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This is going to sound pretentious and esoteric, but I truly mean it from the bottom of my heart. Acting has always been a spiritual journey for me. The very first project I ever acted on paralleled my experience so perfectly even before I was aware of it.

I see all these people talking about acting as a great spiritual thing. It's not. There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do, but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

I think that there is a sort of spiritual power that is translating into our bodies as we perform. Performers give, and giving is so important. It can heal. That is my experience, anyway.

I think it's vital to have something outside your acting to keep you rooted in the real world, and help you fill the vacuum. If you have nothing else, it can be unhealthy. For me being a Christian has been invaluable: it simply means acting isn't the centre of my life.

The acting served as an outlet for my emotions for some time because I was doing it under the guise of someone else. And that can only be therapeutic up to a point until you truly deal with it and can express it to someone directly. Acting was a helpful outlet for me as a child. In some ways, I can say it saved my life.

For me, acting goes to a special place; it's almost mystical. You have to let go of what you think is good; it's a jump into trust, and trying to reach without wanting too much.

I recognize that every role I play, I'm not going to play someone that has a ministry or that is a Christian, and I don't think that's what God has called me to do. The gift and talent that He's given me as an actor, director, producer is to entertain, sometimes to inform, most times to inspire.

There's that great thing about acting - you're wearing your heart on your sleeve, and you're speaking off the cuff. You know, you're fearless about it, and - and it's great. And I love it.

For me, acting was a way of releasing all of this stuff that I had inside - and a way for me to tell the stories of the people I knew, so that their spirit could live through me.

There's so much more to life than that, though I think that acting is fascinating because you can forget your own sorrow as you act and become somebody else.