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We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie.

In the case of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, an issue that is central to the film - torture - is so important that I feel I must say something. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have been irresponsible and inaccurate in the way they have treated this issue in their film.

After 30 years in the theater, I'm used to having a great amount of control over what I do. But with '24', you place your character's life in the writers' hands, and you have no idea what's going to happen until you're sent the next pages.

Sometimes the hardest part I think for actors on '24' is some of the jargon and getting the ideas and the thoughts and the information out quickly enough and succinctly enough and clearly enough.

My sister-in-law believes that few narratives are so tightly constructed that you can't skip boring bits and still keep abreast of what's going on.

There is a comfort zone of knowing where things are going and having characters in place, but the action gets more and more dramatic and is very challenging to describe.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

A little bit of gratuitous violence in a well-thought-out story is fine.

It makes me actually quite angry to think about people writing about torture with a sort of relish. Horrible.

I'm all about entertaining and keeping a reader on the edge of their seat, so to me, the social issues have to be meaningful and give the book what's really 'at stake,' but ultimately it's not about them - it's always a personal story of everyday people thrust into life-threatening situations and having to perform heroic acts.