I never listened to the Grateful Dead as a teen; the only exposure I got was what came through the walls when my sister was listening to them.

I like to act. Every other aspect of show business I find uninteresting.

I'm not a fan of any genre but am a fan of movies that are intelligent and/or funny. That goes across all genres: a horror movie, a zombie movie, alien invaders, chick flick, or raunchy comedy. If it's well done, I'm a fan.

I was not a giant comic book fan as a kid, but to the extent that I did read comics, Spider-Man was always my favorite guy.

The best complement I ever got from the public or producers or directors is that I just totally blend in and become the character and they don't notice me and that the play happens or the movie happens or the TV show happens.

Most of my friends - when I was five, six, seven years old - their dads were working in an auto plant in Detroit until 5:30, and then they were sat in rush hour. They weren't around as much. My dad finished at three o'clock, so he was just around more.

I was in New York. I had been doing theater for many years, and then I got hired to a little part - they weren't calling it an extra, but I didn't have lines. It was a 'featured' part.

I was studying music in college. I was singing, I was doing operas and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and then I was offered a job as the music director of the Bigfork Summer Playhouse, in Bigfork, Montana.

When I got out of college, I moved to Seattle because it was the nearest big city and still didn't know if I wanted to be a composer, conductor, singer, actor. I just got day jobs and auditioned and took what came, and the theater doors were the ones opening the most.

Being evil is easy.

I am who I am. I have a low voice, and I look like somebody's dad or boss or a police chief, and those roles come my way.

I've had a contemptuous relationship with authority throughout my life. I found myself at odds with authority, and I'm disdainful of blind authority.

I would like to find, or I would like a part to come to me that is like the part that Dennis Franz was fortunate to be able to play on 'NYPD Blue,' a sort of similar-looking actor to me, a generic, bald white guy who you would often think of as playing the authority figure. But he was the disgruntled middle-man. That would be a fun character.

I do think you need to understand a character's motivation and perspective.

Things heal. Bad stuff happens, but you go on. Life takes care of it.

If I was doing a musical, I would never listen to the cast album, because I wanted to do my version of something.

I'm just first of all looking for a part that's well written and speaks to me.

Everybody does their homework, and we all come together and just knock it out. There are adjustments to make, and if you have actors who are collaborators and who really know how to listen and be in the scene together, than it works out beautifully.

I just saw 'Men, Women & Children' last night, and it's a devastating movie in a lot of ways, but it's so well done, so well acted.

Screaming is hard after a while.

I have a degree in music, yeah, from the University of Montana. I studied voice and composition and conducting and all that.

When I go back to New York all these years later, I'll walk down Seventh Avenue, and I'll hear, 'Yo, Oz!' In New York, I get recognized for that all the time.

Almost every character I've ever played - and sometimes this is very conscious and sometimes it's not - I need to find what they love.

After the second and final time that I got hugely fat in my life and when I lost that weight six or seven years ago, I pretty much decided that I was going to stay in decent shape for the rest of my life.

I've gone back and forth with fine-tuning the kind of conditioning I'm doing. Sometimes trying to shed weight and getting leaner and sometimes trying to pack on a little more muscle.

I never had intention of coming to New York or L.A. and actually doing more than scraping by - you know, doing plays. And as my career sort of progressed of its own volition, I did come to New York.

I did Broadway shows. And I started realizing that this is actually how I'm going to make my living. So maybe I should try to do television and film and make a better living and get an occasional residual check so I can pay a mortgage someday.

I actually was a musician in college, a composer and singer, and really intended to be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein when I got out.

I've been so blessed to have the opportunities that I've had.

We all want to not repeat ourselves constantly, and explore the limits of our capabilities.

Generally, if I read something that I think is really good and that I feel a connection with and is right for me, I see and hear who the guy is, as manifested by me.

The retired L.A.P.D. motor cops who work set security now, all wear the same uniform, they're great guys with great stories, and they're great at their job, providing security on sets.

I completely agree with feeling the need for or the benefits of being pushed and of being directed on a project and collaborating.

With these big superhero movies, everybody is so tight-lipped about everything, there's a certain amount of just going on faith.

In lean times, you get plenty of sleep, and you're not flying around everywhere.

It's nice to be number one on the call sheet.

Good material is good material.

Music has become so ever-present in our lives. You can't walk through a shopping mall or go into a restaurant without what we used to call Muzak.

Music to me was never something that I could listen to while reading a book. Especially when I was studying music, if I was going to listen to music, I was going to put on the headphones or crank the stereo, and by God, I was going to sit there and just listen to music. I wasn't going to talk on the phone and multitask, which I can't do anyway.

If I see a now-28-year-old woman coming up to me, she's probably thinking of 'Juno' because she watched it with her parents when she was 18 years old.

The first thing I did that was at all in the public eye, other than on stage, was 'Oz,' in which I played the head of the Aryan Brotherhood in a maximum-security prison.

I'd always had the concern that being in commercials would affect my credibility when I was getting started as a TV and film actor.

My aunt was so attuned to commercials that she could always identify the voiceover actor.

It's OK to turn down stuff that isn't really interesting and spend the summer with my family.

I like to stay home. I don't want to be away shooting in Europe for six or eight months at a stretch.

I come from a family of educators. My sister is a college teacher. My dad is a college teacher, but first a junior high teacher.

Education is very important to me.

I do respond well to a director, a teacher - someone who doesn't accept mediocrity.

When I read the script and saw the jazz music setting, and when I read the name of the filmmaker was Damien Chazelle, I immediately got this mental image of Antoine Fuqua.

Every since my wife, Adri, got pregnant with our now-eight-month-old daughter, Alicia, I regularly get asked what my plans are for feeding her. How can someone who writes about food and tests recipes for a living meet the picky and precise needs of an infant without losing his mind?