There was one moment in high school where I thought, Maybe I`ll take an acting class." And I walked in and saw all the quote unquote theatre people and I went, "Oh God," and walked out. But later, when I was 19, I actually took an acting class and I was very much smitten with it."

I was on this remote island a thousand miles off the coast of Kenya. The island didn`t have electricity, but some people had generators, and I went to someone`s house and there was a video of Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) playing. I think it was the only frigging television on the whole island. That was very bizarre.

Well, when I first got sent the script to The Assignment (1997), I thought, `Why don`t they offer this to Andy Garcia?` And it turned out they did. I said, `Oh, OK`. I had a little bit of a question of `How the hell am I gonna be believable?` Or `Will it be that much of a question in the audience`s mind that I`m supposed to be Venezuelan?` So, we went with the brown contacts for Carlos and darkened my skin, worked with a good dialogue coach. And then when I heard Andy Garcia was playing an Irish cop in Sidney Lumet`s movie [Night Falls on Manhattan (1997)], I stopped worrying about it. But that`s one of the great things about being an actor. We get to play dress up. And that`s what this movie was for me. Wigs, beards, mustaches, dialogues. Intrigue. It was a tremendous amount of hard work, but fun work for me.

I like the level of fame that I have. You get nice tables in restaurants sometimes, but fame isn`t something that I find comfortable.

I`m not a city kind of guy. I`m happiest when I`m tromping through the woods. That`s why I don`t live in Los Angeles. Being physically away from Hollywood probably loses me a few jobs, but the best ones seek me out.

I think my being such a nomad let me into acting. I was always having to create a new image whenever we moved.