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Most actors want the audience to like them, and that leads to bad acting.

That is one of the reasons one enjoys acting. Now and again, you get scenes where you work with somebody really good and you have a good time trying to make it really work and really work well.

Sometimes, as an actor, you're so deeply immersed in a part that you lose control of it. If you're really lucky, a few times in your life it'll take you somewhere you never expected to go. It really blows the top off your understanding of your craft.

Actors want to act. I think a lot of times what happens is that they're expected to bring it all. Probably because I'm a writer, I'm not telling them what to do. I just provide them with as much as I can.

I think as an actor, you're constantly putting yourself out there, and a lot of times failing - and failing in front of a bunch of people - and sometimes you have a good moment and something clicks.

You need the actors to feel as much ownership of the performance and the direction of the story as you do to get the most out of everyone's potential. Part of it is just making sure we all have the same vision.

The truth is, good actors are always looking to do something different. They are dying to play slightly odder characters or work on movies that aren't straight down the middle.

As an actor, you're listening to the other person and always trying to be present and take everything they're giving you, but when they're not there, you have to produce that yourself.

Sometimes 'great acting' is just showing off - chewing up scenery and dialogue and other actors - the equivalent of a theatrical sugar rush.

In TV, sometimes you get lost in the fog of the scene, and when you're working with such good actors, they can bring you into the scene.