JAMES BADGE DALE

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

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

Kids will tease you for just about anything.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?'

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

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.

As we were negotiating, I didn't have a script. Once the deal is closed, they let you read the script. So, I got the script and was reading it like, "Oh, please be good!," because I'd already signed on the dotted line. And I read it and just went, "Okay, I'm going to be okay. Thank god!" It was a really funny, moving story.

It was dangerous stuff. We were running on top of moving trains. We got to do amazing things. I like doing stuff like that. I enjoy it. But believe me, there were things that were so dangerous that I wasn't touching them.

I've been trying to figure out what moment The Lone Ranger came into our lives. We've always just known about The Lone Ranger. It's common knowledge. I don't ever remember watching the television show.

Marvel is very secretive, so there was no script. About six months before production, they gave me some pages and it was from a cop movie. And then, six months later, I got a phone call saying, "Do you want to come do this?" [iron Man]

I always like playing the bad guys. They have more fun! I want a director to come up to me and say, "You can't get too weird!" That's a good thing. I loved hearing that. Let me play. I like to play around.

I think pressure when you work is good. It forces you to take risks and to do other things.

These stunt guys are good at what they do and they're professional. A smart actor will step back and say, "I'm going to let the professionals do this." Hats off to those guys, man. When you see the credits scroll, look at all those stunt guys and remember all those names 'cause they earned their money on this.

The hats are tough. I've got a weird head, so believe me, there were a lot of hats. Penny [Rose], our costume designer, who I knew from other jobs said, "Badge, that looks terrible on you. Hold on. No, we can't do that one."