Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They're generally smarter and more interesting, but they're often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.

If you are going to remake a film, you may as well remake a classic.

I've got nothing against L.A. I think it is a really beautiful place. To be able to surf and get out in the Pacific Ocean every once in a while. The hiking, all of that is amazing. I love it there.

If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

If you fall in love with somebody you're working with, fine, but wait till your project is over.

I didn't think that a career in theater was very realistic so I thought the only thing I could make money doing and still be somewhat artistic was, god help me, advertising.

Some actors need to be rattled and some need to be focused.

I live with an 18-month-old Jack Russell named Chicken. He moved in about 15 months ago, and it was very hard at first because I work a lot and he doesn't.

The skill set for hockey is so specific to skating and if you haven't been skating as a kid it's impossible to play - and I wasn't a skater.

You know, I have a deep, deep affinity for Dr. Seuss.

Style, no matter how outrageous it is, is still an expression of someone's personality. And my personality is somewhere stuck in the classics.

Entitlement is lethal.

I manage to hide in my movies.

There's the private persona and the public persona and the two shall never meet.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

I am so used to being able to express myself from being an actor. So when people don't understand me, I'm just completely lost.

When you're in a place like New York or D.C. you just can't beat it, and it's so hard to recreate because they are both such distinctive places.

A lot of times in Hollywood you're as good as your last job.

I was always drawn to tough girls. I liked that domineering thing.

Every girl I've gone out with has said something to me first.

I'm misrepresented as a scary person. I'm not. It's all about my size and my eyebrows.

I'm drawn to people who share that sense of loss. All actors are trying to repair damaged relationships. I think that might be why I've been drawn to other actors.

I grew up in the Lower East Side of New York.

I actually loved Winnipeg. Everyone told me I was going to hate it, but it was great.

The funny thing is that I write and I act a lot about being Jewish, but I don't really think about it as a regular person.

I think New York will always be this incredible international crossroads, and I don't think that will ever change.

Actors, you know, they're often awkward people in real life.

And I think for me there's a lot of neurosis involved with where you should be or thinking about where you are all the time instead of being where you are.

As soon as you know what you're doing, you're doing it wrong. That's what I find with acting. As soon as it becomes padded, it becomes pat.

That's one of the benefits of working on big budget films. You work with people who have a lot of experience and you get to learn a lot.

Where else do you find great directors? Acting is one of the places.

I'm a typically lazy person. It is sort of characteristic of actors.

Film is such a bizarre vehicle for acting. It's such a bizarre experience. I don't think you ever really get familiar with it. If you do get familiar with it, you're probably not that good anymore.

I am very good with dialects, but the two that I can't do for some reason are the South African and Australian.

I'm actually a very bad surfer, which is good because everybody likes a bad surfer. Nobody likes a good surfer.

Don't hit people; don't let it get you too angry; remember that everything you do can and will be used against you. And take a breath and have some perspective.

You watch a hockey game, and the hand-eye coordination and the speed is really miraculous; how those guys track the puck alone, just following it with their eyes.

I think that everything I've ever done at some point is part of someone else's legacy.

Part of what I enjoy about the theatre and acting is that sense of history.

You always have to create the character from the ground up.

Well, I don't think I've ever been a huge target for the press, and I value that to a degree, because there's a certain value for actors staying beneath the radar so they can play characters.

The best gig is the one you've got.

No, I grew up admiring people who played ice hockey.

I think it's really, really important to mix it up as an actor, to try to get as much kind of varied experience as you can, not only for your own personal growth as an actor but for the audience to keep them guessing about what you're going to do.

I get panic attacks in big crowds.

I'm kind of an obsessive-compulsive person, like, neat obsessive.

I really never thought I was that good at film. And honestly still don't. My strength is language. My background is monologues and a certain kind of Brechtian spin on theater.

My grandfather was raising me, and in many respects, I was trying to understand what it meant to be a man. He was my role model.

Everyone says villains are thankless parts, but those are really the best roles.

You hear different things from different people, and they're all valid: they're all valuable. I think that's what comprises a performance is all those ideas.