I think that, to a lot of people, they don't like my brand of whatever I do. And I think that people - the ones that like me, at least - see me as their brother or their older uncle or their friend or their next door neighbour. I am the quintessentia...
When I was 18, I was halfway up the Eiffel Tower with my friend, Tom, when we decided to stick our heads through the railings. The gap between the railings was exactly the right size to be able to put your head through and nearly get stuck. Which is ...
I think of myself as naturally idle. The trouble is, the 'nothing' that I do every day is not really nothing. I potter. I muck about with emails, I make coffee, I fiddle with my computer to make sure that the book I haven't started writing is perfect...
We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering – these are noble pursuits and necessary to...
If it’s a pure expression of yourself no matter what it is or what medium, it’s going to shine. It’s going to resonate. You could look inside of yourself and you could have a canvas and you could paint a dot in it, but if that is where your cre...
I've heard New York actors say Chicago actors intimidate them because apparently we're the real nitty-gritty actors who're in a town where being onstage doesn't necessarily get you anything except your craft.
I have new bodyguards ever since I got a TV show. I didn't know, but it's a lot like becoming president. They tell you every single secret, like who shot JFK. When you have a TV show, they not only tell you who shot JFK, but they assign you bodyguard...
After I did 'Mr. Show,' I was basically just a writer for a while. I was really young, and I kinda was like, ,wow, I'm 27 and I was already on this iconic show, and now I can just coast. But no one likes coasting, because you have to fill your day wi...
When I was younger, I definitely had more of a dream, as they say on 'American Idol,' that I would have my own show. I always thought that that was something that would happen, that eventually I would just get my own show because anyone who wants the...
I like that 'Pitch Perfect' is one of my first forays into film and just being seen in that kind of light, aside from some people who know me from 'Spring Awakening' or the other things that I've done. I think in so many ways it's kind of like my own...
It's never me saying, 'When is my day over?' It's more, 'When do they legally have to get me off of the lot, based on when I have to be back the next day?' The first call is a big thing in the acting world and in the union world. There needs to be a ...
Filming is quite exciting because every day is different, but it can involve long hours standing around in chilly locations. Theatre is a very different challenge because every night you're striving to keep it fresh, even though you might have been p...
I'm sure I went through a stage when I resented being Indian because in every other manner, in terms of cultural reference points and vocabulary and all the rest of it, I was way ahead of everybody else - so the one thing that set me back was being I...
If I go anywhere where there are people who vaguely look like me, there is always that feeling of, 'Actually I do look quite similar to everyone else.' At moments like that, I become very, very British. My accent gets more clipped, and I stride aroun...
Everybody goes up and does something in the private sector that they feel that they can do, and obviously I'm a musician and feel that one of my experiments - because I think there are many that you can do and that you're helped with the ideas of wha...
I own four copies of Robin WIlliams's Live on Broadway comedy special for HBO. One in Wilmington, one in L.A., one in my trailer, and one at my parents' house. I can watch it over and over again and it never gets old. He is the funniest, wittiest man...
I have to concentrate more intently when people speak. I always have to position myself on their right side so that I can hear out of my left ear. I sometimes get a crick in my neck from listening. But I don't there's too much else.
I believe I have a calling. Do you know what that calling is? To stand up in a new and hard core, radical way for the Lord. In the process, if I insult a couple of people, if I offend a couple of people, and if I got to shake it up a little bit, as l...
I'm not particularly fond of playing villains. I do want to be a working actor, and I've had to look at what was offered to me, what roles I could get, and what I could do with them. Even though I'm not drawn to putting those kinds of darker characte...
My first job was playing 'Nurse 2' in a film by Ben Elton called 'Maybe Baby,' and the first actors I worked with professionally were Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson. I was totally star-struck. I got that job on my final day of drama school, so it w...
Anything I shouldn't laugh at makes me laugh. I mean, I'm bad at that, when somebody is singing something terribly and I'm thinking to myself, 'If I laugh now, this is the absolute worst thing I could ever do,' and then I start laughing and I can't s...
