And sometimes, when you feel low on yourself, that's just when you have to go out there and be photographed or do a scene where you're hot stuff. You're always working on it.
Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.
Also, there are seats in the diner that always fall off the table. If you have a scene where you're packing up at the end of the day and putting them on the table, they just slide off.
I can barely recall a single holiday when my father didn't make a scene or create some kind of chaos. We were always walking on eggshells.
I'm wary of the whole Los Angeles scene. I'm a California kid, but there's a difference between California and Los Angeles. L.A. is urban. California is restorative.
Of course, when I started my career, like anyone else who was 16 at the time, we were besotted by the rock-n-roll scene from America, and all I was interested in was having a career of my own.
With all of the qualities of the scene-setting, the dialogue, the place and time and the time and place in which your characters move. And I want to move with the characters, move with them and describe the world in which they are living.
You can still have chemistry on screen without getting on with the person. But it just makes your job a lot easier if you don't have to gird your loins, if that's not quite the right phrase, every time you're going to do a scene with that person.
I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities.
When I'm working, I don't wake up and say, 'OK, time to go be intense.' I just look at whatever scenes we're working on that day and break them down - just real intense everyday work.
It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.
I first came on the scene during the Johnson years and that crowd was out all the time enjoying themselves. Nixon wasn't particularly social but a lot of the people in his administration were.
Most of the time, I get auditions for deaf characters where the scene has them communicating in really convoluted ways, like reading lips from across the room when the other person's back is turned or having other people parrot what they say.
On 'B&B,' we shoot so fast and eight episodes a week, so we have to always be on our A-game. There's really no time to make certain adjustments. We usually shoot a scene in one take, maybe two or three only if needed.
I started using Twitter about year after its very early adoption and ended up investing in it around that same time. I'm involved with the Tech scene and companies ranging from Facebook, Stumbleupon and Twitter.
What I do have to get across is the truth of the moment within the given scene. It's my job, as a director and screenwriter, to create the environment in which all those moments will come together eventually.
Dolores Fuller: [arriving for her scenes in "Bride of the Monster"] Well, I see the usual cast of misfits and dope addicts are here.
Deputy Marshal Samuel Gerard: [First lines, said when arriving at the scene of the train wreck] My, my, my. What a mess.
[scene from extended version] Gimli: This new Gandalf is more grumpy than the old one.
Llewelyn Moss: [after finding the drug crime scene] ... Where's the last guy? Ultimo hombre. Last man standing, must've been one.
V: [Quoting Macbeth from Macbeth Act I Scene 7] I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.
