Biography

October 28, 1966 · Los Angeles, California, USA

Mark Christopher Bauer

6′ 0½″ (1.84 m)

It's easier that the intensity is pretty consistent throughout, because you find that zone and it has to be emotionally specific and aesthetically true. Getting into it early is better than getting into it late, because I've got to carry it all the way through the whole piece.

There's whatever that territory is in between that wanders from one person to another. It's sort of not totally in our control, and in a way I think that's the whole basis of the nature of storytelling in horror. We can sit back and safely watch these daydreams of our own being played out, and relate to it. You know, like, "That's what the monster does. That's what the boogeyman does." But it's really just purging our own fear of that, the fear within ourselves. I'm not saying I live in fear of myself, but, for example, of going crazy. That would be something that would happen from within, and I think that's frightening.

Whenever I read about some abhorrent act of violence, maybe it's just sort of an abundance of empathy, but I've never related to things like that as, "That's what other people do." I've always felt like we're all human beings and we're all basically given the tools to make whatever choices we want to make. How we treat other people. How we treat ourselves. Just the whole philosophy of that and the philosophical logic of that is that we're all capable of great acts of evil, and we're all capable of great acts of good.

Frank Sobotka in The Wire on HBO was one of the greatest characters I've ever played. They cut his throat at the end of that season. There's something about creative coupling that seems to go with great characters, and the fact that you can never play them again once you're done.