“I came up in the theater, and I learned pretty quickly that reading a review, whether it's good or bad, can strangely affect the next performances, because you're reacting to something that's been said about you. So I tend to avoid that stuff pretty studiously.”
“I enjoy playing someone who doesn't show up and say, 'This is what I am, and this is what I'm about,' but is someone who, four hours in, makes you go, 'Really? Is that what's going on?'”
“I find that on serialized television it's wiser to hit the ground and look forward, and take the cues from the writers and the events happening, otherwise you just tie yourself in knots.”
“I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.”
“I still take way more jobs than I turn down, and the reason that I turn down a job is that I just can't find anything in it that charges me or excites me or challenges me about moving to the next phase of where I'm headed.”
“I was the guy literally in the chess club who decided to wear a bow tie for the last two years of high school, so I obviously wasn't trying to get the ladies.”
“I'm from Houston. I think I was thirty-seven before I ever set foot in Dallas, and that was just in the airport. So I've never really been there. Dad grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and all I can ever get out of him is, 'I wanted my first son to be named Dallas.'”
“In the acting community in New York we call 'Law & Order' 'grad school,' because everyone eventually does a 'Law & Order.' My first one was in 1995, which was a year after I got out of school. Matthew Blanchard was the character's name.”
“It's funny, my kids and I live together, and I have a lot of actor friends. So my kids think everyone is on television every now and again, since everyone they know pops up here, but there's a whole rap of things they won't watch until they're 16 or 17.”
“To try to create a character without a whole lot of information can be taxing. At the same time, it's fun to just stay on your toes and let the next bit of dialogue come in, and turn the page as you read the next script and see what they have in store for you next.”