Quotes By Christopher Meloni

Crime is one of the leads of the show. If there's ever anything that deals with a character's personal life, you don't have to worry about it getting too crazy. People don't have to worry about character arcs. Each episode is a self-contained unit.

I love my lifestyle now, but at the end of nine months, you're toast. You are toast. It's like running a marathon. You can't think while you're doing it. Especially when different directors come in who are not part of the posse, the circle.

I rarely see one of the 'summer blockbuster' movies. I'd like to see a stronger focus on smaller, smarter movies.

I had no expectations about fatherhood, really, but it's definitely a journey I'm glad to be taking. Number one, it's a great learning experience. When my mother told me it's a 24/7 job, she wasn't kidding.

I really love to act; I love everything about it. I've never had this addiction to being known. I mean, sure, if you go into acting, there's part of you that is saying, 'I want attention' but I was brought up to work to deserve attention, and it is the work, not the trappings that are important.

Whoever envisions not one but two series in New York?

I love to act. I need to act. It's the big itch I need to scratch.

In my own defense, I wrote a one-man show, and that to me was more where I fit.

There was a friend of ours who worked with a girl who had said she would consider being a surrogate. We met her and right away she was awesome. We were looking for someone who could take care of themselves and it was pretty clear she could.

It ain't easy to break out of a mold, but if you do your work, people will ultimately see what you're capable of. Too often, people find it easier to make assumptions and stick with what they believe. They put you in a place and it makes their job easier. The good people constantly search for something different.

People don't know where to place me. Terry Gilliam used me as a quirky cop in 'Twelve Monkeys', and then he hired me again to be an effeminate hotel clerk in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. Another time, I was shooting this indie film 'The Souler Opposite' and six days a week, I'm playing this big puppy dog, then I come to the 'NYPD Blue' set and become this scumbag.

If I could only get people to rub my belly for good lucky and then throw money in my fountain, it'd be a perfect world.

If you take life at face value, it loses its luster pretty quickly. If you go after it, you get more out of it.

My mother raised three children on her own and my dad was a doctor working 16 hours a day.

I think to be a successful comic, you have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally perceptive.

I don't get called very often to play innocents.

It's just nice to work hard and be rewarded, which is having lots of people watch. And the icing on the cake is for me is to be able to walk around with pride, feeling that the product you put out is worthy of being watched. But honestly, it's not a big deal. I don't put too much stock in fame or celebrity anyway. I don't put it in the 'important' box.

We went online to surrogacy agencies. We interviewed lots of people - and I have to say, with all due respect, some of them were freaks. I was very leery of the process the whole way through.

De Niro was a hero of mine. And Sean Penn. But I've realized I can't operate at that level of intensity. That's okay for movies. On TV, when you live with horror day in and day out, you have to protect yourself.

I had great faith in Irish actors, that they'd be hip to the whole theatre thing, and they are. I had no illusions of coming over here as some kind of big shot. It's been a learning experience for me too.

I'm just an actor, but if the extra part of it is that I'm helping people or people are being helped by the virtue of what we're doing, then that's just a really nice added extra.

I still have a dream of one day - I would love to hire a semi-retired contractor and just build a house - him and I building a house for me. I would truly love to do that.

I take this art very seriously and passionately. I love what I do. You can't help but grow. That's not to say you don't make mistakes or make bad choices, but that's part of the art. Painters paint bad paintings.

I never find sincerity offensive... so, be sincere.

How that works is our first season was the year we had a threatened writers' strike, so what we did was that instead of doing 22 episodes, we did 30. We put 10 in the bank.

The reason why I hate working in theatre is the tedium of memorisation. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are very difficult to find in everyday life.

It is a weird feeling to have people go, "Hey Chris" like they know me. But, number one, 99 percent of my experiences have been really cool. People couldn't be nicer and more positive.

I have worried about getting pigeon-holed, but now I think I've done enough weird, offbeat stuff not to be. And I also know that I do things for the right reasons: I've made my money, so I don't have to say yes to anything.

The surprising thing about fatherhood was finding my inner mush. Now I want to share it with the world.