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I'm a sensitive guy; I respond to things that make my eyes well up a little bit, or make me root for people. I find the human condition interesting.

When I was working on Eye of the Beholder, I played a character who is so aloof that my whole lifestyle became very aloof. If someone knocked on my door, there was a part of me that went into a rage, because I wanted to be isolated and alone.

I was very sensitive to the environment around, and this disparity in people, seeing beggars and laborers not paid well, used to disturb me. So these emotions in these roles came very naturally to me.

The thing that attracted me to acting the most was I always felt quite unsure or insecure as a kid, and for some reason, when I got to perform these lines and characters, I felt safe. There was this confidence and excitement from performing that I loved.

Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.

I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

I really only take roles that I love and that I have some kind of innate compulsion or need to tell that story. Although it's almost like I have no control over it. It's like they choose me.

I was an only child for 16 years. I didn't realize it at the time, but that experience definitely turned me into a people pleaser. I always tried to do what was expected of me, and I constantly sought reassurance from the adults around me that I was doing a good job.

One thing that's happened to me is I've been around a long time and I've played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I'm suddenly starting to play people's father.

Even when I do roles that are really profoundly abusive, like, I would say, in 'Deadwood' - there's a guy who's a breeding ground for ignorance and hurtful behavior - the fact that people are so taken aback by that is a good thing because they're looking at themselves, and there's a part of me in there, too.