Quotes

I think Dexter is a man who, a part of himself is very much frozen, or arrested in a place that is pre-memory, pre-conscious, pre-verbal. Something very traumatic happened to him, he doesn't know what that is. And I think on some level he wants to know. He denies his humanity, he describes himself as someone who is without feeling, and yet I think that he maybe suspects - in a way that maybe isn't even conscious yet when we first meet him - that he is in fact a human being.

[at the closing of the Dexter (2006) series] Once again, it's time to reboot the system, and I try to think of it as a new beginning as much as an ending. It definitely is, and I'll never say never, but I'm excited about the opportunity to have jobs that have a definite beginning, middle and end when I go into them, rather an an open-ended commitment to a character that could be taken in places I can't even imagine. But,it's funny - be careful what you wish for, be careful what you avoid. You'll find yourself right back there.

[on being thrust under the LGBT spotlight in Six Feet Under (2001)] I wasn't interested in standing behind any podiums, but I did recognize when I read the pilot script and got the part that I was called upon to play a character that was, up to that time, unique to TV, and even maybe to film, in as much as he was a fundamental part of the human fabric.

[on portraying a gay character] You do whatever kind of internal alchemy you need to do to make something connect to your own inherent sense of truth. I can certainly relate to my associations with self-destructive obsession, or unrequited love or forbidden passions, or envy, or a projection of vitality that you yourself long to possess.

I think part of what I like about acting is that certainly you accumulate more tools over the years and you have more tools in your toolbox. But hopefully different roles and different worlds in which those roles exist call upon you to fashion new tools.