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A huge part of acting in movies is appetite. You do your best work when you've got a lot of appetite and you really want to embrace something. When you get tired, you don't have that hunger.

When you're still, and some actors are really brilliant at that, you bring a kind of energy to you as opposed to sending the energy out. There are some actors, like Gary Cooper or Kevin Spacey, that are absolutely brilliant - Gene Hackman is another - at being and allowing the audience to just do the work.

You can feel yourself trying too hard, doing too much. Nobody wants to watch somebody when they're needy, and actors are in the unfortunate position of needing to be cast and needing to be liked.

I think a lot of actors take on fun roles and then they're lazy or flippant with them. I just can't do that.

Actors create a fantastic lifestyle thinking they're going to be able to maintain it. Then they can't get work or have to start taking work that doesn't suit them.

There is only so much you can do if you're pulling weight and there's nobody there to play off of. You can't have those beautiful moments with new actors who are so worried about everything else but the moment.

The only day I will worry is if I stop getting exciting roles. As an actor, I have so much to give. There's a lot of fire and hunger in me to juice every part that I get.

As a working actor, all I want to do is work. That's it. It's terrifying when you don't work. It's very hard when you don't work. There have been times when I've been out of work for like six months. I feel theatre to me is like manna.

There's only so much you can do until you get on set and see the aesthetics of what you're dealing with. Then you see what the other players are giving to you. It's all about the transfer of energy between different actors.

As an actor, I like as much time with the material as possible and given the opportunity, time spent with the other actors in the scene. But that is a rare luxury in working in any TV series.