The one thing I've always done -- been lucky enough to do -- in my career: Take on challenges. I like things that are dangerous. I like a sense of danger.

"Let's pretend" is one of the best parts of the job! It's the "let's pretend" side I adore, but that's not the most important. The most important thing for me as an actor is when the performance has a profound effect on the audience. What I like most of all is affecting people, I hope, for the good. I can only say that subjectively, but I hope for the good. I want to send people away from the theater, or from having seen me give a performance on television or in the camera, uplifted so that, for a while, I might have taken them out of anything that's dire and awful in their lives -- to give them some escape. I think it's really important that people can escape and have a good time, to get away from the mundane side of life.