On having a renaissance in the back third of his life: "My ass is. It's cool as s---. The aspect of age comes into play as far as the cover of [this magazine] and how I feel about it. A friend of mine said, 'Did you ever think in a million years you'd be on the cover of Men’s Health?' I said, 'Certainly not at age 60.'"
On how contract negotiations for the original Law & Order: SVU broke down, leading to his exit: "My thought was: Instead of 22 episodes, bring me back for nine episodes, or bring me back for 18 episodes. They literally came to me on a Thursday night and said, 'This is the deal. We want the answer by tomorrow. It's our way or no way.' I don't want to f--- around with you guys. This is what I want. If you can't do it, that's fine. Let's figure out my exit.'
On how he deals with the anxiety his success brought him: "When something weird and out of the norm happens, I don't panic. I always sit with it and go, All right, let's experience what's happening, because getting tenser is not going to help the situation."
On when he knew his career was starting to soar: "When my career started to happen, I could feel it. But I didn't want to trust it, because I had struggled for so long—or at least it felt like I'd struggled for so long—and I didn't want it to go away," he told the publication. "I don't know how many people get this opportunity to dream a dream and have it come to fruition. Because everyone does the first part, but to have it come to fruition then starts a whole other journey of Now what? And What is this? And How do you manage? This doesn't fall under the category of burden or anything like that. It's just a new world. You're so used to the old way of: I have to keep this mindset and I'll just dream a dream. But if the dream actually happens, then you're like, Okay, now we have to manage the dream. What do we do, actually?”
BEN WATTS
