I prefer the smaller acting than big histrionics. It's about reacting and looks, which is often underestimated.

If in my twenties I'd gotten one of the two-dozen roles that I did screen tests for and almost got, I think I would have become bored with the awards circuit, the whole hype machine.

Perhaps the itinerant upbringing my brothers and I had has something to do with my continued interest in perspectives different from my own.

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.

Freud was the son of a Jewish merchant who had to move his whole family to Vienna because he couldn't get work. He, as a boy, had to watch his father be mocked and abused on the street for being Jewish... You develop a thick skin and you develop a certain kind of wit to defend yourself.

It's amazing to me that Glenn Beck can be on the cover of 'Time,' and there can be a whole article about him basically saying, 'Well, you know, he's controversial.' It's like, 'No, he's a dangerous idiot who needs the help of a good psychiatrist!'

Usually the characters I play are men of few words, who communicate in non-verbal ways.