“Coming from a background of being onstage, you’re onstage for two and a half hours and you’re in it for the whole time no matter what you’re doing. Even if you don’t have a line, you have to stay in it.”

It’s every actor’s dream to work in a hit show on Broadway and also shoot a television show.

Being onstage is just a feeling that you cannot duplicate anywhere else because the energy that the audience is giving you forces you to give more energy. It’s such an output and exchange of energy. You can’t do that anywhere else.

I grew up about 60 miles northwest of New York, in Middletown, NY.

I had an acting teacher tell me once that if you’re playing a car salesman, you don’t want to be an OK car salesman, you want to play the best car salesman.

I would like to, especially in film, play against type and do some heavier stuff. I’m intrigued by projects that deal with problematic people and things.

I’m at a place in my life where I do finally feel, at least most of the time, that I know who I am and I’m comfortable with the person that I am.

Awards are not something that I measure my work by. I’ve been so fortunate and I’ve gotten to do such terrific things that it seems petty to look back and say, ‘Oh, I should have gotten that prize.’ I’ve been so blessed, it’s hard to look back and think anything but that, so I have no disappointments.

Things don’t always tie up in a nice bow. Even when you make strides with people and relationships, it’s complicated.

I watch a lot of television. I always have.

Sometimes chemistry does the trick, and other times, you have to forge that with the people.

You always have to make positive choices as an actor, even when you’re playing someone who may not be doing the best things.

People saw me as just a singer – yeah, a pretty face who could sing – and not more than that.

I’m ready and open to meeting the person that hopefully I’ll share my life with. It takes a long time to get to that place.

What is wrong with you people?

After 9/11, the amount of applicants the FBI received increased exponentially. Whereas you used to require a college degree, and it was a small group of people who were just out of college, after 9/11, it changed.

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school. I had the middle part with a swoop, all that. It was the late ’90s!

When I started I didn’t know anything about music. I came from an absolutely non-musical, non-artistic background.

The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.

That’s more important even then what their background is or what they’ve done before, how good they are, how new they are or whatever. All that stuff is really secondary to just getting along with the person.

It’s against type in the sense of my background, but it’s with type in the sense that I am a loner who’s new to this business and sceptical about a lot of it.

I’m not from a particularly sci-fi background. I’m not anti sci-fi at all, but I’ve never been known as a sci-fi writer and, suddenly, I was creating a flagship BBC sci-fi show, which is terrifying sometimes.

I was quite a shy child – not chronically, but I tended to blend into the background.

I feel really passionately about safe, comfortable roads, crosswalks, and sidewalks. Everyone of all economic backgrounds should be able to get to school or the grocery store safely and efficiently so they can live better lives.

Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.