I'm not a big fan of kids' movies that have this knowing snarkiness to them or this post-modern take on storytelling. I think that sails right over the heads of most kids. There's something to be said for a well-told fairy tale. There's a reason that these mythic stories stay with us.

Being a father has fulfilled me in parts of my life that sustain me. It gives me a comfort and patience. All actors have this hole inside that they're trying to fill by performing. I'm anxious to keep creating, but I'm not so desperate any more because I have the love and support of my kids and wife.

I went to an all-boys Catholic school, and not only were we not allowed to wear pajamas, we had to wear dress shirts, dress pants, a tie, dress shoes... they stopped making us wear blazers, like, two years before I started there, so pajamas... you wouldn't even get in the front door wearing pajamas at my school.

I love card games, and I've always loved board games and stuff like that as a kid, and I think it's that part of your brain that's engaged in con movies. It's like this 'Who's outsmarting whom?'

For a while I had a blues band in L.A., but I realized I was too optimistic to play the blues. I did not have the misery in my heart that the blues required.

I know I'm not some matinee idol, but I think we're sold this bill of goods by the media, which says that only the most beautiful and dashing people can become movie stars. So when someone like me sneaks in, they have to redo the calculations.

Surprising people is the key to career longevity for someone like me.

You were there all day long, 12 hours a day. So there was none of this, 'I'm going back to my trailer, my trailer's bigger than your trailer,' that kind of Hollywood nonsense.

Whatever the reasons that I turn things down, I'm always happy when there's a good result, and I can enjoy it as a movie, you know? I don't feel like, 'Oh man, that was really good. I should have done it.' You have to make the decisions you have to make, whether it has to do with your family or repeating a character or whatever it is.

I considered a lot of different jobs as a kid. I thought about becoming a priest or a lawyer. My father had a big linen-supply business and I considered working for him. What dawned on me was: 'If I'm an actor, I get to do the fun parts of every job!' Without having to go to four years of law school.

From the first time I did a movie, people have said, 'Oh, it's all going to change now.' And it would change, but very incrementally. I think I prefer that to some big explosion of fame all of the sudden.

I view my strongest competition as myself. You're always trying to top yourself, rather than worrying about what other people are doing.

I like being employed, you know. That's my favorite kind of acting.

I don't deliberately go into comedy or go into indies, but I do deliberately try to keep changing tact, because I think that is the key to longevity in a career.

Despite not looking like a matinee idol, I feel like I have a lot to give. I've never had any trouble with women. People are always surprised with the romantic aspect of my movies.

I was more like a middle child. My youngest brother was the baby, so he got all the attention that the baby gets. And my older brothers were getting into so much trouble that I was left in the middle, doing plays. I was up to no good, but my mother didn't know it!

When I first joined SAG, there was another John Reilly. My dad was John Reilly, too, but growing up I was John John. Nobody in life calls me John C. It's more like, 'Hey you, Step Brother!'

The thing I tried to remember when I was younger was 'Do something that's at least as good, if not better, than the last thing you did.' So I started with Brian De Palma and Sean Penn. I had a pretty high bar to start with.

I like how pure the expression is in music. You can go straight to the heart of an audience rather than through their brain.

Actually, acting turned out to be the perfect job for me, because I had a lot of different interests. I thought about being a priest at one point. I thought about being a teacher. I thought about being a lawyer. But I think acting is probably the best job for me.

I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!

I try to take things that challenge me either physically or mentally, or I have to learn a new skill.

A lot of people that make films say, 'We need this kind of character. Who's done it before? Get them to do it again.' That is exactly what actors are pushing against. It's kind of a cliche to talk about being stereotyped in that way, but it happens.

In Chicago it's really a case of the play's the thing - people are just so happy to be acting, you know? We were all actors - not like in New York or Los Angeles, where everyone says they are actors but they are actually waiting tables and hustling for spots in commercials.

I'm not of the manor born; I've never felt entitled in that way. I just came to Hollywood to be an actor. All that lifestyle stuff is something to be managed.

I hear actors complain about being stereotyped, and a lot of the time, you have yourself to blame. Just don't take the part if you feel like it's a stereotypical part for you. You have control over your life. We don't have the old studio system, where you have to do what they tell you.

This is real human drama, we're not creating some amusement park ride for the summer. Even though the movie is really exciting to watch, it's got a real pathos behind it.

I always say it takes as much preparation and thought to do a small part as a leading part. In some ways, leads are easier because you have the luxury of time to discover the character.

I am one of those people who is not very patient in the makeup chair. I have been offered movies like 'Planet of the Apes' and stuff like 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' and I turned them down.

I would love to do a western. I would love to play an explorer. That is always something that has really captured my imagination since I was a kid, like James Cook or Magellan or Earnest Shackleton.

An actor's life is like a series of - it's like the first day of school happening over and over again.

People say, 'Don't you get tired of people coming up to you all the time?' But what's wrong with strangers saying they love you?

Being unprepared makes me nervous. I'm old-fashioned show folk.

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.

I was never a very dependable employee for anything. Perfect for the actor's life!

The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor's medium; it's really a director's medium, so all I can really control is the character that I'm playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I've done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.

I was a founding member of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' club at my high school. I was in chorus, I was in swing choir. I was an outcast but I was an outcast among a group of outcasts.

My family are all storytellers, and I think I inherited a lot more of that gene than other people in my family. I guess I was fun to have around.

Once you become tagged as anything, it becomes difficult to shake it, because the less imaginative people in the business want you to do what worked for the last guy. That's always been something I've had to deal with.

There are a lot of actors in the world, there's a small number that actually get to work as actors, and there is a tiny group of actors that are celebrated in the way that I have been. I feel incredibly lucky.

You know, the truth is that us actors would all like to believe we re-invent the wheel, every time we play a character. But, we're human beings and our instruments are not violins, they are our bodies and our consciousness and our collective life experience.

To me, it doesn't make any sense to pick your work based on the size of the budget of the movie.

It's thought of as an eccentric thing for an actor to really try to maintain quality control through the whole career. Most people think, 'You just work. You just keep working.' And in some ways I wish I could be a guy who's just a workhorse.

Whenever I work on something, I try and throw everything I have at it. Then if the director finds it useful they use it, and if not, they ignore it!

Honestly, to tell you the truth, being trapped in any video game sounds like a living nightmare to me. In most video games, the point is it's a fight for survival, so I think it would be a terrifying place to live.

It's true that the skills required to be a conman are the same as those required for being an actor. Though those skills are in the service of something a bit more noble with acting, I hope.

I swear and it comes off a little angry, no matter how funny I'm trying to do it. If I use certain words with a certain intensity, it's like 'Whoa whoa whoa, buddy buddy!'

A lot of times, good improv is when both people, or however many people are in the scene, really have no idea what the next thing you're going to say is.

I'm a big fan of the 'Harry Potter' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films.