“Where I grew up, acting wasn’t really accessible. I was just playing sports. But, I did watch a lot of TV. I watched a lot of Clint Eastwood movies on TV and had this fantasy of being like him when I grew up.”

When I sat down with the creators of the show [Longmire], back when we were first starting to do the pilot, Branch was not that interesting on the page. What really sold me on the show and the character was their vision for him. It took the whole first season to flesh him out.

Once a Cubs fan, always a Cubs fan.

I definitely have an eye on doing more work in features and playing different characters, but I am also a big fan of going on vacation and playing golf and going to the beach. With anything, it’s about finding the balance.

I was growing up with a single mom who’d be at work when I came home from school. So I’d just turn on the TV. I grew up watching old Clint Eastwood westerns. I adopted him as one of my male role models.

It was a great time to grow up in Chicago. It was the mid-80s, and we had the 85 Bears and the Michael Jordan era.

I just really enjoy the ritual of going to work and playing, which is essentially what we do. We play pretend. Acting is a kids’ game.

I was a psychology major. I think that definitely helps in general life; I enjoy trying to figure out why people are the way they are.

George Clooney had the web of celebrity from television and doing ‘ER,’ and he’s able to parlay that into films. God willing, I’ll be up there in a few years.

I love when a director shows up with a lot of energy, and different ideas about how to change things and do it a different way. Once you get into series, sometimes you don’t have that, so I certainly don’t take that for granted when I get it.

I am pretty diligent with my fitness routine. I am not like a crazy workout-holic, but I stay active.

Everybody has their own approach. I don’t adhere to any one philosophy. I learn a lot from life and people – watching and other people watching.

Whenever I think of the high salaries we are paid as film actors, I think it is for the travel, the time away, and any trouble you get into through being well known. It’s not for the acting, that’s for sure.

There aren’t many downsides to being rich, other than paying taxes and having relatives asking for money. But being famous, that’s a 24 hour job right there.

I don’t think being a good James Bond girl has to do with nationality. I think it has to do with a specific person at a certain time being right for the specific needs of a given script. It has to do with talent and personality, regardless of nationality.

Acting is a mysterious process.

I like acting because I get to find different parts of myself, or at least create different parts that don’t already exist, and see the world through someone else’s eyes.

And Shanghai is amazing. I’m a fan of science fiction so when you’re there in the night with all the lights and all this modernity, it’s like a set in a movie.

I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.

There are no small parts. Only small actors.