Someone who I would describe as a 'geek' or 'nerd' is a person who loves something to its greatest extent and then looks for other people who love it the same way so they can celebrate loving it together.

I'm very lucky in that I was inspired by science fiction while I was a little kid, and I was interested in science and technology and was encouraged to pursue those interests.

To be sure, anonymity online has it uses and is very important. Governments hoover up people's telephone and e-mail records without oversight, and companies track astonishingly granular personal information.

I would love to find myself in a position where I have to decide, 'Gosh, do I want to be on a series?'

When you say a 'former child star,' you may as well say 'failed child star.'

When I was a boy, I was called a nerd all the time - because I didn't like sports, I loved to read, I liked math and science, I thought school was really cool - and it hurt a lot. Because it's never OK when a person makes fun of you for something you didn't choose. You know, we don't choose to be nerds.

To understand a field, you look at its arts. Arts can be cautionary as well as inspiring.

I go around the country, and I speak to colleges, conferences and thousands of people at a time, and I'm like, 'Great. Fine. Whatever.' Coming to speak to about 60 kids, I am scared to death.

I'm privileged to occasionally stand on a table, and people listen to what I say, and in those moments, it's important to me that I have something to say and that I honor it.

I obviously pursued a career in the arts but always wondered if I had just been supported a little more in math, as opposed to it being 'a thing I had to learn,' how that would have changed things for me.