You're very good at playing very sinister characters, but you bring this humanity to them that occasionally elicits sympathy. That's all the pleasure of playing a villain. I tend not to think of them in terms of villains. I just try to tune in to what they're trying to accomplish. Even with William Hinks, there's nothing playable in the evil or the amorality of the character. What's playable are things like, what does he take pride in? To be precise was very important to William Hinks. That came out in all his testimony. He forgets that he is being very precise in the dismemberment of other humans. He just appreciates his sort of craftsmanship. So if you find the positive mind-set of the character, that is disturbing to the audience and also fun to play. But I think it's really strange that I've ended up playing such sinister characters for the screen, because I'm not remotely sinister myself, and in the world of the theater, which is where I've spent most of my career, I never play anything like that. I play lots of goofy characters. I do a lot of the classics. It's just funny - the perception people have of you and the ways they'll position you.

You often play people who are not who they appear to be. I guess the people who cast me for the camera are playing the tension between what I look like and what they're suggesting I'm capable of doing. I have kind of a harmless look, I guess …

Not anymore! I guess that's true. These big, rough-looking guys will stop me on the street and say, "Oh man, you are scaring me." I'm thinking, What's wrong with this picture? Guys who could eat me for breakfast are afraid of my character on the screen. People want there to be something out there that they can be afraid of, but it's contained and it's fictional.