“Most sailing ships take what they call trainees, who pay to be part of the crew. The Picton Castle takes people who are absolutely raw recruits. But you can’t just ride along.”

Some of the best auditions I’ve ever had have been when my agent called and said, ‘They want you 20 minutes ago, in an office in Century City, to see you for something.’

To me, the AMC brand is great storytelling – they call it slow-burn storytelling.

The first trip I remember taking was on the train from Virginia up to New York City, watching the summertime countryside rolling past the window. They used white linen tablecloths in the dining car in those days, and real silver.

If I ever get married, I’d like to pick a place so hard to reach that only a few people would turn up-like the North Pole.

Oh, I’m nerdy about science fiction and fantasy and graphic novels and reading, and I’m nerdy about board games.

On land, you can walk away from people, from unpleasant situations. But when you’re on a ship for 14 months with 49 other people, if you don’t resolve your issues it literally could mean – and this would be an extreme circumstance – the sinking of the ship.

I don’t have any complex plans for playing a character. I think all I try to do is not make too many bad guy faces and not ever try to seem too good. I just try to put it in the middle somewhere.

I pretend I’m the producer and I think, “If I was making this movie, would I cast myself in this part?,” and if that doesn’t feel right to me, then I don’t even go audition for it.

My favorite board game is a board game I’m working on right now. It’s a game of Napoleonic era naval warfare, and it’s going to be fun.

The South Downs of England reminded me a bit of my Old Virginia homeland.

A destination wedding weeds out all the people who might potentially get their noses out of joint, so only the troupers would be there.

I grew up 60 minutes way from Richmond, in Charlottesville, Virginia and, as a child, I was obsessed with the Civil War. I used to do re-enactments and all that stuff.

For me, the experience of making the show is very much like being in a novel. I enjoy getting the new script. I make a cup of tea and I read it the same way I would read a book, with the same amount of joy.

There have been times when I’ve been asked to do things and I’ve thought, “This is great! This is a great script. But, I do not believe myself in this role.”

I always know exactly where my stories take place, which gives me something certain so I can use my imagination for the other stuff. I worry though, who wants to keep reading stories about Kalamazoo?

I think it would be lovely to see some features on a disc of ‘The Rocketeer,’ with some reminiscing. I think that would be dynamite.

The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.

The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn’t set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.

I don’t really cook meat. I eat a bit of seafood but I’m not really into meat and the idea of cooking it is pretty intense.

The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things . . . the trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.

I love home cooking, and I’m not a great one for fast food.

I asked, “What are words?” The tenzo said, “One, two, three, four, five.” I asked again, “What is practice?” “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.”

I do not stick to rules when cooking. I rely on my imagination.