I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.

We thought sex was free. Sex is not free. There's a price to be paid emotionally, physically, even legally. Sex isn't a casual thing. It's a huge thing.

I think I've been in situations where they looked at me and just see some rich white guy - they don't see me at all.

I got an agent. He said, what do you wanna do, and I said, I want an Oscar nomination. That's your job, that's what I'm paying you for. And I got it.

I'll tell you this about the Oscars - they're real.

There are some older women out there who are just knockouts, real beauties, and they're not getting the roles they should.

The bar raises as you go.

I'm really proud of the writing on Door to Door, and I think that's the Emmy that meant the most - the writing.

That red carpet has to be felt to be believed.

Oh yeah, that's the Holy Grail, Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp, he's the real deal, isn't he? He doesn't get the girl, and he doesn't care.

I'm a firm believer that character is highly overrated. Character is a trick that we do with the audience's collusion.

I was a dog in a past life. Really. I'll be walking down the street and dogs will do a sort of double take. Like, Hey, I know him.

When I watch a film I get swept away. I don't really watch the camera.

We must admit that it is quite common that people do have affairs with their leading ladies and men.

Directors work 10 times harder than anyone else. Get paid a quarter.

We all want to be 20 again and have that first sense of love.

I'm not against watching myself, but I miss a lot of it. I've got two little kids who we don't let watch TV.

Nobody became an actor because he had a good childhood.

Everyone hooks up with George Clooney. He's a genuinely cool guy. He's using his powers for good.

When I was in New York, I was making a living. We had a summer house and a car that I could put in a garage. That's something for a stage actor.

The only people who do plays in LA are people who can't get jobs in TV shows.

I'm sure I have a process, but it mostly takes place in my dreams.

A favorite cast? Lisa Kudrow, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and my wife.

Yeah, I made it. It sneaks up on you. You're some schmuck and you wake up one day and you go, Good God, I'm the cheese.

It started with the Godfather, this operatic violence. I don't know.

When Fargo came out, I hired a publicist for the first time in my life. I thought, if ever I was going to make it, that was then.

Ninety percent of the preparation we do as actors is just jive. It doesn't do anything.

I do them all for the money, I really do.

I have a tendency to say yes to a script or no to a script. Not yes based on a rewrite.

The Spirit Awards are great too, they'll say anything because they're not televised. Another great drinking night.

I think theater is powerful. The best experiences I had in the theater are more powerful than the best experiences I had in movies.

Stephen King writes a lot of things that are really charming and quirky, and that are more ironic than horror.

If I like the story and it's well written, and it's a character I want to play and they'll pay me, then I decide to do it.

Shameless is a rough show, and it's not for everyone, but it's also beautiful.

It's hard to be depressed around a ukulele. You just pick it up and you're halfway home.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.