I do give a great deal of forethought and zone in on character and all sorts of things like that. Never before have I just stuffed something away in the back cupboard of my brain because it was just such a crazy concept.

Cher's great, she's incredible. She is an enormous, enormous star, who goes anywhere and crowds follow her...and yet she's a disciplined actress and she's down to Earth and cool. I can't say enough good things about her.

Let's keep the chemists over here and the food over here, that's my feeling. What do I know? But that is a big aspect of fast food is their ability to artificially taint the colors and the smells and stuff to stimulate appetite.

Most actors are very deeply passionate about their line of work. I suppose there are probably people who sell insurance policies that are passionate about it, but I'm thinking the ratio is a little higher for actors. But, I may be wrong.

Here's the thing about movies, all movies end up on television. That's their life. Whether you like it or not, I don't care how much money you spend on it, or how big or broad the film is, or who the actors are in it, eventually it's all coming out of the box.

I went door-to-door selling cable television subscriptions when I was in college. Not to date myself, but cable was just coming on. I had terrible territories, and they would give me $25, if I got somebody to let them come and just put the little cord in their house.

My family moved - first to Washington, D.C., and then, in the spring of 1975, to Lebanon, where my father worked as a diplomat at the American embassy. My parents were enthusiastic about the move, so my older brother and I felt like we were off to some place kind of cool.

I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. Maybe I've just done enough of them now where people are like, 'Oh, it's the guy that's in a swirling vortex of despair, send it to Kinnear!' I don't really know, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.

I really don't make a concerted effort to try to find a type of role. Maybe I've just done enough of them now where people are like, "Oh, it's the guy that's in a swirling vortex of despair, send it to Kinnear!" I don't really know, but it does seem to be a recurring theme.

You learn more about a person from the people around that person than you do from the person themselves. We all have our own ideas of who we are that may or may not be justified, and you can really find out a heck of a lot more accurately from the people around an individual.

There's times when I'll see a show, or something cooking on TV, and think, "That can really be fun when it's working." But it's a grind. I did that at NBC, it was five days a week. I was doing Talk Soup and Later at the same time. It's a hard job, more difficult than people realize.

There's times when I'll see a show, or something cooking on TV, and think, 'That can really be fun when it's working.' But it's a grind. I did that at NBC, it was five days a week. I was doing 'Talk Soup' and 'Later' at the same time. It's a hard job, more difficult than people realize.

When you have a director who has work you can identify from the past, it gives you some reference point as to what their interpretation of the story might be, and how that might jibe, right or wrong, with how you see it. But with a first-time director, you don't really know where you're at.

Same job, whether it's comedy or drama. Regardless of the weight of the role, I feel like the job is always kind of the same. Who is this person? What's this guy here, and how is he playing with this thing, and what's he trying to say? And what's the volley with all these other people around him?

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this idea of opening a restaurant back in Indiana on a little pond. The guests would order their dinner and then take a little boat out with a colored flag on the front of it. When the matching color of the flag on their boat went up on a flag pole, their dinner was ready!

I was a halfback on an American football team in Athens, Greece - the Kississia Colts - where I went to high school, and we took the Cup my senior year. The downside, and somewhat unfortunate piece of information I have to pass on, is there were only two teams in the league because of the limited amount of Americans.

I went door-to-door selling cable television subscriptions when I was in college. I found it incredibly difficult, doing that kind of sales work. I would have thought I'd be good at it, but I wasn't. It's so easy in acting. Everything falls into place when they write that you're a salesman. People just say yes, and then it's great.

I had interest in acting. I started as a drama major in college. I got to school and said, "What am I going to do with this?" But I didn't know anybody in the business, and it seemed like - I don't know. I had a teacher who said "Less than 1 percent of you will ever make a living being an actor." That was how we opened the semester.

There is a gambling element to being somebody who is going to take on the job of constantly trying to represent and prop up people who might be somewhat shady. That notion is probably part of how they got the rap. But, I have to find the balance of being colorful, being at times despicable, and also being somebody who does believe in something.

There's something in human nature, the trying-to-get-on-with-it quality of people, the struggle to maintain or keep the show going can be exhausting. It just seems like that element of trying to move forward while things are breaking down... Obviously, it's always been the backdrop for a lot of great literature and great cinematic characters, but aside from that, I'm just drawn to it because that feels honest to me.

Regardless of the weight of the role, I feel like the job is always kind of the same. Who is this person? What's this guy here, what's he trying to say? And what's the volley with all these other people around him? So I don't feel like that part of it changes. I have not reached the point - if there's a point you reach as an actor where it's, "Oh, I got this figured out, I know how to do this". But I am happy to say that the primary building blocks of where you start, at least, there is a little bit of sameness to that. And that's always nice.

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