The funny thing about being an actor is, at least from my point of view, you don’t spend a lot of time reflecting. You’re just on to the next thing. The work is so tricky to get sometimes. I’ve spent so much time just looking forward and trying to work on what I’m working on at the time that I don’t really think of myself as having done that much. Looking back on the resume it’s like, oh, yeah. An actor has a couple of lifetimes, I guess. I’ve been very fortunate. When you’re first starting out, for me anyway, I was a little shy telling people I was an actor. I didn’t have a lot of stuff on my resume. When you have one scene as a background guy in a television movie and call yourself an actor, that’s a little odd at first. Now I’m more comfortable with it. I’m really not aware of it until people bring it up. People that I meet in the professional world say, man you’ve been around forever. Really? I guess so. It’s great. I’ve been fortunate to work in all the venues: theater, and movies and TV and the subgenres of comedy and drama. I guess I am very, very fortunate.

I think the purpose of the actor is to illuminate the human condition. When you go to a film and you see a good actor, it's because you identify with them—you know what they're feeling—and a good actor draws, I believe, from their own experience. And when it's true for him, it's true for you. If a director imposes a performance or you try to mimic somebody, it can be funny or brilliant, but it isn't moving.

What makes you a good actor is when people separate your real life from movie characters.

An actor is an actor. Any role you are given or you have accepted to play is a debt to society, to mirror the role believably and convincingly. Anything short of that is failure.

An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.

An actor is a guy who, if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening!

I feel that in order to truly be an actor, you have to differentiate yourself and your roles.

An actor's a guy, who if you ain't talking about him, ain't listening.

Actors are born, and every human being is born an actor.

An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.

[About acting:] An actor brings something of themselves to a part, working with elements of his or her own life, and fashioning them into something different. I'm not Draco. Draco is not me. But the dividing line is not black and white. It's painted in shades of grey.

I think of myself as an actor and not a movie star. I like doing movies; I enjoy it. But, essentially, I'm a theater actor. That's the only place I feel like I actually am a star. In the theater, I can put people in the seats and sell tickets.

I think it's possible to be too quick-witted, too smart to be an actor. You have to turn off a lot of your brain, in a way. When you see a fellow actor just missing it, it's hard to keep your mouth shut, but you have to. Or see a director so stupid he couldn't direct vomit into a paper bag. And he's in charge, and it's really hard to keep your mouth shut.

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I play. That's why it's called acting.