I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school and afterward went to work in Tokyo where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha.

I'm not in the business of becoming famous. And that's the advice I give to younger aspiring actors. Work onstage and do the little roles. In the end it's not important to be seen. It's important to do. There's a lot of disappointment in this business but my family keeps me grounded.

There has been a time on earth when poets had been young and dead and famous - and were men. But now the poet as the tragic child of grandeur and destiny had changed. The child of genius was a woman now and the man was gone.

When I was younger I used to say One day I'll be famous.

I definitely wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be on TV I didn't want to be famous I didn't want to be anyone in particular I just wanted to do it. I see young people now who look at magazines or American Idol and their goal is to have that lifestyle - to have good handbags or go out with cute guys from shows or whatever. But I definitely wanted to be an actor.

I was very famous as a young man and I celebrated both the good and bad times with drinking.

I became famous so quickly and so young - it was daunting. I was immature and I used to say some really stupid things in interviews. I never smiled on stage so I looked really serious but it was because I hated my teeth and was incredibly nervous.

I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden they're beautiful and famous and rich. I'm like 'Oh my God I'd be dead.'

I can't advise any of the young ones because I don't know what their background was but I would suggest that anyone who wants to be famous more than anything - there's a real problem.

Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.

I was the youngest of my entire family so you are tap-dancing to try to get the attention of your older cousins. I really hit my social stride in 6th grade but before that I was a pretty big dork. You learn how to be amusing and how to work for it.

I come from a massive family and the youngest is twentysomething years younger than I am so I grew up with children.

If I'm diagnosed with cancer I might become despondent but someone young might not and they might need connections with somebody outside their circle of family because their family is so despondent.

I've always wanted to get into acting ever since I was younger. I'd put on shows for my family and run around play dress-up all the time. I think I was 4 when I told them I wanted to do movies.

In the family sandwich the older people and the younger ones can recognize one another as the bread. Those in the middle are for a time the meat.

I've never had a very closely connected family. My parents split up when I was young and I was living with my mom for a little while then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way.

I'm less worried about accomplishment - as younger people always can't help but be - and more concerned with spending my time well spending time with my family and reading learning things.

Young actors often don't think of the consequences of doing nudity or sex scenes. They want the role so badly that they agree to be exploited and then end up embarrassing family friends and even strangers.

Like all best families we have our share of eccentricities of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.

I had a really wonderful upbringing. We were a tight family. It was wonderful to grow up with so many siblings. We were all just a year or two apart and we were always so supportive of each other. I learned everything from my older brother and sister and taught it to my younger sisters.

And when I was young my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses I still don't get young men standing up and saying 'How can I combine career and family?'

It's also reflective of a young person's religion or faith in that it's highly charged with sacramental imagery and with country imagery because I was in the seminary for so many years in the country.

I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief 'don't matter ' that if you return to a practice of the faith faith will return.