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EW: Many people remember you from your breakout role in Dead Poets Society. What is it about acting that had you hooked from such a young age?

JC: I've always loved it. I had some theater experiences that my parents took me to when I was a kid, and I always loved comedy. I loved Richard Pryor. I was obsessed with Richard Pryor when I was a kid; I was always trying to intimate him. But I loved playing characters and loved the experience of going to the movies and going to the theater. I just got the bug at a really early age.

EW: Which do you like more, acting onstage or in front of the camera?

JC: I enjoy all of it. I just enjoy acting. It is really less about the medium and more about the experience of the people you are working with. I love performing in front of a live audience. I love the process of doing a play and the time that you are able to work on a character that usually with film and television—just by the nature of how fast it moves—you don't have the luxury of having that time to sit with a character to rehearse it to really spend that month digging into it. That is a real fun part of the process for me.

But I love the idea of working in film; I love the film medium and the visual medium. Right now I think some of the best writing is coming out of television, and I don't think it used to be that way, but right now I think that is the case.


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