.

There are people that grandstand and seem to be publicly politically engaged because they like the attention, more than because they're genuinely concerned about the world. But I don't think that's the majority.

It doesn't take that many years for a kid to realise that they're going to die. It's always there in the back of their mind the rest of their lives.

I campaigned for [Dennis] Kucinich in 2008. I continue to be in touch with him and I really admire him. I think he's very brave and honest - unusually so for a U.S. politician.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is.