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My exposure to Beckett and to late O'Neill was probably important right at the time I gave up poetry and the novel.

I also had a tremendous passion for art and read a lot.

I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.

I could have carried on in comedy. But my life was dark.

Beckett's 'Stories and Texts for Nothing' is probably my favorite book.

The Dumas memoirs - which I also discovered when I was a kid - had a big impact on me.

That's the best thing about being an actor. If you're in a baseball movie, you walk away knowing way more about baseball, or if you're in a sci-fi film, you learn way more about Comic-Con, and so I loved all that.

And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.

I loved Woody Allen's short pieces. I was equally influenced by Woody Allen and Norman Mailer. I was very into this idea of being high-low, of being serious and intellectual but also making really broad jokes.

I discovered Christopher Isherwood in college. His writing style is so direct, warm, and inclusive.