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The characters that I'm typically drawn to are sensitive men who are experiencing some sense of identity crisis or growth in their life that they don't know how to overcome.

Although I'm not particularly troubled myself, I do have a lot of empathy for troubled characters.

I think one thing is that anybody who's had to contend with mental illness - whether it's depression, bipolar illness or severe anxiety, whatever - actually has a fair amount of resilience in the sense that they've had to deal with suffering already, personal suffering.

I don't think I could play a character that I couldn't relate to somehow. I'm not unfamiliar with frustration, anger, shame, helplessness and a load of other emotions that make up our psycho-soup. I try to focus on that frustration, that sense of unfairness, and multiply it.

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

Some people look for a certain structure in their lives that they're comfortable with. People who work hard on the road as truckers, people who work hard using their hands. Then there are people who are fortunate enough to have my life, people who play these characters who embody these qualities.

I have always written about characters who fall somewhere in the spectrum between solitary and totally alienated.

I tend to gravitate toward conflicted characters, and a character who is exploring chaos theory and population control and the difficulties of love and family is pretty rich.

My extreme characters are in a state of rebellion or who are being ostracized or being misunderstood, or misfits or trying to fit in and fighting for their rights to love, live, and co-exist. They sort of mirror my own demons.