James Badge Dale

“I always like playing the bad guys. They have more fun!”

“In a weird way, I live vicariously through the characters I play as an actor.”

“I got beat up by the comic-book kids when I was younger! They were cooler than me. Talk about levels of geekdom, I was a couple rungs below the kids who read comic books. Yeah. Not so cool, man.”

“As an audience member, I live vicariously through the characters I watch or read about. There's something very relatable about comic-book characters. They're never perfect. They're flawed people put in extraordinary circumstances.”

“I grew up in a crazy, gypsy-like household of actors, dancers and loony Broadway people. It was their way of life, and I didn't know anything else.”

“I was really lucky that, through my 20s, I got to work with some amazing people, and I tried to sit back and watch and learn.”

“My experience as a young actor on network television was that I couldn't make it work. I was drowning as an actor.”

“I grew up in a family of actors. I grew up onstage. The choice for me wasn't, 'Do I want to be an actor or not?' I always felt like that's just ingrained in you, the need to perform. The choice was, 'Do you want to do this professionally or not?'”

“I can't go to the hardware store, cut a sheet in half and staple it to the window anymore. It doesn't fly.”

“You want to work with good people. When you're working with good people, it frees you up. There's nothing worse, as an actor, to show up and then feel like you have to protect yourself somehow because you don't feel like you're in good hands.”

“I've always thought that I'm kind of a cross between a young Bill Clinton and Lyle Lovett. And I just want to say I'm proud of that. Those are two good looking guys.”

“I'm a little bit superstitious, and I think that just comes from playing hockey. I won't avoid the number thirteen. A big one for me, though, is walking under a ladder. I've always felt like that's tempting fate. That's just throwing it right in their face. Check me out. I just walked under a ladder. What are you going to do about it?”

“I want to show up to work and take risks. I don't ever want to play it safe.”

“I'm a pretty private person, so I'd like to say I'm a good ear and that I keep my mouth shut.”

“Kids will tease you for just about anything.”

“The older I get, the more vegetables I eat. I can't stress that more. Eating healthy really affects my work. You not only need to be physically prepared, but mentally and spiritually.”

“The biggest regret I have about 'Rubicon' is that we didn't end it. Sometimes you do these shows and you don't have the opportunity to get closure. Stories are supposed to have a beginning, middle and an end.”