I think it's always good when you're able to, as an actor, allow your work to be some kind of a conduit for social discourse, and an examination of where we are, as a society.

My first job was a show called The Others. I had, like, three lines. Julianne Nicholson was in it, and Gabriel [Macht]. I remember Gabriel wasn't there the day I was, but he sent a note, because he went to Carnegie Mellon as well, so we knew each other a little bit through that, and he was so sweet and generous. It was meant to be a recurring role that would evolve on the show, but the show only lasted a little while and I ended up only doing that one episode.

Gay kids need to stop killing themselves because they are made to feel worthless by cruel and relentless bullying.

It certainly woke me up to how vulnerable we all are. I think I was much more cavalier about it before I started working on the movie [Edward Snowden], and then the more I read the documents themselves and saw just how sweeping and indiscriminate the intrusions into our privacy have been, it made me more aware.

We [with Neal Dodson and Corey Moosa] wanted to draw people in with a dialogue - whether it's a creative process or a social issue or innovation of some kind; whether it was how we told the stories or what stories we told. We produced some online videos.

I think somewhere in the '90s, it started to shift, and you started to see a lot of film and television actors doing theater, and producers using the notoriety of the film and television actors to sell tickets.

I think the goal is always to go deeper within myself, and accept myself on deeper levels and to know myself on deeper levels. Whether or not I look for roles that are going to do that for me, I certainly look for the ways in which the roles I get can do that for me.