When I was growing up, I, like many Jews, cheered what appeared to be the receding of faith from everyday life. The further religion got from our lives the better our lives would get, I thought, because persecution had been such a burden to Jewish families for generations.

I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast.

I grew up as a fifth-generation Jew in the American South, at the confluence of two great storytelling traditions. After graduating from Yale in the 1980s, I moved to Japan. For young adventure seekers like myself, the white-hot Japanese miracle held a similar appeal as Russia in 1920s or Paris in the 1950s.

When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.

You can accomplish anything that you dedicate yourself to. Think how many people struggle across the world, across the country. I know anything is possible if you set your mind, your body, your soul, and your faith to it.

As an actor, you usually live your life with faith.

Sometimes it's hard for me to dress for normal situations. A lot of the time I'm either performing or travelling - so what I wear is either really fun or just really comfortable. For anything in between I think, 'Oh God, I don't know how to dress myself. But when I get on stage I'm just like, 'I can wear anything I want!'

God is absolutely holy and wise. His nature, attributes, and power are all holy. He is omnipresent, incorporeal, unborn, immense, omniscient, omnipotent, merciful and just. He is the maker, protector, and destroyer of worlds.