Never equate yourself with whatever success may be and how fleeting that is. The only thing you can do every day is become a better actor. That's the only thing I have control over.
I love 'Boardwalk Empire,' but there were moments where I thought it didn't have the constant through-line that 'Breaking Bad' did and 'Better Call Saul' does.
Forty-five years since I made my first paycheck, and I'm telling you that 'Breaking Bad' is as good as it gets.
It's not that I don't enjoy a good mystery that comes and goes in a hour. I do, but God, 'Breaking Bad' and 'Saul' unfold like novels.
We've all been the brunt of jokes at times.
God bless my mother - she's long gone now, but she'd work all day and go to school at night. She started out in life as a housekeeper at 15 years old, totally on her own, and she retired as a college professor. But there were some hard times. It's not easy for a woman who's only trying to do the best for her kid but who could never be home.
I've got eighteen-year-old twins that need to go to college, so there's still a financial issue, but I could retire tomorrow and just count ducks by the side of the lake, and that would be just fine by me. I'm not a high-energy guy.
I probably carry a fair amount of sarcasm in my daily life.
Thank God for theater and film and television and my very, very, very lucky life.
I honestly do feel - and I hope I don't gag anybody if they read this - but I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the world.
I love Russell Crowe's line to Oliver Reed in 'Gladiator' where he asks him, 'Are you in danger of becoming a good man?' It's one of my favorite lines ever.
Ed O'Neill is just a good, good human being.
If you had told me in the Seventies and Eighties that TV would be as edgy or edgier than most films, and more intelligently written than most films, I wouldn't have believed it. There's great stuff out there.
I was a janitor when I was 16, cleaning out garbage rooms in Washington, D.C., and they were foul. It gets really hot in D.C. in the summertime, and you then take on the essence of garbage. People would stand away from me on the sidewalk as I came toward them.
In my junior year, I saw 'Zorba the Greek' with Anthony Quinn, and I was transported by it. I wanted to live, laugh, travel.
That first episode of 'Newsroom,' the way it just cooked, I thought it was really good.
I grew up in Washington, D.C. Suffice to say, it was not a garden spot.
I say this to young actors: You don't get into this because you think you're average. You get into this because you think, 'I'm good.' It's an art form, and I'm an artist. But as an artist, you know there's not a soul in the world that's going to believe in you other than yourself.
