It has been my experience that work on the screen clarifies stage portrayals and vice versa. You learn to make your face express more in making movies, and in working for the theater you have a sense of greater freedom.

I was living in London and I thought, 'There's nothing here for me anymore.' I don't want to become this actor who's going to be doing this occasional good work in the theater and then ever diminishing bad television. I thought I'd rather do bad movies than bad television because you get more money for it.

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.

With 'Girls'... I feel like there's an impulse to try to make it look better or neater or more perfect, and when I watch theater, television, movies, it's always the imperfection I'm always more attracted to.

I read and watch movies. I can't go to the movie theater much anymore, though, because I get recognized. It's worse sometimes if I wear a costume and try not to get recognized. I watch most of my films on airplanes.

I'm not attracted to naturalism, I'm not attracted to behavior, I'm attracted to dance. I'm attracted to gesture, I'm attracted to singing with your voice, as opposed to having a natural manner. I'm a theater actor first, so that probably influences a lot of my approach. And I think in many ways, naturalism has ruined movies.

Live theater to me is much more free than the movies or television.

I was very driven in high school. I worked a bunch of odd jobs. I never partied. I never drank. I was just a theater geek who was obsessed with movies.

There was never anything else I wanted to pursue. It was always theater, and movies are a fairly new thing.

I'm married to the theater but my mistress is the films.

I was obsessed with romance. When I was in high school, I saw 'Doctor Zhivago' every day from the day it opened until the day it left the theater.

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

Growing up in Canada, none of my family were performers or anything like that, but I was terrible at hockey, so they needed something for me to do on Saturdays for me to get out of the house. I signed up for theater school on Saturdays, and I'd go for four-and-a-half hours every Saturday morning and learn about theater.

I'd skip school regularly to see movies - even in the morning, in the small Parisian theaters that opened early.

Being creative and making money in the theater is very challenging.

I grew up watching movies and television, and one day when I was really young I told my mom I wanted to become an actor, and she was really supportive and got me involved in local theater and commercials. From there I moved up to auditioning for movies and television.

I loved theater growing up, and my mom always took us to the touring productions that would come through town. We would go to Chicago all the time and see shows. I loved it.

My mom started working at the California Shakespeare Theater in Oakland when I was two years old, so I've always grown up around theater.

I've been performing my whole life. My mom signed me up for a theater program when I was five - I was the evil queen in 'Once Upon a Mattress.'

I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.

I only worked theater jobs, but they were all really silly when I first graduated. I was a line monitor at 'Spamalot,' which means I got there at 8 A.M. and told people how much the tickets were for standing room. I was an NYU Medical School fake patient, to teach doctors how to talk to patients.

During a trip to Iraq last fall, I visited our theater hospital at Balad Air Force Base and witnessed these skilled medical professionals in action and met the brave soldiers whose lives they saved.

I adore the theater and I am a painter. I think the two are made for a marriage of love. I will give all my soul to prove this once more.