Actor

I think it's really, really important to mix it up as an actor, to try to get as much kind of varied experience as you can, not only for your own personal growth as an actor but for the audience to keep them guessing about what you're going to do.

I'm kind of an obsessive-compulsive person, like, neat obsessive.

I think New York will always be this incredible international crossroads, and I don't think that will ever change.

You hear different things from different people, and they're all valid: they're all valuable. I think that's what comprises a performance is all those ideas.

I'm someone who started in the theater and really couldn't stand repeating the show. My favorite part of acting is the five or six weeks of rehearsal that you get. I like doing previews; I like the opening week because my friends and family come, and then after that, I don't want to do it anymore.

During 'Manchurian Candidate' - that role originated with Laurence Harvey, and I studied everything he did. I would never be able to reproduce that performance, but I got a lot of ideas from watching it.

I love having that creative discussion where, at the end of the day, you both feel better for having done it. Maybe it's a typically Jewish thing, where you sort of go at each other.

The funny thing is that I write and I act a lot about being Jewish, but I don't really think about it as a regular person.

If I'm doing my job as an actor, the audience knows everything I know about the character.

I was always curious about motivation and intention, and really, that's a lot of what acting is.

The best gig is the one you've got.

There's nothing more exciting than that conversation you have with a live audience. It's the best feeling in the world.

You'd think true masculinity was just calm and collected happiness. So alpha male that it needs not or worries not. But typically masculine characters are always fighting, and most violence comes from some agitated level of fear and anxiety.

I'm terrible with big parties.

I didn't think that a career in theater was very realistic so I thought the only thing I could make money doing and still be somewhat artistic was, god help me, advertising.

My publicist told me not to talk about politics but, yes, I think we have a president who stole the election.

The guy who kind of broke the story in 'Spotlight' was a priest, the guy who had sort of done all the research. One of the things he said when one of the 'Spotlight' reporters asked him how he could still remain a Catholic, he said that, 'My faith is in the eternal, and the church is an organization.'

You should never ask actors about politics.

Home is New York.

I grew up in the Lower East Side of New York.