You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie.

I was a dog in a past life. Really. I'll be walking down the street and dogs will do a sort of double take. Like, Hey, I know him.

All modesty aside, I think I'm good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don't read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they're always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind's eye in real time.

I've studied Stanislavsky, and Mamet taught Stanislavsky, and I studied with Sanford Meisner. But the part of the method that I think is the most fruitful is the method of physical actions. It all comes down to your objective: Nothing else counts except what you want. How you feel will take care of itself.

The character and the actor in a long-running series slowly become one. I think there must be funny stories about actors who, in the pilot for a TV series, did some weird thing with their eyes, or some speech impediment or something, and the next thing you know, it's eight years later, and they're still doing that freaking gag.

I think theater is powerful. The best experiences I had in the theater are more powerful than the best experiences I had in movies.

You'd much rather act with a pal, someone you know really well. That way, you can cut all the niceties and go right to insulting each other.