In the meantime, I just have to create those realistic goals about the fact that I don't have a ton of options as an actor who's been on a science fiction show for 8 years.

I've always found ways to bend the rules.

I couldn't be playing him for this long if I didn't like him.

By the end of last year we solved a lot of threads, and it's really good for this new way we're taking the show to really have these new people and these new energies, frankly.

With network shows, writers can be so protective of every syllable.

But I don't bet the farm on any of those possibilities, either. I'm also preparing, intelligently, to walk away from this, and walk away from it happy to have had the experience.

I think that you can take things personally or get hurt feelings as a result of something not working out just because your psyche said it should or you deserve it, or whatever it is.

I find directing more satisfying.

It's fun to play the character and then watch him later.

We never thought the show would last this long.

I was doing Hamlet in the off-season, and I had a specific idea in my mind about what I wanted that character to look like, and because it's going to lead into the next year, I knew that it was going to have to be established somewhere in the show.

It was nice, though, to have the long term benefit to be able to pare away those things and eventually make the character my own and put my own unique stamp.

There's a way about it: tearing people down, but not tearing them apart.

The environment on set is very encouraging.

There was concern whether SCI FI would want the show back with all the recent changes. But now, the changes have made it feel fresh, like starting over.

You know, if it doesn't work, we can always cut it.

In the meantime, I just have to create those realistic goals about the fact that I don't have a ton of options as an actor who's been on a science fiction show for 8 years.

It's absolutely true that it's almost impossible to play a character without having any affection for him.

I think the writing on the wall is definitely there this year that this is probably our last year.

So already, you go from not having a job and thinking you're going to get fired after the pilot, to knowing that you've got a guaranteed job for 4 years.

For some reason, it popped into my head the notion that a lot of the Next Generation cast in the long run of that show managed to step behind the camera.

My brother had boxes of comic books. He was really the collector.

My favorite actor is Wallace Beery.

I've been a very lucky actor.

I don't think I could be happy as an actor if there was a tyrant on the set.

When I was starting to get noticed as an actor in the 1970s for something other than the third cowboy on the right who ended up dying in every movie or episode, Burt Reynolds was the biggest star in the world.

Most parts that can be played by one actor can equally well be played by another, but not this.

I think, frankly, that I'm a better director than I was an actor.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I never dreamed about being an actor, because that was out of reach. Coming from a small town that was big in farming, and also big in clothing factories, you don't dream about being a professional football player or an actor.

My goal was always to be recognized as a good actor but no one was interested in that, simply because society just wants to warm towards your appearance. This is the great blemish of society.

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

It was very natural for me to want to disappear into dark theater, I am really very shy. That is something that people never seem to fully grasp because, when you are an actor, you are meant to be an exhibitionist.

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.

And once you cease to be a real person, you stop being a good actor.

When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.

There are roles I want that my agency might not want me to do because of the subject matter or whatever. Or there are roles that people won't bring to me because they don't think I'll do it. And that is a big strain because an actor wants to act.

Reality is, I'm an actor and an entertainer, and I really wouldn't know what to do with another profession.

I still feel like I'm trying to make it. It's hard to shed the struggling actor thing.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.

I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood.

In other words, I wouldn't like to be an actor if I could only be real. I like to get wild, behaviorally wild, and it's crazy to think of any form where it's just one way.

An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.

Oh, well, in Los Angeles everybody is an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or a director, or an agent, or... So everybody understands the hours.

I didn't want to be an actor.