For me, becoming a man had a lot to do with learning communication, and I learned about that by acting.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I started acting, it was really the way for me to be able to communicate.
I'd had an early stint in acting school, and there was something satisfying about becoming a character, about being inside another mind that you had to create out of yourself. As I moved toward a life in writing, I found many of the things I'd learned in acting school still applied.
Everything I learned as an actor, I have basically applied to writing.
I taught myself to listen and kind of regurgitate what I was surrounded by, and it's been a wonderful tool to have as an actor.
I hardly knew anything when I first arrived. I had to learn how to act as I went along. After about a year I got a grip on what acting was all about and it started coming straight from my heart; I wasn't just saying the words any longer.
Well, in order to become a grown man, in order to become significant in my family and significant in my children's life, I had to learn my lessons.
I started to study, because I knew I had to learn a lot about myself as an actor; you can't act the same as you did as a child.
Whether it's being a leading man, making TV shows, being with my family, I've learned a lot.
But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman.
I learned much more about acting from philosophy courses, psychology courses, history and anthropology than I ever learned in acting class.