“I’ve spent various periods of my career being thought of as various things, various degrees of substance and ideas.”

Acting is broad enough a church that you can pick your races, decide which way you want to go at different times.I think that the story and circumstance tends to dictate the most and then what you do with your own approach after that.

One of the things that I found very confronting in my early working life was that people thought I was some sensitive doe-eyed lovelorn boy, because they’d seen me do that a couple of times. What tends to happen is you get a run of similar roles.

You can certainly extend your adolescence. There’s people that are very good at extending it indefinitely.

People don’t know who I am, and that’s not a bad thing at all from my end.

At 15 I had moved out of my parents’ place, and my options were looking pretty narrow. But I had this acting thing and I just wanted to be able to keep going because it was really good. That was all I wanted.

There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That’s the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn’t signed on for.

I mean, there’s a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.

I’m very interested in the history of Christianity, and what I can say for sure is that the Catholics and the Jesuits and stuff were very big on teaching and on learning.

As an outsider in America, you do see the kind of hypocrisy that’s rampant there.

The people I’ve encountered who are really dangerous in my life don’t go around with their fangs drawn – they are dangerous because of the way they interpret what’s going on.

I think now there’s much more of a confessional culture. That’s not my bag. I come from a slightly older school of thought: ‘give ’em nothin.’ You don’t plead guilty.

There’s very little different between the way the government operates in America and the way criminals do.

If you ride like lightning, you’re gonna crash like thunder.

Acting is a bit of a heart and soul exercise with me. It’s kind of all I’ve got.

There are two things: 1) what things one does in the world, and 2) what family one has. There’s the two really tangible things that can stay.

Crewing and being on film sets is kind of like being in the carnival, with carnie folks.

One of the reasons for The Walt Disney Company’s long- term success is really the first of Dr. Deming’s famous points, “create constancy of purpose.” In his professional career,

I’ve been fortunate in my career to have performed in revivals of great musicals and to have originated roles in musicals that have in turn been revived. And I’m not dead!

Don Knotts left [Andy Griffith Show] to pursue a movie career, so once he was gone I left too.

My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can’t.

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Anton Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

Don’t be afraid to ask people ‘why,’ ‘what if.’ Don’t be afraid to attack your career. Get in the game, don’t stay on the sidelines.

The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.

I can see myself staying at Blackburn for the rest of my career – unless I move to another club at some stage