Really I just want to get on with my job, which is to pretend to be lots of different people. Simple as that.

The goal is always just trying to stretch yourself as an actor.

I've played all these extreme guys, but playing an everyman type has its own challenges.

I had a really fantastic dialect coach that I worked very well with, and I was constantly surprised by the different intonations that the Russian dialect has.

I have now spent over a year trying to figure where in the workplace I belong.

I had a pretty good career at home. What keeps you going is not having a plan B. It's a very good thing. I think if I had a viable plan B, I might not have kept going.

There were no museums or galleries in Shanghai, but I was very keen on art - I was always sketching and copying, and sometimes I think that my whole career as a writer has been the substitute work of an unfulfilled painter.

I had just gotten a job on 'Preacher' on AMC and was in New Orleans starting work on that. My agent called and said 'Are you sitting down?' and I said 'No' and he said 'Scott Rudin wants you to do 'Hello, Dolly!' and all I could say was 'Oh my God, I'll have to call you back.'