I really am a character actor, in my heart of hearts, because I really do like developing characters and painting a past for them.

Once you understand that someone has Tourette and that they can't help their tics, it takes away the distraction. And you can engage your compassion. You feel for them. You embrace them.

The Victorian era is the sexiest age for me, but I also like a woman in a pair of jeans.

Most actors are starving. Most of us are walking around with a flashlight and tweezers looking for evidence. When you have someone that actually writes an acting role, it's rare.

Sometimes you have to search for inspiration with characters, and other times, they just drop out of the sky and arrive.

My past is not pleasant; I grew up in a very tough town, Waterbury, Connecticut. I grew up in New York, too, but Waterbury was tougher.

Media runs the world, and it all changed, I think, when the debate between Kennedy and Nixon happened, and first of all we saw them on television, and that changed everything.

I guess my style is a cross between David Bowie and Clint Eastwood.

Dark Blue is ultimately a gritty crime drama, at its core. I don't think that is ever going to change.

I like the Polanski stuff more than anything else. Rosemary's Baby is still one of my favorite movies of all time. The idea of her being impregnated with the devil is just so frightening.

Yeah, romantic comedies are the hardest movies to make. Maybe one works a year.

waitingin a life full of little storiesfor a death to come

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.

To pray without expectation is to misunderstand the whole concept of prayer and relationship with God.

I'm concerned about the unknowability of other people.

Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?

The home is the empire! There is no peace more delightful than one's own fireplace.

The vogue of the New Negro . . . had all of the character of a public relations promotion. The Negro had to be "sold" to the public in terms they could understand.

When I was young my teachers were the old. I gave up fire for form till I was cold.