When you're a child you're able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you're around. I wasn't conscious that I was so good at that until I started to truly feel like an actor.

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

No, I knew when I was doing theater in New York that this was what I was supposed to be doing.

To me the definition of true masculinity - and femininity, too - is being able to lay in your own skin comfortably.

When I was younger I used to pick things just to face the fear.

Like De Niro. He's one of the best character actors we have ever had.

So I moved to Europe and only came back when directors like Robert Altman would call me after they'd seen my work in Full Metal Jacket.

I think that being a producer is business and being an actor is art.

All of us are trying to achieve 100 percent in our work. That's all we struggle to do. We never do, but we never stop trying until the day we die. It's that struggle to achieve 100 percent, that's where our performance lies, that's what the audience gets. They get the struggle.

It doesn't need to be a No 1 show, it just needs to be good.

Unless you look like Brad Pitt, it's really hard to have full control of your character.

With Altman, he does discuss everything with you, but then leaves you to it and gives you full rein and lets you improvise and create a character while the camera is rolling.

I found my niche as a character actor, and I've never felt like a movie star or teen idol and never wanted to.

What kind of recognition do I deserve? I don't deserve any recognition.

When you are a character actor they trust you will go in and give them a full character and leave.

The minute you start feeling like you've got it down, you know what you're doing, you're dead in the water.

At our best, it's a good experience but we do 22 episodes a year, so there are some clunkers.

I want every episode to feel like we still haven't done this right yet.

Acting is not a mystery. There's nothing that I know that other actors don't know. We all act, we're all actors, we all know the same thing. The only thing that separates us is experience.

But the one thing that I did do was establish myself as a good actor.

Some scenes you juggle two balls, some scenes you juggle three balls, some scenes you can juggle five balls. The key is always to speak in your own voice. Speak the truth. That's Acting 101. Then you start putting layers on top of that.

People who are extremely inside their head, like he was, are caught in a neurosis that goes round and round. Then something will hook them and take them to their end and they can't control it.

Then I did Mystic Pizza, just to do something I wasn't fat in.

I've never tried to be something I'm not.

The most fun you can possibly have as an actor is to walk that line between what's real and what's interesting.

It's like why people read scary books or go see scary movies. Because it creates a distance. They're scared, but they're not going to get hurt.

The more you are known, the more difficult it is to hide behind characters.

When you're a child you're able to assimilate so easily into any situation. You even start talking like the people you're around. I wasn't conscious that I was so good at that until I started to truly feel like an actor.

Our show is different, because it's not about law and order, it's about psychology, the intent of somebody.

They were all interested in what I was going to do, because I'd never worked in televsion before.

And I have been able to establish this sort of decent reputation as being a decent character actor.

If you try to go beyond your interests just for the sake of pretensions or wealth, your art becomes less legitimate.

Look, all you can do when you find your niche is go with it.

The search for the truth is not for the faint hearted.

I'm a character actor, and I made a choice when I was young, after 'Mystic Pizza', not to go for the mainstream stuff, and to do a more eclectic kind of route.

I took a route of acting, rather than starmaking, so it cost me a lot financially.

The Whole Wide World is the first movie I've ever produced.

My partner Dan Ireland wants me to direct, and I read a lot of scripts - some good enough that I could see myself. But then it's like, so what? Who cares? Let someone else direct it.

And then, as the years went on, I just kept moving along, busting into doors and getting roles, until I started to actually believe that what these other people were saying was true.

This haunting idea of becoming a celebrity doesn't settle well with me at all.

I'll be working the rest of my life because I'm a character actor and don't have to worry about box office.

The only thing I do worry about is that the more films I do the more visible I am going to become as a personality because of press and because of the sheer quantity of films.

So a failed movie is not going to ruin my career.

It doesn't need to be a number one show, it just needs to be good.

Evil changes everybody!

Frank Miller and David Mack are incredible artists.

I am a method actor, but I'm also a film actor as well as a method actor. Characters that don't have humility, whether they are heroes or villains, are hard to relate to. All characters in every aspect of what we do should have humility. If they don't, then they're a cartoon character.

I have changed so much as an actor over the years.

I never was happy with the job I did in 'Ed Wood.'