Shameless is a rough show, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s also beautiful.

I don't know if it's fair to say that it's a bad time for movies. It seems to me that throughout the entire history of filmmaking, every year there have been about two really wonderful movies, about 10 others that are pretty good, and a whole pile of garbage.

Stephen King writes a lot of things that are really charming and quirky, and that are more ironic than horror.

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.

Ninety percent of the preparation we do as actors is just jive. It doesn't do anything.

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.

The actor has the advantage - or the liability - of knowing, "It's going to be my face up there on the frickin' screen, so I better keep my wits about me. Nobody's going to care that I was bad because I was not happy. They're only going to know I'm bad."