I think was overly empathetic for a while in my life.

The whole being-in-a-room interview thing, at a junket or a film festival, is very inhuman. You meet the person, have five or 10 minutes to talk, and it's not like a conversation.

I remember going to the theatre when I was little and the lights going down and just getting really scared about what was going to happen up there.

Everything you do, every experience that you have, enlightens you a little bit or worsens you.

One of my favorite films is 'Dumb and Dumber.' I'd love to do some really silly comedy someday.

Being actors is a strange job.

It's a funny thing. You sort of never figure it out with acting. You're always learning.

As an actor, the toughest thing is being subject to circumstance. Meaning: What scripts are out there that are available?

People have asked me about playing outsiders. I don't consider myself an outsider. Maybe that's why I'm interested in that. I'm not really sure.

I don't want my learning curve to be stunted by just all of a sudden doing work all the time and not being careful about the work that I'm doing.

I've seen people, where if they have to wait around the set for three hours, and they call you at the wrong time, and they're not ready for you, some people don't like that.

I love filming in New York. I love New York movies, too. I just like it when people can take New York and make it their own, because there are so many different New Yorks.

Theater is hard.

Certainly, being on stage is a rush.

I don't know that praise is always a good thing.

Nobody is a perfect actor.

Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.

There was a time I was willing to be a clown for people who I felt were the perfect person for me.

We had established Harley Quinn as an accomplice to the Joker who was also crushing on him and found herself in the middle of this weird relationship being at the beck and call of his every whim. We wanted to stretch her and make her a stronger character, so to have her leave him and go off on her own was a story I wanted to tell for a while.

'Boo & Hiss' has been a passion project of mine for a couple of years. I was intrigued with the idea of what would happen in a classic cartoon predator/prey relationship if the predator - in this case, a cat - got to finally do in his adversary only to have the mouse return as a ghost and bedevil the cat.

If we made the 'Batman' games more realistic, you'd have to be Bruce Wayne for half the game, counting his money and dating supermodels.

I was writing a script about the Joker menacing a regular person who had strayed into his path, and I needed to give him a gang of henchmen to work with him. The idea occurred to me, let's put in a female henchperson, because that seemed like a fun variation on the regular big thug guys.

One Thanksgiving weekend, I had a lost weekend at a friend's place with 'Grand Theft Auto.'

Batman doesn't use a gun. When Bruce Wayne thinks he had to resort to a street thug's level to defend himself and the girl he was rescuing, he decides he can't be Batman anymore.

I've always liked the Krampus character, and I've always been fascinated with him, especially the tradition that he was such a part of the holiday season in Europe, in Germany, Austria, northern Italy, various other places.

I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in 'A Christmas Story,' in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.

Mr. Freeze is motivated by different things. He doesn't really have that much of an axe to grind with Batman. Batman is an irritation and an impediment to him, not an enemy that he hates. He doesn't have the hatred that the Joker has for Batman.

I take inspirations from newspaper strip cartoonists who look for ways of expanding their characters' worlds once they have established the initial concept of their strips.

Without Wonder Woman, there would be no Black Canary; without a Superman, there would be no Flash. They all come from that.

Jim Henson once allowed me to visit the Muppets on set and spent an entire day showing me how he and the other puppeteers performed Kermit and all the characters! After that, I was lucky enough to work with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on many fun animation projects and learned so much from them.

I felt that, with 'Zatanna,' I had a chance to do a story about a strong, driven woman.

I remembered what it was like: the weirdness, being the odd man out, trying to make my way around campus, and trying to figure out who my friends would be, who to steer clear of. I wrote it all down in a fanciful way - the feelings of alienation, the feelings of uncertainty, of being away from home for the first time.

There's a sort of eternal, indefinable 20th century quality to 'BTAS.' We never really pegged the decade, but it's anytime in the 20th century, so I often harkened back to things from the '40s or '50s.

It's wrong to become a bully yourself or to take it out on other people, and in my case, I just retreated to a place where I was safe. And that place was my imagination, books, and television.

I really didn't have any plan for her other than the henchgirl role, who was better at getting laughs out of the other gang members than the Joker was. I gave her the name Harley Quinn because I thought Harley was a fun name for a girl, and a lot of 'Batman' character names have a bit of a pun to them, like E Nygma.

Most female characters have either been the temptress - like a Betty Boop type - or the victim - like an Olive Oil type.

The Joker is a tremendous vehicle for talented actors. Cesar Romero's was a bubbly, lunatic criminal. Nicholson did him as a vain, preening manipulator. Heath's performance of the Joker was remarkable, too. His was a low-simmering crazy street clown. Joker can be played all these ways, and they're all true.

With 'Tower Prep,' Cartoon Network wanted to go into a new area where no other kids' programming was going. There were a lot of kids' sitcoms on the air, but they wanted to really go with more of like an adventure/drama feel.

There are some short stories in R. Crumb comics that are just wonderful and touch me in ways no other comics do.

As much fun as it is gaming, I have so much to do that I've had to get away from them. I still enjoy them. When I go to a friend's house and they have a game on, I'll happily join in and play.

Encourage your kids to be creative. When you see them tracing a character from TV or a comic, say something like, 'That's nice. Now how about you create a character yourself?' Keep kids curious and excited about creating.

When you're writing for a game - even if you're using very well known characters like Batman and his villains who lend themselves to many different interpretations - you have to keep in mind that you're writing for a different medium. Things are a bit more straightforward than it is for a feature film or a TV show.

In those times when a kid first tries to express themselves creatively, it sets them on a different path. Sometimes, that path can be really wonderful and can lead to a career doing some of the things you love. I also think that the price on that is a certain amount of alienation or distance created between a lot of the people around you.

Wonder Woman is out there very much defending the right and being strong and being a positive role model.

To overcome any form of adversity, to not give up, to not give up on yourself, your dreams, to not sequester yourself away from people - that's the most important thing to do with your life.

There's a different energy to Spider-Man than there is to Batman.

Jeph Loeb has been great to work with, and he's been really supportive of some really bizarre ideas I've had.

When it's only you that you can rely on, you're surprised at the resilience you have.

You don't have a Batman without Bruce Wayne. Batman is the edge or scary image for Bruce to use.

As much as I liked the build-up to Christmas, the week after always socked me with the blues.