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Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

I'm always working. My cousins call me the longshoreman of actors.

My dad was a longshoreman in the Port of Miami. Tough job. I worked down there in the summer once. One day. Never again. My dad was a no-nonsense guy. As a kid, I hated his rules, but as a man, I understand what he was teaching. He taught me you have to work hard for everything you get.

Well, I think I've had a fairly meandering career.

People like me who grew up in a working-class town, who don't have a college education, you don't usually hear from us.

But I stuttered as a kid. I went to classes to help it, and it just went away around fourth grade, when I became more aware of how others spoke, I think. But also, growing up in the South, a mumble is a way of speaking.

When I was in college, my whole goal was to write for the 'Village Voice,' and I think I was doing that by the time I was twenty-one or twenty, so everything else has kind of been gravy, you know?

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

Prior to going to college, I had a pretty strong accent, and that was one of the things I had to work on a lot. I went to North Carolina School of the Arts; my speech teacher... that was one of the things we really had to work on over the years, and thankfully I think it finally worked.