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And it's sort of an old-fashioned ER, in that it's very much about the medicine, and how these people cope. There's very little about the personal lives of the characters.

My view of actors is that basically they're all harmless lunatics who'd be on the psychiatrist's couch, except that we get this sort of catharsis every six months or so, and we go and be absolutely someone else.

If you have an extreme character, you need normal characters to contrast them. Sherlock Holmes certainly needed a Dr. Watson. And Pippi Longstocking, who supposedly inspired Lisbeth Salander, needed Tommy and Annika, the normal middle-class neighbors.

Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

I love insane, stupid comedy, but I can only make it work if it's a character I can give some history to and make real. Like the guy I played in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' He's a maniac, but to me he was absolutely believable.

Like most people, I'm fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect.

I've found I can plunge the characters into whatever absurd, awful situation, and readers will follow as long as the writer makes them seem like 'real people.'

I do sometimes watch 'Dr. Who' and while the stories barely make sense, if at all, the doctor is such great company I don't care.

Unlike other enduring characters such as 'Sherlock Holmes' or 'Tarzan,' being the 'Doctor' allows you a certain freedom that is both very demanding and very thrilling. It allows you to make the character using elements of yourself.

Medicine is a supremely useful profession. Fiction writing is not.